An afterlife sitcom, an angry penguin, tossed salad and scrambled eggs, and a Corby trouser press … our writers pick the shows they would happily watch on a loop for ever

I love every character and every aspect of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. There isn’t a weak link in the cast and they work together as seamlessly and apparently joyfully as you could wish.

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© Photograph: Gale Adler/Paramount/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gale Adler/Paramount/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gale Adler/Paramount/Getty Images

Big names from Leonardo DiCaprio to Timothée Chalamet are aiming for a win at Hollywood’s most important Oscars precursor

Hollywood’s A-list will assemble this weekend for the 83rd Golden Globes ceremony, a night that will reveal where this year’s Oscars race is headed.

Stars including Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothée Chalamet, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, Michael B Jordan and Ariana Grande are among those nominated for film awards while small-screen nominees include Helen Mirren, Jenna Ortega, Jude Law and Glen Powell.

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© Photograph: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

© Photograph: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

© Photograph: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Emily Henry’s hit book has been adapted into a glossily made yet charmless attempt to resurrect the friends-to-lovers formula

Released just as the weather turns to freezing and we’re all daydreaming of an escape, Netflix’s early January romcom People We Meet on Vacation is at the very least smartly timed. Produced as part of the streamer’s Sony deal, it benefits from some real studio gloss (proper lighting!) and as Polo & Pan’s perfectly balmy Nana plays over a transporting shot of our heroine lounging on a beach (the song was also used in Netflix’s underrated Christmas romcom Let it Snow), I was ready to relax with her. But what a brief escape it turned out to be …

The adaptation of Emily Henry’s much-loved 2021 novel has the superficial trappings all in check (eyes with permanent twinkles, unrealistic main character job in this climate, more easily affordable Taylor Swift song on the soundtrack) but no heart or soul to go with it. There’s simply nothing to root for or care about or grasp on to, just the limp tracing of something we’ve seen many many times before. Its closest comparison would be When Harry Met Sally, a similar journey that turns friends into lovers over a fairly epic time span (the pair even meet in the exact same way, forced to drive home together from college). But what felt lived in and genuinely human back in 1989 now feels shallow and synthetic in 2026, a grim start to the year for a genre I keep hoping and praying for.

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© Photograph: Michele K. Short/Netflix

© Photograph: Michele K. Short/Netflix

© Photograph: Michele K. Short/Netflix

There’s a great deal of unpretentious B-movie fun to be had in this brief, brutal and slickly made creature feature

There’s a refreshing lack of subtext and pretension to this week’s gory creature feature Primate, a straight-to-the-point riposte to the glum, trauma-heavy horror films we’ve been enduring of late. Rather than following his genre peers who are busy aiming for the lofty heights of Don’t Look Now and Possession, British director Johannes Roberts is happy to give gen Z their very own Shakma, the goofy 1990 schlocker about a baboon driven wild by an experimental drug.

That film took a while to gain a cult following, ultimately accepted by the same drunk Bad Movie crowd who took in Troll 2, but Primate won’t take anywhere near as long. It’s a far better, slicker movie for one, a surgically well-made crowd-pleaser that swaps out baboon for chimp, cleverly turning him from test subject to domesticated pet. At 89-minutes and paced like a rollercoaster, there’s little room for life lessons, although the film does make for a stern, grisly reminder of why chimps should not be considered part of the family (something many still don’t seem to understand).

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© Photograph: Gareth Gatrell/AP

© Photograph: Gareth Gatrell/AP

© Photograph: Gareth Gatrell/AP

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani described a complex and expensive expansion of child care in New York City that would add programs for 2-year-olds.

© Anna Watts for The New York Times

The shooting did not appear to be a targeted attack against the church and seemed to stem from an altercation in its parking lot, the police said.

© Niki Chan Wylie for The New York Times

Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic thriller and Apple’s comedy series lead nominations for the renamed Sag awards with an impressive showing for Sinners and Adolescence

One Battle After Another and The Studio lead the nominations for this year’s Actor awards.

The Actor awards were previously known as the Screen Actors Guild (Sag) awards but were renamed last year. The name change was to provide “clearer recognition in terms of what the show is about”, according to those involved.

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© Photograph: Christopher Polk/Variety/Getty Images

© Photograph: Christopher Polk/Variety/Getty Images

© Photograph: Christopher Polk/Variety/Getty Images

The Justice Department has dedicated scores of lawyers, including more than 125 from the Southern District of New York, to reviewing over two million documents in the prominent case.

© Jon Elswick/Associated Press

A court dispute over the lines of the 11th Congressional District represents one of Democrats’ few hopes of drawing maps in their favor for the 2026 midterms.

© Erik McGregor/LightRocket, via Getty Images

U.S. shifts Iran policy as Trump administration revives aggressive messaging toward Tehran, contrasting sharply with previous diplomatic approaches.

From much-anticipated sequels to music mockumentaries to auteur returns, the next 12 months offers up a wide variety of intriguing new movies

• Doomed lovers, high heels, and The Odyssey: more films to get excited about this year

• The 50 must-see TV shows for 2026

I doubt very much that 2026 will see anything in the Marty Supreme league, but here’s hoping one of the most bizarre side-steps of the decade turns out as interesting as it hopes. Short of Christopher Nolan signing on to the new Mr Men movie, I didn’t think much would throw the industry a loop as when Greta Gerwig decided to follow up bubblegum blockbuster Barbie with …… a Narnia movie. More specifically, Gerwig – previously a skilled purveyor of achingly hip alt-indie comedy with Lady Bird, Frances Ha and Damsels in Distress – is restarting the Narnia series, which had got through three of CS Lewis’s series before Netflix took over the rights. To my mind, though, The Magician’s Nephew, Lewis’s origins/prequel to the Wardrobe/Caspian/Dawn Treader narrative, is the most interesting of the entire Narnia canon, with its Edenic fall, “deplorable word” and mystical apple. We know some of the cast: Emma Mackey is the future White Witch, Carey Mulligan the terminally ill mother of one of the main kids, and Daniel Craig might be Aslan or mad inventor Uncle Andrew – or both, or neither. All eyes will be naturally be on Gerwig, but I have confidence she will pull it off in style. Andrew Pulver

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© Photograph: A24

© Photograph: A24

© Photograph: A24

Anna Bahr, who leads communications for the Vermont senator and worked on his presidential campaign, is the latest appointee to a high-profile role in the Mamdani administration.

© Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

“I’m innocent. I’m not guilty. I am a decent man,” the captured Venezuelan president told a judge in Manhattan federal court. “I am still president of my country.”

© Vincent Alban/The New York Times

Executives debated whether to allow the corporation to lie dormant after federal funding ended last year, but decided against it.

© Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York Times

Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, and his wife, Cilia Flores, will make their first appearance on Monday in a New York City courthouse, the site of other high-profile proceedings.

© Adam Gray/Getty Images

Hezbollah condemns U.S. capture of Nicolas Maduro as Secretary of State Marco Rubio vows to end the terrorist group's decades-long presence in Venezuela.

Iran protests prompted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to call demonstrators "enemy mercenaries" and "rioters" in his first public speech since nationwide unrest began seven days ago.

Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro's capture deals devastating blow to Iran's Western Hemisphere interests, experts say, weakening Tehran's anti-American alliance in South America.

With Nicolás Maduro out, experts say Nobel laureate María Corina Machado and Edmundo González could lead Venezuela’s transition, though major hurdles remain.