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Pop Culture Happy Hour - Podcast

Pop Culture Happy Hour

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

Tv & Film Music Commentary Film Reviews Books Arts News After Shows Entertainment News Tv Reviews Music
Update frequency
every day
Average duration
20 minutes
Episodes
348
Years Active
2024 - 2025
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Fall Guide

Fall Guide

The fall of 2025 is shaping up to have something for everyone with a fresh Knives Out mystery, Guillermo del Toro’s take on Frankenstein, and a new Emma Stone movie. We’ve got a guide of the TV and f…
00:25:44  |   Thu 18 Sep 2025
The Summer I Turned Pretty

The Summer I Turned Pretty

The TV series The Summer I Turned Pretty features a messy love triangle, plenty of drama, and a LOT of Taylor Swift songs. The show has become a word-of-mouth sensation, with fans obsessing over whet…
00:23:40  |   Tue 16 Sep 2025
2025 Emmys Recap

2025 Emmys Recap

This year’s Emmy Awards saw big wins for Adolescence, The Studio, and The Pitt. The telecast was also packed with a couple of surprise wins, a show of undeniable goodwill toward Stephen Colbert, and …

00:25:24  |   Mon 15 Sep 2025
The Long Walk And What's Making Us Happy

The Long Walk And What's Making Us Happy

The new film The Long Walk is Stephen King meets The Hunger Games. It takes place in a dystopian America in which one young man from each state competes in a televised event in which they must walk a…

00:17:50  |   Fri 12 Sep 2025
Great Movies With Silly Plots

Great Movies With Silly Plots

Have you ever found yourself completely caught up in a film only to find, after the lights come up, that the story didn’t make any sense, yet you loved it anyway? Today, we’re talking about great mov…
00:19:46  |   Thu 11 Sep 2025
Watch This: Twinless

Watch This: Twinless

Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney star as unlikely friends in the new movie Twinless. They meet in a support group for people who have lost their twin and form an interesting bond, but there’s a lot th…
00:18:47  |   Tue 09 Sep 2025
The Paper

The Paper

The Paper is a spinoff of The Office, and like its predecessor, it’s a mockumentary about a workplace that's facing financial and cultural headwinds. The Peacock series focuses on a local newspaper i…
00:17:42  |   Mon 08 Sep 2025
The Conjuring: Last Rites And What's Making Us Happy

The Conjuring: Last Rites And What's Making Us Happy

The Conjuring: Last Rites winds down the story of the demon-hunting couple loosely based on Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. They battle one last threat: a house in …
00:21:55  |   Fri 05 Sep 2025
Sabrina Carpenter Man’s Best Friend

Sabrina Carpenter Man’s Best Friend

Sabrina Carpenter is following her breakout album Short n’ Sweet with a new collection of cheeky earworms called Man’s Best Friend, which includes the breakout singles “Manchild” and “Tears.” Carpent…
00:23:56  |   Thu 04 Sep 2025
The Thursday Murder Club

The Thursday Murder Club

Netflix’s The Thursday Murder Club is a cozy British mystery set at a posh retirement community. The movie stars Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, and Ben Kingsley as retirees who have formed a club that…
00:19:39  |   Wed 03 Sep 2025
Caught Stealing

Caught Stealing

Austin Butler, Zoë Kravitz and Bad Bunny star in Caught Stealing, the new grungy, throwback film from Darren Aronofsky. Butler plays Hank, a sad sack bartender at a sticky East Village dive bar in th…
00:16:06  |   Tue 02 Sep 2025
The Roses And What's Making Us Happy

The Roses And What's Making Us Happy

First a novel and a 1989 hit film, the story of The Roses has been told before. This time around, Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman play a couple whose love curdles into resentment and then hatr…
00:25:14  |   Fri 29 Aug 2025
Jaws

Jaws

Steven Spielberg's Jaws turns 50 this year. It’s been called the perfect movie, the first blockbuster, and the film that changed why we go to the movies. As it returns to theaters, we head back into …
00:24:14  |   Thu 28 Aug 2025
Songs For When Your Flight Is Delayed

Songs For When Your Flight Is Delayed

If you travel by plane with any regularity, you've been there: stuck in an airport because your flight is delayed. So we thought it best to give your most stressful travel moments a soundtrack. Today…
00:10:20  |   Wed 27 Aug 2025
Watch This: Long Story Short

Watch This: Long Story Short

Long Story Short is a very funny and surprisingly moving new Netflix animated comedy series from the folks behind BoJack Horseman and Tuca & Bertie. The show follows members of one Jewish family by h…
00:17:19  |   Tue 26 Aug 2025
Lurker And What's Making Us Happy

Lurker And What's Making Us Happy

Fame does strange things to people. In the new film Lurker, Théodore Pellerin plays a young retail clerk making his way into the inner circle of a popular rising musician (Archie Madekwe). This frien…
00:24:16  |   Fri 22 Aug 2025
Best John Grisham Adaptations, Ranked

Best John Grisham Adaptations, Ranked

There’s a new TV version of The Rainmaker out, so today, we’re ranking the five best John Grisham adaptations – including The Firm, The Pelican Brief, and A Time To Kill. But which one is the very be…
00:18:36  |   Thu 21 Aug 2025
Our 15th Anniversary Time Capsule

Our 15th Anniversary Time Capsule

We launched Pop Culture Happy Hour 15 years ago this summer, and we had a lot of pent-up hot takes. To celebrate this milestone, today we’re breaking open a time capsule to revisit some of our memora…
00:22:41  |   Tue 19 Aug 2025
Highest 2 Lowest

Highest 2 Lowest

Spike Lee's new crime thriller Highest 2 Lowest reunites him with his favorite leading man, Denzel Washington. The film is based on Akira Kurosawa’s classic High and Low, and it’s a tense story about…
00:20:55  |   Mon 18 Aug 2025
Alien: Earth And What's Making Us Happy

Alien: Earth And What's Making Us Happy

Alien: Earth is a new TV spinoff of the Alien movie franchise, and as one might expect, it has plenty of Facehuggers, chestbursters, and dark metal corridors. The show brings the infamous Xenomorph t…
00:25:38  |   Fri 15 Aug 2025
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