The best the Bay Area has to offer, from the writers and editors of KQED Arts & Culture.

Critics' PicksCritics' Picks
Paper plate with ribs, mac and cheese, and black-eyed pea salad.

Hella Juneteenth Brings a Good Old-Fashioned Cookout to the Museum

A beautiful white woman with tied-back brown hair closes the trunk of a yellow cab in an urban street. She is wearing classic casual white shirt and blue jeans.

Celine Song’s Follow-Up to ‘Past Lives’ Explores Another Complicated Love Triangle

Thomas Mallon’s Diaries Get to the ‘Very Heart’ of the AIDS Crisis

Three women pose for a portrait while sitting on a sofa.

The Bay Area’s First Women’s Sports Bar Is Open for Business

Videos at Asian Art Museum Capture the Anxiety and Explosions of ‘Everyday War’

A man and a woman, both wearing black shirts, pose for a photo.

It’s a Bay Area Film Night, For Real For Real

Veteran Journalist Explores Impact of Private Equity on US Society

Four men in 1800s clothes frolic and laugh at an old wooden table

At the Opera House, Summer’s Here and the Time Is Right for ‘La bohème’

A close up on a man's eyes, his face hidden beneath a hooded gas mask of some kind.

Netflix’s ‘The Eternaut’ Makes a Haunting Series of a Classic Comic

A book cover featuring a black and white photo of a line of tents set up in an urban landscape.

A New Book by Maria Foscarinis Makes the Case for Housing as a Human Right