“Bad Girl” By DEVIKA GIRISH This month’s picks include a feminist coming-of-age tale from India, a documentary about grasshopper harvesting in Uganda, a queer fable from Brazil and more. ‘Bad Girl’ Not everyone will experience the same wondrous thrill of recognition I did when I watched Varsha Bharath’s audacious coming-of-age tale, but “Bad Girl” will certainly strike a chord or two with anyone who has rebelled against the dictates of society. For me, a South Indian woman wh

Conductor JoAnn Falletta in 2015 (Wikipedia/David Adam Beloff) By PEGGY ANN BLISS Special to The STAR One of the world’s finest female orchestra conductors, JoAnn Falletta, is back in San Juan, bearing musical wealth galore from the North. And as this unique product of the Big Apple steps up to that Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra (PRSO) podium Saturday night, she’ll bestow Yankee goodies with pride and love. Falletta and the ensemble’s 75 musicians will reunite over three of

The Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City houses major works by Frida Kahlo, most notably her iconic 1939 painting “The Two Fridas” (Las dos Fridas). ( smarthistory.org ) By VICTORIA BURNETT and ZACHARY SMALL A storied collection of 20th-century Mexican art that includes a trove of paintings by Frida Kahlo has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Mexico City’s Museum of Modern Art in recent weeks. Record crowds have lined up to see some 70 pieces from the esteemed Gelman Coll

The lovers are played by Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. By MAHOHLA DARGIS “The Drama” is a clever, deeply unserious movie about male panic in the guise of an edgy romantic comedy. It’s bright and shiny and aggressively nasty, and centers on a couple who meet, fall in love, become engaged and experience a relationship crisis of outlandish proportions. Screen romances tend to be catnip, and that’s certainly true in this case because the lovers are played by Zendaya and Robert Pa

Teenagers visited the notorious Black Angus in Miramar as a rite of passage. Some would make jokes such as: “I saw your sister at Black Angus.” ( pinterest.com via 80s Jamaica) By EVA LLORENS Long before he became a communications adviser and a journalist, before he learned how to ask questions with the sharpness of a scalpel and the hesitation of someone who has lived more than he lets on, Juan José Díaz Díaz carried a chapter in his life that most people did not know about

By JASON BAILEY ‘A Little Prayer’ (2025) David Strathairn led the all-star cast of “Good Night and Good Luck” in 2005, got an Oscar nomination for his trouble, and then … kept right on being David Strathairn, making small movies with lesser-known directors (rather than cashing in as, say, a Marvel villain). He’s particularly good, in all of his specific ways, in this modest drama of a quietly messy family, from writer-director Angus Maclachlan. As the patriarch Bill Brass, St

A mixed-generation crowd at the Latin Mondays dance party at 5th & Mad in Manhattan on Feb. 2, 2026. Bad Bunny’s “Baile Inolvidable” has sparked a surge of interest in salsa dancing and brought in a younger generation. (Rafael Rios/The New York Times) By BRIAN SEIBERT Nearly every move Bad Bunny made during the Super Bowl halftime show last month has been scrutinized for its cultural significance. But there’s still more to say about one. It came during the segment devoted to

Roman busy at work painting one of her fantastical portraits. By EVA LLORENS The hills of Arecibo, quiet and lush, shaped the imagination of Puerto Rican artist Aidamaris Román long before she ever held a professional brush. She grew up in the countryside, surrounded by what she still describes as an unseen magic. “I live in the country,” she says. “I feel it has so much magic. It inspired me to paint fantasy — like fairies and mermaids.” That sense of wonder, rooted in child

In an undated image provided by Bungie, a scene from the extraction shooter game Marathon. Over the decades, the depiction of artificial intelligence has evolved from sci-fi villain to systemic reality. (Bungie via The New York Times) By YUSSEF COLE Players take up the role of runners, free-floating consciousness beamed across space into the hollow shells of mindless synthetic bodies, in Marathon, the newest game by the studio behind the sci-fi behemoths Halo and Destiny. The

Sylvain Chomet in Paris, on Feb. 3, 2026. The first animated feature in 15 years by the acclaimed French filmmaker Sylvain Chomet, the “Triplets of Belleville” creator, is a biopic of another artist who never lost his ability for wonder and curiosity. (Elliott Verdier/The New York Times) By CARLOS AGUILAR In the hand-drawn period pieces that have earned French animator Sylvain Chomet international acclaim, the cartoony characters don’t speak. Their bodies tell the story. But