The Rise of CliffsNotes Cinema
Oversimplified literary remakes miss the point of the works they are adapting.
Culture
Why Justin Bieber Played YouTube Onstage for Thousands of People
The pop star transformed the normal act of browsing your laptop into something interesting—and unsettling.
The New Age of Performance Anxiety
With the rise of screen culture, all the world has stage fright.
Where Did ‘Let Them’ Come From?
Years before Mel Robbins published her best-selling self-help book, a struggling writer posted a poem with a similar message.
How Colin Jost Became a Joke
The “Weekend Update” host knows exactly what he’s doing.
No One Knows How to ‘Save’ Hollywood
Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on movies seized upon the American film industry’s existential panic.
Return of the Shaman
How visionary healers became a fixture of contemporary American culture and politics
And the Oscar Goes to … Something the Voters Didn’t Watch
The Academy has a new rule to address this problem. Good luck with enforcing that.
24 Books to Get Lost in This Summer
The Atlantic’s writers and editors have chosen fiction and nonfiction to match all sorts of moods.
Maybe Star Wars Is Better Without Lightsabers
The TV series Andor achieved greatness by challenging the franchise’s good-and-evil dichotomy.
Dear James: I Have Debilitating Stage Fright
How to overcome my panic?
A Different Way to Think About Medicine’s Most Stubborn Enigma
A new book shows that dementia isn’t just a loss, and memory is much more than recollection.
An Eerily Familiar 20th-Century Hoax
What happened when a mega-famous evangelist went missing?
SNL Isn’t Really Hot for Your Mom
A raunchy sketch ends up reinforcing the stereotype of mothers as frumpy and sexless.