Pop Culture Happy Hour
NPR
Get obsessed with us. Four days a week, Pop Culture Happy Hour serves you recommendations and commentary on the buzziest movies, TV, music, books, videogames and more. Join arts journalists Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson, and Aisha Harris - plus a rotating cast of guest pop culture aficionados. The Happy Hour team leaves room at the table for exploring a range of reactions and opinions on every bit of the pop universe. From lowbrow to highbrow to the stuff in between, they take it all with a shot of cheer.
Make your happy hour even happier with Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus! Your subscription supports the podcast and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/happyhour
Location:
Washington, DC
Networks:
NPR
Description:
Get obsessed with us. Four days a week, Pop Culture Happy Hour serves you recommendations and commentary on the buzziest movies, TV, music, books, videogames and more. Join arts journalists Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson, and Aisha Harris - plus a rotating cast of guest pop culture aficionados. The Happy Hour team leaves room at the table for exploring a range of reactions and opinions on every bit of the pop universe. From lowbrow to highbrow to the stuff in between, they take it all with a shot of cheer. Make your happy hour even happier with Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus! Your subscription supports the podcast and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/happyhour
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@NPR
Language:
English
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635 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20001 (202) 513-3232
Episodes
The Four Seasons
5/5/2025
Tina Fey returns to TV on the charming Netflix comedy The Four Seasons. It's about a group of couples whose friendship dynamic is rocked by their midlife crises. The impressive cast includes Colman Domingo, Will Forte, and Steve Carell. And while the jokes may not fly quite as fast as they did on 30 Rock, Fey's comedic sensibilities are written all over it.
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Duration:00:19:20
Thunderbolts*
5/2/2025
Thunderbolts* is the latest Marvel movie and this one's a bit more fun than they've been lately. It stars Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour and emotionally broken super-people who've done some very bad things. Will they manage to put their guilt aside and come together to form a rag-tag team of losers who somehow manage to save the day?
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Duration:00:22:20
The TV Show I'd Like To Live In
5/1/2025
If you wanted to escape reality and move to a fictional TV world, where would you live? Many are dystopian hellscapes and stressful workplaces. But other TV shows are a fun hang. Today, we're talking about TV shows where we'd like to live — including Game of Thrones, Derry Girls, Parks and Recreation, and Gilligan's Island.
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Duration:00:19:36
Why We Love TV Weddings
4/29/2025
Weddings make great fodder for TV writers. It's wedding season, so today we're breaking down the different types of TV weddings featured on Friends, General Hospital, A Different World, Grey's Anatomy, Cheers, Schitt's Creek and more.
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Duration:00:23:09
Étoile
4/28/2025
Étoile is the latest series from Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It's about the wacky goings-on between two prestigious but struggling ballet companies, one in New York, and one in Paris. You'll see some of your favorite actors from the Gilmore and Maisel universes all speaking that signature rapid-fire, joke-dense patter. But can a comedy set in the rarified world of professional ballet find its audience – and be funny? Étoile is streaming on Prime Video.
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Duration:00:17:31
Summer Guide And What's Making Us Happy
4/25/2025
There was Barbenheimer Summer, then Brat Summer, what will this year bring? Maybe it's the season of actually good superhero movies, like The Fantastic Four and Superman. We've got a guide to the movies and TV we're most excited about this summer, including M3gan 2.0, Pixar's Elio, and Mission: Impossible.
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Duration:00:28:31
Conclave
4/23/2025
Pope Francis' death not only led to an outpouring of remembrances. It also unleashed a new wave of memes from the Oscar-nominated movie Conclave. It tells a very fun and very fictional story of the secretive process by which a pope is replaced. It's a twisty political thriller, it's a tense jury drama, and it's got some strong commentary on the state of the Catholic Church. Conclave stars Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini, and it's available to rent or stream at home.
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Duration:00:22:21
The Wedding Banquet
4/22/2025
The lovely rom-com The Wedding Banquet has a stellar all-star cast, including Kelly Marie Tran, Lily Gladstone, and Bowen Yang. It's a twisty comedy of errors where proposals, hookups, and harsh words fly. Directed by Andrew Ahn (Fire Island), the film offers a modern take on Ang Lee's classic queer film.
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Duration:00:18:16
Recent TV Comedies You Don't Want To Miss
4/21/2025
We cover a lot of TV on this show, but we don't get to everything. Today we're recommending some of our favorite recent TV comedies you don't want to miss, including #1 Happy Family USA, The Righteous Gemstones, North of North, and Deli Boys.
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Duration:00:14:52
Sinners And What's Making Us Happy
4/18/2025
The very scary movie Sinners finds Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint. And opening night does not go as planned. Written and directed by Ryan Coogler, (Black Panther), the film mixes blues music with classic horror in a standoff between the brothers and their friends on the inside and the bloodthirsty – and growing – menace outside.
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Duration:00:25:36
Your Friends And Neighbors
4/16/2025
In the Apple TV+ series Your Friends and Neighbors, a very rich guy reacts to becoming a bit less rich by turning to a life of crime. Played by Jon Hamm, in full charming-but-morally-compromised mode, he starts sneaking into people's and taking their stuff. Part drama and part dark comedy about rich jerks, the series also stars Amanda Peet and Olivia Munn.
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Duration:00:15:01
Doctor Who
4/15/2025
The last season of the venerable British science fiction series Doctor Who brought a lot of change. The Doctor is now played by Ncuti Gatwa, who is Black and openly queer. And it marked the return of the showrunner who birthed the modern era of Doctor Who. The show just returned for a new season on Disney+, so today we're revisiting our conversation about the series.
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Duration:00:25:39
Warfare
4/14/2025
The new film Warfare dispenses with a lot of things you've come to expect from Hollywood war movies. It's based on the memories of a platoon of Navy SEALS, and attempts to capture the chaos of one specific Iraq War conflict as accurately as possible. The only thing Hollywood about it is its cast of young actors, including Joseph Quinn, Will Poulter, Kit Connor and D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai.
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Duration:00:15:35
Drop And What's Making Us Happy
4/11/2025
In the bonkers thriller Drop, Meghann Fahy plays a woman whose first date goes off the rails when she starts getting increasingly alarming message drops from someone nearby. And this potentially romantic dinner turns into a life-or-death situation, real quick.
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Duration:00:19:49
Pop Culture That Changed Our Minds
4/10/2025
At a certain point, most of us settle into a groove with our pop culture consumption. We know what we love and what we're not into. But sometimes, all it takes is one great outlier or a willingness to step outside our comfort zone to make us reconsider what we don't like. Today we're talking about our pop culture revelations, including Friday Night Lights, Train to Busan, the poetry of Mary Oliver, and Watchmen.
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Duration:00:22:38
Dying For Sex
4/9/2025
The premise might be a tough sell: a young woman attempts to finally own her sexuality following a terminal diagnosis. In the new show Dying For Sex, Michelle Williams stars as a cancer patient confronting the unsatisfying relationships in her life. The series is also a raunchy sex comedy that suggests it's never too late to insist on your own happiness. And it's got a stellar cast, including Jenny Slate, Rob Delaney, and Sissy Spacek.
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Duration:00:22:13
The White Lotus
4/7/2025
Season three of The White Lotus just wrapped up, but not before serving up a tropical buffet of sex, betrayal, violence, revenge, privilege, incest, drugs, death, and spirituality. We finally found out whose dead body was floating in the pond way back in the season premiere. From creator Mike White, this season stars Walton Goggins, Carrie Coon, Natasha Rothwell, Aimee Lou Wood, Parker Posey, and Lisa of BLACKPINK fame.
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Duration:00:23:36
A Minecraft Movie And What's Making Us Happy
4/4/2025
Based on the best-selling game, A Minecraft Movie stars Jack Black and Jason Momoa in a goofy and sprawling adventure full of blocky animals and magical macguffins. Directed by Jared Hess (Nacho Libre, Napoleon Dynamite), the film also features Danielle Brooks and Jennifer Coolidge.
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Duration:00:20:09
Daredevil: Born Again
4/2/2025
In Daredevil: Born Again, Charlie Cox returns as everyone's favorite blind-but-with-heightened-senses Marvel superhero. This time out, he hangs up his horns and throws himself into his career as a lawyer. At the same time, the criminal mastermind Kingpin (played by Vincent D'Onofrio) decides to go straight and run for mayor of New York City. The two men declare a truce, but will it last?
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Duration:00:15:43
Survival Of The Thickest
4/1/2025
The delightful Netflix series Survival of the Thickest is about an up-and-coming stylist whose professional and personal ambitions go sideways when she finds herself newly single. With the help of her best friends, she recalibrates her life and steps outside her comfort zone to varying results. It stars the charming comedian Michelle Buteau, who also co-created the show. Survival of the Thickest just returned for a second season, so today we are revisiting our conversation about the series.
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Duration:00:17:10