We all know the formula: it begins with a dead body, and quickly introduces a motley crew of outlandish characters, each with a motive for murder. The whodunnit genre has been a cultural fixture since the days of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie—the latter of whom has been outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Recently, though, the murder mystery has achieved a new level of saturation, with streaming services offering up a seemingly endless supply of glossy thrillers. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how these new entries are updating the classic form. “Wake Up Dead Man,” the latest of Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” movies, slyly incorporates social commentary, while shows like “Search Party” and “Only Murders in the Building” poke fun at the figure of the citizen sleuth. In our era of conspiracy theories and vigilante actors, there’s also a dark side to the archetype. “This desire to be the hero and to follow the logical trails and take things into your own hands—it's very appealing, if you do it right,” Schwartz says. “It’s great if you catch the right guy. If you don’t, and you catch the wrong one, the entire foundation of society crumbles.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Knives Out” (2019)
“Glass Onion” (2022)
“Wake Up Dead Man” (2025)
“Big Little Lies” (2017-)
“The White Lotus” (2021-)
“And Then There Were None,” by Agatha Christie
“Rian Johnson Is an Agatha Christie for the Netflix Age,” by Anna Russell (The New Yorker)
“The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side: A Miss Marple Mystery,” by Agatha Christie
“Only Murders in the Building” (2021-)
“Nicole Kidman Gives Us What We Want in the Silly, Soapy ‘Perfect Couple,’ ” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker)
“The Residence” (2025)
“The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” by Arthur Conan Doyle
“Search Party” (2016-22)
“The Hound of the Baskervilles,” by Arthur Conan Doyle
The “Encyclopedia Brown” books
“Clue” (1985)

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 which 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.

Since it was penned more than four hundred years ago, Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” has been in production nearly continuously, and has been adapted in many ways. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider why this story of a brooding young prince has continued to speak to audiences throughout the centuries. They discuss the new film “Hamnet,” directed by Chloé Zhao, which recasts the writing of “Hamlet” as Shakespeare’s response to the death of his child; Tom Stoppard’s absurdist play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”; Michael Almereyda’s 2000 “Hamlet,” which presents the protagonist as a melancholy film student home from college; and other adaptations. What accounts for this story’s hold over audiences, centuries after it was written? “I think it endures because every generation has its version of the incomprehensible,” Cunningham says. “It’s not just death—it’s politics, it’s society. Everybody has to deal with their own version of ‘This does not make sense and yet it is.’ ”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Hamnet” (2025)
“Hamnet,” by Maggie O’Farrell
“Hamlet,” by William Shakespeare
Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet” (1996)
Michael Almereyda’s “Hamlet” (2000)
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” (1990)
John Gielgud’s “Hamlet” (1964)
Robert Icke’s “Hamlet” (2017, 2022)
“Every Generation Gets the Shakespeare It Deserves” by Drew Lichtenberg (The New York Times)
“Hamlet and His Problems" by T. S. Eliot

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 which 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.

The American musical is in a state of flux. Today’s Broadway offerings are mostly jukebox musicals and blatant I.P. grabs; original ideas are few and far between. Meanwhile, Jon M. Chu’s earnest (and lengthy) two-part adaptation of “Wicked”—an origin story for the Wicked Witch of the West that first premièred on the Great White Way over twenty years ago—has struck a chord with today’s audiences. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss “Wicked” before stepping back to trace the evolution of the musical form, from the first shows to marry song and story in the nineteen-twenties to the seventies-era innovations of figures like Stephen Sondheim. Amid the massive commercial, technological, and aesthetic shifts of the last century, how has the form changed, and why has it endured? “People who don’t like musicals will often criticize their artificiality,” Schwartz says. “Some things in life are so heightened . . . yet they’re part of the real. Why not put them to music and have singing be part of it?”

This episode originally aired on December 12, 2024.

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Wicked” (2024)
“The Animals That Made It All Worth It,” by Naomi Fry (The New Yorker)
“Ben Shapiro Reviews ‘Wicked’ ”
“Frozen” (2013)
“Hair” (1979)
“The Sound of Music” (1965)
“Anything Goes” (1934)
“Show Boat” (1927)
“Oklahoma” (1943)
“Mean Girls” (2017)
“Hamilton” (2015)
“Wicked” (2003)
“A Strange Loop” (2019)
“Teeth” (2024)
“Kimberly Akimbo” (2021)

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 which 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.