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This is Defector, a new sports blog and media company. We made this place together, we own it together, we run it together. Without access, without favor, without discretion, and without interference.

Defector

David Roth

Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. He is very dramatically backlit, naturally.

Podcasts

Hollywood’s Dampest Era, With Chris Nashawaty

Soraya Roberts

(from left) Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Tyler (Glen Powell) in Twisters, directed by Lee Isaac Chung.

Defector At The Movies

‘Twisters’ Can’t Singlehandedly Drag Us Back To The ’90s

Lauren Theisen

Overexplained Lists

1990s Blockbusters I Haven’t Seen, Ranked

Albert Burneko

George Clooney, as Michael Clayton, talks into a cell phone while walking down a city street at night.

This Is So Stupid

There Are Three Essential Lawyer Movies

Owen Lewis is a former Defector intern and has written for The Guardian, The Second Serve, The Athletic, and other publications.

Owen Lewis

Josh O'Connor feeds a churro to Mike Faist in a scene from Challengers

Tennis

Who Wins The Match In ‘Challengers’?

Annie Howard is a journalist and historian based in Chicago. She is currently at work on her debut manuscript, The City Made Me Trans.

Annie Howard

Arts And Culture

‘I Saw The TV Glow’ Unfurls The Great Trans Unknown

Columnist. Author of many <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Drew-Magary/e/B001JS8R52/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1">fine works of literature</a>, including Point B. Handsomest man in the world.

Drew Magary

A promotional poster for the James Bond film "No Time To Die" starring Daniel Craig at a cineplex in Shanghai showing all six actors who have played the character James Bond.

It’s Not Who Plays The Next Bond, It’s How You Write Him

Guy Ritchie speaks onstage during the Special NY Screening of "The Gentlemen" at the Alamo Drafthouse on January 11, 2020 in New York City.

Guy Ritchie Is The Least Appreciated Director In The World

Danny Sullivan writes <a href="https://theunderline.substack.com/">The Underline</a>, a newsletter covering books, movies, and ideas. He lives in Santa Fe.

Danny Sullivan

‘Dune’ Novels, Ranked By Unfilmability

Kelsey McKinney

dakota johnson in a red leather blazer looking confused

Everything I Remember About ‘Madame Web’

Nicholas Russell is a writer from Las Vegas.

Nicholas Russell

The main character giving a speech in Origin

‘Origin’ Fails As Both Homework And Entertainment

Stuck In The One-Woman Myth

A garden party scene from The Zone Of Interest

‘The Zone Of Interest’ Is About Cognitive Harmony

Kevin Von Erich poses at The Iron Claw premiere

Pro Wrestling

‘The Iron Claw’ And The Real Von Erich Story Go Together Like Pizza And Muffins

UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1921: Conrad Veidt as "Cesare" in the film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". Photograph. 1921

This Is A Damn Conrad Veidt Appreciation Blog

Barry Petchesky

Harold Lloyd Terrifying Babe Ruth With Bad Driving Is Now In The Public Domain

Defector Staff

Year In Review

The Best Things We Watched In 2023

Godzilla standing and I guess yelling, as seen during the trailer to the film Godzilla Minus One.

Six Things You Are Not Allowed To Say To Me About ‘Godzilla Minus One’

<div>Adam Charles Hart is an author, curator, and archivist who lives in Pittsburgh. His second book, &#8216;Raising the Dead: The Work of George A. Romero, will be out in early 2024 from Oxford University Press.</div>
<div></div>

Adam Charles Hart

TOPSHOT - US director Martin Scorsese poses as he arrives on May 8, 2018 for the screening of the film "Todos Lo Saben (Everybody Knows)" and the opening ceremony of the 71st edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France. (Photo by Antonin THUILLIER / AFP) (Photo by ANTONIN THUILLIER/AFP via Getty Images)

Martin Scorsese’s Second Life As An Adman

DW Griffith, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks signing contract establishing United Artists motion picture studio. (Photo by: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Funbag

A Unified Theory Of The Death Of The Movie Star

Katharine Trendacosta writes about tech policy, the entertainment industry, pop culture, and where those things intersect. In her day job, she&#8217;s the Associate Director of Policy and Activism for the digital civil liberties nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (Her writing here reflects her views alone and not those of EFF.) In her spare time, she writes things like this.

A photo of the author, Katharine Trendacosta

Katharine Trendacosta

Actor and writer Daheli Hall, left, joins WGA members as they cheer on the first day of their strike in front of Paramount Studios in Hollywood on May 2, 2023.

Capital

The Writers Are Striking For The Future Of Entertainment

Movies Have A Reality Disease. ‘Sisu’ Is The Cure

John Semley is a writer and researcher based in Philadelphia.

John Semley

Clint Eastwood at a podium, it's an animated GIF, and different Clint Eastwood fake twitter accounts slowly fill the screen

A Fistful Of Eastwoos: Inside The Battle For Clint Twitter

Keanu Reeves as John Wick, holding a handgun, with the text "Check Out the JW Collection" and a "shop now" button