3 days ago
How to Decide What to Watch
This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
It's become an adage of the modern age to say that the more streaming options there are, the harder it is to decide what to watch. Our critic David Sims has a solution: 'As a way to avoid decision paralysis, I always have at least one movie-viewing project going, a way to check boxes and spur myself toward new things to explore—be it running through an influential director's filmography, checking out the cinema of a particular country or era, or going one by one through a long-running series,' he wrote recently.
In today's newsletter, spend time with our critics' suggestions for how to organize your movie-watching, find what's right for your mood, and expand your mind.
On Movies
Your Summer Project: Watching These Movies
By David Sims
Twelve franchises, genres, and filmographies to dig into
Read the article.
The Blockbuster That Captured a Growing American Rift
By Tyler Austin Harper
The novel that inspired the film Jaws was decidedly populist. The movie took a different turn.
Read the article.
Six Binge-Worthy Movie Series
By Stephanie Bai
Spend some time with a good movie—or two, or three.
Still Curious?
Five movies that changed viewers' minds: Our writers and editors on the films that shifted how they see the world
25 feel-good films you'll want to watch again—and again: In 2020, our critic offered suggestions to soothe the anxious mind.
Other Diversions
What's brilliant about the new Superman movie
Why can't Americans sleep?
'I fought plastic. Plastic won.'
P.S.
I asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. 'I find air travel deeply vexing and stressful, but I have never lost my sense of awe about flying, and the beauty of our planet,' Elizabeth Miller, 60, from Cabin John, Maryland, writes. 'I took this photo with my iPhone while flying in a commercial airliner over the Caribbean in January.'
