Cannonball with Wesley Morris

Over 20,000 Restaurants in New York City. Only One List 28.05.2026 53min

A list, according to The Times’s co-chief restaurant critic Ligaya Mishan, can be a way “to make sense of chaos” and to also “destabilize the current order.” Her list of “the 100 Best Restaurants in New York City in 2026” takes that spirit to heart. A taco truck in Queens (Birria-Landia) serving $5 consommé sits alongside a Caribbean fine dining spot in Manhattan (Kabawa) with a $145 tasting menu. Ligaya makes a compelling argument that imaginative, ambitious, delicious food can be found at every price point and in every corner of this city. On today’s episode, Wesley talks with Ligaya about how she put together such an expansive and inclusive list. They dig into a few of her greatest meals, wrestle with some readers' discomfort with having casual spots ranked next to fine dining restaurants and, most of all, celebrate the culinary wonder that is New York City.

Is 'Colbert' the Wrong Late Show to Cancel? 21.05.2026 55min

The “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” ends this week. When CBS announced the show’s cancellation last summer, the network said in a statement that it was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” There’s still some debate around what happened and why, but for Wesley Morris, the demise of the long-running franchise brought up feelings about another late-night show: “Saturday Night Live.” Maybe, after 51 years, “S.N.L.” should end too. So Wesley invited Jason Zinoman, a Times critic at large, to discuss “S.N.L.” and the beleaguered state of late-night television. What is worth saving?

The Devil Wears Prada, Workers Get Nada 14.05.2026 13min

Wesley Morris liked “The Devil Wears Prada 2” more than he thought he would. He didn’t need this sequel, but it captures the spirit of the original well enough. Miranda and Andy, played by Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, are the same. Miranda still queen and Andy still a grunt. But this time around Andy is a grunt with a staff and a little bit power. She moved on up! This got Wesley to thinking: What happened to the stories about working class people? Ones about folk with basic, common man smarts being just as good (if not better) than elites at the top? Blue collar workers and the middle class used to dominate the screen. Now their bosses are taking center stage. And so, Wesley looks back on how one onscreen trend led to the other.

In Defense of the NYT's 'Greatest Songwriters' List 07.05.2026 1h 1min

The public outrage was inevitable. The New York Times Magazine published a list of the 30 greatest living American songwriters. Two hundred and fifty music insiders submitted ballots. Six Times music critics and writers sorted through it all to get to 30. For Wesley Morris, it was both daunting and thrilling. Luminaries like Bonnie Raitt, George Clinton, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Mariah Carey submitted ballots. How to honor those submissions while narrowing down and exercising a critic’s judgment? Nearly 6,000 comments later, one thing is clear: Everybody’s a critic. Many are asking the nagging question, “How can you leave out so-and-so?!” Our critics included! So, Wesley invites a few of the project’s participants, Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, the hosts of “Popcast,” and Sasha Weiss, a deputy editor of The Times Magazine, to rehash it all out.

‘Michael’ Is Pure Propaganda 30.04.2026 47min

“Michael,” the new Michael Jackson biopic, knows what it’s doing. That’s clear from the opening shot: high-water pants and white socks pushed down to a pair of black penny loafers. It’s appealing to a very specific version of our memories of Michael Jackson. The version some of us prefer to hold onto. But in doing so, it avoids the truth. Our qualms with the King of Pop? Forget about that. Be horrified by Joe Jackson’s abusive parenting. Where’s Janet Jackson and Diana Ross? Nevermind them. Look, it’s Bubbles the chimp! The child molestation allegations? Eh, let’s just play another No. 1 hit instead! Besides, moviegoers are not complaining. “Michael” crushed box office records. With the best opening weekend for a biopic ever, it’s a hit. None of this comes as a shock to Wesley Morris, but he’s left with some complicated feelings. His pal, the film curator Eric Hynes, shares these feelings, too. Together, they review the movie and wrestle with the Michael Jackson biopic that could have been.

Does 'The Drama' Know Zendaya Is Black? 23.04.2026 41min

Wesley loves Zendaya. The actress caught his eye as the charming but drug addled Rue in HBO’s “Euphoria.” But he thinks Hollywood hasn’t cast her in roles worthy of her considerable gifts. So when Zendaya showed up in the movie “The Drama” as a young Black woman with a secret from her past that threatens to derail her engagement to Robert Pattinson’s character, Wesley was cautiously optimistic. Here were two of Hollywood’s finest in a complex, high stakes, love affair — one made even more interesting by its interracial realities. But the movie inexplicably dodges the question of race. So Wesley invites Gina Cherelus, who covers dating and culture at The New York Times, to help him unpack "The Drama" — what it knows, and doesn’t, about what it’s up to.

‘Popcast’: Jack Harlow Talks Race and Ego 16.04.2026 1h 12min

“Cannonball” is on its last week of spring break, so we’re sharing an episode of “Popcast” that features Jack Harlow discussing his pivot to R&B. In a viral clip from this episode, Harlow, a white musician, says, “I got Blacker.” Wesley was struck by Harlow's honesty and the questions raised by the full conversation.

‘Modern Love’: Zendaya and Robert Pattinson on Marriage and Secrets 09.04.2026 33min

While the “Cannonball” team is on a short break, Wesley is recommending some notable conversations he’s listened to lately from other New York Times shows. This week, it’s an episode of “Modern Love,” featuring host Anna Martin talking with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. They dig into the complicated relationship at the core of their new film, “The Drama,” and consider how much they actually want to know about their real-life romantic partners.

Harry Styles Is the Sound of Spring 02.04.2026 8min

Every spring, Wesley Morris finds himself searching for music that captures the light and breezy feeling that comes with the end of winter. This year, there’s an obvious soundtrack to the season: Harry Styles’s new album, “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally.” “These songs are like 12 beautiful little flowers,” Wesley says. “They’re not supposed to last forever. They’re just supposed to last for the season. And six weeks, that is a perfect amount of time for these songs to just blossom in your ears.”

'Love Story' Is Actually a Horror Story 26.03.2026 35min

The latest from the Ryan Murphy television fun house is an unquestionable hit. It’s also a ’90s nostalgia bomb. People are trying to eat, shop and dress like John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. They’re obsessed. But with what, exactly? Because at first, “Love Story” has all the hallmarks of a ’90s sitcom — a young working woman in the city, enjoying her freedom till a meet-cute with the one. Only in Murphy’s version, that’s the moment this turns into another one of his American Horror stories.

What the Oscars Got Right 17.03.2026 37min

Wesley Morris is an unabashed believer in the Oscars. That they genuinely matter. Every year, he has to re-convince his friend, Sasha Weiss, the culture editor for The New York Times Magazine. This year, of course, there’s the “One Battle After Another” versus “Sinners” of it all. And there’s a lot there. But also, what happened to “Marty Supreme” and poor Timothée Chalamet? And is it possible that “KPop Demon Hunters” took home Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song and still, somehow … got robbed?

The Complicated Oscars Night Feelings Over ‘One Battle After Another’ 12.03.2026 43min

This is one of those “who knows what’s going to happen” years at the Oscars. And maybe the biggest question of the night is which movie will dominate: “Sinners,” with its record 16 nominations, or “One Battle After Another,” which is right behind with 13. One is a vampire movie set in the Jim Crow South, featuring not one but two Michael B. Jordans. The other imagines a leftist revolutionary outfit led by Black women — Teyana Taylor! — facing off against a racist, sexist, authoritarian government. No matter what, we’re talking about a pretty exciting night — including for many Black people. But you know how it is with race and the Oscars. It is never that simple. Because there are some people who are not rooting for Paul Thomas Anderson’s version of Black feminist-driven revolution. And a lot of those people are Black feminists themselves. Including Wesley’s dear friend, the scholar Daphne A. Brooks. After leaving the theater, she sent him a text calling it “a Black feminist 911 emergency.” So before the biggest awards of the industry are handed out, Wesley invites Daphne on the show to ask her, “What’s the 911 situation here?”

Tyra Banks Is (Kinda) Sorry 05.03.2026 40min

Back in 2003, a new reality TV show hosted and co-created by Tyra Banks convinced an entire generation that they too might have what it takes to become America’s next top model. Now, a new Netflix docu-series wants us to know just how badly the contestants were treated — by the show and sometimes by Banks herself. To Wesley’s surprise, Tyra Banks agreed to be interviewed for the series, “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,” and to revisit some of the show’s most cringe and painful moments. Was it a genuine attempt at accountability? And are we satisfied by what we're hearing? Wesley invites Michaela angela Davis, a writer, editor and stylist, to talk about it.

Don't Make a Saint Out of Toni Morrison 26.02.2026 55min

Seven years after Toni Morrison’s death, we’re experiencing what the critic Parul Sehgal describes as a “wave of Morrisonia.” Eleven of her novels are being reissued by her publisher. There’s a new book of criticism about her novels. You can feel the effort to shore up her legacy. It’s an understandable impulse. This is the woman who wrote “Beloved,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that, as Parul writes, “invented a language for unassimilable pain, for the horrors of the Middle Passage, of bondage and its systematized torture and sexual brutality.” The book can feel like a kind of miracle. And Morrison, therefore, like a kind of saint. But sanctification — both Parul and Wesley fear — has its own risks. It puts Morrison up in the sky, where we can’t quite reach her. Too far away to touch. So in this episode of Cannonball, that’s what Parul, Wesley and their editor, Sasha Weiss, set out to do. Touch Morrison’s work — as she wanted us to.

There’s Nothing Sexy About ‘Wuthering Heights’ 19.02.2026 43min

Valentine’s Day weekend is over, and we’re left with a new film adaptation of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.” Audiences are hot, bothered and swooning. Can you blame them? The trailer had promised — and the film delivers — a stunning Margot Robbie, a seductive Jacob Elordi and a lot of sticky substances (like, a lot.) Wesley Morris knows sex and shock to be the director Emerald Fennell’s specialty, and this flick is no different. But where’s the actual substance? To confront his suspicion head on, Wesley takes a movie buddy, the culture editor Sasha Weiss, to see the film that’s got everybody and their lovers in knots.

Bad Bunny and the Art of Protest 12.02.2026 37min

“We’re living in protest-y times! Where are all the protest songs?” That was a question that Wesley Morris was asking in the time leading up to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show. He thinks the scarcity of direct protest art in this moment contributed to the intense speculation and anticipation about what Bad Bunny would do on that stage. Would it be a protest? And if so, what kind of protest? Well, now the show’s over. So what did it turn out to be? To discuss, Wesley Morris sits back down with his friend Sasha Weiss, culture editor at The New York Times Magazine. They also think about the role of protest music more broadly. When does a song need to hit us over the head? And when is subtlety useful — or called for?

‘The Pitt’ Is Giving a Dose of Humanity 05.02.2026 47min

“The Pitt” is back for a second season, and it’s appointment viewing for Wesley Morris. Every Thursday at 9 p.m., the show serves up an emergency room’s worth of maladies and realities — sparing us none of the naked truths about being a human in a vulnerable body. Sasha Weiss, the culture editor at The New York Times Magazine, joins Wesley to talk about how the show is making an old-school television genre feel not just contemporary, but vital. Plus, a conversation with the writer and novelist Taffy Brodesser-Akner about when loving a work of art becomes an obsession. And Wesley has an unexpected reaction to the Grammys.

Dear Haters of 'Marty Supreme'... 29.01.2026 41min

“Marty Supreme” is a box office and critical hit. The film just received nominations in many of the most coveted Oscar categories — best picture, director and actor. And Wesley is glad about all of it. He loved the movie and its shameless protagonist, Marty Mauser. But it turns out that a lot of people going to see this movie don’t share his feelings. In fact, a lot of them hate it. And much of that seems to have to do with a hatred of Marty himself. Wesley’s friend and a culture editor at The New York Times Magazine, Sasha Weiss, thinks people may be missing the point. Which, to her, has a lot to do with the Jewishness of the film. She joins Wesley to talk it out.

My Evening With Michelle Obama 08.01.2026 1h 24min

Last November, Wesley spent an evening with Michelle Obama to celebrate the release of “The Look,” her new book about fashion and the power of style. It’s a heavy text – weighing in at about 4.12 pounds (Wesley checked). That makes it great for coffee tables. But it also reflects the weight of what it meant to Michelle Obama, as First Lady, to be looked at. Every outfit carried meaning and significance, and she knew it. Together, Wesley and Michelle reflect on her approach to fashion from day one in the White House, her time in the East Wing, and some of her most memorable looks.

The Sexy, Multi-Dimensional Genius of Roberta Flack 01.01.2026 36min

Wesley has a practice as a new year begins of saying goodbye to those who won’t be coming with us. He could have easily done an episode on any number of household names. He could have done the same with people who weren’t the biggest names, yet still loomed large for many. But out of all the artists who passed in 2025, Wesley decides to dedicate time to Roberta Flack. The critic and scholar Daphne A. Brooks, a friend of Wesley’s, joins him to reflect on treasured moments in Flack’s music. They reminisce on the powerful range of her discography, the quiet it kept and the fire it sparked in others.