Early in our second-most read article of the year, “Four Friends, Two Marriages, One Affair — and a Shelf of Books Dissecting It,†author Chris Heath describes the story as being one of “turmoil, epiphany, evolution, damage, hope, betrayal, rancor, joy.†That’s also a decent characterization of the year that was, which in our corner of the New York universe included more bad boys being exposed, Megalopolis fever, the unsettling encroachment of AI, and the invigorating ubiquity of Brat (the album) and brat (the ethos).
Those immense cultural mood swings are represented in our 20 most-read stories of the year, a list that’s based on the total minutes our visitors spent engaging with those posts. It’s a top 20 that may well change after the seismic simultaneous release of Babyferatunknown in theaters on Christmas Day, but it’s the one we have for the moment, and we’re very proud of it.
(If you want to make enjoying the stories even easier, we recommend trying out the all-new New York app. Never get logged out again!)
Movies
Actor Adam Pearson has his biggest role to date in a dark comedy inspired by his upbeat personality. Read the story.
A sketch about Beavis and Butt-Head made the SNL star break after years of resistance. She’s “still trying to figure out what exactly happened.†Read the story.
Paul and Prue are legends, sure, but their tastes have gotten a bit stodgy. Read the story.
Profile
Charli XCX owned the summer with an album that is also a vibe. Should she be sweating the fall? Read the story.
Art
16. Watch the Throne
Kehinde Wiley built an empire out of painting young Black men into art history. Can it survive accusations of sexual assault? Read the story.
Awards Season
The Poor Things star’s second Oscar was the most unexpected development on a night that mostly went chalk. Read the story.
Movies
There is nothing in Francis Ford Coppola’s perhaps-final testament that feels like something out of a “normal†movie. Read the story.
Reality TV
How Andy Cohen survived the ‘Reality Reckoning’ (at least for now). Read the story.
Movies
Without him, every song in Moana 2 is as flimsy and disposable as the last. Read the story.
profile
11. Therapy Daddy
Phil Stutz has made a career in Hollywood doing what most psychologists advise against: telling his patients exactly what to do. Read the story.
What if Rudolf Höss isn’t vomiting out of remorse? What if it’s his own irrelevance dawning on him instead? Read the story.
TV
It’s time for Survivor’s stalwart host to hang up his buff for good. Read the story.
Celebrity
A timeline of the Marchioness of Cholmondeley’s media coverage shows reports of an alleged affair with Prince William have quietly disappeared. Read the story.
Netflix’s latest Lindsay Lohan vehicle is cluttered with right-wing dog whistles and ChatGPT-like dialogue. Read the story.
Quinn Shephard on the beauty and grief of adapting the Hulu series with the book’s late author, Rebecca Godfrey. Read the story.
Extremely Online
“I don’t know how else you can put sprinkles on shit, but we were trying to be the sprinkles on shit.†Read the story.
Celebrity
The rap mogul shook off decades of rumored bad behavior with wholesome PR revamps. Read the story.
Celebrity
For years, John Nelson anonymously posted blind items on the blog Crazy Days and Nights. Then his identity was revealed. Read the story.
A tale of literature and treachery. Read the story.
Two players were fired for sexual misconduct. Why were they allowed back in the orchestra? Read the story.