Screen Time
In Leave No Trace, American life fails a veteran and his daughter
Debra Granik's film is a masterful familial drama—and much more.
The Incredibles are back, with a more collaborative vision
Elastigirl is the hero we need.
What The Americans teaches about deception and relationships
By the end of the final season, the series has shown the best and worst of our homeland—and spies with souls.
The spiritual desert of First Reformed's minister
Ernst Toller is not so different from the male anti-heroes at the heart of Paul Schrader's earlier, more sensational films.
Kendrick Lamar, public theologian
On Damn, the hip-hop artist draws connections between guns, gangs, Wall Street corruption, and the 2016 election. It's a bold indictment of collective sin.
Slow Burn and Babylon Berlin offer historical lenses on our troubling present
A podcast about Watergate and a TV drama about Weimar Germany remind us that we don't know how our own story will end.
The power of Wakanda
Getting millions of Americans to consider the merits of black armed revolution against global oppression is no small feat.
Black Mirror shows us ourselves, being terrible and constantly getting better at it
The tech-focused series provides abundant fuel for ethical and theological debate.
The Last Jedi's theology of power
The new Star Wars movie calls solo heroism into question—and offers a vision of communal goodness.
A Bad Moms Christmas and Daddy's Home 2 are bad movies
Films about struggling moms and toxic masculinity should challenge traditional gender roles, not applaud them.
The Good Place, a prime-time sitcom full of ethical theory
The comedy series doesn’t feel didactic—despite the fact that it features actual moral philosophy lessons.
The weight mother! bears
Darren Aronofsky's title character is the divine feminine, Mary, and Spirit; she's a little bit Gaia and a whole lot of the Feminine Principle.
Logan Lucky's criminals and why we root for them
In Ocean's 11, the thieves' sheer coolness reeled us in. It's a harder sell when the heroes day-drink themselves to sleep.
The myth of white innocence in Detroit
Kathryn Bigelow's film lays bare our assumptions about guilt and race.
Speaking truth to power in Beatriz at Dinner and Fargo
The characters Beatriz and Gloria model resistance against powerful, immoral blowhards.
The Leftovers and the end of meaning
In three seasons, the show offered many different perspectives on how faith is made, formed, and lost.
Why I find The Handmaid's Tale surprisingly comforting
Resistance might not achieve its outer aims. Nevertheless, its inner life persists.
Red-state noir, blue-state noir
In both S-Town and Big Little Lies, there’s human depravity everywhere.
White moral infantilism and some help avoiding it
Several recent films and shows portray people of color with a complexity that James Baldwin once assumed was impossible for pop culture.