Streaming Shakespeare
BBC’s The Hollow Crown reminds us the Bard was not an optimist, just a great artist.
Articles by Martha Bayles
Logs on a Fire
Almost Redeemed
He Done His Damdest
Poll-Tested, Not Battle-Tested
Monk’s Tale
The Abolition of Character
Why today’s storytellers are so bad at imagining the future.
Redeeming Laughter
The saving grace of Jewish-American comedy.
The Spirits I Have Summoned, I Cannot Banish Now!
The future of A.I. in Hollywood—and beyond.
Propaganda in Paradise?
James Cameron’s new Avatar meets Xi Jinping’s new China.
The Tragedy of the Commons
TV’s Yellowstone and the conditions of freedom.
The Pure Radiance of the Past
The BBC series Wolf Hall is as beautifully cut, fitted, embroidered, and bejeweled as the heavy, intimidating garments of the Tudor nobility.
A Light from the North
Borgen, the celebrated Danish TV series about power, politics, and media, puts Hollywood in the shade.
A Whiff of Munich
The ghost of Neville Chamberlain.
A Glorious Leveling Up
Spielberg’s West Side Story is a masterpiece based on a masterpiece.
Dare We Joke About the Woke?
The satirical Netflix series The Chair is not sharp enough to draw blood.
Souls on Wheels
The film Nomadland expands the scope and meaning of the book that inspired it.
They’re Not Lovin’ It
Are America’s cultural exports worse than junk food?
Heroic Witness
The great novel of the Eastern Front, adapted for television.
Tragedy with a Side of Redemption
Rewatching HBO's masterpiece, The Wire.
A Romance in Spite of Itself
Normal People puts a postmodern twist on a classic tale of passion.
A Mouthful of Bees
Correcting the record on Clarence Thomas—again.
Anger Management
Big problems with Greta Gerwig's Little Women.
A Tale of Two Markets
Hollywood is choosing Chinese profits over American liberties.
It Takes a Village
A binge-worthy series for grown-ups.
The Prism of Art
Hidden signs of faith and redemption in two notable films from Europe.
The Goddess in the Mist
Why the TV adaptation of My Brilliant Friend is better than the book.
Ancestry.Comics
The uninspiring side of Marvel Studio’s Afro-futurist utopia.
The Most Dangerous Enemy They Can Find
Netflix’s clever Black Mirror.
The Dark at the End of the Tunnel
Ken Burns’s The Vietnam War does not take sides.
Dream Factory, or Propaganda Machine?
Hollywood’s romance with China may be breaking up.
Angle of Descent
Detroit rips open old wounds.
Elizabethan Virtues
Dignity, not celebrity.
A Long-Form Miracle
The Young Pope is a dazzling work of art.
Le Carré’s People
The Cold War novelist on the big and small screen.
Horror Show
What does The Walking Dead say about American anxieties?
The Americans – A Fan’s Notes
Truth, lies, and TV spies.
Enemy of the People
Donald Trump's bad reality show.
Whistleblowers and Deaf Ears
Democracy and transparency need each other.
In Our Guts
Two television shows' very different outlooks on war and prisoners of war.
Personal Technology
“What does it mean to understand man well enough to create one?â€
Good Cops, Bad Cops
This Article Has Been Self-Censored
This Article Has Been Self-Censored
Tolstoy in Texas
Underrating Democracy in China
House of Cards is a hit in China, too.
Oh Brother! Why Bother?
Oh Brother! Why Bother?
The Secret Life of Walter White
Why Breaking Bad is unexpectedly good.
What Makes Gatsby Great?
A test of this insight is The Great Gatsby, the latest screen adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan and co-written and directed by the Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann.
The Hollywood Dialectic
Lincoln and Django Unchained represent what passes for artistic sensibility in today’s Hollywood.
Let a Hundred Blockbusters Bloom
China plans to blow up Hollywood’s monopoly.
Oprah’s World Mission
The high priestess of Change Your Life TV.
The Guided and the Misguided
What soap operas at home and abroad teach us.
The Ultimate Social Network
Cambridge, MA, March 15, 2014—Noh Hao, at 25 the social media’s youngest—and first female—multibillionaire, explains her meteoric success in an exclusive interview with Martha Bayles.
American Sex-ceptionalism
Each episode in the TV series begins with a question, some more portentous than others.
Animation and Aspiration
Avatar is the latest example of where art, politics, and theology meet.
Unfinished Work
Can any film do justice to the political genius of Abraham Lincoln?
A Monument to Adams
Whatever It Takes
War and torture get the Hollywood treatment.
Out of Focus
Martin Scorsese's The Departed is a blurry copy of the Hong Kong original.
Cultural Learnings for Make Benefit Glorious Comedy of Sacha Baron Cohen
The merciless comic keeps hitting below the Borscht Belt.
Birth of a Blockbuster
An inside look at Dan Brown's new novel.
Uncaptive Mind
The films of Krzysztof Kieslowski.
Reel Queens
The Queen and Marie Antoinette ask whether the modern world can understand monarchy anymore.
Crossing the Rubicon
HBO gets "Rome" right.
Top of the World, Skipper!
Cantor attempts to link four TV programs to the themes of globalization and the end of the nation-state