Critic John Powers recommends three stories to break up the monotony of coronavirus lockdown: Unorthodox on Netflix; Baghdad Central on Hulu and a new translation of Magda Szabó's 1970 novel Abigail.
Washington plays an enigmatic artist adjusting to life in the suburbs in the Hulu series Little Fires Everywhere. "My mom is not somebody who has ever really fit into anybody else's box," she says.
The streaming service "designed specifically for your phone" launches with 50 shows — and over 100 more on the way. Here are our highlights from the opening batch.
Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska's film about a young woman (Raffey Cassidy) questioning her place in a remote religious cult wears its broad allegory on its (woolen) sleeve.
The new Netflix series was inspired by Deborah Feldman's best-selling memoir about ending her arranged marriage. In the TV adaptation, the young woman leaves her home in Brooklyn and moves to Berlin.
Parents have been circulating ideas for how to keep kids happy — or at least occupied — during this time of social isolation due to COVID-19. Our Arts Desk has some heart-felt suggestions to offer.
In uncertain times, we want stories that reassure us that everything will be okay. Here are some books, films, plays and TV shows that believe in Happily Ever After.
ESPN calls itself the "worldwide leader in sports," but there are few live sports to show. So it's scrambling to fill the time, offering diversions like cherry pit spitting and marble racing.
"We [have] to do the right thing to protect those who are vulnerable," Maron says. His new Netflix stand-up special, End Times Fun, was named before the coronavirus pandemic.
NPR's Michel Martin speaks to Cameron Hamilton and Lauren Speed, two contestants on the Netflix reality show, about their experience dating from a distance and how it could apply to social isolation.
From Broadway plays to playwrights giving writing lessons to online courses from Ivy League schools, here's a look at some things (but not everything!) that have suddenly become free.
In the Hulu limited series adapting Celeste Ng's novel, Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington star as two mothers whose daughters are pulling away from them.
Hulu's new eight-part series uses the fraught encounter between two families — one well-off and white, one bohemian and black — to raise tricky questions about race and social class.
Azaria has voiced dozens of Simpsons' characters, starting with Mo the bartender. In the IFC comedy series Brockmire he plays a troubled baseball announcer who always speaks in his broadcaster voice.
The Big Brother roommates in Germany have been cut off from news since February. On the Canadian version, contestants noticed something was off when their studio audience disappeared.
Spencer plays businesswoman Madam C.J. Walker in a new Netflix series Self Made. Walker was born on a plantation in 1867 and built an empire selling hair and makeup products designed for black women.
A Norwegian knitting marathon. America's Next Top Model. British crime dramas. Real-time strategy games. Peanut soup. These are some things that help us feel better — maybe they'll work for you, too?
David Bianculli reviews HBO's new miniseries, which imagines that Charles Lindbergh became president in 1940. And we listen back to a 2004 with Philip Roth, who wrote the novel the series is based on.
The host of RuPaul's Drag Race describes his drag look as "one-part Cher, two-parts David Bowie, one-part Diana Ross and two heaping spoonfuls of Dolly Parton."
In the 2010 census, about a million children under age 5 weren't counted. Some Sesame Street residents are hoping to change that for 2020. Public service announcements started airing this week.
Hulu's new 8-part miniseries Devs is a definite must-see, while the Disney TV+ show Amazing Stories, based on the 1985 NBC anthology series by Steven Spielberg, is more of a wait-and-see.
It has been one year since Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek shared his Stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis. The one-year survival rate for such patients is 18 percent.
Writer/director Alex Garland's techno-thriller limited series tries to be many things at once, but it parcels out its pulpy delights sparingly, in favor of ponderous navel-gazing.
Smiley, who was fired in 2017 amid sexual misconduct allegations, had sued the public broadcaster contending that he was dropped as a talk-show host because of racial bias.
