Perfection in movies is a dangerous word, which is exactly why I like using it. It makes people uncomfortable. Good. It should. Because the second you call a film perfect, you are not just saying it is well-made. You are saying it leaves no dead space in your mind. You are saying it completely knows what it is, what it wants, how it should feel, how long it should withhold, when it should wound you, when it should turn the knife, and when it should mercifully stop.

And the last 15 years have given us more of these than people admit. Not just great films, not just awards-season darlings, not just movies that start discourse and then quietly age into respectable shelf pieces. I mean movies that feel terrifyingly complete. Movies that hit with such authority that every scene seems inevitable in retrospect, even when it blindsides you in the moment. These ten films do not resemble one another much on the surface. And that’s why this list would be bitter because perfection is not one tone.

10

‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ (2022)

Image via Searchlight Pictures

I love movies that sound small when you describe them badly. It’s about one man suddenly deciding he doesn’t want to be friends with another man anymore. Fine. That is technically true. It is also nowhere near enough. The Banshees of Inisherin is one of the cruelest, saddest, funniest films of the last 15 years because it understands that rejection can feel apocalyptic when it arrives without language you can live with.

The film follows Pádraic (Colin Farrell) who cannot absorb what is happening because he is a decent, limited, open-faced man who believes niceness is still enough to hold a life together. Farrell plays him with such naked confusion and injury that the film gets under your skin almost immediately. Then there is Colm (Brendan Gleeson), played as a man who has been overtaken by a grim, almost embarrassing panic about mortality and artistic worth. That is why the film is so good. It never lets either side become easy. Colm is cruel, yes, but he is not fake. Pádraic is lovable, yes, but he is not purely innocent either. Everyone bleeds. Everyone diminishes. Everyone hardens.

9

‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

There are movies with momentum, and then there is Mad Max: Fury Road, which feels like it has escaped from the laws that normally govern filmmaking. It does not move. It detonates forward. It is one of the few films of the last 15 years that made me feel, while watching it, that cinema as a physical medium was still capable of embarrassing almost everything else around it. What George Miller does here should be impossible. This movie is essentially one long chase, then a turn, then another chase, and somehow every minute of it feels newly invented.

And beneath the chrome and fire and sand and screaming engines, the film has something a lot of action masterpieces do not: anguish. Furiosa (Charlize Theron) gives the whole thing a human center strong enough to carry its mythic scale. Her hope is not abstract. Her grief is not decorative. That is why I think Mad Max: Fury Road is perfect. It’s better than its ancestors. And in addition to being technically jaw-dropping. It has moral velocity too. It knows exactly what this world is built on — ownership, rape, hoarding, domination and it turns a chase movie into a liberation movie without ever losing one ounce of speed.

8

‘Oppenheimer’ (2023)

Image via Universal Pictures

I know people want to reduce Oppenheimer to an important biopic but make it loud, and I honestly think that reading misses how unnervingly specific the film is. This is not a cradle-to-grave prestige movie in the safe old sense. It is an engine of obsession, ego, paranoia, guilt, power, and self-mythology, built around a man brilliant enough to split the world open and vain enough to imagine he might still be able to control what that meant afterward.

Cillian Murphy’s performance is the reason the film has real poison in it. He plays Oppenheimer as a man whose mind is always running ahead of ordinary emotional behavior, a man whose brilliance becomes inseparable from vanity, and whose guilt is real but never pure. That matters. The Trinity test sequence is staggering not simply because of the explosion, but because of the unbearable silence before the sound finally arrives. That delay feels like history inhaling. And then the film keeps refusing relief. It will not let the bomb remain a triumph. It will not let political humiliation remain merely procedural. It ends where all truly great films about genius should end: with the horrible realization that achievement is not remotely the same thing as wisdom.

7

‘Saltburn’ (2023)

Image via Amazon MGM Studios

I do not care how divisive this movie is. Or perhaps disgusting to some. I admire divisive movies when the division comes from nerve rather than incompetence, and Saltburn has nerve pouring out of its walls. Emerald Fennell made a film so intoxicated by envy, class desire, erotic humiliation, performance, and fantasy that people mistook its excess for a lack of control. I think the opposite. I think it knows exactly how poisonous and ridiculous it wants to be.

What makes Saltburn so alive is that it understands yearning can be disgusting. Not in a moralizing way. In a human way. Oliver (Barry Keoghan) is given such watchful, craving, shape-shifting intensity that every scene turns into a question of appetite. Is he desperate to belong? To possess? To imitate? To consume? The answer is yes, and the movie is smart enough to know those distinctions blur when class desire gets eroticized. Felix (Jacob Elordi), in contrast, is not just the object of fascination; he is the kind of beautiful, careless center around which less powerful people destroy themselves while pretending they are merely in love with a lifestyle. That is one reason the film lands so hard. And yes, the movie is outrageous. It should be. This is a movie about rot in silk gloves.

6

‘Parasite’ (2019)

Image via NEON

Some movies become instant classics because they are widely admired. Parasite became one because it is a trap that snaps shut more brutally each time you revisit it. The first time, you’re dazzled by how sharp, funny, and fluid it is. The second time, you realize the whole thing was already wired for disaster from the beginning. The third time, it starts to feel almost cruel in how perfectly it manages tone.

The Kim family are funny, loving, cunning, selfish, desperate, and inventive. The wealthy family are not cartoon demons. The film is too honest for that. Everyone exists inside a structure that has already arranged dignity unequally. The architecture of the house matters. The stairs matter. The smell matters. The weather matters. The basement matters. Every detail hardens into fate. The birthday party climax is amazing. The ending is devastating. Parasite refuses the fantasy it knows you want. It lets hope appear just long enough to expose how expensive hope is under a system built to keep people in place. That is not just great filmmaking. That is ruthless intelligence.

5

‘The Zone of Interest’ (2023)

Image via A24

I have very rarely left a movie feeling as sick, stunned, and morally scraped raw as I did after The Zone of Interest. This is not a Holocaust film in the conventional dramatic sense, and that is exactly why it is so horrifying. What the film does with sound should be studied forever. You hear the camp more than you see it. Screams, gunshots, machinery, dogs, distant terror, the whole sonic environment is contaminated. And yet the family at the center of the film keep gardening, eating, planning, swimming, hosting, arranging. That is the film’s unbearable thesis: human beings can normalize almost anything if it preserves comfort and status.

Hedwig Höss (Sandra Hüller) is committed to her home, her space, her little kingdom of domestic pride. Instead of a theatrical monster, her normality is horror. Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), meanwhile, moves through administrative evil with the deadness of a man who has professionalized his soul into absence. The Zone of Interest is perfect because it does not try to emotionally instruct you in the usual way. It does something braver and more punishing.

4

‘Whiplash’ (2014)

Image via Sony Pictures Classics

I have almost no patience for people who reduce Whiplash to an intense drumming movie. That’s like calling a knife fight a conversation about kitchen utensils. Whiplash is one of the great obsession films because it understands that ambition can feel holy and degrading at the same time. It understands the sick thrill of being told you might be special, and the even sicker thrill of enduring abuse because some part of you believes greatness might be hiding on the other side of it.

Andrew (Miles Teller) is ambitious enough to accept a warped value system if it gets him closer to transcendence. That is what makes the film so tense. You are not watching a young artist being brutalized. That’s a loser mindset. You are watching him collaborate with that brutality because he wants what it promises. And Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) — good lord. He is terrifying because the movie understands charisma can attach itself to cruelty when institutions keep rewarding results. He knows exactly how to weaponize shame, uncertainty, and the myth of genius. Every scene with him feels like someone tightening a wire around your throat. And yes, teachers like him aren’t really ideal in real life. But what if they are? That’s what iWhiplash leaves you with.

3

‘The Worst Person in the World’ (2021)

Image via Neon

The Worst Person in the World refuses to simplify a kind of confusion that lesser films either romanticize or condescend to. Julie (Renate Reinsve) is not a symbol of modern aimlessness. She is not a cautionary tale, not a quirky disaster, not a generation think-piece with cute haircuts. She is a person whose inner life keeps outrunning the identities available to her, and the film treats that instability not as a joke or flaw to correct, but as something intimate, painful, and achingly recognizable.

The film’s structure is part of its magic. It moves in chapters, digressions, bursts of fantasy, erotic shifts, and emotional recalibrations that somehow feel both playful and inevitable. The frozen-city sequence is one of the most intoxicating romantic gestures of the last decade, and the movie is wise enough not to let that intoxication become the whole truth. Life keeps arriving after the rush. Bodies change. Time advances. People become memories while they are still alive. And then, quietly, the film becomes devastating.

2

‘Aftersun’ (2022)

Image via A24

Some films break your heart in the scene you are watching. Aftersun does something much crueler. It lets the heartbreak gather invisibly until you realize, too late, that the entire movie has been building an emotional truth you can no longer defend yourself against. That delayed devastation is part of why I think it’s one of the most perfect films of the last 15 years. On the surface, so little happens. A father and daughter go on holiday. They swim, talk, wander, laugh, play, drift.

But that’s the film reconstructing the way memory clings to textures, glances, awkward silences, cheap camcorder footage, half-heard remarks, and emotional absences you were too young to interpret in the moment. Calum (Paul Mescal) is one of the most beautiful performances I have ever seen because Mescal never forces the tragedy. Calum is loving, playful, trying, attentive, and yet always slightly elsewhere, as if some part of him is unreachable even when he is physically present. Sophie (Frankie Corio) is just as essential, because her love for him is total in the uncomplicated way children can love before they understand adult damage. A heads up though: this is a sad film and it will break you.

1

‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (2019)

Image via Pyramide Films

I do not think Portrait of a Lady on Fire is just the most perfect movie of the last 15 years. I think it is one of the most perfect films ever made, period. There is not a false note in it. Not one rushed beat, not one sentimental shortcut, not one lazy line, not one visual choice that feels merely decorative. Every scene breathes with intention. Every silence means something. Every look is earned.

Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) are astonishing. They are intelligent women feeling their way toward each other through caution, curiosity, resistance, and recognition. The film respects their minds as much as their longing. That matters. And then the film keeps getting deeper. The abortion subplot is handled with such calm humanity that it broadens the film’s entire moral world. The nighttime fire sequence feels like a vision. The first time Héloïse says “Turn around,” the movie practically changes temperature. And the ending. God, the ending. The final concert scene is one of the greatest endings I have ever seen — memory can be both consolation and renewed violence.

Sofia Coppola is a fan of Britney Spears! The daughter of filmmakers Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola is an actress and a filmmaker in her own right. She has won an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a Golden Lion, and a Cannes Film Festival Award, and is now using her platform in order to make a comment about the “Toxic” singer’s biopic, which one fan called “cheeky.”

Sofia Coppola Describes Britney Spears As A ‘Women’s Rights’ Symbol

In an interview with Elle, Sofia said that she is “kind of obsessed” with Britney Spears after watching documentaries made about her life and reading her memoir, “The Woman In Me.” In 2007, Britney made headlines for shaving her head, which Sofia referred to as a “punk moment” in history.

“She’s become this symbol of women’s rights. “That would never happen to a man,” she said, although she did not clarify what “that” meant, although she could be talking about her conservatorship. In the year following her mental health breakdown, she was subject to a controversial 13-year court-ordered conservatorship that lasted until November 2021.  

Coppola Has A Cheeky Response To The Britney Spears Biopic

Although “Wicked” director Jon M. Chu is currently working on a biopic based on her best-selling novel, little is known about the project. In 2025, Chu told Entertainment Tonight that Britney would be “be very involved” in the project when it came to fruition.

“I haven’t really started anything fully yet, but she will be very involved in this. I have ideas and things, an approach, but it’s very early,” he said at the time.

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In her interview, Sofia said, “Supposedly Jon Chu is doing it,” but added, “I hope, yeah, I would love to do that story.” A fan posted the screenshot of the interview on Reddit with the caption, “Love her cheeky comment about the biopic.”

Fans Debate Who Should Create The Biopic

Many fans immediately took to the comments with their opinions. Most expressed a desire to see Sofia direct the project. “I’ve always imagined Sofia would be the one to direct the biopic. I don’t see Jon Chu doing it right at all, and not merely because he’s a man,” one fan commented.

“Sofia gets ittt, girlhood & womanhood, the feeling of being trapped. She’d totally pack a punch with her interpretation and direction. This would mean a lot,” another user agreed.

“She’s my favorite director. The film would be stunning. But Jon Chu can really direct a musical number. So I’m assuming anything performance-related will be stellar in his take. But yeah, Sofia would craft a better film if the focus were more about her struggles,” a third fan chimed in.

They went on to write, “I think it’s gonna be more spectacle with Jon Chu. Ironic kinda. The real Britney has always been this delicate flower (I don’t mean weak or shy. Just burdened with a lot more than she should have ever had to deal with) behind all the manufactured spectacle. That’s the real story. Hope he finds it.”

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Britney Spears Explains Why She Shaved Off Her Hair

In an excerpt of “The Woman In Me” shared by PEOPLE magazine, the “Lucky” singer explained why she shaved her head.

“I’d been eyeballed so much growing up. I’d been looked up and down, had people telling me what they thought of my body, since I was a teenager,” she wrote. “Shaving my head and acting out were my ways of pushing back.”

“Under the conservatorship, I was made to understand that those days were now over,” she continued. “I had to grow my hair out and get back into shape. I had to go to bed early and take whatever medication they told me to take.”

Britney Said The Conservatorship Made Her Feel Like A ‘Shadow’ Of Herself

Elsewhere in her memoir, she opened up about the struggles of performing during her conservatorship, including her Piece of Me residency in Las Vegas.

“I would do little bits of creative stuff here and there, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. As far as my passion for singing and dancing, it was almost a joke at that point,” she writes. “Thirteen years went by with me feeling like a shadow of myself.”

“I think back now on my father and his associates having control over my body and my money for that long, and it makes me feel sick,” she continued. “Think of how many male artists gambled all their money away; how many had substance abuse or mental health issues. No one tried to take away their control over their bodies and money. I didn’t deserve what my family did to me.”

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It’s a little strange, honestly, how easy Bosch is to overlook. Not because it’s small — seven seasons isn’t small, and neither is spinning off into two (now three) additional series — but because it never really behaves like the kind of show that demands attention. No massive twists engineered for social media, no constant reinvention, it just keeps going, and, somewhere along the way, it got better than most of the shows that made a lot more noise.

What started on Prime Video as a fairly traditional adaptation of Michael Connelly’s novels has quietly grown into a full-blown franchise — Bosch, Bosch: Legacy, and Ballard—that feels less like a collection of shows and more like one long, continuous story that just refuses to end.

What Is the ‘Bosch’ Franchise About on Prime Video?

Image via Amazon MGM

At a glance, it’s familiar territory: a homicide detective in Los Angeles has a string of cases that never quite stay contained. You’ve seen versions of this before, but Bosch — anchored by Titus Welliver — leans into something a little less flashy and a lot more patient. Cases don’t wrap up neatly, personal baggage doesn’t conveniently disappear, and connections will lead to other connections, or sometimes to something from long ago that is more chaotic. This show asks the viewer to sit with it, which, to be honest, isn’t the standard (or typical) of a working-class investigation show.

The earlier, slower pace had potential viewers confused at times. The first season got tagged as solid but conventional — well-acted, well-constructed, maybe a bit too comfortable. And yeah, at the time, that wasn’t entirely wrong. It did feel like it was playing within the lines. But here’s the thing — those lines start to blur the longer you stick with it.

By the later seasons, the show isn’t trying to impress you anymore, and it just settles in. As the writing gets tighter, and the characters get more complex, Los Angeles starts taking over the whole room, being dirty, large, uncontrollable, and by far the most influential character. The change in how you think about the city is usually a gradual change and stays below your radar.

How ‘Bosch: Legacy’ and ‘Ballard’ Expand the Prime Video Universe

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This is usually where things fall apart: spinoffs have a habit of stretching a good idea until it snaps. You can almost feel when a franchise is running on fumes, but that’s not what’s happening here. Bosch: Legacy doesn’t reinvent anything; it just moves the camera. Bosch himself steps into a different phase of his life, while Maddie (Madison Lintz) takes on a bigger role, and suddenly the world feels wider without losing its center. It’s still recognizably Bosch. Same tone, same pacing, same refusal to rush.

Then Ballard comes in — led by Maggie Q — and, on paper, it shouldn’t feel as seamless as it does with its new lead, new perspective, and slightly different energy, but it works — surprisingly well, actually. The connective tissue is still there, even when Bosch himself is barely in the frame, and that’s probably the smartest thing the franchise has done: it lets other characters carry weight without pretending the original didn’t matter.

Most shows burn bright early and spend the rest of their run trying to get back to that peak; Bosch kind of does the opposite. It improves in ways that aren’t immediately obvious. The pacing gets more confident — slower, but more intentional, the dialogue relaxes a bit, feels like people actually talking (with all the messiness that comes with that). Even the cases themselves start to carry more weight because they linger rather than become bigger.

Will the Bosch Franchise Continue After ‘Ballard’? What’s Next

Image via Prime Video

At this point, it doesn’t feel like it’s slowing down; if anything, it’s doing the opposite. There’s a prequel series on the way (Bosch: Start of Watch), which — if we’re being honest — could go either way. Prequels are tricky because you already know where the character ends up, so the tension has to come from somewhere else. Still, given how carefully this franchise has handled everything so far, it’s hard to write it off completely.

And even as the focus shifts, Bosch himself hasn’t really gone anywhere. He’s still around, still popping in, still acting as the thread tying everything together. Not the center anymore, but not gone, either. Because of all the expansion, new faces, and shifting perspectives, the franchise hasn’t lost track of what made it work in the first place. It has gotten more comfortable sitting in its own lane and doing it better than most.

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Release Date

2015 – 2021-00-00

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Network

Prime Video

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Showrunner

Eric Ellis Overmyer

Directors

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Alex Zakrzewski, Ernest R. Dickerson, Patrick Cady, Aaron Lipstadt, Adam Davidson, Daisy von Scherler Mayer, Kevin Dowling, Neema Barnette, Tim Hunter, Zetna Fuentes, Christine Moore, Jim McKay, Laura Belsey, Matt Earl Beesley, Phil Abraham, Roxann Dawson, Sarah Pia Anderson, Stephen Gyllenhaal, Tara Nicole Weyr, Thomas Carter, Hagar Ben-Asher

Writers

Jeffrey Alan Fiskin, Tom Bernardo, Elle Johnson, John Mankiewicz, Shaz Bennett, Alex Meenehan, Katie Pyne, Osokwe Vasquez, Lolis Eric Elie, Jessica Kivnik, Mitzi Roberts

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A tenured Louisiana music teacher has been charged with cruelty to children and simple assault for allegedly placing Band-Aids over the mouths of seven of his students, Us Weekly has learned.

Pearl River Police contend George Serban allegedly placed the Band-Aids on the students’ mouths because they would not stop talking during class.

Serban, 38, is a teacher of music at Riverside Elementary School in Pearl River, where he has tenure.

According to police, Serban was arrested on Tuesday, March 17, after the seven students told their parents Band-Aids were placed over their mouths as punishment for speaking in class on Monday, March 16.

The students are aged 8 to 10, according to police.

Related: Louisiana All-Girls Catholic School Teacher Arrested for Abusing Student

A 29-year-old Louisiana biology teacher is facing serious criminal allegations after allegedly sexually abusing one of her students. Teddi Page, who is no longer working at Academy of the Sacred Heart, an all-girls Catholic school in New Orleans, turned herself into police on Thursday, February 5. She was subsequently charged with a single count of […]

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The Band-Aids were stuck to their lips against their wills, according to investigators.

“Officers interviewed the children and learned that the children were scared and very afraid,” police said in a statement.

“Pearl River Police officers were in constant contact with the St. Tammany Parish School Board and worked together to come to a resolution of this incident as soon as possible,” the release stated.

The children’s parents were notified of the allegations and insisted that he face criminal charges.

Serban surrendered to the authorities after learning he was the subject of an active arrest warrant. He was processed at the St. Tammany Parish Correctional Center, where, on Wednesday, March 18, he posted a $15,000 bond for his release.

His attorney, Robert Toale, sent a statement to WDSU, saying that the adhesive bandages were just part of his lesson that day.

“He was teaching his students musical concepts developed by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze,” the statement reads. “You can Google and learn more about the Dalroze eurythmics technique but suffice it to say the band-aids were meant to cover a sense, to better understand pitch.”

Toale added the Band-Aids were not placed on the children as a punishment. In fact, “I also understand the children were playing around, as 3rd graders do, using the band-aids as fake mustaches.”

It was unclear if he had entered pleas at any point.

Related: Louisiana Teacher of the Year Charged With Child Sex Crimes

A Louisiana teacher at Broussard Middle School – who was previously named Teacher of the Year in September 2025 – has been arrested and charged with child sex crimes. Christie Oster was arrested on Wednesday, January 28, and charged with indecent behavior with juveniles and carnal knowledge of a juvenile, according to online records viewed […]

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Us tried to contact Serban via phone, email, and social media, but received no responses.

Police said the case will now be turned over to the St. Tammany Parish District Attorney.

St. Tammany Parish Public Schools officials were unavailable for comment on Thursday, March 19, and the prosecutor’s office did not return a call seeking comment.

Information about Serban’s employment status was also unavailable at press time.

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Love Story: JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette Episode 8

If FX’s romance drama, Love Story, showed us the reality of John F. Kennedy Jr. (Paul Anthony Kelly) and Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy’s (Sarah Pidgeon) wedded bliss in last week’s episode “Obsession,” then this week’s penultimate chapter, “Exit Strategy,” strips everything down even more. In Thursday night’s episode of Ryan Murphy’s controversial anthology series, the moment between the pair narrows almost entirely to them inside their loft as tensions hit a boiling point after Princess Diana’s death. It’s a point that turns the hour into one long, intimate conversation about grief, fame, resentment, and the emotional distance that can open up even inside a marriage built on love.

Written by Juli Weiner and co-creator Connor Hines, “Exit Strategy” feels like a bottle episode, but it never feels stagnant in its direction. Instead, the inside look across its 41 minutes becomes one of the show’s more revealing chapters. With that physical confinement helping bring their own fears to the surface, what emerges is not a tabloid version of their relationship, but something more grounded and painful.

Seen as just two people trying to understand each other while carrying very different burdens, Weiner tells Collider exclusively that this emotional approach was clearly central behind the scenes, too. “Ryan and Connor and the entire team came at [it] with these memories of this incredible love story and wanting to find the emotional truth in that, and seeing these characters as not tabloid caricatures, but really human people in a real marriage, it was something that was really important to us.”

In addition to discussing how they built around this kind of interiority to tell JFK Jr. and Carolyn’s love story, Weiner breaks down how the late Princess Diana’s death becomes a different emotional trigger for each of them and why “Exit Strategy” captures the marriage at its most complicated and human.

John and Carolyn’s Different Reactions to Princess Diana’s Death Signal a Deeper Divide

Weiner uses Diana’s death to show how their different histories shape love, empathy, and misunderstanding.

Image via FX

COLLIDER: While “The Wedding” episode, which you directed, was gorgeous, I want to talk about “Exit Strategy,” the penultimate episode of the series. This episode is almost entirely just John and Carolyn in the loft. When you and Connor approached it, did you see it as a bottle episode emotionally, or more like a pressure cooker that had been building all season?

JULI WEINER: Well, thank you so much for your kind words about the show. It’s incredibly exciting to see people respond to it. Yes, episode eight, we did approach it like a bottle episode. It was an episode all about interiority, so it was a challenge. Obviously, we knew it was one set — I guess two sets, but one set [was] their apartment, two conversations a year apart. We had to think a lot about how to show the progression of time and the progression of the characters’ relationships while not leaving the apartment.

And we really had to dramatize what was going on with them at different points in their marriage through conversations that they were just having in the course of their daily lives in the apartment, so we did think of it almost like a play. And the way we wrote it was very play-like in that we would be writing an enormous amount, like nine or 10 pages a night sometimes, and the actors would get it that night or the next morning.

We’d rehearse with director Jesse Peretz and then sometimes film the next day. So it was very, it felt very immediate, very theatrical, very collaborative. And I just loved it.

When John says watching Princess Diana’s death was like watching his mother die twice, it ties public tragedy to private grief. Was that always the emotional connective tissue of this episode — that they’re both haunted by different versions of fame? Because we see it even with Carolyn, reacting to it through her fear of the paparazzi never giving her space.

WEINER: I think we thought a lot about the two characters’ different reactions to the tragedy of what happened to Princess Diana. It’s really interesting to think about it; how their different life experiences have both informed their reaction to this tragedy in different ways. As you said, Carolyn is obviously very tormented by the paparazzi and their intrusive presence in her life, but the character of John is coming at it from a totally different space. He is relating to it as someone who has been famous his entire life and someone who has experienced the very public death of a parent. And I think that is so often in relationships, you do your best to have empathy for the other person, but until you articulate, well, actually, this is where I’m coming from, this is what I’m bringing to it, you can overlook the emotional reality of the person who’s the closest to you. And I think that is so often the challenge in any relationship.

JFK Jr.’s Candle-Flame Moment Reflects Everything Going Wrong in His Life

“There were a lot of things that felt very perilous” in John’s life, Weiner says of Episode 8.

Image via FX

John says at one point that Carolyn is rarely vulnerable, yet she’s the one admitting she feels worthless. Were you intentionally exposing how differently they interpret vulnerability — and how their generational baggage shapes that?

WEINER: Absolutely, yeah. They’re also of different genders and have their own life experiences. I think that the two of them, the two characters, move about the world from incredibly different perspectives. And at the core of their relationship, they love each other, and they care so deeply about each other and want the best for each other. It can be tricky navigating how to want to help your partner when the thing that would be most helpful is just maybe listening, unless you are very clear about articulating the thing that would be most helpful to you — finding a way back from conversations that are maybe painful that you share at the core of the relationship, [but] that’s the stuff of a marriage. It can be so challenging, and the claustrophobia of that all occurring within essentially like a large loft. It just heightened the claustrophobia of their lives at this time.

I will say that the claustrophobia was so interesting because it is such a small loft, and the two of them are trying to understand each other through this conversation, but I noticed little undercurrents of danger flickering between them. There was the candle flame he kept playing with, the broken leg, and then he was talking about the hours of flying. How delicate was that line between the subtle foreshadowing, but then also leaning into what’s inevitable by the finale?

WEINER: I think that we really wanted to approach it — like, the way we depicted the marriage was of two people always trying. Always trying; these characters never gave up trying to make it work. Yeah, it’s interesting, the elements of danger. I think there are a lot of things that felt very perilous in the moment for these characters. You hear at the end of [Episode 8], John talks about all the things that are going wrong in his life. He talks about his failing magazine [George]. He talks about the health of his cousin [Anthony Radziwill]. He talks about the death of his mother [Jackie Onassis], and those are things that I think were reflected in a lot of the tension that comes out in other ways. Whether that’s being short with Carolyn or putting your hands over the flame of a candle.

Weiner Says Fairness Meant Refusing to Turn John or Carolyn Into a Villain

“There are no good guys, there are no bad guys” in John and Carolyn’s story.

Yeah, that was a very interesting touch. It definitely adds a bit of nuance to him, so I appreciate that texture. I will also ask that in all your research and writing: Did you view John’s commitment to flying as autonomy, escapism, recklessness, or something more symbolic about control in a life that often wasn’t fully his?

WEINER: I think the way we approach their two characters, John, the character of John was so much more of a thrill seeker. Even though Carolyn was — we depicted her character as someone who is incredibly brave. She is someone who was elevated from working at a mall in Boston to conquering this absolutely terrifying New York fashion world, getting a job at Calvin Klein, and ascending to the highest ranks of society. So guess that’s almost more of a metaphorical high flying. In a lot of ways, they were both, I think, courageous [but also] thrill-seekers. John’s obviously expressed that much more, literally like riding his bike through traffic.

There’s a really vivid story about him in Elizabeth Beller‘s book [“Once Upon A Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy”], which inspired the series about how racing his Fiat with the Staten Island ferry, so he’s always had a taste for the dangerous thing. But Carolyn got her thrills in other ways.

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‘Love Story’ star Nivola breaks down Episode 6 and addresses the Kennedy family backlash: “I understand the feeling of being exposed.”

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Were there lines you consciously chose not to cross in this episode — moments where you thought, “This may be dramatic, but it doesn’t feel fair”?

WEINER: We definitely thought a lot about trying to make it feel balanced. Something incredibly important to not just me and Connor [Hines], but everyone and Ryan [Murphy] and everyone involved in the production was approaching both characters with empathy and curiosity and a lack of judgment. They make decisions, or they speak to each other in a certain way, they’re obviously doing it from a place of love and trying to work on the marriage and trying to maintain this love that they had that was so epic. It touches people now, even 30 years later. I think we never wanted — there are no villains, there are no good guys, there are no bad guys, just two people are trying to do their best, and that was something that we thought about the entire series.

Weiner Hopes Viewers See the “Love and Care” Behind His Portrayal of John and Carolyn

Weiner says John and Carolyn always tried to meet each other with “good faith” and “the benefit of the doubt.”

Image via FX

The Kennedy name is being invoked and repurposed in very public, political ways right now, and Jack Schlossberg called it “fiction with a capital F.” Did you feel an added weight dramatizing John and Carolyn in a moment when the family legacy itself feels contested?

WEINER: I mean, we took it incredibly seriously, depicting real people. That was something we thought endlessly about and did as much research as we possibly could. Ultimately, though, it is a love story. It is a dramatized love story and not a Kennedy biopic. Jack and everyone else are certainly entitled to their opinion, but I hope that anyone watching the show will see the love and care and attention and sensitivity that we approached it with.

It is very much a love story – and really, a marriage story at the end of the day. But if this episode is a microcosm of their marriage, what do you hope audiences understand about them that history — or headlines — never quite captured?

WEINER: Yeah, that’s a great question. What I hope people see with both John and Carolyn in this episode is two people who are trying to do their best and don’t always get it right. But their intentions are always to try to make things better, to try to lead with love, and they fuck up, and they fail. But it’s not for a lack of deep caring about their partner. And I find that very inspiring and relatable that relationships are really messy and complicated, but the sort of ability to forgive and to always look at, always look at each other. What I liked was their ability to always try to look at each other in good faith — yeah, I hope people take away from the episode that John and Carolyn are always looking at each other in good faith and really giving each other the benefit of the doubt as much as they possibly could.

Love Story airs on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on FX and streams the next day on Hulu.

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Love Story

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Release Date

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February 12, 2026

Directors

Max Winkler, Anthony Hemingway, Crystle Roberson Dorsey, Gillian Robespierre, Jesse Peretz

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Writers

Connor Hines, D.V. DeVincentis, Juli Weiner, Kim Rosenstock

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The Bachelorette alum Ryan Sutter has dealt with highs and lows of his Lyme disease battle.

“I’m at a pretty good place. I think the majority of my days are good, with a few bad ones sprinkled in there,” Sutter, 51, told People in an interview published Thursday, March 19. “I’ve kind of learned how to handle those. If I pay close enough attention, I can feel the onset of things coming on, and then I’ll just make sure I don’t overdo it or overexert myself.”

Ryan, who is married to the first-ever Bachelorette Trista Sutter, confirmed his diagnosis in 2021. While dealing with the health battle, Ryan soon began navigating a series of dark thoughts and feelings.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever sympathized with suicide,” Ryan told the outlet. “I was never like, ‘I need to go [act on the thoughts],’ but I understood that [chronically ill] people get to this level of frustration where they just feel like they’re going to feel like this for the rest of their lives, or be a burden on everybody that they’re around.”

Related: Celebrities Who Have Battled Lyme Disease: Danielle Jonas and More

Many celebrities have spoken out about their Lyme disease diagnoses over the years, and because the disease is easy to misdiagnose, many had to fight to be believed. According to the Mayo Clinic, Lyme disease is transmitted by ticks and caused by four species of bacteria in the United States, Europe and Asia. In fact, […]

He continued, “You think, ‘I don’t know what my purpose in life is,’ and if there is no purpose to it, if it’s just getting up every day and feeling like this. It really hurts me to think that so many people are in that kind of pain and don’t think they’ll ever get out of it.”

Ryan noted he’s learned to pay “closer attention” to his moods and make sure to take supplements to help combat any suicidal thoughts.

“As long as I can keep going, moving forward, I feel like that keeps it at bay,” he explained. “But, compared to when I first got diagnosed, it’s like night and day. If I refer back to that time, I’m always like, ‘I’ll take this a hundred times out of a hundred.’ It’s way better than what it used to be. Also, the mindset I’ve developed is that it’s just not going to be what gets me off the rails.”

The firefighter is also hopeful that there will eventually be a cure for his future family’s sake.

“I just want to be healthy enough that, God willing, we have grandkids that I can do fun things with them,” he said.

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Ryan has been married to Trista, 53, for over two decades, during which time they welcomed son Maxwell, 18, and daughter Blakesley, 16.

Watching Ryan navigate his Lyme battle has been particularly “scary” for Trista.

“He definitely has a lot of ups and downs still and really would like to feel better at least most of the time. He says he’s about 80 percent,” Trista said on Chris Harrison’s “Most Dramatic Podcast Ever” in April 2025. “I would go to his doctor’s appointments with him because he is so incredibly humble. So he’s like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to complain about whatever’s going on with me,’ even if it’s really significant.”

She added at the time, “If it was me that was going through what he’s going through, I would be bedridden every single day and maybe even hospitalized. He is able to get through this because he’s freaking superhuman. I don’t understand it.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

Kim Kardashian is all for fairness and equity when it comes to reward for labor!

“The Kardashians” star has lent her voice to a bill that would ensure that the firefighters who fought day and night to quench the destructive Pacific Palisades wildfire early last year get duly compensated for their courageous service.

Kim Kardashian earned her share of backlash last year, first for promoting a SKIMS sale in the heart of the wildfire crisis and then for urging higher wages, which some critics think would make the issue political at such a sensitive period.

Kim Kardashian Is On A Personal Mission With The Legislative Process

The business mogul is fully backing and endorsing the new bill introduced by Senator Cory Booker this week, which would ensure that firefighters who work from prison would get a minimum wage. According to Kardashian, her interest grew in the case because she watched prisoners put their all into fighting the Los Angeles fires last year.

The bill was reintroduced by the democrat on Thursday, March 19, and it would require that prisoners who are working get to earn the minimum wage through amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act. This bill will also eliminate outrageous deductions for fees, fines, and living costs in prisons.

Kardashian explained why she joined the movement, stating that the firefighters whom she personally watched risk their lives to curb the spread showed so much bravery and courage, just like professional firefighters, but earned less pay. “In many cases, they’re banned from even applying for firefighting jobs once they’re released. That’s not just unfair, it’s un-American,” the media personality declared, as shared by PEOPLE.

The SKIMS Founder Approached Governor Gavin Newsom For A Raise In Wages Last Year

As the fire raged deeper into the area, Kardashian hopped online and called for more recognition and higher pay for the heroes who braved the fiery furnace and helped families survive loss and destruction. As noted by The Blast, the reality star took to Instagram to tag Governor Newsom about reviewing and raising wages for these incarcerated people on the frontline of the rescue mission.

The mother-of-four declared that the inmates worked grueling hours under harsh weather and living conditions, only to earn less than $1 hour, which is nothing compared to such a large-scale disaster.

According to reports, nearly 1,000 inmates assisted in combating the wildfires, which they claimed had already burned over 40,000 acres and killed about 16 people. However, no inmate firefighters have lost their lives in the process of saving affected persons.

Kim Kardashian Angered Critics For SKIMS Promotion During The Fire Incident

Before her advocacy, the 45-year-old was slammed for promoting a big sale for her SKIMS line while the fire broke out. Meredith Lynch was at the forefront of the criticism, dragging the entrepreneur on her Instagram for telling people to buy SKIMS while families and lives were being displaced and destroyed.

Lynch continued that Kardashian could have used a platform as big as hers to provide resources and raise awareness about the fires, but is hell-bent on using it to sell her products. The fire also threatened Kardashian’s expansive $70 million Malibu mansion right by the ocean.

The property was previously owned by supermodel Cindy Crawford and her husband, Rande Gerber. As for her Hidden Hills property, the star reportedly exited her home, alongside the rest of her family, after receiving a mandatory evacuation order due to the fire’s rapid spread.

The Fashion Icon Debunked Emails Asking For Financial Aid For Victims

The star certainly had her hands full during such a trying period in the city, as she took the time out to warn internet users and fans about scammers using her name in emails for false fundraisers. She explained that such a scam may claim they want to raise funds to support affected families and victims of the wildfires, which she endorsed.

She uploaded a sample picture of one of the numerous scam emails going around with her name on it, warning her followers to verify links before donating to anyone. The Blast noted that the reality star also praised the firefighters for staying up all night long to help families affected by the fire and save the community.

The Los Angeles wildfires, which began last January, consumed over 40,000 acres of land in the Southern part of Los Angeles, with more than 200,000 persons evacuated as efforts were made to rein in the spread. The fire affected homes of celebrities like Mel Gibson, Paris Hilton, Anthony Hopkins, Tina Knowles, John Goodman, Candy Spelling, Milo Ventimiglia, and Miles Teller, alongside 12,000 other structures.

Kim Kardashian’s Sister Called For Donations Amid The Fires

While the entrepreneur did not earn good points for how she handled the aftermath of the outbreak, her younger sister, Khloé Kardashian, joined her 300k+ followers to make a difference in the heart of the crisis.

Khloé hopped online to speak out on behalf of the victims and firefighters, noting that a neighbor of hers was in direct contact with fire department officials who shared that the firefighters are desperate, hungry, and tired.

The Good American founder also provided actionable ways to help the victims, encouraging them to support their local fire stations by dropping off supplies like protein-packed meals, Gatorade, and coffee. 

The mother-of-two attached her neighbor’s Venmo details to one of her posts, revealing that if anyone was interested in donating to them, they could proceed as he would be heading to Costco to pick up rotisserie chickens and sides to deliver to several stations.

Will Kim Kardashian see this through and add it to her long list of advocacy successes?