Features
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The 40-Year-Old Version: How Andrew Whitworth Stays in the Game—and Continues to Dominate
Tom Brady gets plenty of credit for playing into his 40s, but the Rams’ left tackle is quietly doing something even more impressive. How has Andrew Whitworth kept playing this long? And what does he bring to an L.A. team that’s gone all in for a Super Bowl?
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How the Rise of the Celebrity Instructor Transformed Our Relationship With Fitness
In March 2020, the fitness industry was forced to adapt to the onset of a global pandemic. Nearly two years later, many of the changes are here to stay—for good and for bad.
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Praise Be: ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ Has Returned
Danny McBride’s latest HBO series made a strong statement with a first season that combined televangelism-aided excess with familial drama. Now it’s back and delving even deeper.
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How Atlanta’s Tyler Matzek Conquered the Yips to Become a World Series Champion
At the heart of Atlanta’s unlikely 2021 title run is an even more improbable story: the indispensable pitching of a reliever who years prior had lost the ability to throw and fallen completely out of the game
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The Black Neo-noirs of the ’90s
One of noir’s primary characteristics is its skewering of society’s ills. But not until films like ‘Deep Cover’ and ‘Devil in a Blue Dress’ did the genre turn its eye toward race and racism.
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Comedy’s Post-cinematic Universe
Hastened by the pandemic, a trend that’s been building for years fully arrived in 2021, as funny movies were almost entirely relegated to streaming platforms
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The Ringer’s 42 Favorite Sports Moments of 2021
From the Giannis breakthrough to the Ohtani experience to the greatest incomplete pass in NFL history, here are the sports moments that defined our year
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How 2021 Marked the End of “Unfilmable”
In less than two months, the notoriously unadaptable ‘Dune,’ ‘Foundation,’ and ‘The Wheel of Time’ changed Hollywood’s relationship to scaling the Everests of IP
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The Twisted, Stolen Legacy of the ‘Matrix’ Red Pill
The story of how the Wachowskis’ philosophical-crossroads moment was co-opted by bad-faith actors and a political movement is a complex tale about semiotics, the internet, and modern pop culture
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Your Favorite Scary Movie: The Oral History of ‘Scream’
Twenty-five years ago, Wes Craven’s bloody, witty meta-horror film hit theaters and reinvigorated multiple genres. Here’s how the iconic movie was made.
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Twenty Years Ago, ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ Changed the Future of Hollywood
Released toward the end of 2001, the blockbuster adaptations of two beloved fantasy epics created a blueprint for commodifying fandom that remains the film industry’s primary method of business
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The Things We (Actually) Loved to Watch in 2021
Everyone has that one show, or one movie, or one video snippet, that they love more than anyone else does, hold close to their hearts, and keep a secret while people are having conversations about "the best"
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The Making of Matisse Thybulle
Last postseason’s phantom layup changed everything for Ben Simmons—but it also had a major impact on the 76ers’ other young defensive stopper. With Simmons stuck in trade limbo, Thybulle has been thrust into a bigger role this season.
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2021 Was the Year Binge-Watching Took a Back Seat to Weekly TV
Binge culture has reigned for nearly a decade, and last year’s quarantines only added to its popularity. But in 2021, weekly TV reminded us all of its appeal.
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The Hidden Rise and Very Public Fall of SoundCloud Rap
One of the most popular movements in rap last decade traces its roots more to the internet than any specific region. How did a bunch of unpolished songs uploaded to a streaming platform lead to the mainstream rise of artists like Juice WRLD and XXXTentacion?
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The Ringer’s 100 Best Rap Songs of the 2010s
Which songs defined the last decade in rap? To mark the release of Ringer Films’ HBO documentary ‘Juice WRLD: Into the Abyss,’ we’re counting down the top tracks, from Drake to Future to everything in between.
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Austin Reaves’s Persistence Pays Off With Unexpected Lakers Role
The undrafted rookie has carved out a role for himself amid the Lakers’ many future Hall of Famers. What a journey it’s been from Newark, Arkansas, to Los Angeles.
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The Best Shots of 2021
Movies mostly returned to the big screen this year, and filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson, Leos Carax, and Denis Villeneuve filled them with scenes of longing, mystery, and stunning scale
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The Best Performances of 2021
From dramatic turns in cinema to sharp-witted television humor—plus a few unorthodox picks in between—these were the year’s best entertainers
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The Art of the Ending
After six television seasons, nine books, and hundreds of plot twists, ‘The Expanse’ concludes its TV and novel series within weeks of each other. Can it avoid the typical pitfalls of the genre series finale?
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The Best Songs of 2021
Drake and Kanye are both here, but not for songs off their much-hyped releases. Who else made our list of the best songs of a strange year in music?
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The 50 Best Movie Soundtracks of the Past 50 Years
From the iconic closing notes of ‘The Breakfast Club’ to the era-encapsulating mix of ‘Dazed and Confused’ to the work of the Purple One himself, these are the best mixes of cinema and sound since 1971
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The Best Movies of 2021
It was a year of octogenarian high jinks, long yet revealing documentaries, and masters reasserting themselves
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Thirty Years After ‘Hook,’ Steven Spielberg Finally Gets His Musical
On Friday, the most commercially successful director in history returns with ‘West Side Story,’ which will mark his first musical. But three decades ago, he almost got one with ‘Hook,’ his reimagining of the ‘Peter Pan’ story.
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The House Always Wins … Unless
Twenty years ago, ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ seduced audiences with the perfect heist: the robbing of several Las Vegas casinos. How accurate was the movie’s depiction of casino security? And how has the safeguarding of Sin City changed over the past two decades?
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The Best Albums of 2021
As the music industry regained some normalcy, big-time releases returned. But how many made our list of projects worth celebrating?
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The Best TV Shows of 2021
At the end of another long, strange, uncertain year, these are the television series worth celebrating
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OK Computers: A Formal Apology to College Football’s Biggest Scapegoat
The BCS era was defined by college football fans getting mad at a set of computer formulas. But math was never the problem with the old system—and the sport’s new selection process has only gotten worse.
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How the Power of Positivity Defined the Moments After the Injury That Changed My Life
Ryan Shazier came face-to-face with terror on a 2017 night in Cincinnati. In an excerpt from his new book, the former Steelers star opens up about what happened next—and explains how faith charted a path to his recovery.
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‘How to With John Wilson’ Was a Sleeper Hit. Now Comes the Weird Part.
"A lot of the time," Wilson says of the second season of his HBO series, "the best stuff is stuff that you would have never anticipated."
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The Deep and Twisted Roots of the American Yam
The American yam is not the food it says it is. How that came to be is a story of robbery, reinvention, and identity.
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How DMX’s First Tour Helped Usher in a New Era of Hip-hop
The Survival of the Illest Tour came just as X’s popularity exploded. Not only did it capture a young artist on the rise, it also paved the way for massive rap tours that followed.