Filmmaker Michael Mann joins Letterboxd in conversation about his favorite films, on the occasion of the launch of the Michael Mann Archives — Directing Ferrari. Links: Michael Mann's Letterboxd Films talked about in this conversation Michael Mann’s list of his 14 favorite films Michael Mann Archives — Directing Ferrari Mia Lee Vicino’s Letterboxd Video version of this conversation on our YouTube channel Credits: The conversation was recorded by Eileen Ruiz and edited by Shannon Keirce. Them...
Jul 31, 2024•54 min
The podcast hosts of summer a back! This time around Slim, Mia , and Mitchell discuss the upcoming SUMMER slate of movies and why you might need to add them to your own watchlists including MaXXXine, Kinds of Kindness, Furiousa: A Mad Max Saga, and Longlegs just to name a few*.* They also look ahead outside the most popular movies and shuffle their watchlists just like old times. Weekend Watchlist – Updated Weekly list > movies mentioned in this episode. Chapters: Opening cre...
May 03, 2024•57 min
For our grand finale, the Best in Show crew heads to the 96th Academy Awards! Brian , who had a golden ticket to the ceremony itself, recaps how it felt for his eyes to see Al Pacino announce, “My eyes see Oppenheimer !”, while Gemma and Mia recount their hectic day on the red carpet and evening in the press room—plus dancing with the Anatomy of a Fall lawyers at the afterparty. Finally, we invite our London correspondent/Best in Show newsletter extraordinaire George Fenwick to reflect on the aw...
Mar 15, 2024•1 hr 11 min
This week, Gemma chats with Academy President Janet Yang and CEO Bill Kramer about the importance of the Oscars to the global film community, plus its engaging impact on theater-going in a constantly changing industry. Also, Mia and Brian debrief about the Dune: Part Two hype (Space melodrama! More worms! All hail Denis Villeneuve!) and its entry into the Letterboxd Top 250 at a miraculous number six. For the grand finale, riot grrrl rockers Sleater-Kinney make a special appearance, with Carrie ...
Mar 08, 2024•59 min
This week, the Best in Show crew is full of Indie Spirit as they mingle on the carpet and out the back of the Film Independent Spirit Awards, where Zoe Lister-Jones, Jordan Firstman and the teams from Kokomo City and The Zone of Interest all stop by for chats about Cassavetes versus Altman, the secrets to a great director-producer relationship and epic movie dog moments. Brian meets his sporting hero Marshawn Lynch, and Mia settles in for a conversation with International Feature Spirit winner J...
Mar 01, 2024•57 min
This week, the Best in Show crew finds out what they’re made for with Grammy-winning special guests Billie Eilish and Finneas. The superstar sibling duo is behind the Best Original Song Oscar nominee ‘What Was I Made For?’, and Mia chats with them about hiding secrets in their devastating-but-hopeful tune, the music and movies that make them feel emotionally validated and Billie’s directing aspirations. There’s also some queening out over a mutual love of Andrew Scott in Fleabag and Sherlock— re...
Feb 23, 2024•56 min
This week, Brian , Gemma and Mia break down the art of visual effects with a little help from our friends: The Creator director Gareth Edwards and his visual effects on-set supervisor Andrew Roberts. More ‘Help!’ arrives in the form of Sean Lennon, co-writer of the Oscar-nominated short War Is Over! , via his chat with our New York correspondent, Julia Barrett-Mitchell . Mia and Brian also recap their Oscars Luncheon experience, which involved press and A-listers alike getting starstruck by Mess...
Feb 16, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Bonjour! The Best in Show crew digs into the Best International Feature race, with an entrée of an interview between Brian , Juliette Binoche and Tran Anh Hung about their César-nominated collaboration, The Taste of Things . Gemma , Mia and Brian also divulge the recipe for the International Feature category and how its submissions work—and briefly bring in Perfect Days director Wim Wenders and Society of the Snow 's J.A. Bayona as a treat. Chapters: Opening credits (00:00:00) News (00:02:22...
Feb 09, 2024•1 hr 1 min
The Best in Show team welcomes our East Coast correspondent Adesola Thomas to chat about her best of the Park City fest, among them the raucous Irish-language rap-musical Kneecap , sisterly drama In the Summers and coming-of-age charmer D ìdi (弟弟) . Then, Mia and Gemma head to Osage County with five-time Oscar-nominated costume designer Jacqueline West for an in-depth interview on her “method costuming” techniques for Killers of the Flower Moon —which included close collaboration with fellow nom...
Feb 02, 2024•1 hr
The 96th Academy Award nominations have been announced, and the Best in Show crew have both axes to grind (Charles Melton of May December , you will be avenged!) and champagne bottles to pop (Justine Triet of Anatomy of a Fall , you will be fêted!). Plus, Spider- Slim swings Across the Spider-Verse to chat with the directors behind Letterboxd’s highest rated film of 2023: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson. Chapters: Opening credits (00:00:00) Oscar noms (00:01:47) Behind the...
Jan 25, 2024•1 hr 2 min
The BAFTA nominations are in—Lily Gladstone and Andrew Scott are out. What’s that about? London Editor Ella Kemp joins Mia and Gemma for a rant. Plus: the invisible but visceral art of sound design with The Zone of Interest and Poor Things sound designer Johnnie Burn, Society of the Snow director JA Bayona, and Killers of the Flower Moon sound mixer Mark Ulano. Chapters: Opening credits (00:00:00) BAFTAs (00:02:39) Sound design (00:13:13) JA Bayona interview (00:20:50) Mark Ulano interview (00:2...
Jan 19, 2024•59 min
We are so temporarily back. This time around Slim, Mia , and Mitchell discuss the upcoming slate of movies and why you might need to add them to your own watchlists including Challengers, Nosferatu, Dune: Part Two, and also tease new podcast plans . They also look ahead outside the most popular movies and shuffle their watchlists just like old times. Weekend Watchlist – Updated Weekly list > movies mentioned in this episode. Chapters: Opening credits (00:00:00) 2024 preview T...
Jan 16, 2024•59 min
In this art direction-focused episode of Best in Show, Mia chats with the production designers behind the mad world of Poor Things —James Price and Shona Heath—about their human anatomy-inspired sets, and Gemma catches up with an old friend: Grant Major, Academy Award-winning production designer of a little film saga called The Lord of the Rings . The crew also hears from a few contenders at the Governors Awards (including a serenade from The Holdovers ’ Dominic Sessa), rages against the SAG nom...
Jan 12, 2024•1 hr 16 min
The Letterboxd crew pops the champagne and rounds up a roundtable for a celebration of 2023 cinema! We detail the results of our annual Year in Review , highlight the highest rated films of the year across categories and continents, reflect on the controlled chaos of our own personal stats and anticipate what 2024 has in store (the returns of Robert Pattinson and Bong Joon-ho). Plus, a New Year’s present from the creative team behind our community’s #1 favorite: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Ver...
Jan 05, 2024•2 hr 44 min
This week, the Best in Show crew dives deep into two documentaries that just made the 96th Academy Awards shortlist. After answering some mailbag questions about pesky release dates and Oscars eligiblity rules, London Editor Ella Kemp swoops in to take us in front of the camera with Jon Batiste—the composer and subject at the center of American Symphony — then Gemma goes behind the camera with Maciek Hamela, director of In the Rearview , which chronicles the immediate refugee crisis created by R...
Dec 29, 2023•1 hr 8 min
This special episode includes interviews with two renowned film editors: first up, Letterboxd’s own video editor AJ tells us what makes good editing and lists his favorite examples of movie cutting from 2023. And then, one of AJ’s 2023 picks, Jennifer Lame, joins Mia Lee Vicino and Brian Formo for a chat about working with Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach and Ari Aster. Lame breaks down why she loves editing talking scenes and why she really wants to work on a comedy. And finally, ...
Dec 22, 2023•1 hr 2 min
Season’s greetings! Join us as the Letterboxd crew sits down with their hot chocolate for a roundtable discussion about Love Actually . Slim watches this “classic” for the first time in preparation and welcomes Gemma, Mia , and Ella into the Letterboxd Studio to walk down memory lane on their first-time watches, how viewings of certain movies change over time, favorite moments, and much more. Ella explaining the haunted inner workings of a Build-a-Bear workshop to Gemma will likely stay wit...
Dec 19, 2023•1 hr 7 min
This special episode features multiple interviews with award-winning actors: first up, London editor Ella Kemp speaks with Oscar nominee and Letterboxd pal Paul Mescal about All of Us Strangers , his wider reflections on awards season and his “shady” Letterboxd account. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, our birthday girl Mia enjoyed a casual chat about movies with Paul’s co-star Andrew Scott at the film’s premiere, and in Atlanta, our East Coast correspondent Adesola Thomas rocked our centerpiece interv...
Dec 15, 2023•1 hr 5 min
May December screenwriter Samy Burch joins Mia and Gemma for a chat, fresh from her New York Film Critics Circle win for Best Screenplay. Topics range from Melanie Lynskey to Sister Act to Persona (and Burch’s favorite Letterboxd review ), and how the presence of major tabloid figures such as Monica Lewinsky informed her themes of media obsession, performance and agency. We also welcome our London editor Ella Kemp and Best in Show newsletter scribe George Fenwick to give us the lowdown on their ...
Dec 08, 2023•46 min
The season two premiere of Best in Show kicks off with a very special guest: Sean Fennessey , Head of Content at The Ringer, co-host of The Big Picture podcast and fellow awards obsessive. Gemma, Mia and Brian interrogate Sean about his favorite films of the year so far, and he talks about finding Letterboxd more useful than Wikipedia (his words!) for the sheer encyclopedic knowledge of awards season available—all thanks to your lists—and the time he watched Sunshine with Drew Barrymore. Sponsor...
Dec 01, 2023•1 hr 5 min
Writer and Executive Producer of Scott Pilgrim Takes Off BenDavid Grabinski joins slim and Flynn to chat about Big Trouble in Little China , Stop Making Sense , Midnight Run , and The Legend of Billie Jean . They also discuss their favorite concert experiences, Harry Potter midnight releases, forcing their relatives to watch Planes, Trains, and Automobiles every Thanksgiving, poorly marketed rom-coms, and much more. Chapters: Searchlight (00:00:00) Big Trouble in Little China (00:04:44) Stop Mak...
Nov 21, 2023•49 min
Editor and critic of ScreenCrush.com and writer of a brand new book on Siskel & Ebert, Matt Singer joins slim and Brian to talk Los Angeles Plays Itself , Gymkata , his new book Opposable Thumbs , Classic Albums: Steely Dan - AJA , and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly . They also discuss their connections to LA through film, memories of reading their favorite film critics, learning to love bad films, what the heck a mixing board even does, and grappling with emotional films later in life. C...
Nov 14, 2023•1 hr 5 min
On this very special episode of The Letterboxd Show, we focus on Martin Scorsese’s latest film, Killers of the Flower Moon . This special is structured like the book that it’s based on: in three acts. The main interview is with staff writer for The New Yorker and National Book Award finalist, David Grann, whose searing account of the Osage murders is the basis of Scorsese’s new film. We speak to not just Grann, but also include two bits from a roundtable interview with Scorsese himself, paired w...
Nov 09, 2023•34 min
The power of podcasting compels you to listen as the Letterboxd crew gathers for a roundtable discussion about The Exorcist . Slim puts on his seasonable vestments and welcomes Gemma, Mia , Brian and Mitchell into the Letterboxd Studio to walk down memory lane on their first-time watches, favorite moments, and much more. They also spend time on The Exorcist: Believer , The Exorcist III , and offer up some other religious horror recommendations. Happy Halloween! Chapters: Opening credits (...
Oct 31, 2023•55 min
Horror maven and Dread Central editor-in-chief Mary Beth McAndrews joins Mia and Flynn to trauma bond with the girlies over her four favorite films: Joel Anderson’s Lake Mungo , Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure , Bob Clark’s Black Christmas and Dusty Mancinelli & Madeleine Sims-Fewer’s Violation . Our conversation covers Mary Beth’s academic specialties in found footage horror and woman-helmed rape-revenge narratives, Hugh Grant’s shocking middle name (hidden in one of these film’s titles), the comin...
Oct 24, 2023•54 min
Horror and alien fans, it’s our time. Slim sits down with Brian Duffield to chat about his movie No One Will Save You . Brian wrote and directed this alien home invasion story (with much more) and since release it’s been one of the most-watched movies on Letterboxd. Aliens, no dialog, great lighting, gorgeous house, Kaitlyn Dever… what more do you need ? Brian and Slim talk about his horror inspirations, Signs (of course), the design of that house, Kaitlyn’s amazing performance, how he uses his ...
Oct 13, 2023•34 min
It’s a match made in hell as Horrorville editor Brett Petersel joins Gemma and Slim in a basement studio surrounded by zombies to talk through four of his favorite horror films: Clive Barker’s Nightbreed , Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation , Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool and Waxwork from Anthony Hickox. We’re talking uncomfortable dinner parties, single-location horror, Gemma’s terror of wax museums, Slim’s fear of terrible podcasting etiquette and how Brett’s love of Nightbreed could rescue people fro...
Oct 10, 2023•1 hr 2 min
We are so temporarily back. This time around Slim, Mia , and Mitchell discuss the upcoming Fall slate of movies and why you might need to add them to your own watchlists including Killers of the Flower Moon, Poor Things, The Killer and much more. They also look back on their favorites of the year so far and shuffle their watchlists just like old times. Weekend Watchlist – Updated Weekly list > movies mentioned in this episode. Chapters: Opening credits (00:00:00) Fall Season ...
Oct 05, 2023•1 hr
Jigsaw’s long-term apprentice Mia Lee Vicino sat down with the director of Saw X , Kevin Greutert, to pick his brain about the long-running horror franchise. Kevin has edited the first five Saw films, directed fan-favorite Saw VI and Saw 3D , and now returns to the electric director’s chair for the tenth installment, which is—as of recording—the most critically acclaimed Saw since Lawrence and Adam initially got trapped in that fateful bathroom nineteen years ago. We chat about the beauty and br...
Oct 03, 2023•23 min
We are Boonsong and Flynn Slicker is our Monkey Ghost. Letterboxd’s elusive social media manager joins hosts Gemma and Slim from the seaside for a deep chat about her four favorite films: Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels , Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives , John Carney’s Sing Street and René Liu’s Us And Them . We celebrate siblings and hot people, commiserate about how hard it is to be alive, calculate how long Raphina and Cosmo would have taken to get to Wale...
Sep 26, 2023•1 hr 13 min
