The long-awaited sequel reunites Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep, piles on the fan-service escapism — and doubles a sober reminder of how much has changed in 20 years

A long time ago, in a Manhattan far, far away, a young commoner walked into a magical kingdom named Vogue and took a job as an assistant to Queen Wintour. She eventually escaped the clutches of her regal tormentor and wrote a roman à clef about her experiences. Names were changed, and the story was technically categorized as fiction. But everyone knew who this “Miranda Priestly” character, with her Hermès scarf and sharp tongue, really was. Besides, industry gossip, behind-the-curtain peeks and pure, uncut schadenfreude can move a lot of books.

It helps to remember that Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel The Devil Wears Prada began life as a form of literary payback, and when the movie adaptation hit screens in 2006, the era of celebrity editors-in-chief and hostile workplaces was still in full swing. Not even this surprisingly sticky fad known as “the internet” could dim the velvet-rope allure of working at a major fashion rag in the then-bustling New York publishing world. Poor Andy Sachs — in the form of the Disney princess-eyed Anne Hathaway — may have suffered the verbal lashings of a boss who expected whims to move worlds on her behalf. But at least this junior assistant got free handbags and a major glow-up out of it. Also, a note to filmmakers: If you want to make your villain imperious and more than a pale imitation of the real thing, cast Meryl Streep. There’s a reason Miranda Priestly remains one of the Oscar-winner’s most beloved roles and a hall-of-fame malefactor.

That transformation from barely concealed tell-all to a celebration of the good, the bad, and the ugly that went with our hero’s Faustian fashionista bargain was already in effect before the original Devil Wears Prada became a time capsule. Everyone’s favorite dish of cinematic comfort food was destined for an eventual sequel, but how do you recapture a lost world and still retain that sense of voyeuristic envy, that feeling of life-changing zhuzh being just a Chanel away?

The Devil Wears Prada 2 knows that it’s got to walk the fine line between giving the people what they want — cattiness, couture, glamor, the glory that is a Stanley Tucci eyeroll — and acknowledging that a lot has happened in two decades. Welcome to 2026, where treating your assistants like dirt is an H.R. violation, billionaires buy newspapers and publishing houses to pad portfolios, and that quaint little thing we call journalism has suffered an existential death by a thousand clicks. Andy Sachs is now an award-winning investigative reporter, which doesn’t stop her or her team from being fired by group text. Miranda Priestly continues to run Runway, the faux-Vogue of the Devil-verse, but a scandal involving a puff piece on a toxic brand means she’s got to suffer the slings and arrows of a snarky meme tsunami. Everyone’s budgets have been slashed. Everyone’s frantically chasing metrics. How’s a Machiavelli in Manolo Blahniks expected to properly dictate taste in this kind of distasteful environment?

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When Andy’s passionate acceptance speech during an NY Press Club event goes viral (“Journalism still fucking matters!”), Runway chairman Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman) offers her a job as the magazine’s features editor. Miranda doesn’t remember her former assistant, and is not happy with this mandate from on high. Still, there are fires to be put out, so the two of them and Runway‘s fashion director, Nigel Kipling (Tucci), head to Dior so they can salvage ad dollars. Oh, and guess who’s now running that fashion house? Andy’s old frenemy and O.G. Priestly enabler Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt). She remains venomous after all these years. Miranda continues to humiliate her inferiors, a.k.a. everyone who hasn’t run a magazine for 30 years, and forces Andy to — gasp — take the 7 train back to the office. For shame! Nigel once again steps in a saintly father figure with access to a to-die-for sample closet. Plus ça change.

Andy begins assigning out tough features about meaningful topics outside of which accessories go best with your spring wardrobe, none of which hit with Runway readers. But they do strike a chord with Sasha Barnes (Lucy Liu), the recently divorced wife of billionaire übernerd Benji Barnes (Justin Theroux). Given she is “the holy grail of interviews” and Andy secures Sasha’s first on-the-record chat in years thanks to her pluck and moxie, our hero manages to score a hit and narrowly avoid getting sacked. The philanthropist even gives them a juicy tidbit of breaking news as a parting gift; the fact that the movie cuts back to the masthead poring over pages without ever mentioning a social-media plan, a digital breakout post, or how the video shoot of this interview will be Ginsu-ed into TikTok testimonials tells you how stuck in the idealized past Prada 2 is.

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[A quick word about the Barnes: You thought Priestly was a thinly veiled caricature of a real-life figure? Let’s just say that it’s a major sign of restraint on the movie’s part that they don’t have Sasha namedrop her anti-bullying organization or show Benji goofing around with Katy Perry in space.]

From here, The Devil Wears Prada 2 goes from flirting with topicality to fully committing to a balance of you-better-work escapism and doomscrolling. The fan-servicing formula is in full effect, with callbacks galore and the same generically zippy score that’s the aural equivalent of a Frappucino. (That said: The Lady Gaga-Doechii single recorded for the film is a stone-cold banger.) The chicest outfits still complement the most outrageous of clichés. Nostalgia for the days of standards and bullet-stopping September issues mixes with handwringing over the state of magazines, media outlets, the overall environment that sold the original Devil Wears Prada as a fairy tale.

This time, instead of Adrian Grenier’s dreamboat chef, we get Patrick Brammell’s Australian renovator as a romantic interest for Andy — and like Grenier’s character, he’s merely there to inform Andy how much she’s fallen prey to workaholism and the temptation of perks. Simon Baker’s smooth-talking veteran journalist is AWOL — we assume he’s been long-canceled by now — but we do get B.J. Novak as Ravitz’s jargon-spouting son in a tech-bro vest, who has big plans for Runway 2.0. Backs get stabbed. Comeuppance is issued. The good are rewarded, the long-suffering and loyal get their spotlight moment, and Judas is denied their 30 pieces of silver.

Director David Frankel understands that familiarity may breed contempt in other areas of life, but sequels, especially long-awaited ones to fan favorites, thrive on a basis of light rinsing and repeating. We may now hate the rich and the entitled, yet there’s still a market for peeking in on lobster lunches in the Hamptons, gala birthday parties for moguls, and spending seven minutes in heaven, a.k.a. fashion week in Milan. Everyone involved gives you the sense that they want to be there, which is more than you can say for a lot of late-in-the-game follow-ups. Hathaway adds grit to ingenue version of Andy Sachs, yet still maintains that sense of innocence and righteousness needed to make her a tour guide. Tucci, who thankfully gets a lot more screen time here, understands the assignment and plays the patron saint in a waistcoat with aplomb. The alpha of the original films dual-assistant “Emilys” remains a Blunt instrument. Streep is Streep, and we can’t think of higher compliment to pay her than that. A scene in which Priestly must suffer the indignity of having to hang up her own coat (!) is transformed into a three-act comic pantomime. In a perfect world, that sequence alone would win Streep her [checks notes] four millionth Oscar.

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Yet don’t be surprised if this second helping of Sunday afternoon couch viewing leaves a slightly bittersweet taste in your mouth. For many viewers, The Devil Wears Prada 2 will be another dollop of high-fashion wish-fulfillment, a chance to once again gain access to an exclusive realm of air kisses and luxury-brand window shopping. For journalists, this is a horror movie now matter how stylish and dazzling you dress it up. Every victory is given the full Prada treatment and is still explicitly stated as being Pyrrhic. No combination of stilettos and old-fashioned shoe-leather can temper the fact that integrity, talent, hard work, and a dedication to treating everything from fashion to the moving pictures with seriousness is in perpetual danger of extinction.

So yeah, this sequel has its moments of fun. It may also serve some as a sobering reminder of how change no longer moves at a glacial pace since Andy Sachs first entered the glass doors of Runway and learned the ropes. Once upon a time, this sequel would have been the highlight of Fox’s release year, making millions that would have been funneled into a wide variety of other projects. Now it’s ultimately destined to be just another thumbnail on a streamer, algorithmically nestled between a NatGeo doc on penguins and either a Star Wars or a Marvel franchise entry. Oh, don’t be ridiculous, some might say. Everyone wants this. Do we, really?