You’re HBO, and your newest release is an explosive documentary about one of the most controversial sectors of the United States government: the Border Patrol. What do you do to get it as much attention as possible?
We’re seeing their strategy play out right now.
“Critical Incident: Death at the Border” recounts the death of Anastasio Hernández Rojas, a 42-year-old undocumented immigrant who died in 2010 days after immigration agents handcuffed, beat and Tasered him near the San Ysidro Port of Entry after trying to deport him to Mexico. Border Patrol at the time said they used force after Hernández Rojas, who had lived in this country since he was 15, resisted them.
The case drew international attention and Hernández Rojas’ family received a $1-million settlement from the federal government, which declined to file criminal charges against those involved in his death even though the San Diego County coroner’s office ruled it a homicide. Enter John Carlos Frey, a reporter who has pursued the story for nearly 15 years and who is one of the protagonists in “Critical Incident.”
He knocks on the doors of agents who were there when Hernández Rojas died, discovers footage that contradicts the Border Patrol’s official account and uncovers a secretive Border Patrol unit tasked with the “mitigation” of use-of-force incidents that was disbanded in 2022. The documentary includes an interview with a whistleblower who claimed bosses told him to doctor evidence to exculpate the agency in the death of Hernández Rojas. It also alleges the cover-up went all the way up to Customs and Border Protection commissioner Rodney Scott, who was Border Patrol deputy chief for the San Diego region when Hernández Rojas died.
Scott appears near the end of “Critical Incident” to dismiss those “allegations” and declines to comment about any culpability those involved may have had, citing ongoing litigation. “This case from over a decade ago was thoroughly investigated and resolved by the Department of Justice and local law enforcement,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Times in a statement when I asked for comment about the documentary’s findings. “Efforts to malign CBP and ICE officers as lawbreakers are slanderous, irresponsible, and only reveal the media’s eagerness to mislead the American people.”
“Critical Incident” is taut, disturbing, timely and a brisk hour and a half. It deserves as many viewers as possible and a publicity campaign as ubiquitous as what HBO is currently pushing for its hit hockey romance, “Heated Rivalry.”
Instead, the network released “Critical Incident” on Dec. 29, when most Americans were lost in a haze of Christmas leftovers, “Avengers: Endgame” reruns and college football bowl games. It’s not listed alongside other recently released documentaries on HBO’s website, and I wasn’t able to find it on the network’s streaming app’s “Just Added” tab.
Director Rick Rowley was diplomatic about his documentary’s “difficult” release date, saying he has “limited insight” into HBO’s decision. He’s nevertheless confident “this film is going to have a long life because these [Border Patrol] issues are only more pressing as the days pass.”
Frey wasn’t as polite: “If I was an executive and released it on that date, I would be fired.”
Rodney Scott, then-nominee for commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, arrives for a Senate confirmation hearing in April 2025.
(Stefani Reynolds / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
An HBO spokesperson pushed back on Frey’s criticism, stating, “The documentary was actually released during one of the highest usage times on the platform and we are proud to say the film is doing very well, even showing up in the top 10 rail.”
In development for four years, Frey said “Critical Incident” was supposed to air just before the 2024 election. He showed me a text message from a senior producer attesting to that. But HBO held on to it even as a Senate committee grilled Scott about Hernández Rojas’ death during his confirmation hearing last April, which isn’t included in the documentary. The documentary didn’t air even as the Border Patrol’s invasion of cities far from the U.S.-Mexico border throughout last year made the story “Critical Incident” told more relevant than ever.
HBO “buried it on purpose,” Frey, 56, told me over breakfast in Boyle Heights. He blames the current political environment — specifically, Netflix’s proposed $82.7-billion bid to acquire HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros., which federal regulators would have to approve. The last thing executives wants to do right now, Frey argued, is anger President Trump by promoting a documentary that attacks his deportation deluge.
“They buried it on the worst day of the year when no one is watching, and of course, they’re going to deny it,” Frey said.
“That is, of course, not true,” the HBO spokesperson said .
Covering la migra is personal for Frey, who grew up in Tijuana and Imperial Beach with views of the U.S.-Mexico border fence. When he was 12, a Border Patrol agent approached his mother — then a green card holder — while her son was playing outside.
“He wouldn’t believe anything she would say and wouldn’t let her go to our house to get her documents,” Frey said. He’s of average height, deep-voiced and barrel-chested and tends to respond to questions with questions. “Why would he? The agent deported her.”
As an adult, Frey began to cover the Border Patrol in a post-9/11 era. Much like today, it was rapidly expanding, and aggressive tactics like breaking car windows when the occupants weren’t resisting and agent-involved shootings were endemic. The Hernández Rojas case entered his scope after someone reached out claiming they had footage of his death.
“The original narrative was Anastasio became belligerent, they subdued him and he died,” Frey said. “The case was closed, the Border Patrol had written it off.”
The source was initially too scared to share their recording, but Frey eventually convinced them after forwarding his stories about repeated Border Patrol abuses of power. What he saw — about a dozen Border Patrol agents circling a prone, moaning Hernández Rojas, Tasering and punching him while onlookers scream at them to stop — left the reporter “disgusted.”
The footage eventually aired on a 2012 PBS program, which made the story go national. Frey’s continued work on the case eventually caught the attention of Rowley, whose documentaries on neo-Nazi groups, the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the War on Terror have earned him Emmy wins and an Oscar nomination.
The documentarian wanted to examine the Border Patrol’s impunity, and, he said, “Anastasio’s story is one of the only stories that takes you all the way to the top. And you have to work with John if you’re going to do the Anastasio case. He’s fearless.”
Rowley is proud of his final product but admitted that he’s “used to having more press around a film release, especially about a film about … the most important domestic issue in the country, especially in the last year.”
That’s what angers Frey the most about the release of “Critical Incident.”
“The stories I used to hear — ‘Border Patrol broke my windows, left me bloodied, grabbed me without asking any questions’ — it’s now in neighborhoods,” he said. He twisted a napkin, tossed it into the pile of twisted napkins next to his coffee cup.
“It’s a deliberate choice when you’re going to release a documentary and how. If I were HBO and I had evidence of a murder by the feds, I would’ve led with that inmy promotion. I would think that’s a selling point, especially with the [immigration] raids. Instead, they have me hugging someone in the trailer.”
Frey shook his head. “We made a good film, but half the battle is getting people to see it.”
A snapshot of fire-ravaged Altadena is laid out before me, hovering like a diorama. My eyes zero in on a red door, its frame one of the few surviving remnants of a home. I pull it closer to me, and in moments I see a fraction of the house as it once was — now I’m in a cozy kitchen with blurred but welcoming pictures in the background and a grandfather celebrating a birthday. A voice-over tells me that it was Alexander, a grandfather, who painted the door red.
It’s as if a memory has sprung to life and exists solely in the ether in front of me. But in seconds it’s gone, and I see only rubble — scattered bricks and tiles, tree branches and wooden boards.
I shed a tear, but it’s obscured by the virtual reality headset I’m wearing. I am experiencing a work-in-progress segment of the multimedia documentary “Out of the Ashes,” which will be previewed Friday evening at a Music Center event demonstrating how emerging technologies can help people process collective experiences such as the L.A. fires.
Musician David Low and his family in virtual reality film “Out of the Ashes,” which shows the destruction — and reconstruction — of the Palisades and Eaton fires.
(The Mercantile Agency)
Filming is continuing on the project, which began just days after the flames ignited. Filmmaker, academic and virtual reality pioneer Nonny de la Peña secured media access to the burn zones for her and a small team via her role as the program director of narrative and emerging media at Arizona State University, which she operates out of offices in downtown Los Angeles. “I knew that this was going to be transitory type of situation, that it was going to change quickly,” says De la Peña, co-director on the film with Rory Mitchell. “I’ve covered enough disaster stories to know how huge this was.”
De la Peña has long been at the forefront of merging immersive technologies and journalism. Her 2012 project “Hunger in Los Angeles,” for instance, was the first VR documentary to screen at Sundance. “I think this technology is unique,” De la Peña says. “I’ve seen a lot of helicopter footage, but when you’re right there in it, it’s a different perspective as to what happened.” For this documentary, she partnered with Mitchell, an independent filmmaker, whose augmented-reality tabletop experience “The Tent” premiered at SXSW last year.
In my preview of “Out of the Ashes,” one segment whisks me to the coastline. If I angle my head down, I see the glistening lights of the Santa Monica Pier. Look up ever so slightly, however, and the sky is charred red and black. I hear a cello, and soon musician David Low stands before me, recounting the day the flames began and the rush to remove his young son from school to help rescue a smattering of heirlooms.
The family saved a few plushies and a couple prized musical instruments, but in the urgency to leave, not much else. He sits at a kitchen table, reconstructed in VR from family photos, but the rest of the home has vanished. As I see glimpses of Low’s home before and after the fires, I again feel as if I’m standing in a liminal space, a remembrance but also a reminder. Low exists only as a 3D figure before me, but I wish I could reach out my hand.
The instinct to extend a hand feels natural in virtual reality, as it’s visceral and creates a sense of presence. And it also seems a part of the mission for “Out of the Ashes,” a work as much about the effects of the fires as it is a vessel for collective grief and empathy. “Sometimes, you just need someone to say, ‘Hey, I’m sorry that happened to you.’ Sometimes you just need someone to hug you,” says De la Peña. “When you lose that much, it’s sometimes hard to fathom.”
Landscape architect Esther Margulies discusses which trees did and didn’t burn in the Palisades and Eaton fires in the virtual reality film “Out of the Ashes.”
(The Mercantile Agency)
Adds Mitchell, “We understand the numbers and acreage,” he says before rattling off a host of fire statistics. “But it’s only through story that we can begin to wrap our hearts and brains the scale of the emotional devastation, and the psychic pain that the city has gone through. Maybe this can provide a way into this collective pain and a way to talk about it.”
Another aspect of “Out of the Ashes” is augmented reality, which will also be shown at the Music Center event. The tech is used to capture short snapshots of scenes from Altadena and the Palisades.
Retired professor Ted Porter, for instance, recalls buying a loaf of his late wife’s favorite bread when the winds first started, thinking he may need something to nibble on if the power went out. Melissa Rivers talks of grabbing photos of her late father, and running for her mother’s Emmy, recalling how meaningful the award was to Joan. “I don’t know why I grabbed what I grabbed,” Rivers says. “It’s just what I did.” They’re short scenes in which a small item floats before us, and they’re reflective of life’s unpredictability, but also how, in times of stress, our minds race to the symbols that truly matter to us.
“Part of what this process is, is trying to provide a space for the folks directly affected by it, who are trying to rebuild their lives and explain to their children what happened,” Mitchell says. “Everyone is going to process at difference speeds and in different ways, but to do that collectively and communally is the hope with this.”
The Friday event, officially dubbed the Music Center’s Innovation Social: Reflections on Loss, Hope and Renewal, will also include a live musical performance by survivors of the Eaton fire. Guests will additionally have the ability to learn how to use 3D scanning tools via their smartphones to begin to create their own short, memory-filled clips. Acorns will also be given away as representations of resilience, and audio interviews of those who experienced the fires will be collected into a sound collage.
The Music Center’s Innovation Social: Reflections on Loss, Hope and Renewal
De la Peña and Mitchell say they have more work to do on the film, which, when completed, can be brought to festivals or become its own touring exhibition. “We want people to know what we’ve gone through,” Mitchell says.
And what we continue to experience. One virtual reality segment centers on landscape architect Esther Margulies discussing the effects of climate change and the importance of planting California live oaks — “ember catchers,” says Mitchell — rather than palm trees. In the headset, we see Mitchell standing amid fire-burned trees, a stark, dreadful landscape. This contrasts soon, however, with the surviving oaks, shown standing grandly among empty, otherwise deserted streets. Amid much despair, they’re framed as one small symbol of hope.
As an editor, the lion’s share of my job is about identifying the awards season’s most compelling stories and conveying them to our readers. But I do reserve a small sliver of time for the joys of advocacy, championing work that I love and hoping that converts readers into viewers, and perhaps even voters.
So, with no new issue this week, my New Year’s Eve newsletter felt like the perfect time to reflect on the movies and TV shows that moved me in 2025. And if you give them another look before you cast your awards ballots, all the better.
MOVIES
1. ‘A Little Prayer’ and ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’
David Strathairn and Jane Levy in “A Little Prayer.”
(Music Box Films)
I am not terribly spiritual myself, but I encountered transcendence twice at the movies this year. As quiet and beseeching as its title, Angus MacLachlan’s chamber drama “A Little Prayer,” about a family man (David Strathairn) navigating marital trouble between his son (Will Pullen) and his daughter-in-law (Jane Levy), uncovers varieties of religious experience in 19th century landscape painting and small, memorable kindnesses. As sweeping as the extraordinary life it depicts, Mona Fastvold’s biographical portrait “The Testament of Ann Lee,” which follows the Shaker leader (Amanda Seyfried) and her devotees from the textile mills of Manchester to the wilderness of colonial New York, carves sensuous art from the exalted song and dance of evangelical faith. But whether the scale is intimate or epic, both capture, to quote “A Little Prayer,” that rare thing: “a powerful sense of the sublime.”
2. ‘Sinners’
Michael B. Jordan in “Sinners.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
“Sinners” has rightly been praised for its novel twist on the vampire genre, its deep investment in African and African American music, its blockbuster box office in an era largely dominated by franchise IP. But perhaps the highest compliment I can give director Ryan Coogler may be that the Jim Crow Mississippi he conjures is so richly textured, so allergic to cant or cliche, that I’d have been just as riveted if the bloodsuckers had never shown up. That’s what it’s like to be in the hands of a master.
3. ‘Sorry, Baby’
Eva Victor in “Sorry, Baby.”
(Philip Keith / A24)
Eva Victor is not the first filmmaker to face trauma with a sense of humor, but few have done it with such a gentle, humane touch. As Victor’s Agnes moves through life in the aftermath of a sexual assault on her college campus, the writer-director-star focuses squarely on the slow, ungainly, ultimately profound work of healing — and includes some of the best gags about academia this reformed graduate student has ever seen. No apology needed: “Sorry, Baby” marks the arrival of a major talent.
4. ‘One Battle After Another’
Leonardo DiCaprio in “One Battle After Another.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
With elements of action, satire, political thriller and family melodrama, Paul Thomas Anderson’s wild yarn about the members of a revolutionary group — and the fallout that comes when the past catches up with them — is well-nigh indescribable. But it’s also unforgettable. Combining high-wire filmmaking with electric performances, it never relinquishes its grip on the viewer and invites multiple viewings. Which is just as well, considering that this one is going to be on the tip of our tongues all the way through the Oscars.
5. ‘Nouvelle Vague’
Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg and Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard in “Nouvelle Vague.”
(Jean-Louis Fernandez)
The purest delight of the season is Richard Linklater’s mash note for the French New Wave, a zippy comedy of errors about the making of one of the most influential films of all time. As Jean-Luc Godard (the rakishly charming Guillaume Marbeck) tries to put “Breathless” together with spit, glue and attitude on the streets of Paris, “Nouvelle Vague” becomes as confident a caper as the original, with Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) and Jean Seberg (a beguiling Zoey Deutch) as the French director’s oft-befuddled collaborators — and sometimes foils. To overlook a film with this much cinematic joie de vivre would be a crime.
6. ‘Sirât’
The rave sequence that opens “Sirât.”
(Neon)
The less said the better about Spain’s acclaimed Oscar submission, which takes such twists and turns as it wends its way through the Moroccan desert that it left me frozen, after my first screening, in a sort of defensive crouch. I simply suggest that you go on the journey with filmmaker Oliver Laxe as he follows a father (Sergi López) and son (Bruno Núñez Arjona) on their search for a missing loved one, beginning with a rave so lifelike it almost had me dancing in the aisles.
7. ‘Hedda’
Tessa Thompson, center, in “Hedda.”
(Matt Towers / Prime Video)
I must admit I went warily into “Hedda.” An awards-season Ibsen adaptation had, I feared, all the makings of a fusty, dour costume drama. Mea culpa, Nia DaCosta. Mea culpa. The filmmaker’s sharp, fresh take on “Hedda Gabler,” featuring mesmerizing performances from Tessa Thompson as the devious title character and Nina Hoss as her (gender-swapped) former lover, renders the play as provocatively, and vividly, for today’s viewer as it must have been for attendees at the Munich premiere in 1891 — and in the process reminds us why the original is an enduring classic.
8. ‘Sentimental Value’
Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning in “Sentimental Value.”
(Kasper Tuxen)
No film this year has left me more eager for a rewatch than Joachim Trier’s delicate family drama, and I was rewarded with the sense that “Sentimental Value” is really two films, woven together so deftly that they can’t quite be unraveled. One is the story of two sisters (Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) bonded by generational trauma. The other is about a filmmaker, their father (Stellan Skarsgård), recruiting a sympathetic outsider (Elle Fanning) to tell the story of his own. By the time these strands reach their conclusion, on a soundstage built to resemble the family manse, Trier’s thoughtful architecture pays off in the understanding that you really can go home again, because home is a state of mind.
9. ‘The Alabama Solution’
A still from “The Alabama Solution.”
(HBO Documentary Films)
In an especially strong year for documentaries, particularly those that appreciate, emulate or chronicle the work of investigative journalism, it seems a shame to single out just one. But from the moment of its Sundance Film Festival premiere, the movie by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman registered as a prime example of nonfiction storytelling’s unmatched ability to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” starting with its unflinching use of Alabama state prison inmates’ contraband cellphone footage of the shocking conditions they’re forced to endure. As advocacy, as exposé, as portrait of the fight for justice, no documentary has stuck with me this year quite like “The Alabama Solution.”
10. ‘All That’s Left of You’ and ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’
Scenes from “All That’s Left of You,” left, and “The Voice of Hind Rajab.”
(Watermelon Pictures; Venice Film Festival)
One expands its tale of the Palestinian experience across continents and decades, the other condenses its saga to just 90 minutes, balanced on a knife’s edge between documentary and drama. But for all their stark stylistic differences, both “All That’s Left of You” and “The Voice of Hind Rajab” — along with films such as “Palestine 36” and “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” — urgently communicate, in specific human terms, the life-and-death consequences of a struggle for self-determination too often abstracted in the West to its “complicated” or “thorny” geopolitics. Whether the setting is Jaffa or Gaza, the subject a multigenerational family pushed to its breaking point or the fate of a single little girl, both will leave you shaken. As they should.
TV SHOWS
1. ‘Andor’
Diego Luna and Genevieve O’Reilly in “Andor.”
(Lucasfilm Ltd. / Disney)
Turning its portrait of reluctant rebel Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) into a kaleidoscopic thriller about a simmering revolution reaching the boil — and the authoritarian forces set on stopping them — “Andor’s” second season emerged, by degrees, as the year’s most astounding political allegory — on any size of screen. Aided by an ingenious structure, which divided its four-year arc into four, three-episode miniseries, it ensnared even avowed “Star Wars” skeptics, and featured both the best action set piece and the best monologue of the year.
2. ‘The Rehearsal’
Nathan Fielder in “The Rehearsal.”
(John P. Johnson / HBO)
Another sophomore step up, this iteration of “The Rehearsal” — which bordered on cavalier about its civilian subjects in Season 1 — finds impresario Nathan Fielder with more skin in the game, and so becomes a revelatory meta-comedy that lives up to its immense ambition. Come for the elaborate re-creation of American airports, stay for a surprisingly vulnerable Fielder investigating the possibility that he’s on the autism spectrum, and be wowed by the series’ real-world implications for pilot communication. Whatever aspect of “The Rehearsal” grabs you first, it’s the inimitable, inexpressible whole that makes it essential viewing.
3. ‘Adolescence’
Stephen Graham, left, and Owen Cooper in “Adolescence.”
(Netflix)
It would be easy to be jaded about “Adolescence,” which seems likely to follow in the footsteps of “Baby Reindeer” and win just about every award it’s eligible for. (It’s already notched eight Emmys.) But from the moment I first laid eyes on its extraordinary one-shots, I was persuaded that the series’ technical wizardry was no gimmick. As written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham and directed by Philip Barantini, in style and substance “Adolescence” captures polite society’s hold on young men spiraling out of control — and invests its central figure, Owen Cooper’s 13-year-old Jamie, with both the childishness and the menace to match.
4. ‘Elsbeth’
Carrie Preston in “Elsbeth.”
(Michael Parmelee / CBS)
I was glad to hear that CBS plans to campaign “Elsbeth” as a comedy at the Emmys in 2026, in part because it may improve Carrie Preston’s chances at a nod for her turn as irrepressible investigator Elsbeth Tascioni, and in part because the designation highlights what has always shined most in the legal universe of Robert and Michelle King. Here, it’s broader and brighter than the acerbic satire of “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” and embedded in a “Columbo”-esque case-of-the-week structure, but the pair’s sense of humor — always keyed to punching up — continually works wonders, especially in a world where so much crime media is unrelentingly grim.
5. ‘The Pitt’
Noah Wyle in “The Pitt.”
(Warrick Page / HBO Max)
Given that “ER” was the first show my mom let me stay up late to watch, I wasn’t surprised to like “The Pitt.” But even with my high expectations, I was dazzled by the series’ ability to introduce such a wide array of characters in the pilot episode, and then to develop them all in a seemingly infinite variety of directions while solving one medical crisis after another. Indeed, forced by its “real-time” structure to keep the focus tight even as the stakes ratchet skyward, “The Pitt” registers as even richer, subtler and more relevant than its predecessor. May its heyday last just as long.
6. ‘Dying for Sex’
Jenny Slate, left, Sissy Spacek and Michelle Williams in “Dying for Sex.”
(Sarah Shatz / FX)
Since first seeing it in the spring, I haven’t been able to get out of my head the most hilarious moment in “Dying for Sex.” When Molly (Michelle Williams), early in a journey of sexual self-discovery prompted by a recurrence of cancer, falls victim to an online ransomware scam, she drops to the floor to escape the sight of her laptop camera — soon to be joined by her loyal but scattered bestie, Nikki (Jenny Slate), who is not much help but is great company. It had me doubled over with laughter, like so much of Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock’s adaptation of the real-life story. The miniseries never pulls a comic punch despite the heavy subject matter, and is peppered with idiosyncratic choices and memorable performances that make it sing. Special shout out to Rob Delaney for turning a total slob named Neighbor Guy into one of the romantic heroes of the year.
7. ‘Forever’
Michael Cooper Jr. and Lovie Simone in “Forever.”
(Elizabeth Morris / Netflix)
The Emmy success of “The Studio” and the buzz around “I Love L.A.” may have somewhat overshadowed “Forever,” but they have given me consistent opportunities in 2025 to recommend my favorite L.A.-set show of the year. Mara Brock Akil’s warmhearted, meticulously wrought teen romance, channeling Judy Blume’s condescension-free interest in young people, paints a portrait of places in the city where those other series rarely go, and does so with uncommon sensitivity. I could watch “Forever,” well, forever. Plus, it features one of the year’s finest dramatic performances: Like the series as a whole, Karen Pittman’s protective mother transforms an archetype that could easily ring with cliches into a lived-in, multilayered portrait. Give me more, Netflix!
8. ‘The Gilded Age’
Audra McDonald, left, and Denée Benton in “The Gilded Age.”
(Karolina Wojtasik / HBO)
After two enjoyably low-stakes seasons, HBO’s New York-set spin on the upstairs/downstairs drama, created by “Downton Abbey’s” Julian Fellowes, breaks out of the (opera) box in Season 3. With ruined women, roguish men and more geegaws than you can shake a stick at — not to mention a character known to the internet as Clock Twink (Ben Ahlers) — the series remains a deliciously campy prime-time soap, but it now features moments of genuine romance, or regret, to accompany the social climbing. With Peggy (Denée Benton) finding love, Ada (Cynthia Nixon) finding fortune and conniver in chief Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) finding herself on the outs with her wealthy husband (Morgan Spector), “The Gilded Age” has reached glorious maturity by developing a subplot for just about every taste, even one as lofty as the Van Rhijns’.
9. ‘The Paper’
Domhnall Gleeson in “The Paper.”
(Aaron Epstein / Peacock)
Call me a homer if you like for putting a show about the survival of local newspapers on this list. And when it comes to the indignities of 21st century journalism, “The Office” spin-off, from Greg Daniels and Michael Koman, certainly passes my fact-check. But more importantly, and sustainably, Peacock’s mockumentary treats the Toledo Truth Teller as the setting for a rock-solid workplace comedy, replete with a winsome editor in chief (Domhnall Gleeson), an ace reporter (Chelsea Frei) and a perfect foil, in the form of managing editor/aspiring influencer Esmeralda Grand (Sabrina Impacciatore, in perhaps the year’s funniest performance). Sure, I’m liable to root for any film of TV show that qualifies as a “love letter” to my chosen profession, but you can’t fake credibility. “The Paper” has the goods.
10. ‘Pluribus’ and ‘Paradise’
Sterling K. Brown in “Paradise,” and Rhea Seehorn in “Pluribus.”
(Disney; Apple TV)
One is full of jaw-dropping plot twists, the other meditative, often silent. One imagines the end of the world as we know it in terms of natural disaster, the other in the form of an extraterrestrial’s utopia. What Dan Fogelman’s “Paradise” and Vince Gilligan’s “Pluribus” share, though, is far more important than what sets them apart: a commitment to postapocalyptic storytelling rooted in flawed, compelling characters, not the minutia of megavolcanoes and mRNA. Indeed, as “Paradise’s” hero, Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown), squares off against the power-mad Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) in an underground bunker, or “Pluribus’” Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) clashes with stubborn ally Manousos Oviedo (Carlos Manuel Vesga) on an Earth overtaken by happy lemmings, what becomes clear about both series — and I mean this as a high compliment — is how ordinary they are. If you want to know how you might handle doomsday, you could do worse than starting here.
Commentary: HBO released an explosive Border Patrol documentary. Why is its star angry?
You’re HBO, and your newest release is an explosive documentary about one of the most controversial sectors of the United States government: the Border Patrol. What do you do to get it as much attention as possible?
We’re seeing their strategy play out right now.
“Critical Incident: Death at the Border” recounts the death of Anastasio Hernández Rojas, a 42-year-old undocumented immigrant who died in 2010 days after immigration agents handcuffed, beat and Tasered him near the San Ysidro Port of Entry after trying to deport him to Mexico. Border Patrol at the time said they used force after Hernández Rojas, who had lived in this country since he was 15, resisted them.
The case drew international attention and Hernández Rojas’ family received a $1-million settlement from the federal government, which declined to file criminal charges against those involved in his death even though the San Diego County coroner’s office ruled it a homicide. Enter John Carlos Frey, a reporter who has pursued the story for nearly 15 years and who is one of the protagonists in “Critical Incident.”
He knocks on the doors of agents who were there when Hernández Rojas died, discovers footage that contradicts the Border Patrol’s official account and uncovers a secretive Border Patrol unit tasked with the “mitigation” of use-of-force incidents that was disbanded in 2022. The documentary includes an interview with a whistleblower who claimed bosses told him to doctor evidence to exculpate the agency in the death of Hernández Rojas. It also alleges the cover-up went all the way up to Customs and Border Protection commissioner Rodney Scott, who was Border Patrol deputy chief for the San Diego region when Hernández Rojas died.
Scott appears near the end of “Critical Incident” to dismiss those “allegations” and declines to comment about any culpability those involved may have had, citing ongoing litigation. “This case from over a decade ago was thoroughly investigated and resolved by the Department of Justice and local law enforcement,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Times in a statement when I asked for comment about the documentary’s findings. “Efforts to malign CBP and ICE officers as lawbreakers are slanderous, irresponsible, and only reveal the media’s eagerness to mislead the American people.”
“Critical Incident” is taut, disturbing, timely and a brisk hour and a half. It deserves as many viewers as possible and a publicity campaign as ubiquitous as what HBO is currently pushing for its hit hockey romance, “Heated Rivalry.”
Instead, the network released “Critical Incident” on Dec. 29, when most Americans were lost in a haze of Christmas leftovers, “Avengers: Endgame” reruns and college football bowl games. It’s not listed alongside other recently released documentaries on HBO’s website, and I wasn’t able to find it on the network’s streaming app’s “Just Added” tab.
Director Rick Rowley was diplomatic about his documentary’s “difficult” release date, saying he has “limited insight” into HBO’s decision. He’s nevertheless confident “this film is going to have a long life because these [Border Patrol] issues are only more pressing as the days pass.”
Frey wasn’t as polite: “If I was an executive and released it on that date, I would be fired.”
Rodney Scott, then-nominee for commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, arrives for a Senate confirmation hearing in April 2025.
(Stefani Reynolds / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
An HBO spokesperson pushed back on Frey’s criticism, stating, “The documentary was actually released during one of the highest usage times on the platform and we are proud to say the film is doing very well, even showing up in the top 10 rail.”
In development for four years, Frey said “Critical Incident” was supposed to air just before the 2024 election. He showed me a text message from a senior producer attesting to that. But HBO held on to it even as a Senate committee grilled Scott about Hernández Rojas’ death during his confirmation hearing last April, which isn’t included in the documentary. The documentary didn’t air even as the Border Patrol’s invasion of cities far from the U.S.-Mexico border throughout last year made the story “Critical Incident” told more relevant than ever.
HBO “buried it on purpose,” Frey, 56, told me over breakfast in Boyle Heights. He blames the current political environment — specifically, Netflix’s proposed $82.7-billion bid to acquire HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros., which federal regulators would have to approve. The last thing executives wants to do right now, Frey argued, is anger President Trump by promoting a documentary that attacks his deportation deluge.
“They buried it on the worst day of the year when no one is watching, and of course, they’re going to deny it,” Frey said.
“That is, of course, not true,” the HBO spokesperson said .
Covering la migra is personal for Frey, who grew up in Tijuana and Imperial Beach with views of the U.S.-Mexico border fence. When he was 12, a Border Patrol agent approached his mother — then a green card holder — while her son was playing outside.
“He wouldn’t believe anything she would say and wouldn’t let her go to our house to get her documents,” Frey said. He’s of average height, deep-voiced and barrel-chested and tends to respond to questions with questions. “Why would he? The agent deported her.”
As an adult, Frey began to cover the Border Patrol in a post-9/11 era. Much like today, it was rapidly expanding, and aggressive tactics like breaking car windows when the occupants weren’t resisting and agent-involved shootings were endemic. The Hernández Rojas case entered his scope after someone reached out claiming they had footage of his death.
“The original narrative was Anastasio became belligerent, they subdued him and he died,” Frey said. “The case was closed, the Border Patrol had written it off.”
The source was initially too scared to share their recording, but Frey eventually convinced them after forwarding his stories about repeated Border Patrol abuses of power. What he saw — about a dozen Border Patrol agents circling a prone, moaning Hernández Rojas, Tasering and punching him while onlookers scream at them to stop — left the reporter “disgusted.”
The footage eventually aired on a 2012 PBS program, which made the story go national. Frey’s continued work on the case eventually caught the attention of Rowley, whose documentaries on neo-Nazi groups, the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the War on Terror have earned him Emmy wins and an Oscar nomination.
The documentarian wanted to examine the Border Patrol’s impunity, and, he said, “Anastasio’s story is one of the only stories that takes you all the way to the top. And you have to work with John if you’re going to do the Anastasio case. He’s fearless.”
Rowley is proud of his final product but admitted that he’s “used to having more press around a film release, especially about a film about … the most important domestic issue in the country, especially in the last year.”
That’s what angers Frey the most about the release of “Critical Incident.”
“The stories I used to hear — ‘Border Patrol broke my windows, left me bloodied, grabbed me without asking any questions’ — it’s now in neighborhoods,” he said. He twisted a napkin, tossed it into the pile of twisted napkins next to his coffee cup.
“It’s a deliberate choice when you’re going to release a documentary and how. If I were HBO and I had evidence of a murder by the feds, I would’ve led with that inmy promotion. I would think that’s a selling point, especially with the [immigration] raids. Instead, they have me hugging someone in the trailer.”
Frey shook his head. “We made a good film, but half the battle is getting people to see it.”
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‘Out of the Ashes’ VR documentary chronicles the toll of the L.A. fires
A snapshot of fire-ravaged Altadena is laid out before me, hovering like a diorama. My eyes zero in on a red door, its frame one of the few surviving remnants of a home. I pull it closer to me, and in moments I see a fraction of the house as it once was — now I’m in a cozy kitchen with blurred but welcoming pictures in the background and a grandfather celebrating a birthday. A voice-over tells me that it was Alexander, a grandfather, who painted the door red.
It’s as if a memory has sprung to life and exists solely in the ether in front of me. But in seconds it’s gone, and I see only rubble — scattered bricks and tiles, tree branches and wooden boards.
I shed a tear, but it’s obscured by the virtual reality headset I’m wearing. I am experiencing a work-in-progress segment of the multimedia documentary “Out of the Ashes,” which will be previewed Friday evening at a Music Center event demonstrating how emerging technologies can help people process collective experiences such as the L.A. fires.
Musician David Low and his family in virtual reality film “Out of the Ashes,” which shows the destruction — and reconstruction — of the Palisades and Eaton fires.
(The Mercantile Agency)
Filming is continuing on the project, which began just days after the flames ignited. Filmmaker, academic and virtual reality pioneer Nonny de la Peña secured media access to the burn zones for her and a small team via her role as the program director of narrative and emerging media at Arizona State University, which she operates out of offices in downtown Los Angeles. “I knew that this was going to be transitory type of situation, that it was going to change quickly,” says De la Peña, co-director on the film with Rory Mitchell. “I’ve covered enough disaster stories to know how huge this was.”
De la Peña has long been at the forefront of merging immersive technologies and journalism. Her 2012 project “Hunger in Los Angeles,” for instance, was the first VR documentary to screen at Sundance. “I think this technology is unique,” De la Peña says. “I’ve seen a lot of helicopter footage, but when you’re right there in it, it’s a different perspective as to what happened.” For this documentary, she partnered with Mitchell, an independent filmmaker, whose augmented-reality tabletop experience “The Tent” premiered at SXSW last year.
In my preview of “Out of the Ashes,” one segment whisks me to the coastline. If I angle my head down, I see the glistening lights of the Santa Monica Pier. Look up ever so slightly, however, and the sky is charred red and black. I hear a cello, and soon musician David Low stands before me, recounting the day the flames began and the rush to remove his young son from school to help rescue a smattering of heirlooms.
The family saved a few plushies and a couple prized musical instruments, but in the urgency to leave, not much else. He sits at a kitchen table, reconstructed in VR from family photos, but the rest of the home has vanished. As I see glimpses of Low’s home before and after the fires, I again feel as if I’m standing in a liminal space, a remembrance but also a reminder. Low exists only as a 3D figure before me, but I wish I could reach out my hand.
The instinct to extend a hand feels natural in virtual reality, as it’s visceral and creates a sense of presence. And it also seems a part of the mission for “Out of the Ashes,” a work as much about the effects of the fires as it is a vessel for collective grief and empathy. “Sometimes, you just need someone to say, ‘Hey, I’m sorry that happened to you.’ Sometimes you just need someone to hug you,” says De la Peña. “When you lose that much, it’s sometimes hard to fathom.”
Landscape architect Esther Margulies discusses which trees did and didn’t burn in the Palisades and Eaton fires in the virtual reality film “Out of the Ashes.”
(The Mercantile Agency)
Adds Mitchell, “We understand the numbers and acreage,” he says before rattling off a host of fire statistics. “But it’s only through story that we can begin to wrap our hearts and brains the scale of the emotional devastation, and the psychic pain that the city has gone through. Maybe this can provide a way into this collective pain and a way to talk about it.”
Another aspect of “Out of the Ashes” is augmented reality, which will also be shown at the Music Center event. The tech is used to capture short snapshots of scenes from Altadena and the Palisades.
Retired professor Ted Porter, for instance, recalls buying a loaf of his late wife’s favorite bread when the winds first started, thinking he may need something to nibble on if the power went out. Melissa Rivers talks of grabbing photos of her late father, and running for her mother’s Emmy, recalling how meaningful the award was to Joan. “I don’t know why I grabbed what I grabbed,” Rivers says. “It’s just what I did.” They’re short scenes in which a small item floats before us, and they’re reflective of life’s unpredictability, but also how, in times of stress, our minds race to the symbols that truly matter to us.
“Part of what this process is, is trying to provide a space for the folks directly affected by it, who are trying to rebuild their lives and explain to their children what happened,” Mitchell says. “Everyone is going to process at difference speeds and in different ways, but to do that collectively and communally is the hope with this.”
The Friday event, officially dubbed the Music Center’s Innovation Social: Reflections on Loss, Hope and Renewal, will also include a live musical performance by survivors of the Eaton fire. Guests will additionally have the ability to learn how to use 3D scanning tools via their smartphones to begin to create their own short, memory-filled clips. Acorns will also be given away as representations of resilience, and audio interviews of those who experienced the fires will be collected into a sound collage.
The Music Center’s Innovation Social: Reflections on Loss, Hope and Renewal
De la Peña and Mitchell say they have more work to do on the film, which, when completed, can be brought to festivals or become its own touring exhibition. “We want people to know what we’ve gone through,” Mitchell says.
And what we continue to experience. One virtual reality segment centers on landscape architect Esther Margulies discussing the effects of climate change and the importance of planting California live oaks — “ember catchers,” says Mitchell — rather than palm trees. In the headset, we see Mitchell standing amid fire-burned trees, a stark, dreadful landscape. This contrasts soon, however, with the surviving oaks, shown standing grandly among empty, otherwise deserted streets. Amid much despair, they’re framed as one small symbol of hope.
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The Envelope picks the best movies, TV shows of 2025
As an editor, the lion’s share of my job is about identifying the awards season’s most compelling stories and conveying them to our readers. But I do reserve a small sliver of time for the joys of advocacy, championing work that I love and hoping that converts readers into viewers, and perhaps even voters.
So, with no new issue this week, my New Year’s Eve newsletter felt like the perfect time to reflect on the movies and TV shows that moved me in 2025. And if you give them another look before you cast your awards ballots, all the better.
MOVIES
1. ‘A Little Prayer’ and ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’
David Strathairn and Jane Levy in “A Little Prayer.”
(Music Box Films)
I am not terribly spiritual myself, but I encountered transcendence twice at the movies this year. As quiet and beseeching as its title, Angus MacLachlan’s chamber drama “A Little Prayer,” about a family man (David Strathairn) navigating marital trouble between his son (Will Pullen) and his daughter-in-law (Jane Levy), uncovers varieties of religious experience in 19th century landscape painting and small, memorable kindnesses. As sweeping as the extraordinary life it depicts, Mona Fastvold’s biographical portrait “The Testament of Ann Lee,” which follows the Shaker leader (Amanda Seyfried) and her devotees from the textile mills of Manchester to the wilderness of colonial New York, carves sensuous art from the exalted song and dance of evangelical faith. But whether the scale is intimate or epic, both capture, to quote “A Little Prayer,” that rare thing: “a powerful sense of the sublime.”
2. ‘Sinners’
Michael B. Jordan in “Sinners.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
“Sinners” has rightly been praised for its novel twist on the vampire genre, its deep investment in African and African American music, its blockbuster box office in an era largely dominated by franchise IP. But perhaps the highest compliment I can give director Ryan Coogler may be that the Jim Crow Mississippi he conjures is so richly textured, so allergic to cant or cliche, that I’d have been just as riveted if the bloodsuckers had never shown up. That’s what it’s like to be in the hands of a master.
3. ‘Sorry, Baby’
Eva Victor in “Sorry, Baby.”
(Philip Keith / A24)
Eva Victor is not the first filmmaker to face trauma with a sense of humor, but few have done it with such a gentle, humane touch. As Victor’s Agnes moves through life in the aftermath of a sexual assault on her college campus, the writer-director-star focuses squarely on the slow, ungainly, ultimately profound work of healing — and includes some of the best gags about academia this reformed graduate student has ever seen. No apology needed: “Sorry, Baby” marks the arrival of a major talent.
4. ‘One Battle After Another’
Leonardo DiCaprio in “One Battle After Another.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
With elements of action, satire, political thriller and family melodrama, Paul Thomas Anderson’s wild yarn about the members of a revolutionary group — and the fallout that comes when the past catches up with them — is well-nigh indescribable. But it’s also unforgettable. Combining high-wire filmmaking with electric performances, it never relinquishes its grip on the viewer and invites multiple viewings. Which is just as well, considering that this one is going to be on the tip of our tongues all the way through the Oscars.
5. ‘Nouvelle Vague’
Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg and Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard in “Nouvelle Vague.”
(Jean-Louis Fernandez)
The purest delight of the season is Richard Linklater’s mash note for the French New Wave, a zippy comedy of errors about the making of one of the most influential films of all time. As Jean-Luc Godard (the rakishly charming Guillaume Marbeck) tries to put “Breathless” together with spit, glue and attitude on the streets of Paris, “Nouvelle Vague” becomes as confident a caper as the original, with Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) and Jean Seberg (a beguiling Zoey Deutch) as the French director’s oft-befuddled collaborators — and sometimes foils. To overlook a film with this much cinematic joie de vivre would be a crime.
6. ‘Sirât’
The rave sequence that opens “Sirât.”
(Neon)
The less said the better about Spain’s acclaimed Oscar submission, which takes such twists and turns as it wends its way through the Moroccan desert that it left me frozen, after my first screening, in a sort of defensive crouch. I simply suggest that you go on the journey with filmmaker Oliver Laxe as he follows a father (Sergi López) and son (Bruno Núñez Arjona) on their search for a missing loved one, beginning with a rave so lifelike it almost had me dancing in the aisles.
7. ‘Hedda’
Tessa Thompson, center, in “Hedda.”
(Matt Towers / Prime Video)
I must admit I went warily into “Hedda.” An awards-season Ibsen adaptation had, I feared, all the makings of a fusty, dour costume drama. Mea culpa, Nia DaCosta. Mea culpa. The filmmaker’s sharp, fresh take on “Hedda Gabler,” featuring mesmerizing performances from Tessa Thompson as the devious title character and Nina Hoss as her (gender-swapped) former lover, renders the play as provocatively, and vividly, for today’s viewer as it must have been for attendees at the Munich premiere in 1891 — and in the process reminds us why the original is an enduring classic.
8. ‘Sentimental Value’
Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning in “Sentimental Value.”
(Kasper Tuxen)
No film this year has left me more eager for a rewatch than Joachim Trier’s delicate family drama, and I was rewarded with the sense that “Sentimental Value” is really two films, woven together so deftly that they can’t quite be unraveled. One is the story of two sisters (Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) bonded by generational trauma. The other is about a filmmaker, their father (Stellan Skarsgård), recruiting a sympathetic outsider (Elle Fanning) to tell the story of his own. By the time these strands reach their conclusion, on a soundstage built to resemble the family manse, Trier’s thoughtful architecture pays off in the understanding that you really can go home again, because home is a state of mind.
9. ‘The Alabama Solution’
A still from “The Alabama Solution.”
(HBO Documentary Films)
In an especially strong year for documentaries, particularly those that appreciate, emulate or chronicle the work of investigative journalism, it seems a shame to single out just one. But from the moment of its Sundance Film Festival premiere, the movie by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman registered as a prime example of nonfiction storytelling’s unmatched ability to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” starting with its unflinching use of Alabama state prison inmates’ contraband cellphone footage of the shocking conditions they’re forced to endure. As advocacy, as exposé, as portrait of the fight for justice, no documentary has stuck with me this year quite like “The Alabama Solution.”
10. ‘All That’s Left of You’ and ‘The Voice of Hind Rajab’
Scenes from “All That’s Left of You,” left, and “The Voice of Hind Rajab.”
(Watermelon Pictures; Venice Film Festival)
One expands its tale of the Palestinian experience across continents and decades, the other condenses its saga to just 90 minutes, balanced on a knife’s edge between documentary and drama. But for all their stark stylistic differences, both “All That’s Left of You” and “The Voice of Hind Rajab” — along with films such as “Palestine 36” and “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” — urgently communicate, in specific human terms, the life-and-death consequences of a struggle for self-determination too often abstracted in the West to its “complicated” or “thorny” geopolitics. Whether the setting is Jaffa or Gaza, the subject a multigenerational family pushed to its breaking point or the fate of a single little girl, both will leave you shaken. As they should.
TV SHOWS
1. ‘Andor’
Diego Luna and Genevieve O’Reilly in “Andor.”
(Lucasfilm Ltd. / Disney)
Turning its portrait of reluctant rebel Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) into a kaleidoscopic thriller about a simmering revolution reaching the boil — and the authoritarian forces set on stopping them — “Andor’s” second season emerged, by degrees, as the year’s most astounding political allegory — on any size of screen. Aided by an ingenious structure, which divided its four-year arc into four, three-episode miniseries, it ensnared even avowed “Star Wars” skeptics, and featured both the best action set piece and the best monologue of the year.
2. ‘The Rehearsal’
Nathan Fielder in “The Rehearsal.”
(John P. Johnson / HBO)
Another sophomore step up, this iteration of “The Rehearsal” — which bordered on cavalier about its civilian subjects in Season 1 — finds impresario Nathan Fielder with more skin in the game, and so becomes a revelatory meta-comedy that lives up to its immense ambition. Come for the elaborate re-creation of American airports, stay for a surprisingly vulnerable Fielder investigating the possibility that he’s on the autism spectrum, and be wowed by the series’ real-world implications for pilot communication. Whatever aspect of “The Rehearsal” grabs you first, it’s the inimitable, inexpressible whole that makes it essential viewing.
3. ‘Adolescence’
Stephen Graham, left, and Owen Cooper in “Adolescence.”
(Netflix)
It would be easy to be jaded about “Adolescence,” which seems likely to follow in the footsteps of “Baby Reindeer” and win just about every award it’s eligible for. (It’s already notched eight Emmys.) But from the moment I first laid eyes on its extraordinary one-shots, I was persuaded that the series’ technical wizardry was no gimmick. As written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham and directed by Philip Barantini, in style and substance “Adolescence” captures polite society’s hold on young men spiraling out of control — and invests its central figure, Owen Cooper’s 13-year-old Jamie, with both the childishness and the menace to match.
4. ‘Elsbeth’
Carrie Preston in “Elsbeth.”
(Michael Parmelee / CBS)
I was glad to hear that CBS plans to campaign “Elsbeth” as a comedy at the Emmys in 2026, in part because it may improve Carrie Preston’s chances at a nod for her turn as irrepressible investigator Elsbeth Tascioni, and in part because the designation highlights what has always shined most in the legal universe of Robert and Michelle King. Here, it’s broader and brighter than the acerbic satire of “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” and embedded in a “Columbo”-esque case-of-the-week structure, but the pair’s sense of humor — always keyed to punching up — continually works wonders, especially in a world where so much crime media is unrelentingly grim.
5. ‘The Pitt’
Noah Wyle in “The Pitt.”
(Warrick Page / HBO Max)
Given that “ER” was the first show my mom let me stay up late to watch, I wasn’t surprised to like “The Pitt.” But even with my high expectations, I was dazzled by the series’ ability to introduce such a wide array of characters in the pilot episode, and then to develop them all in a seemingly infinite variety of directions while solving one medical crisis after another. Indeed, forced by its “real-time” structure to keep the focus tight even as the stakes ratchet skyward, “The Pitt” registers as even richer, subtler and more relevant than its predecessor. May its heyday last just as long.
6. ‘Dying for Sex’
Jenny Slate, left, Sissy Spacek and Michelle Williams in “Dying for Sex.”
(Sarah Shatz / FX)
Since first seeing it in the spring, I haven’t been able to get out of my head the most hilarious moment in “Dying for Sex.” When Molly (Michelle Williams), early in a journey of sexual self-discovery prompted by a recurrence of cancer, falls victim to an online ransomware scam, she drops to the floor to escape the sight of her laptop camera — soon to be joined by her loyal but scattered bestie, Nikki (Jenny Slate), who is not much help but is great company. It had me doubled over with laughter, like so much of Liz Meriwether and Kim Rosenstock’s adaptation of the real-life story. The miniseries never pulls a comic punch despite the heavy subject matter, and is peppered with idiosyncratic choices and memorable performances that make it sing. Special shout out to Rob Delaney for turning a total slob named Neighbor Guy into one of the romantic heroes of the year.
7. ‘Forever’
Michael Cooper Jr. and Lovie Simone in “Forever.”
(Elizabeth Morris / Netflix)
The Emmy success of “The Studio” and the buzz around “I Love L.A.” may have somewhat overshadowed “Forever,” but they have given me consistent opportunities in 2025 to recommend my favorite L.A.-set show of the year. Mara Brock Akil’s warmhearted, meticulously wrought teen romance, channeling Judy Blume’s condescension-free interest in young people, paints a portrait of places in the city where those other series rarely go, and does so with uncommon sensitivity. I could watch “Forever,” well, forever. Plus, it features one of the year’s finest dramatic performances: Like the series as a whole, Karen Pittman’s protective mother transforms an archetype that could easily ring with cliches into a lived-in, multilayered portrait. Give me more, Netflix!
8. ‘The Gilded Age’
Audra McDonald, left, and Denée Benton in “The Gilded Age.”
(Karolina Wojtasik / HBO)
After two enjoyably low-stakes seasons, HBO’s New York-set spin on the upstairs/downstairs drama, created by “Downton Abbey’s” Julian Fellowes, breaks out of the (opera) box in Season 3. With ruined women, roguish men and more geegaws than you can shake a stick at — not to mention a character known to the internet as Clock Twink (Ben Ahlers) — the series remains a deliciously campy prime-time soap, but it now features moments of genuine romance, or regret, to accompany the social climbing. With Peggy (Denée Benton) finding love, Ada (Cynthia Nixon) finding fortune and conniver in chief Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon) finding herself on the outs with her wealthy husband (Morgan Spector), “The Gilded Age” has reached glorious maturity by developing a subplot for just about every taste, even one as lofty as the Van Rhijns’.
9. ‘The Paper’
Domhnall Gleeson in “The Paper.”
(Aaron Epstein / Peacock)
Call me a homer if you like for putting a show about the survival of local newspapers on this list. And when it comes to the indignities of 21st century journalism, “The Office” spin-off, from Greg Daniels and Michael Koman, certainly passes my fact-check. But more importantly, and sustainably, Peacock’s mockumentary treats the Toledo Truth Teller as the setting for a rock-solid workplace comedy, replete with a winsome editor in chief (Domhnall Gleeson), an ace reporter (Chelsea Frei) and a perfect foil, in the form of managing editor/aspiring influencer Esmeralda Grand (Sabrina Impacciatore, in perhaps the year’s funniest performance). Sure, I’m liable to root for any film of TV show that qualifies as a “love letter” to my chosen profession, but you can’t fake credibility. “The Paper” has the goods.
10. ‘Pluribus’ and ‘Paradise’
Sterling K. Brown in “Paradise,” and Rhea Seehorn in “Pluribus.”
(Disney; Apple TV)
One is full of jaw-dropping plot twists, the other meditative, often silent. One imagines the end of the world as we know it in terms of natural disaster, the other in the form of an extraterrestrial’s utopia. What Dan Fogelman’s “Paradise” and Vince Gilligan’s “Pluribus” share, though, is far more important than what sets them apart: a commitment to postapocalyptic storytelling rooted in flawed, compelling characters, not the minutia of megavolcanoes and mRNA. Indeed, as “Paradise’s” hero, Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown), squares off against the power-mad Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) in an underground bunker, or “Pluribus’” Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn) clashes with stubborn ally Manousos Oviedo (Carlos Manuel Vesga) on an Earth overtaken by happy lemmings, what becomes clear about both series — and I mean this as a high compliment — is how ordinary they are. If you want to know how you might handle doomsday, you could do worse than starting here.
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