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Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition.

Some films impart a message that lasts, especially if they offer another way to see the world. The Atlantic’s writers and editors answer the question: What is a movie that changed your mind?

The following contains spoilers for the films mentioned.

Priscilla (streaming on Max)

Priscilla, Sofia Coppola’s 2023 film about Priscilla Beaulieu’s relationship with Elvis Presley, is terrific to look at but hard to watch. Priscilla is 14 when she meets an already famous 24-year-old Elvis. While still a teenager, she moves with her future husband to Graceland, where she wears sophisticated clothes and sits in plush rooms. As the film critic Anthony Lane wrote in a New Yorker review, to call the movie superficial, “even more so than Coppola’s other films, is no derogation, because surfaces are her subject.”

Priscilla is a revisionist project: It aims to tell the other side of Elvis’s story, to convey another perspective on a beloved cultural figure whose life has been the subject of countless books and biopics. So I wasn’t surprised that I left the theater unsettled, with a darker view of this artist whose songs I’d sung in elementary-school revues and whose home I’d visited on a high-school-band trip. But beyond the straightforward record-correcting objective of the movie (which is inspired by Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me), Coppola’s choice to end the film on a stark, ambiguous note reminded me that an abrupt conclusion can be as satisfying as a tidy one. That, in a movie concerned with the way things seem, feels true to life.

— Lora Kelley, associate editor

***

The Death of Stalin (streaming on Pluto TV)

Totalitarianism, when it’s not terrifying, can be absurd—the constant bowing to a Dear Leader, the seemingly arbitrary list of enemies and outlawed ideas that change every hour, the silly pomp of statues and parading armies. It’s almost impossible to capture the humor without undermining the horror. But The Death of Stalin, Armando Iannucci’s 2017 satire, brilliantly reveals the ridiculous side of authoritarian rule, and it opened my eyes to the small, shuffling, utterly banal individuals who undergird even the scariest systems.

Iannucci makes little effort at historical accuracy—I mean, Steve Buscemi plays Nikita Khrushchev—but he gets at deeper truths. The story takes place following the sudden death of the titular dictator. The power vacuum that opens is filled with scheming and backstabbing politicians, including Khrushchev, Lavrentiy Beria, and Georgy Malenkov. But Iannucci mines it all for laughs, and they are plentiful. The pettiness, the servility, the insecurity of these men are all on display as they spin around Stalin’s corpse. And watching this transfer of power reduced to a bizarre human drama reminds you about what makes tyranny possible: very ordinary people.

— Gal Beckerman, staff writer

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Rivers and Tides (streaming on Tubi)

When a friend first showed me Rivers and Tides, I had never heard of Andy Goldsworthy, and I had surely never seen anyone do what he did. The documentary follows the British artist through fields, forests, and tidelands as he creates sculptures and ephemeral works from materials he finds, often challenging our assumptions of what those materials, and their environments, even are. One frigid morning, we observe Goldsworthy snapping icicles apart, and whittling them with his teeth, to reconstruct them into a fluid form that seems to cut back and forth through a boulder; when the rising sun finally hits the sculpture, it’s spectacular. Another day, we see him collect fallen autumn leaves and arrange them over a pool of water into a surreal graphic gradient. Witnessing his way of seeing and collaborating with the world around him transformed me. I haven’t looked at a leaf—or twigs, or snow, or even stone—the same since.

— Kelsey J. Waite, senior copy editor

***

The Devil Wears Prada (streaming on FuboTV and Prime Video)

The Devil Wears Prada came out in June 2006, the same month I graduated from college. I saw it in a movie theater a few weeks into my first full-time job, and it was a revelation to watch its portrayal of the compromises, disappointments, and small victories that come with pursuing a career. The Devil Wears Prada is heightened and fantastical and unbelievable in all sorts of ways: The protagonist, Andy (the role that made me love Anne Hathaway forever), wears over-the-top clothes in an impossibly sleek office and kisses a suave older man on a lamp-lit Paris street. But the film is remarkably realistic and perceptive about work. Andy makes professional choices that alienate her from her parents, her friends, and her boyfriend. Even she doesn’t seem to fully understand why she is so determined to succeed at a job she never wanted in the first place. The film ends with her throwing her phone into a fountain and taking a job that more clearly aligns with her values and goals. But what’s stuck with me are the scenes where she is trying as hard as she can to prove to her boss, and to herself, that she can do anything that’s asked of her. Her ambition is remarkable—and it’s served as both an inspiration and a cautionary tale to me in the many years since.

— Eleanor Barkhorn, senior editor

***

Anora (available to rent on YouTube, streaming on Hulu March 17)

Of all the sex workers depicted in films, the titular protagonist of Anora—a movie that deserves at least three of its five Oscars—might be one of the few who actually feels like a worker.

At the strip club, Anora has shifts, a boss, and a mean colleague. Although sex work is technically illegal (albeit somewhat decriminalized) in New York City, she seems to have a somewhat normal job—until one night, when she gets close to Vanya, a new client. The story progresses like “Cinderella,” except the prince is the mediocre son of a Russian oligarch. Vanya marries Anora and gives her a taste of his opulent life. But when Vanya’s parents find out about the marriage, the love story is over.

Before watching Anora, I’d imagined that if work conditions improved for sex workers, they would be treated humanely. But Anora showed me—or perhaps reminded me—that society’s contempt for women in this industry is profound, and that better policies, important as they are, might never change that.

The beauty of Anora is that it never occurs to her that she is less-than. That a scion of the Russian oligarchy was never going to stay married to her seemed obvious to all of the characters—and perhaps also to the audience—but not to her. Anora screams and fights back, but even she has a limit to the amount of humiliation she can take. At the end of the movie, unable to continue holding her head high, she collapses into tears.

— Gisela Salim-Peyer, associate editor

Here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic:

His daughter was America’s first measles death in a decade. Teens are forgoing a classic rite of passage. Meet the strictest headmistress in Britain.

The Week Ahead

Snow White, a live-action remake starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot (in theaters Friday) The Residence, a murder-mystery show about an eccentric detective who must solve a murder at a White House dinner (premieres Thursday on Netflix) Red Scare, a book by Clay Risen about McCarthyism and the anti-Communist witch hunt (out Tuesday)

Essay

Pierre Crom / Getty

My Hometown Became a Different Country

By Tetiana Kotelnykova

Horlivka had always been a Russian-speaking city, but before 2014, our graduation ceremonies and school concerts were held in Ukrainian. We would sing the Ukrainian national anthem at the end of every event. Then, suddenly, the Ukrainian flags were taken down. The anthem was no longer sung. The Ukrainian language vanished from classrooms. The disappearance was so abrupt and absolute that it felt unreal, like a dream whose meaning was obscure to me. I remember asking my teacher why everything had altered so drastically. She didn’t have an answer—or maybe she was just too afraid to say.

Read the full article.

More in Culture

Bong Joon Ho will always root for the losers. The man who owned 181 Renoirs Megan Garber: “I can’t stop talking about The Traitors.” An unabashedly intellectual murder mystery There’s nothing else like Netflix’s Mo. “Dear James”: I hate playing with my children.

Catch Up on The Atlantic

Elon Musk looks desperate, Charlie Warzel writes. Mahmoud Khalil’s detention is a trial run. Don’t invite a recession in.

Photo Album

A cheerleader entertains the crowd during the annual Moomba Festival, in Melbourne, Australia. (William West / AFP / Getty)

Take a look at these photos of the week, which show a cheerleader in Australia, a train-pulling record attempt in Egypt, Holi celebrations in India, and more.

Explore all of our newsletters.

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After spending most of the 2024 campaign blaming Democrats for inflation and insisting that tariffs don’t increase prices, Donald Trump and his allies have a new economic message: High prices are good.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, for example, recently admitted to the Economic Club of New York that inflation-weary Americans could see a “one-time price adjustment” from Trump’s tariffs, but he quickly added that “access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream.” Representative Mark Alford of Missouri told CNN, “We all have a role to play in this to rightsize our government, and if I have to pay a little bit more for something, I’m all for it to get America right again.” And Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick put his own spin on the argument, telling NBC News that, yes, prices on imports will rise, but American-made goods will get cheaper, and that’s what matters. (In fact, tariffs generally lead to price increases for imported and domestic goods, because the latter face less foreign-price competition.)

It’s true that affordable goods and services are not, on their own, the definition of the American dream. But they’re a necessary component of it, and trade is one of the most important drivers of that affordability. Until recently, Republicans understood this quite well.

American workers are also American consumers who must devote a sizable chunk of their income to essential goods such as clothing, food, shelter, and energy—goods made cheaper and more plentiful by international trade. Produce and clothing from Latin America, lumber and energy from Canada, footwear and electronics from Asia, wine and cheese from Europe: All of these and more help Americans stretch their paychecks and live happier, healthier lives. Thanks to the internet, moreover, we benefit from internationally traded services too, whether it’s an online tutor in Pakistan, a personal trainer in London, a help-desk employee in India, or an accountant in the Philippines. And we gain from better or cheaper domestic goods and services that are forced to compete with imports on quality or price.

Overall, studies conservatively estimate that American households save thousands of dollars a year from the lower prices, increased variety, and global competition fomented by international trade. This increased purchasing power means not only that Americans have more “stuff” but also that their inflation-adjusted incomes are higher. As we just learned the hard way, bigger numbers on your paycheck mean nothing if you’re forced to spend even more on the things you need and want. In fact, one of the big reasons Americans’ inflation-adjusted wages have climbed in recent decades is that the exorbitant prices of things such as housing, health care, and education have been offset by significant declines for tradable goods such as toys, clothing, and consumer electronics. Money left over can also be saved for a rainy day or invested in things such as education and retirement.

[Rogé Karma: Trump’s most inexplicable decision yet]

The counterargument—until recently associated with the political left—is that cheap and varied consumer goods are not worth sacrificing the strength of America’s domestic-manufacturing sector. Even if we accept that (questionable) premise, however, it doesn’t justify Trump’s tariffs, because those tariffs will hurt domestic manufacturing too. About half of U.S. imports are intermediate goods, raw materials, and capital equipment that American manufacturers use to make their products and sell them here and abroad. Contrary to conventional wisdom, these imports increase domestic-manufacturing output and jobs. Thus, for example, an expanding U.S. trade deficit in automotive goods has long coincided with gains in domestic automotive output and production capacity, and past U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum caused a slowdown in U.S. manufacturing output. Even if domestic manufacturers don’t buy imported parts, simply having access to them serves as an important competitive check on the prices of made-in-America manufacturing inputs. This is why Trump’s recent steel-tariff announcement gave U.S. steelmakers a “green light to lift prices,” as The Wall Street Journal put it.

Imports such as construction materials, medical goods, and computers also support many U.S. service industries. And imports are important for leisure and economic mobility. By trading for necessities instead of making them ourselves, Americans have more free time to use for fun or self-improvement (and more disposable income to pursue such things). According to a new study in the Journal of International Economics, “between 1950 and 2014, trade openness contributed to an additional 20 to 95 hours of leisure per worker per year”—invaluable time we can devote to entertainment, family, community, or education.

“Access to cheap goods” isn’t the American dream, but it sure helps us achieve it. This is particularly true for low-income workers who have tight budgets and little leisure time. Shelter, food, transport, utilities, and clothes accounted for approximately 68 percent of the poorest 20 percent of U.S. households’ annual expenditures but just about half of the richest 20 percent of households’ spending. It’s easy for someone worth, say, $521 million, like Bessent, to pay a few bucks more for everyday goods and still achieve his goals and ambitions; it’s far more difficult for a single mom with four kids to do the same.

Democrats used to be the ones offering a false choice between Americans’ access to affordable (often imported) stuff and our economic well-being. In 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama told a union-sponsored-debate audience in Chicago that “people don’t want a cheaper T‑shirt if they’re losing a job in the process.” And Bernie Sanders famously said in 2015 that Americans “don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.”

Back in those days, Republicans defended the link between trade and American prosperity. Today, only a few party outcasts, such as Mike Pence, dare to do so. Trump’s allies have made very clear that they are trying to achieve a dream. It just isn’t America’s.