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The Spiritual Stakes of The Rings of Power
It is too soon to tell if Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will be a satisfying season of television. From the two episodes that...
Viking Vengeance in The Northman
What would happen if a Viking skald were armed with a modern Hollywood budget and set loose to create a film? Probably something quite like The Northman, an epic...
Batman Beyond Vengeance
Matt Reeves’s The Batman, the latest cinematic exploration of Gotham City’s Dark Knight, is about a Batman who re-examines his mission. The movie emphasizes Batman’s skills as a detective,...
Black Widow and the Bonds of Family
The latest big-screen Marvel movie is about family versus the totalizing demands of a society that sees fertility and parenthood as an inconvenience. Black Widow focuses on super-spy Natasha...
Star Wars Goes Out With a Whimper
I am sorry to report that The Rise of Skywalker, finale to the Star Wars sequel trilogy and conclusion to the nine-part “Skywalker Saga,” is not good. It does...
Don’t See Joker
Don’t see the new Joker film, directed by Todd Phillips and starring an Oscar-starved Joaquin Phoenix. I invite you to sit this one out with me. Don’t see it...
The Pro-Natalist Case for Nuns
A strange Twitter exchange last week launched a conversation about the relationship between celibate vowed religious and pro-natalism. In the recent HuffPost essay “Behold, the Millennial Nuns,” Eve Fairbanks...
Superheroes and Saints
Face front, true believers. Last week the world lost one of the few household names among the ranks of comic book creators: Stan Lee, prolific Marvel Comics writer and...
Prisoners Are Not Animals
Last week, Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar was sentenced to 40–175 years in prison for many counts of criminal sexual assault. He abused young girls for years, using his role...
Martyrdom in The Last Jedi
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is an excellent addition to the Star Wars canon, precisely because it is not cowed by its predecessors. Instead, the new film is a...
America for the Immaculata
When I was learning about Catholicism, as an Anglican in the process of converting, Mary was a sticking point. Yes, of course Jesus’s mother was “full of grace,” as...
Open Marriages, Closed Hearts
A recent article in the New York Times Magazine asked, “Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage?” and answered with a cautious “Yes.” Susan Dominus profiles several couples who...
“Decadent Poverty” at the First Things Gallery
In a first for First Things, an art exhibit in our office gallery has been reviewed. The reviewer is one Joseph Mashek, writing at artcritical, the online magazine of arts and...
Jesus Is Not a Zombie
It’s a cliché of irreverent internet humor: atheists celebrating the Easter season by wishing their Christian countrymen a “Happy Jewish Zombie Day.” The joke is easy to dismiss—but perhaps...
Pro-Life, Pro-Truth
It is an exciting time to be pro-life. The political situation, all the way up to the Supreme Court itself, seems ripe for us to make major strides. Religious...
