Hafsa Fathima

In the highly meta Deadpool & Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman finally meet up for their own big movie. Deadpool is still smarmy, Wolverine is still tragic, and they have to get together to save the world. Along the way, Deadpool continues his usual routine of endless wisecracking. The movie is jam-packed with fan service and Easter eggs. But how will casual Marvel fans like the movie?

In Netflix's weirdly compelling dark comedy The Decameron, the bubonic plague is ravaging Florence in 1348. A group of rich nobles and their servants decide to retreat to a picturesque villa in the country to wait it all out. The large ensemble includes Tony Hale and Zosia Mamet. Every character is hiding something, and those secrets get revealed — and more than a few uglies get bumped.

Twister was one of the biggest disaster movies of the '90s. Now, it's finally got a sequel — one with an all-new cast, state-of-the-art effects, and a whole lot of tornadoes. The new film stars Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones as rival storm-chasers who have a habit of running into tornadoes while everyone else is fleeing. Twisters was directed by Lee Isaac Chung, who also directed the Oscar-nominated Minari.

They're calling it the scariest movie of the year. The new horror film Longlegs follows FBI special agent Lee Harker (Mika Monroe) tracking a serial killer in the 1990s. If that sounds like familiar ground, consider this – the clues she follows hint at the involvement of the occult in general and Satanism in particular. And the killer in question: Nicolas Cage, uncaged.

Despicable Me 4 is the latest film in an animation franchise that made household names of reformed supervillain Gru (Steve Carrell) and his army of nattering Minions. The franchise has grossed billions of dollars, and the latest movie topped the weekend box office. But are these films growing up with their audience, or continuing to cater to young kids? And does that matter? Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour

NPR staffers recommend five of this year's new novels for summer reading: "The Ministry of Time," "The Familiar," "Come and Get It," "Memory Place," and "Sex, Lies and Sensibility."

The Bear just returned for its third season and it's still one of the most stressful and most interesting shows on TV. Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) are launching their new fine dining restaurant, but he's estranged from some of the people who are closest to him just as he sneaks up on a new level of success. The series is streaming now on Hulu.

The second half of Bridgerton's latest season just dropped on Netflix, and naturally, the course of true love continues to not run smoothly.

Pixar's Inside Out introduced us to the core emotions inside an 11-year-old girl named Riley.

The venerable British science fiction series Doctor Who is back with a new season. Ncuti Gatwa — who is Black and openly queer — brings a vibrant energy to the story of an alien who travels through space and time in a blue box. The series, now streaming on Disney+, also features the return of showrunner Russell T. Davies, who birthed the modern era of Doctor Who. But what does this mix of new and old mean for the sci-fi institution?