Bob Mondello

This Monday, every player in Major League Baseball will wear the same number on his jersey: 42, which was Jackie Robinson's number when, in 1947, he became the first black player in the majors, playing first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Today, baseball celebrates April 15 as Jackie Robinson Day. ...

Time now for a home viewing recommendation from our critic Bob Mondello. This week, Bob is intrigued by the 40th anniversary of the film that put Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek and director Terrence Malick on the map — Badlands.

The plot's based on a notorious duo and a real-life 1950s ...

The year is 1915. A beautiful young woman bicycling through sun-dappled woods passes under an effigy of a German soldier and seems entirely unfazed. World War I is raging elsewhere in Europe, but here on the French Riviera life is serene.

The cyclist, Andree, is on her way to pose ...

With the Supreme Court hearing arguments this week on same-sex marriage, I'd like to point out a parallel evolution in what I see as a Hollywood mini-genre: films in which gay characters are either taken to court or seek redress in court for issues involving their sexuality.

Arguably the most ...

The makers of the animated Vikings comedy How to Train Your Dragon have come up with an animated caveman comedy that might as well be titled How to Train Your Father. Instead, they've called it The Croods, and centered it on a cavegirl named Eep (Emma Stone) who ...

Two young actresses with substantial Hollywood pedigrees have the title roles in the new film Ginger & Rosa. Ginger is played by Dakota Fanning's 13-year-old sister, Elle, who already has more than 30 movie credits. Rosa is played by Alice Englert, daughter of Oscar-winning writer-director Jane Campion and star of ...

Oz the Great and Powerful tells the story of how the Wizard came to Oz, answering a question I suspect no one was asking, but with considerable digital wizardry.

The prequel begins in black and white, just the way you hope it will, with old-fashioned theatrical credits dissolving into a ...

Adaptations of fairy tales are everywhere you look. The TV show Once Upon a Time and the police procedural Grimm are in their second seasons. Hansel and his sister Gretel are at the cineplex hunting witches with machine guns. Jack, of beanstalk fame, starts slaying giants today. And those aren't ...

Audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival handed the fest's top prize, the Peoples Choice Award, to the comedy starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro and...

Bob Mondello looks at the movies scheduled for release between now and Thanksgiving, including plenty with Oscar buzz and a few without.

A character we've yet to meet flies through the air in slow motion, above a busy New York street, arms and legs splayed. He's wearing a bike helmet, which is a good thing — because as The Who's "Baba O'Riley" pulses in the background and numbers come up on the ...

As the party conventions approach, elaborate theatrics on the part of presidential candidates are at the forefront. NPR critic Bob Mondello takes a look at the ways campaigns frame th...

The Dark Knight Rises places Batman in contemporary New York amid familiar economic and social unrest. NPR's Bob Mondello says the film is as big and loud as expected. The biggest sur...

Veteran Broadway performer Carol Channing has been onstage for seven decades. A new documentary lovingly profiles the still-sharp, still-charming star of Hello, Dolly.

As Hollywood rolls out Oscar hopefuls over the next two months, there's a curious thread developing: Many of these films are set amidst the backdrop of wars — especially wars involving Great Britain.

From the World War I cavalry charge in Steven Spielberg's War Horse, to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's ...