Critics at Large | The New Yorker

Tom Cruise is often said to be the last of a dwindling breed: the true movie star. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the performances that have earned him that designation. The hosts are joined by Tyler Foggatt, a senior editor at The New Yorker and a die-hard “Cruise-head,” who breaks down the chapters of the actor’s career. The early “heartthrob years,” marked by films like “Risky Business” and “The Color of Money,” established Cruise’s appeal onscreen and catapulted him into projects with respected directors such as Stanley Kubrick and Paul Thomas Anderson. Cruise’s affiliation with the Church of Scientology might have torpedoed the career of a different celebrity, but he remains irresistible to audiences, who have shown up at the box office throughout the past decade of his career—which has largely been defined by action flicks and jaw-dropping stuntwork. In “Digger,” the polarizing new film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, Cruise’s performance as a potbellied, aging oil baron is a rare departure from his usual fare. Might it signal another reinvention? “Cruise will probably default back to the formula that he knows works,” Foggatt says. “But maybe we'll get a couple ‘Digger’s between now and then.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Digger” (2026)

“Risky Business” (1983)

“The Color of Money” (1986)

“Cocktail” (1988)

“Jerry Maguire” (1996)

“Born on the Fourth of July” (1989)

“Magnolia” (1999)

“Valkyrie” (2008)

The “Mission: Impossible” movies (1999-)

“War of the Worlds” (2005)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
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On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the perennial appeal of survival stories. They trace the theme of man versus nature from early novels like Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” to new releases like “Heart of the Beast,” in which Brad Pitt plays a grizzled veteran traversing the Alaskan wilderness with a canine companion. Survivalist themes are common in reality franchises like “Survivor,” now in its fifty-first season, and the History Channel show “Alone.” But a new offering from Channel 4, “Apocalypse,” takes the format in a darker direction: contestants profess their fears about societal collapse as they compete for food and shelter on an abandoned military base. As anxiety rises about the climate crisis and the potential for an A.I. takeover, the question of survival seems more pressing than ever—and yet these tales of rugged individualism can seem out of step with the times. “They don’t really describe our condition,” Cunningham says. “Unless you are in fact marooned somewhere, there are other people. It’s harder to dramatize surviving together than it is surviving alone.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Heart of the Beast” (2026)

“A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck,” by Sophie Elmhirst

“All is Lost” (2013)

“Hatchet,” by Gary Paulsen

“My Side of the Mountain,” by Jean Craighead George

“Island of the Blue Dolphins,” by Scott O'Dell

“Cast Away” (2000)

“Rescue Dawn” (2006)

“The Ecstatic Truth,” by Daniel Zalewski (The New Yorker)

“The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding,” by Ian Watt

“The Revenant” (2015)

“Little House in the Big Woods,” by Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Alone” (2015-)

“Survivor” (2000-)

“Apocalypse” (2026)

“Tuesday, and After” (The New Yorker)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

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“The Journey,” a five-part audio investigation by Ava Kofman, unravels the mystery of how Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang, a wealthy Los Angeles couple, obtained dozens of children through nearly as many surrogates—and exposes a scandal that threatens to undermine the entire surrogacy industry.

In Episode 1, “Gifts,” a woman in Texas agrees to carry a child for the couple. She thinks she’s helping a family in need. Then she becomes a whistle-blower.

In the Dark is an acclaimed investigative-journalism podcast that launched in 2016. Its third season won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for audio.

To keep listening to “The Journey,” search for In the Dark wherever you get your podcasts.
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As the school year resumes, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the work—and pleasure—of teaching and learning, reflect on their own experiences in the classroom, and counsel listeners on scholastic concerns. One teacher calls in asking for texts she could assign to combat apathy among her high-school students; another is looking for works that depict the highs and lows of her chosen career; and a graduate student seeks works of poetry to convince skeptics of the form’s artistic value. The hosts discuss the ways in which teaching is itself a kind of art form. “Teaching is so much a kind of performance,” Cunningham says. “You have to be the one out on the ledge . . . to establish a new frontier of, ‘You are allowed to be excited about this.’ ”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Less Than Zero,” by Bret Easton Ellis

Homer’s Odyssey

“Black Boy,” by Richard Wright

“The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“A Complicated Kindness,” by Miriam Toews

“Black Swan” (2010)

“The Holdovers” (2023)

“Democracy and Education,” by John Dewey

“The Class” (2008)

“The Simpsons” (1989-)

“Are You My Mother?,” by Merve Emre (The New Yorker)

“Dead Poets Society” (1989)

“Theme for English B,” by Langston Hughes

“Llull,” by Ariana Reines

“Odes,” by Sharon Olds

“The Red Poppy,” by Louise Glück

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
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Upon news of Dolly Parton’s death last week, flags across the country were lowered to half-mast. A petition circulated to rename the Nashville airport in her honor, and social media read like a greatest-hits reel of the charisma and musical acumen that made her universally beloved. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham and Naomi Fry are joined by three fellow New Yorker writers to celebrate Parton’s life and work, and the legacy she leaves behind. Kathryn Schultz, who penned Parton’s Postscript, discusses her undersung, “Oprah-like” business savvy and deep commitment to philanthropic causes; Amanda Petrusich distills Parton’s vast discography down to three essential tracks; and Lauren Michele Jackson considers how the star’s carefully crafted persona played up aspects of her femininity while transcending divisions of race and class. “The ready word one reaches for is ‘saint,’ right?” Schultz says. “This is someone who came from nothing and might reasonably have felt the instinct to hoard everything she had. And she had the absolute opposite instinct, which was to give as much away as she could.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“9 to 5” (1980)

Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”

“Dolly Parton for the People,” by Kathryn Schultz (The New Yorker)

“Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business,” by Dolly Parton

“Country Music” (2019)

Dolly Parton’s “Better Get to Livin’ ”

“What Dolly Parton Built,” by Amanda Petrusich (The New Yorker)

Beyoncé’s “JOLENE”

Dolly Parton’s “The Bridge”

Dolly Parton’s “Little Bird”

“The United States of Dolly Parton,” by Lauren Michele Jackson (The New Yorker)

Barbara Walters’s 1978 interview with Dolly Parton

“Taking In the Scene at Daisy Chain Fields, the Zoomer Lilith Fair,” by Lauren Michele Jackson (The New Yorker)

“Back: Essays on the Soul and Spine of America,” by Lauren Michele Jackson

Dolly Parton’s “Backwoods Barbie”

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices