Pop Culture Happy Hour
Episodes
Summer Guide
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Today, we're offering up a guide to spotlight some of the movies, TV, and music we are most excited about this summer.Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy H...
Dead Boy Detectives
29 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new show Dead Boy Detectives is a spinoff of Neil Gaiman's beloved series The Sandman – both the comic and the Netflix series. It's about a pair...
Challengers And What's Making Us Happy
26 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The terrific new film Challengers is about being intense about tennis, sex, and competition. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, the film stars Zendaya as Ta...
What Makes A Good Sex Scene?
25 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It's easy to notice when a sex scene is bad. But what makes a sex scene good? Today, we are recommending films with good sex scenes, including Bound, ...
Mary & George
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the new Starz series Mary & George, Julianne Moore plays a low-born, scheming woman who recognizes that her handsome son George (Nicolas Galitztine...
Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department
22 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Taylor Swift dropped an epic new album that spans two hours — and two high-profile breakups. The Tortured Poets Department delves deeply into two of...
Fallout And What's Making Us Happy
19 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new show Fallout is based on a hugely successful video game series known for its sardonic, very dark comedic sensibility, and its violence. It's s...
Hot Ones And Conan O'Brien
18 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hot Ones is the YouTube show where famous people answer questions while eating increasingly hot chicken wings. Hosted by Sean Evans, the series is a p...
X-Men '97
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For millions of kids, the popular 1990s X-Men animated series served as a gateway drug into the world of the X-Men and comics in general. Now, the new...
Books We Love: Love And Romance
15 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
NPR's Books We Love is a roundup of favorite books of the year, sorted and tagged to help you find exactly what you're looking for. From the meet cute...
Civil War And What's Making Us Happy
12 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new film Civil War depicts a contemporary America torn apart by a military conflict between the federal government and an alliance of secessionist...
Girls State
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new Apple TV+ documentary Girls State asks: how would high school girls do things if they were in charge? The film is a follow-up to 2020's Boys S...
Shōgun
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The sweeping historical epic has roared back with Shōgun. The FX miniseries takes place beginning in 1600, in a fictionalized but historically inspir...
A Guide To Stephen King
09 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen King is one of the most successful living writers. He's written more than 50 books that have sold hundreds of millions of copies. And his work...
Monkey Man And What's Making Us Happy
05 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new action film Monkey Man is Dev Patel's film – he serves as star, director, and co-writer. He plays a young man whose village was destroyed an...
Ripley
04 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Ripley is back — and still can't be trusted. The character — created by novelist Patricia Highsmith — was made indelible by Matt Damon i...
Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Throw on those boots with the spurs, grab your cowboy hat, and saddle up that horse, because Beyoncé's highly anticipated album, Cowboy Carter is her...
The Movies Of 1999
01 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Movies had a big year in 1999. Today, we're going back 25 years to talk about some of the most interesting movies released in 1999 — including Drop ...
Godzilla x Kong, Godzilla Minus One And What's Making Us Happy
29 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Godzilla has been around for 70 years and recently won his first Oscar. The beloved 2023 Japanese production Godzilla Minus One won an Oscar for visua...
3 Body Problem
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the new Netflix sci-fi series 3 Body Problem, a killing during the Chinese Cultural Revolution sparks a chain of events that puts humanity at risk....
Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV
26 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV examines the working environment of the young stars who fueled Nickelodeon's rise. The serie...
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
25 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is the latest entry in the blockbuster action-comedy franchise. This time, the crew has set up shop in New York, and, with...
Road House And What's Making Us Happy
22 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The 1989 movie Road House starred Patrick Swayze as a no-nonsense bouncer who saves a honky-tonk bar from a local toughs. Now, in the new remake, Jake...
Immaculate
21 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the new movie Immaculate, Sydney Sweeney plays Cecelia, an American woman who joins a convent in Italy. But after she arrives, she encounters stran...
Romantic Comedy Guide: Irish Wish, Anyone But You, Upgraded
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If there is a spot in your heart-shaped like a rom-com, we've got some good news for you. You can stream a few playful love stories from your couch, w...
Problemista
18 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the very funny and gently surreal new film Problemista, Julio Torres plays Alejandro, a young man from El Salvador scraping by in New York City as ...
Love Lies Bleeding And What's Making Us Happy
15 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The movie Love Lies Bleeding is a fun and weird erotic thriller. It's set in the late 1980s and stars Kristen Stewart as a brooding gym manager who fa...
Girls5eva
14 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The bingeable comedy series Girls5eva is a silly parody of the music industry. It's about four down-on-their-luck members of a 90s girl group who reun...
Kung Fu Panda 4
13 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Kung Fu Panda 4 is the latest movie in the popular and surprisingly thoughtful animated film franchise. Jack Black returns to voice Po, a gigantic, ad...
Love Is Blind
12 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Netflix's Love is Blind is like a bad relationship that's hard to give up. We've had doubts. We've had fights. And now, in its sixth season, we just c...
Our 2024 Oscars Recap
11 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At this year's Oscars, Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer won in most of the major categories, including best picture and best director. It was also a bi...
2024 Oscars Preview And What's Making Us Happy
08 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Will it be Oppenheimer? Will it be Barbie? Or will it be some other story entirely? It's time to get down to business, because the Oscars are upon us....
2024 Oscars Guide: Documentary Feature
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This year's Oscar nominees for outstanding documentary feature are really strong entries that are available on streaming now. They also happen to be p...
Couple To Throuple
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Most dating shows have two things in common: They are terrible and they are watchable. That dynamic continues on Peacock's new dating show Couple to T...
2024 Oscars Guide: International Feature
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This year's crop of Oscar nominees for the best international feature adopt vastly different approaches to tell their disparate stories. There's a cou...
2024 Oscars Guide: Original Song
04 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This year's Oscar nominees for best original song are headlined by two songs from Barbie: one from Billie Eilish, and the other from Ryan Gosling. But...
Dune: Part Two And What's Making Us Happy
01 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dune: Part Two is a sweeping, soaring space epic and this year's first big movie. Starring Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, and directed by Denis Ville...
Wendy Williams
28 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new and unsettling Lifetime docuseries Where Is Wendy Williams? documents the former daytime talk show host as she struggled with alcohol addictio...
Avatar: The Last Airbender
27 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender is regarded as a classic. Now, it's gotten a live-action adaptation on Netflix. The series tells the st...
Oppenheimer
26 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Oppenheimer tells the story of the brilliant physicist (Cillian Murphy) who oversaw the construction of the first atomic bomb. It goes on to chart the...
Drive-Away Dolls And What's Making Us Happy
23 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The movie Drive-Away Dolls is a shaggy comedy about a couple of lesbian friends (Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan) who take a road trip and ...
Jennifer Lopez's This Is Me... Now
22 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The wait to learn more about Jennifer Lopez's love life is finally over. The singer and actress has released a new film on Prime Video called This Is ...
Madame Web
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Madame Web, the latest Spider-Man-adjacent film that stakes out its own corner of the Spider-Verse. Dakota Johnson plays a New York paramedic who sees...
True Detective: Night Country
19 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
HBO/Max's True Detective: Night Country is the fourth season of the murder mystery anthology series. It's a bit of a welcome departure, with new showr...
Feud And What's Making Us Happy
16 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Feud: Capote Vs. the Swans is the latest reimagining of historical events produced by Ryan Murphy. The series follows famed author Truman Capote (play...
Platonic Love In Pop Culture
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
There have been countless romantic movies and TV shows — and a virtually infinite number of ways to watch people fall in love. But we're here to cel...
Abbott Elementary
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The fantastic ABC series Abbott Elementary is a workplace sitcom set at a severely underfunded Philadelphia public school. It's a giant hit, and it's ...
2024 Super Bowl, Plus Beyoncé's New Singles
12 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This year's Super Bowl featured an exciting game in which the Kansas City Chiefs beat San Francisco 49ers. It also featured an attention-grabbing half...
Lisa Frankenstein And What's Making Us Happy
09 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the new '80s horror comedy Lisa Frankenstein, an introverted teen (Kathryn Newton) finds comfort in visiting the grave of a young Victorian bachelo...
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On Prime Video's fun new spy show Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Donald Glover and Maya Erskine play spies going undercover as a married couple. The show is part t...
Expats
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new Prime Video series Expats fits quite neatly into the recent work done by its star, Nicole Kidman. She plays a rich woman who is one of three A...
2024 Grammys Recap
05 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Every night is a big night for Taylor Swift. But this year's Grammy night proved especially big: Swift won album of the year for Midnights and announc...
Argylle And What's Making Us Happy
02 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the comedic spy thriller Argylle, a reclusive author (Bryce Dallas Howard) gets sucked into a web of danger and intrigue when her books mirror the ...
The Pop Culture Hill I'll Die On
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe you think you shouldn't read a book before seeing the movie adaptation, or you're convinced season two is the best season of The Wire. We've all...
Marvel's Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Marvel's Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is an all-ages animated series that's got style and energy – and original songs – for days. It's the story o...
2024 Sundance: Best Movies
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over 75 feature films premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year, including a deeply personal coming-of-age story, a film starring Saoirse Rona...
Vanderpump Rules
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For more than a decade, Vanderpump Rules has been a hit reality show on the Bravo network. The show reached new heights of tabloid infamy last season ...
Jacqueline Novak's Get On Your Knees And What's Making Us Happy
26 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In her smart and funny comedy special Get On Your Knees, performer Jacqueline Novak delivers a kind of Ted Talk on the subject of oral sex. It's also ...
Barbie
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Barbie was the biggest movie of last year. We saw the memes, we heard the songs, and it was 2023's highest grossing movie. It recently racked up eight...
2024 Oscar Nominations
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This year's Oscar nominations were announced today and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer leads the field with 13 nominations. Other leading nominees inc...
The Zone Of Interest
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In The Zone of Interest, a German couple and their family live a bucolic life, but over the garden wall lies the Auschwitz concentration camp. The fat...
Origin And What's Making Us Happy
19 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Origin is the story of a writer who faces personal loss at the same time she works on a book based on her unified theory about systems of oppression. ...
Echo
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new Marvel series Echo spotlights Maya Lopez (played by Alaqua Cox), whom we first met as the stoic badass enforcer for the criminal Wilson Fisk (...
Bluey
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The TV cartoon Bluey is a hit with young children. But it's also found a devoted following among their parents, who've embraced the show's emotional d...
Our Emmys Recap
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The 75th annual Emmy Awards are over, and it was a big night for The Bear, Beef, and Succession. Plus Elton John earned his EGOT, and Jennifer Coolidg...
Lift
15 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the new Netflix action-comedy-heist movie Lift, Kevin Hart plays an experienced thief and con man whose crew is backed into a corner and forced to ...
Mean Girls And What's Making Us Happy
12 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mean Girls is a film adaptation of the Broadway adaptation of the beloved Lindsay Lohan and Tina Fey comedy. The songs are there, the dances are there...
Baldur's Gate 3
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Baldur's Gate 3 was the most acclaimed video game of last year and recently won Game of the Year at The Game Awards. It maps the experience of Dungeon...
Night Swim
09 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the new horror film Night Swim, Wyatt Russell plays a former baseball player who's been forced into retirement due to the early stages of MS. He an...
All Of Us Strangers
08 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The movie All of Us Strangers is a wistful fantasy drama that tells two intersecting stories about different kinds of love: One between a son and his ...
The Brothers Sun And What's Making Us Happy
05 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The new Netflix series The Brothers Sun is a fun genre mashup of action, comedy, and family drama. Michelle Yeoh plays Eileen Sun, who married into a ...
Books We Love: No Biz Like Showbiz
04 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
NPR's Books We Love is a roundup of favorite books of the year, sorted and tagged to help you find exactly what you're looking for. Today, we're highl...
Percy Jackson And The Olympians
03 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The delightful new Disney+ series Percy Jackson and The Olympians is a new adaptation of a beloved series of books by Rick Riordan. The series tells t...
How To Get The Most Out Of Your Library
02 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Your local library is a great source for books. But it can also be a great resource for helping you with your new year's resolution. Perhaps you want ...
2024 Pop Culture Resolutions
01 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Do you make resolutions in January? We do. Today, we make pop culture resolutions for 2024, and we check in on what we resolved to do this last year, ...
2024 Pop Culture Predictions
29 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What do we do at the end of every year? We hope, we fear, and we make wild guesses. Today, we're checking-in on how we did making predictions for 2023...
Great 2023 Movies You May Have Missed
28 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We cover a lot of new movies around here, and some even become our new faves of the moment. Yet at the end of the year, we always have a list of gems ...
Ferrari
27 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The new film Ferrari tells one chapter in the life of a man who wanted everything to go as fast as possible. Starring Adam Driver, the film is a portr...
The Iron Claw
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The very good new film The Iron Claw tells the tragic story of the Von Erich family. They were professional wrestlers in the early 1980s, with patriar...
All Songs Considered Holiday Extravaganza
25 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Pop Culture Happy Hour team is off today. So we're bringing you a very special holiday extravaganza from NPR Music's All Songs Considered podcast....
The Color Purple And What's Making Us Happy
22 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Color Purple was a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, then it was a movie, and then, a Broadway musical. Now it's a movie adaptation of the musical. In...
American Fiction
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In American Fiction, Jeffrey Wright stars as an author who finds that the books he loves to write aren't selling. What is selling is books by Black au...
Maestro
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Netflix film Maestro is an Old-Hollywood style biopic about the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. Bradley Cooper directed, co-wrote, and s...
Songs To Help You Study
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Maybe you're at school and need to concentrate while hitting the books. Maybe you're trying to get work done and need some sounds to drown out distrac...
Screening Ourselves: The Color Purple
18 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple has been adapted a few times. Next week, a new version based on the Tony-winning musical hits theaters. The 1985...
Wonka And What's Making Us Happy
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The story of Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory has been told and retold, both in the classic Roald Dahl children's books and in two hit films. Now...
The Boy And The Heron
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The lovely new animated film The Boy and the Heron is the first film in 10 years from visionary Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, My N...
Taylor Swift's Eras Tour
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Taylor Swift has had a very big year. Her career-spanning Eras Tour is on pace to become the biggest and most lucrative concert tour in history, and t...
2023 Pop Culture Favorites
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As we come to the end of 2023 we find ourselves in the familiar position of wrapping up the year. From the sublime to the slightly ridiculous we're ta...
Diddy, Hip-Hop, and #MeToo
11 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, a civil lawsuit was filed against rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs by his ex-girlfriend and former protégé Cassie Ventura. She alleged to ha...
Poor Things And What's Making Us Happy
08 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the wild and wonderful new film Poor Things, Emma Stone plays a woman brought back to life from the brink of death. She's a clean slate, unconcerne...