TV
American Gigolo
Warrick Page/Showtime
There is something coiled and unpredictable in Jon Bernthal’s performances — a quality that elevates Showtime’s sometimes fitful reworking of Richard Gere’s ‘80s noir film into something obliquely more intriguing as a limited series. In Bernthal’s hands, male escort Julian Kaye is a tragic figure who serves 15 years for a murder another man eventually confesses to. But did someone pay that man to do the deed? And is it all wrapped up in Kaye’s tortured past as a young man sold to a high-class female pimp when he was a teenager? After watching two episodes, I’m not sure, but I do know Bernthal’s tightly wound charm makes me want to find out more. — Eric Deggans
TV
Andor
Lucasfilm
We know how things ultimately work out for the dashing Rebel spy Cassian Andor, played by Diego Luna in the 2016 film Rogue One. (Spoiler: not great.) But this 12-episode series tells us how Andor grew from a selfish scoundrel with no interest in galactic politics into the passionate leader who would help found the Rebel Alliance and steal the plans to the Death Star superweapon. Several characters from Rogue One are slated to appear in the series, which begins five years before the events of that film. The producers say they want to make Andor accessible to viewers who don’t care about the rest of the Star Wars universe, but take my advice and rewatch Rogue One before the series begins. It’s a big galaxy. — Glen Weldon
TV
Atlanta
Guy D'Alema/FX
Atlanta’s long-anticipated third season was a decidedly mixed bag, with Donald Glover and his collaborators mostly departing from the show’s namesake city to spend time in Europe, for Paper Boi’s international tour, and in other U.S. locales, where Twilight Zone-y morality tales about race played out. Despite that unevenness, the show remains one of the most fascinating things on TV. In its fourth and final season, there’s sure to be no shortage of takes to argue over once it’s all said and done. (Perhaps most pressingly: What in the world is up with Van???) — Aisha Harris
Movie
Black Adam
Warner Bros.
When he was introduced in the comics in 1945, the character of Black Adam was revealed to be the first hero created by the ancient Egyptian wizard Shazam. But he turned out like the first pancake in the batch always does: wrong. The new film seems to key off an updated take on the character — less an outright villain, more an anti-hero. Dwayne Johnson as Adam is released from a 5,000-year imprisonment, forcing other heroes — the Justice Society, in this case — to attempt to reform him. Comics fans have been dream-casting Johnson as Black Adam for decades now; here’s hoping they like what they get. — Glen Weldon
Movie
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Marvel Studios
The devastating death of Chadwick Boseman raised the tough question of whether — or, really, how — there would be more Black Panther movies. Director Ryan Coogler goes forward this November with the focus on one of the franchise’s original strengths: its powerful women. Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright and Angela Bassett return alongside MVP Winston Duke and new cast member Michaela Coel. Reimagining a superhero franchise without its original star is a daunting task for any writer or director, but the performances of these actresses in the first movie offer every reason to believe they can carry more. — Linda Holmes
Movie
Blonde
Netflix
This is the kind of project that’s destined to stir up buzz (and already has): a biopic based on a 700+ page Joyce Carol Oates novel about one of the most iconic 20th century figures, Marilyn Monroe. She’s played by Ana de Armas, the talented Cuban actor who doesn’t appear to be hiding her accent underneath that signature, breathy tone. It’s written and directed by Andrew Dominik, who directed the excellent The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. And it scored an NC-17 rating. Yeah, the curiosity is strong with this one. — Aisha Harris
Movie
Bones and All
Marco Bertorello/AFP via Getty Images
If an 8.5-minute standing ovation and rave reviews at the Venice Film Fest are any indication, director Luca Guadagnino and his Call Me by Your Name star Timothée Chalamet have another romantic hit on their hands. Not a conventional one, let’s note. It’s a tender cannibal romance, with co-star Taylor Russell doing much of the limb eating. Based on the YA novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis, the film amounts to an outcast road trip odyssey — at once grisly and kinda sweet. — Bob Mondello
Movie
Brainwashed
Hugo Wong
“If it’s all you’re seeing, you don’t see it; you don’t see air,” says a female filmmaker in Nina Menkes’ striking cinematic essay on the gendered nature of film language. The male gaze is Hollywood’s air, as Menkes establishes in a Ted Talk-style lecture incorporating 175 clips from celebrated films. Taking a simple notion about who does the looking on-screen and who gets looked at, she illustrates how gendered shot design, camera placement and visual context (women’s bodies frequently rendered as torsos and breasts, men’s mostly shown in medium shots; slo-mo used with males to augment action, with females to emphasize sexuality) by an overwhelmingly male Hollywood has created a “global hypnosis.” — Bob Mondello
Movie
Bros
Nicole Rivelli/Universal Pictures
Writer-director Nicholas Stoller co-wrote this gay romantic comedy with its star, Billy Eichner. Eichner plays a podcaster (in 2022, “podcaster” has replaced “publishing assistant” as the go-to rom-com occupation) who has been tapped by a studio to write a gay rom-com that won’t alienate straight people. That’s about where the meta of it all ends, because Bros doesn’t seem interested in playing it safe. The trailer features knowingly sharp jokes about gay sex that play like they’re the product of lived experience, and the cast teems with queer actors such as Bowen Yang, Guy Branum, Symone, Ts Madison and Luke Macfarlane, the latter as Eichner’s love interest. — Glen Weldon
Movie
Disenchanted
Jonathan Hession/Disney Enterprises
The 2007 musical comedy Enchanted was one of the roles that made Amy Adams a star, even if she went on to many more dramatic and celebrated performances. She returns to the fairy-tale franchise as Giselle, alongside original co-stars Patrick Dempsey, Idina Menzel and — most thrillingly for those who appreciate his very weird and very funny performance in the original — James Marsden. It might not be the most obvious candidate for a sequel, given the alleged permanence of the phrase “happily ever after,” but with it airing on Disney+ on Thanksgiving, it’s hard to imagine it won’t grab a whole lot of attention as football counterprogramming. — Linda Holmes
Movie
Don’t Worry Darling
Warner Bros. Pictures
Director Olivia Wilde’s follow-up to the well-regarded Booksmart has been lately swamped by stories about behind-the-scenes drama at the Venice International Film Festival. The film itself stars Wilde alongside Harry Styles, Chris Pine, KiKi Layne and Gemma Chan in a story about a woman who begins to suspect that all is not well in the idyllic community where something called the Victory Project has created a sunny, retro existence. Early reviews are decidedly mixed, but attention is likely to remain high. — Linda Holmes
TV
East New York
Peter Kramer/CBS
Not long ago, CBS had never aired a drama in its regular TV season starring a Black woman. But this show, starring Amanda Warren as the newly promoted boss of a police precinct in a tough area on the edge of Brooklyn, is now one of several. Warren’s Deputy Inspector Regina Haywood is a flinty, pragmatic reformer backed by a cautiously ambitious chief, played by Jimmy Smits. Even in its pilot episode, the series knows all the fault lines it must negotiate — from the well-earned distrust of cops by residents of color to the fantasy of a lone official transforming a dysfunctional policing system. Still, it’s entertaining to watch this show try to build a different kind of network TV police procedural, acknowledging systemic flaws in law enforcement while insisting that substantive change — led by officers of color — is possible. — Eric Deggans
Movie
Good Night Oppy
Amazon Studios
If you’d told me I was going to tear up at a doc about NASA’s Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, I’d have said you were nuts. But remain dry-eyed I did not at Ryan White’s almost Wall-E-like robot-biopic. The film recounts the creation of sister robots launched in 2003 for what was expected to be a 90-day mission on the red planet’s surface (where their solar panels were expected to get too dusty to continue supplying power). Fifteen years later, Opportunity (or “Oppy”) was still sending back info and photos as it traversed miles of rough terrain, endured planet-engulfing dust storms, and “woke” each morning to songs played by adoring scientists and engineers millions of miles away. — Bob Mondello
TV
Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities
David Lee/Netflix
It can be unwieldy to add the creator’s name to the title of a project, but with a horror anthology created by Guillermo del Toro, wouldn’t you? Netflix offers this anthology of eight horror stories from eight different directors, with two episodes coming from stories by del Toro. The directors include Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night), Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight, Thirteen), Guillermo Navarro (whose long résumé includes work as a cinematographer on Pan’s Labyrinth and Jackie Brown) and Jennifer Kent (The Babadook). Netflix has had good luck betting on horror with The Haunting of Hill House and its descendants; here, it puts its money on another strong contender. — Linda Holmes
Movie
Halloween Ends
Ryan Green/Universal Studios
The final chapter of director David Gordon Green’s updated Halloween trilogy finds Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) still locked in battle with Michael Myers, as she has been since she was a teenage babysitter. Even for casual horror fans, the prospect of seeing Curtis close out a 40-plus-year run playing this character, after reemerging in 2018’s Halloween and 2021’s Halloween Kills, feels like an event. Whatever Laurie’s ultimate fate, she brings a new meaning to the horror cliché of the “final girl.” — Linda Holmes
TV
Interview With the Vampire
Alfonso Bresciani/AMC
AMC, once a heavyweight in the prestige TV business with Mad Men and Breaking Bad, has been running largely on the power of The Walking Dead and its spinoffs — and the critical respect for the recently concluded Better Call Saul. Perhaps that’s why, as TWD ends, the network is back in the big-ticket horror business with this series adaptation of Anne Rice’s book that has been rattling around in various stages of conception since at least 2016. Can zombie success slide right over into vampire success? Is there any more vampire success to be sucked out (sorry) of audiences after the feeding frenzy (sorry) of the Twilight era? We shall see. — Linda Holmes
Movie
Is That Black Enough for You?!?
Araya Diaz/Getty Images
Easy to imagine NPR’s former Weekend Edition movie pundit Elvis Mitchell saying the title of this movie to Scott Simon, yes? Longtime critic, host of KCRW’s The Treatment, and general all-around film scholar, Mitchell is making his film directing debut with this look at the industry-changing eruption of Black cinema in the 1970s. The idea is to talk with Black artists, place their work — from art house fare to Blaxploitation — in a historical context and, where necessary, correct the canon. The film premieres at the New York Film Festival. — Bob Mondello
TV
Lopez vs. Lopez
Casey Durkin/NBC
Comic George Lopez reaches for sitcom success once more, this time alongside his 20-something daughter, Mayan, in this family comedy. It’s a fictionalized version of the Lopezes’ real-life family dynamics. The show centers on a working-class character who doesn’t have a super-successful stand-up career or groundbreaking, self-titled network sitcom in his past. But the elder on-screen Lopez does have an ex-wife, a rocky relationship with his daughter, a son-in-law and a grandson to handle. With any luck, some of the real-life tensions George Lopez has admitted to working through with Mayan will inspire some serious laughs on-screen. — Eric Deggans
TV
Los Espookys
Mitch Zachary/HBO
HBO’s well-liked comedy returns for its second season, more than three years after the first season aired. Co-created by Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega and Fred Armisen (all of whom perform in it as well), the Spanish-language (with English subtitles) show follows a group of friends who start a business creating horror scenes for people who enjoy rotting flesh and being terrified. The landscape of TV has changed so much that shows can vanish for long periods of time (in many cases with the help of COVID-19 delays) and return without missing a beat. The very devoted audience of this very niche comedy is undoubtedly thrilled to see it back. — Linda Holmes
Movie
Lou
Liane Hentscher/Netflix
Allison Janney plays a gruff, enigmatic woman who helps her neighbor, a mother played by Jurnee Smollett, track down her young child after she’s been kidnapped. This looks like it could be a tense, taut thriller set in the wilderness, and the prospect of watching an older actor like Janney kick butt while in pursuit of some bad guys feels like exactly the kind of content we didn’t even know we needed. — Aisha Harris
Movie
Mija
Disney
One of the advantages of the streaming age is that documentaries have far more opportunities to be seen. Mija, which was well reviewed at the Sundance Film Festival in January, follows Doris Muñoz, a music manager, and one of her clients, Jacks Haupt. Both women are U.S. citizens whose parents lack legal immigration status, and the two may have the opportunity to help their families obtain legal status. As both a story about the pursuit of success and a story about families and immigration, Mija promises to open conversations about experiences both familiar and less so. — Linda Holmes
TV
Monarch
FOX
This is Fox’s big shot at a soapy, country-style drama hit. Susan Sarandon plays the matriarch of a bustling, family-run country music dynasty (yes, it’s kinda like white folks’ version of Fox’s rap-centered drama, Empire). Anna Friel is the ambitious daughter no one takes seriously, and Trace Adkins is the gruff patriarch helping to hide a shameful secret behind their, um, empire. It’s all obvious and a bit pandering, especially the bait-and-switch that producers execute with Sarandon’s character (saying any more would be a spoiler). And, yes, ABC’s series Nashville did it better back in 2012. But the resonance with certain real-life country music stars lends a voyeuristic appeal to a series that really should be a little more serious or a little more silly than it actually is. — Eric Deggans
Movie
Nanny
Prime Video
Aisha (Anna Diop) is a Senegalese woman who becomes the nanny for a wealthy Manhattan couple played by Michelle Monaghan and Morgan Spector. This is the strong feature directorial debut of Nikyatu Jusu, who draws horror and dread out of Aisha’s uneasy working relationship with her employers and her longing for the young son she had to leave behind back in Senegal. I caught its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, and it remains one of the most haunting filmgoing experiences I’ve had this year. The visuals and themes are striking, and Diop is a powerful onscreen presence. — Aisha Harris
TV
Quantum Leap
Ron Batzdorff/NBC
Nearly 30 years after the original series left the air, NBC has cooked up a new version of Scott Bakula’s classic science-fiction series. In the original, Bakula’s Sam Beckett was involuntarily thrown into the bodies of people from the past; the new version features Raymond Lee as physicist Ben Song, who leaps into the past while trying to re-create Beckett’s work. Add in Ernie Hudson as the career military man who leads the new project and Caitlin Bassett as the hologram who helps Ben negotiate his leaps, and you have a show that just might evoke some of the oddball, corny charm of the original series. (At least enough to maybe score a Bakula cameo?) — Eric Deggans
TV
Reboot
Hulu
About a decade after it was canceled, a fictional, cheesy family sitcom gets a gritty, contemporary reboot featuring the original cast, whose members don’t get along. It’s a broad premise, but the jokes are sharp and knowing, and they come at a brisk clip. Plus, the cast is a murderers’ row of comedy: Rachel Bloom, Keegan-Michael Key, Judy Greer, Paul Reiser. (Johnny Knoxville is also there.) As the season progresses and Bloom’s and Reiser’s characters clash over what the show should be, Reboot — slyly, without making a whole thing about it — becomes about the American sitcom as a form. How it changes and how, somehow, despite everything, it survives. — Glen Weldon
Movie
Rosaline
Moris Puccio/20th Century Studios
To hell with those famously star-crossed lovers, what about Romeo’s jilted ex? The one of whom he said: “The all-seeing sun / ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.” Alas, his eye wandered when Rosaline deflected his advances, alighting instead on that fateful balcony and next thing you know, “Juliet is the sun.” Dopesick’s Kaitlyn Dever plays the title character; Karen Maine is behind the camera, and a cast of adept comic actors, including Minnie Driver as The Nurse, are on hand to keep the pot boiling. — Bob Mondello
Movie
She Said
JoJo Whilden/Universal Pictures
Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan star as New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor in this film based on their book, which recounts their experience breaking the story of Harvey Weinstein’s empire in Hollywood and the abuses and crimes he committed. The stacked cast also includes Andre Braugher, Jennifer Ehle, Samantha Morton and Patricia Clarkson. The journalism true-story thriller has a long and successful history (see Spotlight and All the President’s Men), so the template is established. But Weinstein is a Hollywood story like no other; we’ll see if the film is too. — Linda Holmes
TV
Sidney
Apple TV+
More than any other actor, Sidney Poitier may be responsible for pioneering the modern vision of equality in Hollywood — where Black performers now stand equal to their white counterparts — through groundbreaking films like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night. That’s why this documentary, executive-produced by media queen Oprah Winfrey and directed by Reginald Hudlin (Boomerang, Marshall) is so important. The film was assembled with the cooperation of Poitier’s family and features interviews with the likes of Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Robert Redford and Spike Lee — suggesting a fitting tribute to the star, who died in January. — Eric Deggans
Movie
The Banshees of Inisherin
Searchlight Pictures
The portrait of small-town America that writer-director Martin McDonagh painted in 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri struck me as glib and condescending, and its approach to race felt similarly facile and unexamined. But the British-Irish director is back on his home turf with The Banshees of Inisherin. In a tiny Irish fishing village, two friends, played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, have a sudden and — to the Farrell character, at least — mysterious falling-out. Farrell and Gleeson’s on-screen chemistry turned McDonagh’s first feature, 2008’s In Bruges, into a breakout film for him; this feels like he’s coming home. — Glen Weldon
Movie
The Fabelmans
Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures
There are films with pedigrees so lofty they are guaranteed a level of attention unavailable to most others. The Fabelmans, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Spielberg and Tony Kushner, is one of those. Semi-autobiographical in nature, it tells the story of a boy who discovers the power of film while dealing with a complicated relationship with his parents. Michelle Williams, Paul Dano and Seth Rogen (who has been making a push toward more dramatic roles) star in what certainly has the potential to be an awards-season favorite. — Linda Holmes
TV
The Handmaid’s Tale
Hulu
One might think the storylines in this series, now starting its fifth season, would be wrung dry: women abused by a theocracy that enslaved them as “breeders” who eventually find freedom in Canada. But producers have filled this horrifying universe with new, compelling atrocities. Last season, Elisabeth Moss’ steely June Osborne led a band of women who literally tore her abuser apart. In the new episodes, a cult of personality that feels suspiciously Trumpian elevates his widow, Serena Waterford — an equally steely Yvonne Strahovski — as Moss continues to shine, depicting June’s complex struggle with the consequences of violent revenge. As always, the show explores the boundaries of a modern dystopia that feels closer to real life than we’d like to admit. — Eric Deggans
Movie
The Menu
Eric Zachanowich/Searchlight Pictures
The Menu looks like it might make a good double feature with Triangle of Sadness in that it shares that film’s satiric, eat-the-rich outlook. Possibly literally. Nicholas Hoult and Anya Taylor-Joy play a young couple who dine at an exclusive and ridiculously expensive restaurant on a remote island. You know where this is going already: The eccentric chef, a molecular gastronomist played by Ralph Fiennes, has a secret agenda. The trailer gives away far too much, but the tone seems specific and the cast is great. — Glen Weldon
Movie
The Silent Twins
Jakub Kijowski/Focus Features
Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance are June and Jennifer Gibbons, identical twins born to Caribbean immigrants who settled in Wales in the early 1960s. Isolated socially — they and their siblings were the only local Black students at the time — the girls became known as the “silent twins” because they communicated only with each other in a language only they understood. A haunting bond, you say? Well, the authorities didn’t see it that way. — Bob Mondello
TV
The Walking Dead
Jace Downs/AMC
News that AMC’s signature horror series debuts its final eight episodes this fall may surprise some who thought the show was already off the air. That’s possibly because its 24-episode farewell season was split into three segments, stretching its goodbye across as many of AMC’s time slots as possible. Hats off to the show’s producers for telling the same story — survivors realize other humans are the biggest danger in a zombie apocalypse — enough different ways to fill 11 seasons and close to a half-dozen spinoffs. And even though it feels long past time for this iteration to get a stake through the head, watching for any sign of planned spinoffs featuring Daryl, Michonne and the long-gone Rick Grimes might be worth a return to Zombieland. — Eric Deggans
Movie
The Woman King
Ilze Kitshoff
The warrior women in Wakanda Forever have real-life predecessors in the Agojie, an all-female warrior unit that protected the West African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 18th and 19th centuries. A militaristic nation caught up in the Atlantic slave trade, Dahomey fiercely resisted domination by Europeans for the better part of a century. Viola Davis stars as General Nanisca, a character inspired by real life, who rallies and trains fighters who were known to the British and French as the Dahomey Amazons. — Bob Mondello
Movie
Ticket to Paradise
Vince Valitutti/Universal Pictures
There was a time when the big-ticket romantic comedy was a Hollywood standby and Julia Roberts one of its stalwarts. The genre has changed shape, arguably thriving more on streaming services than in theaters. But Roberts and George Clooney, who worked together in the Ocean’s movies and in 2016’s Money Monster, star in this comedy about feuding exes who come back together in Bali to try to talk their daughter (the dependably terrific Kaitlyn Dever) out of getting married. Can the film recapture the magic of the ‘90s rom-com? Either way, it will certainly have charisma to spare. — Linda Holmes
Movie
Till
Orion Pictures
The tragic story of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was abducted, tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, becomes the story of a mother’s lifelong quest for justice. Danielle Deadwyler plays Mamie Till-Mobley, whose insistence that her brutalized son, face swollen to unrecognizability, be viewed in an open casket, drew international news coverage. It started her on a life of activism and changed the course of the civil rights movement. — Bob Mondello
Movie
Triangle of Sadness
Plattform
Swedish director Ruben Östlund turned his viciously satirical eye on the family unit in 2014’s Force Majeure and on the art community in The Square three years later. Now, in his first English-language feature, it’s time for the obscenely wealthy to come in for some ruthless cinematic filleting. A fashion-model couple (Harris Dickinson and the late Charlbi Dean) go on a cruise aboard a superyacht, rubbing well-sculpted elbows with other influencers. All seems idyllic until a powerful storm — and food-borne illness — come for guests and crew alike. Dean’s recent, sudden death at age 32 will no doubt complicate audience reaction to a comedy with such a dark and blistering intent. — Glen Weldon
Movie
Vesper
IFC Films
The 13-year-old title character with a talent for biohacking lives in a future where genetic experiments have wiped out all of Earth’s edible plants (and most of its humans). That’s left a few elites in climate-controlled “Citadels,” and clusters of starving hangers-on, mucking about in a planetary bog with eerie, often-threatening organisms. Gorgeous effects work does a lot of the world-building in this gripping sci-fi dystopia. — Bob Mondello
Movie
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
The Roku Channel
If you know anything about Weird Al, it’s that he’s uniquely tame for a pop star: no evidence of addictions or other demons to overcome; he doesn’t curse or drink; he’s apparently really polite. None of those qualities, while admirable, screams “Give this guy a biopic!” but that’s what we’re getting — and frankly, it looks amazing. The movie stars Daniel Radcliffe as Al (plus Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna and Quinta Brunson as Oprah — yes!) and is clearly going for wacky Walk Hard vibes, playing off its subject’s straight-and-narrow persona. Will it be worth subscribing to yet another random streaming service just to watch it? We’ll see! — Aisha Harris
TV
Welcome to Chippendales
Erin Simkin/Hulu
Who knew the gigantic Chippendales male stripper empire started with an immigrant from India who saved his nearly $50,000 in seed money working as a gas station manager? Or that one of his early advisers was ill-fated Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratten? Hulu’s limited series is filled with such surprising gems, featuring Eternals star Kumail Nanjiani as founder Somen “Steve” Banerjee, The White Lotus star Murray Bartlett as the choreographer/business partner who invents the Chippendales’ early moves and Downton Abbey alum Dan Stevens as Stratten’s overbearing husband. — Eric Deggans
Movie
Wendell & Wild
Netflix
Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele reunited as demon brothers. Angela Bassett. Henry Selick, the director behind The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline. That’s it — that’s the sales pitch. Yeah. So. In. — Aisha Harris