Welcome to Video Village
· The Atlantic
Sign up for Video Village, a new weekly newsletter in which David Sims unearths cinematic gems and brings readers into his movie obsession.
Perhaps you’ve heard the news: Movies are back. For many of us (including quite a few of you, I imagine), they never went away, but 2026 has been a year of guarded optimism in Hollywood. Ticket sales are up, the box office is booming, and, most heartening of all, superhero movies aren’t propping up the industry largely by themselves. The diverse success of large-canvas storytelling such as Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and out-of-nowhere tiny-budget hits including Curry Barker’s Obsession have demonstrated how this art form still can seize the zeitgeist like few others.
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If you’ve ever read my movie coverage in The Atlantic over the decade-plus I’ve been here, my feelings of triumph and relief at this sanguine state of affairs should come as no surprise. I work primarily as a film critic, trying to spotlight popular art that matters, unearth little gems trying to make noise amid a crowd of “content,” and provide some thoughtful context on why the films I don’t like don’t work for me. I also love talking with filmmakers about their influences, the arc of their career, granular scene and shot choices, as well as writing wide-angle analysis, looking at the ways the industry responds to current events, and how the big-screen experience has fought for survival since the pandemic.
Video Village, which will arrive in your inbox every Thursday, will have all of that to offer—criticism, recommendations, and commentary on what’s happening in the world of movies. This newsletter takes its name from the industry term for the nerve center of a movie set: a collection of monitors where the director and their crew can watch footage live, making sure everything is looking good. But I also want to curate my own little nerve center with this community, bringing everyone together to share in this passion with unbridled enthusiasm. I’ll be suggesting fun viewing projects for you to undertake, and flipping through streaming offerings, new releases, old classics, and even random DVDs I have piled up. If you share in my cinema obsession—even at a fraction of my intensity—it’ll be a fun ride.