Books & Culture

As cosmetic procedures become both more invisible and more extreme, our connection to reality is fraying.

Investigating the central dilemma of our time.

A promotional sticker used to mean that a book had been discovered. Now it means that a book was designed to be.

The comedian and director talks about the State, making his first film in eight years, and the challenges of creating original comedy in Hollywood’s bleak landscape.

The founder of the global cosmetics empire feminized the sale of cure-all lotions and potions—and gave the girlboss her first shot of good press.

Hint: Meryl Streep was in the movie adaptation.

Shiva Naipaul’s newly reissued book of reportage, “Journey to Nowhere,” from 1980, is far less interested in the trope of the charismatic cult leader than in the mechanisms of belief.

New books, articles, and shows lament a crisis of connection among American men. But the picture of friendship that emerges can feel romanticized and brittle.

The director’s Homer adaptation presents a modern, relatable Odysseus, rather than trying to understand the ancient world on its own terms.

The documentarian Ross McElwee’s new feature is an anguished reflection on the life and death of his son, Adrian, who was a frequent subject of his films.

Before he had any interest in movies, Rohmer was a writer, and his 1946 début is a fine-grained vision of small-town lives in prewar France.

The new melodrama, starring Jolie as a movie director, treats the Paris fashion world as a backdrop for medical and domestic crises.

Zoli, which now anchors the sprawling East Williamsburg art space Amant, earns its experimental flourishes by delivering pleasure at every turn.

How a nutritional trend brought bathroom talk into the realm of food culture.

The best frozen-yogurt spots in town aren’t necessarily the ones that draw long lines.

At the new restaurant in the Sotheby’s-owned Breuer building, money, in its most indiscreet sense, is everywhere.

The Apple TV series starring Matthew Rhys follows a winning cast of small-island bureaucrats through a living hell.

On “30 Rock,” she pioneered the kind of heteroskepticism that’s now more prevalent than ever. With “The Four Seasons,” she’s exploring a more hopeful counternarrative.

With a relaunch of “Keep the Meter Running,” on YouTube, the new-media host is trying to turn TikTok-clip fodder into full-blown TV.

Over five stellar seasons, Jean Smart’s and Hannah Einbinder’s characters became unlikely artistic soul mates, whose brilliance grew out of their creative friction.

The plays explore interpersonal rifts over Israel, but only one lets the ugliness linger.

The actor and comedian talks about collaborating with Wallace Shawn, embracing the emotion of performance, and his directorial début, “Maddie’s Secret,” in which he plays a food influencer struggling with an eating disorder.

In “Can I Be Frank?” and “Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical,” gay fandom generates funny and moving new material.

A new Off Broadway play and Shakespeare’s tragedy hinge on a universal anxiety: How well do you know your partner?

In 2009, every big hit sounded like a version of “I Gotta Feeling,” by the Black Eyed Peas.

In an idyllic setting, Leila Josefowicz and Esa-Pekka Salonen delivered an explosive performance of Ligeti’s Violin Concerto.

After the Brooklyn Mirage—a popular but troubled music venue—was torn down, a glitzy Ibiza institution took its place.

On her new album, “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” the singer inches away from frisky pop-punk and toward the velvety yearning of New Wave.