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      International TV Series to Stream Now: ‘Miss Austen,’ ‘I, Jack Wright’ and More

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      New international series include a drama about Jane Austen and her sister, a Netflix reboot of a French institution and a whimsical sci-fi anime.In this roundup of recent series from other shores, we go tripping through time and space: from Roman Empire high jinks to Regency England melodrama, and from contemporary British mystery to a postapocalyptic Japanese hotel.‘Apocalypse Hotel’This whimsical, oddball science-fiction anime has not ranked highly in surveys of this spring’s season of Japanese animated series, perhaps because it doesn’t fit precisely into a standard category. (It also has the disadvantage of being a rare original series, with no ties to an already popular manga or light-novel franchise.) In a Tokyo slowly being reclaimed by nature, on an Earth abandoned by humans because of an environmental catastrophe, an intrepid band of robots keep the lights on at a luxury hotel, prepping every day for nonexistent guests. The staff members’ intelligence may be artificial, but their commitment to service is touchingly genuine.When guests do appear — sometimes decades or even centuries apart — they are not humans but wandering aliens whose habits and needs test the robots’ resourcefulness. A family of shape-shifting interstellar tanuki (raccoon dogs) decorate their rooms with towers of dung; a superpowered kangaroo with boxing gloves for paws is intent on destroying the planet’s civilization, not realizing the job is already done. As the travelers and the staff adjust to one another, the robots enact their own version of exquisite Japanese tact and hospitality, with results that are both melancholy and raucously comic. (Streaming at Crunchyroll.)‘Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight’The tremendous success of the Asterix comics and their offshoots across more than 60 years — hundreds of millions of books sold, a panoply of movies, a popular theme park outside Paris — has never translated particularly well to the United States. The heroes of the stories, a village of 1st-century-B.C. Gauls with egregiously punny names, may hold out against Roman occupation because of the magic strength potion brewed by their druid priest. But their true power, in literary terms, is a projection of insular French wit and wordplay and rough-and-ready Gallic sang-froid. For Americans, the humor can seem both beneath our standards and over our heads.“Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight” is based on the long-running Asterix comics.2025 Les éditions Albert René/Goscinny-Uderzo/NetflixNow that Netflix is involved, however, it is a sure bet that the intention is to cross over into as many markets as possible, not least the United States. This five-episode adaptation of an early (1966) Asterix book accomplishes that goal with sufficient style, primarily through its brightly colorful 3-D animation. The images are vivid and pleasing, and they hold your interest even when the action kicks in and the storytelling loses some of its French particularity, sliding into a Pixar-derived international-blockbuster groove. (Streaming at Netflix.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Two Miss Austens, Asterix & Obelix and Robot Chambermaids

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      New international series include a drama about Jane Austen and her sister, a Netflix reboot of a French institution and a whimsical sci-fi anime.In this roundup of recent series from other shores, we go tripping through time and space: from Roman Empire high jinks to Regency England melodrama, and from contemporary British mystery to a postapocalyptic Japanese hotel.‘Apocalypse Hotel’This whimsical, oddball science-fiction anime has not ranked highly in surveys of this spring’s season of Japanese animated series, perhaps because it doesn’t fit precisely into a standard category. (It also has the disadvantage of being a rare original series, with no ties to an already popular manga or light-novel franchise.) In a Tokyo slowly being reclaimed by nature, on an Earth abandoned by humans because of an environmental catastrophe, an intrepid band of robots keep the lights on at a luxury hotel, prepping every day for nonexistent guests. The staff members’ intelligence may be artificial, but their commitment to service is touchingly genuine.When guests do appear — sometimes decades or even centuries apart — they are not humans but wandering aliens whose habits and needs test the robots’ resourcefulness. A family of shape-shifting interstellar tanuki (raccoon dogs) decorate their rooms with towers of dung; a superpowered kangaroo with boxing gloves for paws is intent on destroying the planet’s civilization, not realizing the job is already done. As the travelers and the staff adjust to one another, the robots enact their own version of exquisite Japanese tact and hospitality, with results that are both melancholy and raucously comic. (Streaming at Crunchyroll.)‘Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight’The tremendous success of the Asterix comics and their offshoots across more than 60 years — hundreds of millions of books sold, a panoply of movies, a popular theme park outside Paris — has never translated particularly well to the United States. The heroes of the stories, a village of 1st-century-B.C. Gauls with egregiously punny names, may hold out against Roman occupation because of the magic strength potion brewed by their druid priest. But their true power, in literary terms, is a projection of insular French wit and wordplay and rough-and-ready Gallic sang-froid. For Americans, the humor can seem both beneath our standards and over our heads.“Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight” is based on the long-running Asterix comics.2025 Les éditions Albert René/Goscinny-Uderzo/NetflixNow that Netflix is involved, however, it is a sure bet that the intention is to cross over into as many markets as possible, not least the United States. This five-episode adaptation of an early (1966) Asterix book accomplishes that goal with sufficient style, primarily through its brightly colorful 3-D animation. The images are vivid and pleasing, and they hold your interest even when the action kicks in and the storytelling loses some of its French particularity, sliding into a Pixar-derived international-blockbuster groove. (Streaming at Netflix.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel Digests Trump’s Crypto Dinner

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      “Listen, he’s only corrupt in his free time, guys,” Kimmel said of the president. “When he’s in the Oval Office, he’s by the book. This is all completely on the up and up.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Guess Who’s Coming to DinnerOn Thursday, President Trump hosted a dinner for the biggest investors in his personal cryptocurrency. Protesters gathered outside the golf club where it was held, denouncing what they called “crypto corruption,” and late-night hosts lodged their own form of protest in their monologues.“Tonight, President Trump hosted a private dinner for the top 200 holders of his memecoin,” Jimmy Fallon said. “Yep, over 200 crypto bros in one room. Even Satan’s like, ‘Now, that’s hell.’”Several of the dinner guests told The New York Times that they were hoping to influence Trump and, ultimately, U.S. financial regulation. Jimmy Kimmel was not reassured by Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, who told reporters it was a private dinner and that it was “absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.”“It is absurd to say it’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that the president is profiting off of the presidency,” Kimmel said.“As far as I know, he’s the only president I’ve ever heard of who sells his own Bible and watch.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Listen, he’s only corrupt in his free time, guys. When he’s in the Oval Office, he’s by the book. This is all completely on the up and up.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“These people gave Trump’s business a combined $394 million for this dinner in one night. Seats went for from $55,000 to $37 million a pop. And no plus ones. That’s just by yourself.” — JIMMY KIMMELWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      6 Comedy Specials Worth Watching Over Memorial Day Weekend

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      New hours from Sarah Silverman, Mike Birbiglia, Jerrod Carmichael and others range widely in subject and style. But they all provide laugh-out-loud moments.Sarah Silverman, ‘PostMortem’(Stream it on Netflix)“Death is really hard for me,” Sarah Silverman says with the kind of impeccably performed earnestness that makes you believe her banal statement for just long enough to be sideswiped by the punchline. “And that’s what makes me unique.” What actually makes Silverman different is that few others would handle the death of a father and stepmother in the same month by joking merrily about merch. “I really feel like my parents would want me to monetize this,” she says.No amount of tragedy is going to turn Silverman into a maudlin solo artist. Her funniest jokes employ sarcasm, not sincerity. Despite its subject matter, this new hour is, in some ways, classic Silverman terrain, with raunchy bits and Hitler references. I wouldn’t even call it her most personal special. The closest she gets to philosophizing is a long chunk about the ignored life of the fly. Attention must be paid. She pays tribute to the memory of her parents through descriptions in loving detail.As those who saw her 2022 musical “The Bedwetter” know, her father clearly passed down a warmhearted, open-book sensibility. She ends with a scene from his last days, a beautiful (and gross) account of helping him pee. The most moving moment to me, though, was her consideration of the last words of her stepmother: “Your hair. It’s so dry.” Silverman looks grateful: “She always told me the truth.”Mike Birbiglia, ‘The Good Life’(Stream it on Netflix)Mike Birbiglia dislikes the friends of his 9-year-old daughter. Watching them, he quips, “makes me really not understand pedophilia.” That may not sound like a Birbiglia joke to you, but despite being a mostly clean, NPR- and Lincoln Center-approved comic, he has long been drawn to secrets, small transgressions and the humorous possibilities of being unlikable. He’s just not flamboyant about it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      For the Creators of ‘Adults,’ Maturity Is Overrated

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      Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold graduated from college in 2018. At commencement, they gave a speech in which they talked about moving on from Yale. As the speech went on, it appeared that Shaw was also moving on from Kronengold. A video clip of the speech went viral, not least because Hillary Clinton, that year’s speaker, can be seen giggling at a joke about Yale’s endowment.Shaw and Kronengold were briefly famous. Days later, jobless, they moved back in with their respective parents. She returned to the Upper West Side. He was back on Long Island.“All of my autonomy and independence and this beautiful sense of self I’d cultivated, no one cared about it anymore,” Kronengold said.Shaw and Kronengold were still together — the breakup had been a comic bit — but separated by the L.I.R.R. They missed school, they missed their friends, they missed having a schedule and a sense of purpose. Adulthood, it turned out, was kind of a bummer.Bored and isolated, they began to sketch out a show about five housemates living together, clumsily, in Queens, New York, a “Friends” remade for an extremely online, acutely self-conscious Gen Z crowd.“We were clearly lonely and, like, imagining this fantasy where all our friends lived with us,” Kronengold said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Sirens’ Is a Poppy Summer Getaway

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      The new Netflix series, starring Meghann Fahy, Milly Alcock and Julianne Moore, isn’t breaking any boundaries, but it is often entertaining.“Sirens,” a five-part mini-series on Netflix, brims with trendy TV elements, a mythology-tinged beach drama with a weepy trauma plot and a poppy attention to cult sagas. It’s more summer fling than marriage material, but who doesn’t like to get away?Meghann Fahy stars as the down-and-out Devon, who dresses in black, smokes cigarettes, has casual sexual encounters and tries to care for her ailing father with dementia in Buffalo. Milly Alcock is Simone, her little sister, a live-in assistant on Martha’s Vineyard whose outfits seem ripped from a Lilly Pulitzer lookbook. Devon arrives, unbidden, because she needs help, but she soon becomes worried that Simone is in a cult led by her employer, Kiki (Julianne Moore), an ethereal, overwhelming ex-lawyer married to a frustrated billionaire (Kevin Bacon).“Sirens” is “White Lotus”-adjacent, thanks in part to its “rich people: they are actually very sad sometimes” elements and especially thanks to Fahy, its lead and a “White Lotus” alumna. It shares an “Upstairs, Downstairs” behind-the-scenes energy and a fascination with birds with “The Residence.” As in the dopey yet engrossing thriller “Paradise,” there is something unsettling and amiss about the luxury here. Every mysterious streaming drama needs a parade of famous faces, and “Sirens” gives us Moore, Bacon and Glenn Howerton. And as with dozens of other poor-little-rich-folks series, primo real estate is the backbone of the show.Those are relatively chichi shows to resemble, but “Sirens” is perhaps more in keeping with trends from the other end of the prestige spectrum: It often feels like a Hallmark Channel movie.“Sirens” swims from campy to grounded and back, feeling sometimes refreshingly unpredictable and other times confusingly disjointed. When the oddities amplify each other, the show takes on an eerie, alluring dreaminess. But then the show backs away from its boldest ideas, as if it had this bolder, grander plan and then just said, “Eh, never mind.”The draw here is the goofy luminosity of it all and the commitment of the performances. It is also a show that could be told entirely through hair: Each perfect ponytail is an instant character biography; frizz stands in for personal failure; face-framing waves that crest right at the cheekbone might as well be a halo; and a stick-straight blowout cuts deeper than a knife in the back. More

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      Late Night Thinks Trump’s ‘White Genocide’ Video Was a Bit Much

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      “The guy who couldn’t find South Africa on a map of Africa” subjected its leader to an extremely dubious video about his own country, Jimmy Kimmel said.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Lie, the Beloved CountryOn Wednesday, President Trump lectured the visiting president of South Africa, claiming that genocide was being carried out against white farmers in his country (and subjecting him to a dubious video on that subject). In turn, Trump got a lecture from late-night hosts, who dismantled his false claims.“There’s a right-wing conspiracy theory bubbling right now that says they’re killing all the white people in South Africa,” Jimmy Kimmel explained on Wednesday night. “Trump apparently has seen this online, so he brings the president in, he turns the lights down and makes him sit through a multimedia presentation about his own country titled ‘White Genocide.’”“I mean, seriously, does anyone at the White House — does anyone around him ever say, ‘Oh, Mr. President, this one is wrong, this is not real, this one makes you look demented and dumb’? Nobody does.” — JIMMY KIMMELOn “The Daily Show,” Ronny Chieng said Trump had turned the White House meeting “into a murder podcast.”“Trump is convinced that there is white genocide going on in South Africa, which of course means there is no white genocide happening in South Africa. It’s not even mathematically possible. I mean, you’ll never run out of white South Africans when one of them is making 5,000 kids a week.” — RONNY CHIENG, referring to Elon Musk“But still, Trump thinks there is one, and you know he cares about it because he said ‘white genocide.’ It’s like someone told him, ‘Hey, it’s not just a genocide, it’s a white genocide. You know, the bad kind.’” — RONNY CHIENG“During the meeting, this is real, things got pretty heated, and the president of South Africa actually said, ‘I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.’ And then, to mess with Trump even more, he gave him tickets to see a Springsteen concert in New Jersey.” — JIMMY FALLON“Trump asked some tough questions, like, ‘How did you get rid of Elon? I’ll tell you what I did. How did you do it?’ — JIMMY FALLON“If you really want to impress Trump, you should have given him one of your golf courses. Then Trump would be like, ‘Hell, yeah! Sorry, white South Africans, if that’s even a real thing. Thoughts and prayers.’” — RONNY CHIENGThe Punchiest Punchlines (Golden Dome Edition)“President Trump has unveiled plans for a ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense shield that could cost tens of billions. Here is a schematic of what the golden dome would look like. The best part about the defense shield? He says the Klingons will pay for it.” — GREG GUTFELD“We’re fine. Gold doesn’t melt. It’s the strongest metal on earth.” — GRACE KUHLENSCHMIDT of “The Daily Show”“Yes, gold. Because when I think impenetrable, I think of stuff that pirates can bend with their teeth.” — STEPHEN COLBERTWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ronny Chieng Takes Issue With Kristi Noem’s Takes on Immigration

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      “We’re going to have to take you out of U.S.A.,” the “Daily Show” host said after the homeland security chief couldn’t correctly define habeas corpus and suggested a game show for citizenship.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Flunking OutPop quiz time — what’s the definition of habeas corpus? The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, fumbled the answer to this question during congressional testimony on Tuesday, and “The Daily Show” was not about to let it slide.“If Kristi Noem was just a random person on the street, I’d get it if she was, like, ‘Habeas corpus? That’s a Harry Potter spell, right? Makes you invisible?’” Ronny Chieng said.“But the secretary of homeland security should know that habeas corpus prevents the president from deporting you without due process, not that it lets the president deport you without due process. That’s the opposite of what it means! And I didn’t know you could have dyslexia for laws.” — RONNY CHIENG“A reality TV show for citizenship is somehow the most un-American and most American thing I’ve ever heard of. Although we already have a contest to prove who’s the most American, and it’s called the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. What’s more American than eating until your colon explodes and then going bankrupt from medical bills?” — RONNY CHIENG“It might be a nicer way to get deported. Instead of I.C.E. agents disappearing you up in unmarked vehicles, Ryan Seacrest walks into your living room with a TV crew, and is, like, ‘Carlos, we’re taking you out of the U.S.A.” — RONNY CHIENG“Kristi Noem, you still don’t know the basics of American law, so I’m sorry to say, we’re going to have to take you out of U.S.A.” — RONNY CHIENGThe Punchiest Punchlines (Big, Beautiful Edition)“Right now, Trump’s little Republi-buddies are on Capitol Hill trying to figure out a bill, but they’re coming close to fisticuffs over his heartless, tax-cutting boondoggle, which he’s been calling his [imitating Trump] ‘big, beautiful bill.’ It really sounds less like legislation, and more like the husky guy at a male strip club. ‘OK, ladies. Coming up on the main stage is Big Beautiful Bill! You know him, you love him, the dad-bod Adonis! He’s going to eat a whole potpie with his bare hands. Grab onto those handles, ladies, before he runs off to Home Depot!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“They’re trying to get Republicans to fall in line with what he keeps calling his ‘big, beautiful bill.’ And now, he somehow has got all the dummies around him calling it that, too. Big Beautiful Bill would be a good wrestling name, right?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’ll take food out of the mouths of millions of hungry children who get SNAP benefits, and it contains a provision to eliminate a sales tax on gun silencers. It will make what they call suppressors more affordable, to which I say, it’s about time. One thing I think we can all agree on is the gun violence in this country is too loud.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I read that Americans who are anxious about tariffs are skipping the salon and opting for at-home beauty treatments. Yeah, and after people cut their own bangs, tariffs will be the least of the their problems. ‘Summer’s ruined!’ Hey, here’s my advice: If you want a hot stone massage, just put your phone on your body and open five apps at once.” — JIMMY FALLONWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More