Sarah Krasnostein

is The Saturday Paper’s television critic and winner of the 2022 Pascall Prize for arts criticism.

By this author


podcast July 20, 2023

How the Matildas are taking on the world

Writer and Matildas fanatic Sarah Krasnostein on the Women’s World Cup – and the impact the Tillies will have on Australian sport.

Sport June 17, 2023

Emily van Egmond’s high hopes for the World Cup

Matildas stalwart Emily van Egmond has watched women’s soccer in Australia come into its own, and she hopes this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, the first to be played on home soil, will unleash its full potential.

Culture May 27, 2023

Succession

The racing pulse of HBO’s prestige hit Succession is the emotional whiplash of unresolved family abuse.

Culture March 04, 2023

The Last of Us

The powerful adaptation of PlayStation’s zombie game The Last of Us has unexpected glimpses of human grace amid the primal horror.

Culture January 14, 2023

Stutz

Jonah Hill’s astonishing Netflix documentary about his psychiatrist, Phil Stutz, opens up the possibilities of the talking cure.

Culture September 24, 2022

Pointing the cameras at Woodstock ’99

A new documentary and a docuseries explore the catastrophe that was Woodstock ’99.

Culture August 13, 2022

Killing It

A masterful comedy series takes the American dream and reveals its human cost in consistently surprising ways.

Culture May 21, 2022

Our Flag Means Death

The genre-busting pirate romance Our Flag Means Death is straight up hilarious – and artistically and emotionally gorgeous.

Culture April 09, 2022

Severance

Few television series have captured the uncanny as elegantly as Dan Erikson’s beautifully realised Severance.

podcast March 22, 2022

Sarah Krasnostein on Australia’s mental health crisis

Author of a new Quarterly Essay on the mental health system Sarah Krasnostein on how Australia’s history of incarceration and shame informs the current crisis.

Culture March 05, 2022

Cheer

A gripping docuseries about the gruelling sport of cheerleading reveals its subjects’ lives with finely drawn seriousness.

podcast October 01, 2021

‘Alone’ is the real life Hunger Games we can’t stop watching

Have you ever wondered how long you would last if you were dropped into the wilderness with just a hunting knife, a shovel, and a sleeping bag? A day? A week? That’s the premise of a show called ‘Alone’. Think ‘Survivor’, but on steroids.

Culture October 02, 2021

SBS’s Chad

Nasim Pedrad’s Chad brings an inspiring complexity to the comic gaps of adolescent awkwardness.

Culture September 11, 2021

Alone

In opening up interior terrains, the survival series Alone makes other reality television look like pantomime.

Culture July 31, 2021

Katla

Baltasar Kormákur’s eerie Netflix series Katla is an original work of poetic myth about grief, longing and guilt.

Culture June 26, 2021

Solos

Amazon’s star-studded science fiction series Solos takes on the monologue but doesn’t quite fulfil the promise of its form.

podcast June 15, 2021

Weekend Read: Sarah Krasnostein on the most hated man

Today, Sarah Krasnostein, the best-selling author of ‘The Trauma Cleaner’, reads her essay from the latest issue of The Monthly. It’s called ‘The most hated man’ and it explores the sentencing of Richard Pusey, who was convicted of outraging public decency after he filmed the horrific aftermath of a car crash that killed four police officers.

podcast May 28, 2021

The problem with our true crime obsession

Whether it’s podcasts like ‘Serial’ or ‘The Teacher’s Pet’, Netflix documentaries like ‘Making a Murderer’ or ‘Tiger King’, true crime is absolutely dominant.

Culture May 15, 2021

The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness

True crime series such as The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness feed our appetites for fear, while shielding us from the crimes of which we should really be afraid.

Comment June 01, 2019

Character assessment in sentencing decisions

“Some time between 8.58am and 10.43am on June 29, 2016, after Borce and Karen Ristevski’s daughter, Sarah, left for work, Borce killed Karen, his wife of 27 years, in a manner known only to himself. He then moved her body from their home, placed it in …”

Life March 30, 2019

The new taxidermy

The tricks of the taxidermy trade were once held tight by older, male enthusiasts. But today a new generation of young women are lending their artistic and scientific talents to preserving dead animals in the most lifelike manner.

News March 16, 2019

Full circle

As Chief Judge Peter Kidd steadily reads his sentencing of George Pell, the author sits among those assembled in court, watching the cardinal, and considering the nature of power in the justice system.

Culture October 06, 2018

The stocking truth of Polly Borland

Living in different places around the world has left artist Polly Borland feeling like an outsider with unwanted opinions, but she’s happy to let the subversion of her work speak for itself. “She grew up alone in this apartment with this doll,” Borland said of Dare Wright, creator of the Lonely Doll books. “Her mother would go out, leave her alone. Eventually she became a model and started taking photos. It’s no wonder I’m into dress-up. I get a lot from childhood. What might look childlike is not. There’s a sinister undertow to a lot of my imagery.”