Voiceover: Movies that Move Us

Why do we keep falling in love with monsters? And what changes when the Beast is less a prince in disguise than the wild, outsider part of ourselves? Heather and Chloe Donaldson compare three very different Beauty and the Beast adaptations: Disney’s 1991 animated classic, Jean Cocteau’s dreamlike La Belle et la Bête (1946), and Juraj Herz’s gothic Czech film Panna a netvor (1978), also known as Th...

Why can a movie make you feel closer to God one minute and terrified of existence the next? From 2001: A Space Odyssey and Baraka to Nosferatu and Omaha, this episode explores how cinema turns awe into wonder, transcendence, and dread. Along the way, we connect space movies such as Interstellar, Sunshine, Contact, and Project Hail Mary to questions about faith, scale, mystery, mortality, and what...

Why does Jaws still make people afraid to go in the water? And how did a broken mechanical shark help Steven Spielberg create one of cinema’s most enduring suspense films? Heather talks with Columbus film commissioner John Daugherty about Jaws, the 1975 thriller that helped define the summer blockbuster. They explore Spielberg’s suspenseful direction, the shark’s limited screen time, John Williams...

Signs was advertised as an alien invasion movie, but what if it's about something so much more? A pastor revisits M. Night Shyamalan’s 2002 thriller and finds a story about grief, faith, family, and the possibility that nothing is accidental. Pastor Jeff McCullough and Heather explore Signs through the eyes of someone who spent 15 years in ministry. This movie analysis examines Mel Gibson’s Graham...

Why do we feel betrayed when a movie changes the book we love? And can a new adaptation reveal something the original story could not? Heather talks with Kacy Faulconer and Tyler Gardner of BYUradio’s Proofread about book-to-screen adaptations, faithful film adaptations, fan expectations, and why Hollywood keeps returning to familiar literary IP. They discuss Cloud Atlas, A Wrinkle in Time, The Hu...

What if Hidalgo was never really about winning the Ocean of Fire? In this film commentary, Heather and Cindy Quinney revisit the 2004 Viggo Mortensen movie to unpack Frank Hopkins’s Native identity, the Wounded Knee Massacre, the Ghost Dance, and the ending that still brings them to tears. This Hidalgo 2004 analysis explores the film’s horse symbolism, mixed-race identity, historical framing, and...

Catch Me If You Can looks like a slick con-artist movie, but its real emotional engine is a kid trying to rebuild the family he lost. This conversation unpacks why Carl Hanratty becomes the father Frank actually needs and why “Nobody’s chasing you” lands like the movie’s emotional gut punch. In this Catch Me If You Can analysis, Heather and Chris Lamb break down Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abagnale...

What if The Ten Commandments isn't really the movie we remember it being? Seventy years later, Cecil B DeMille's biblical epic reveals something fascinating about old Hollywood, Technicolor, religious imagery, and the power of movies to feel genuinely sacred. In this conversation, Chloe Donaldson joins Heather to revisit The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner and Anne Baxter an...

What if the most important 9/11 stories are not the ones you already know? Michael Gier explains why his new 9/11 documentary looks beyond the attacks to the untold stories of heroism, resilience, service, and second chances that followed. In this Voiceover interview, Gier discusses The Heroism and Resiliency of 9/11, his nearly five-year filmmaking process, 35 hours of interviews, and the decisio...

A chaotic family sings, jokes, and bickers across Iran—but the trip is hiding a goodbye none of them can face. Hit the Road turns a familiar family road movie into a devastating story of exile, censorship, love, and the lies people tell to survive. In this film commentary conversation, photographer and artist Maya June Mansour joins Heather Bigley to unpack Panah Panahi’s Hit the Road, its connect...

Dr Strangelove was supposed to make nuclear war look absurd. Decades later, one of its darkest inventions no longer looks like fiction. Nuclear disarmament activist Jim Thomas revisits Stanley Kubrick’s legendary Cold War satire and explains what the film got frighteningly right. From nuclear deterrence, mutual assured destruction, Golden Dome, the Doomsday Clock and the renewed nuclear arms race,...

Chelsea Allen, a producer at Ninth Mode Media, revisits Hotel Rwanda with Heather, discussing how she's changed since she first saw the film as an idealistic high schooler. Hotel Rwanda (Terry George, 2004) asks a question most viewers think they can answer—until fear, family, and survival enter the room. Rewatching the film as an adult reveals why “Never Again” is not merely a promise but a test...

Philosopher Barry Lam joins Heather for a chat about Spartacus (Kubrick, 1960). Spartacus is remembered as a massive Hollywood epic, but its most dangerous idea has little to do with gladiator battles. This conversation reveals why Stanley Kubrick’s 1960 film is really about human dignity, political power, freedom, and something Roman elites can never understand. Starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Ol...

Kelly Loosli, co-founder of the BYU Animation Program, discusses The Red Turtle (Dudok de Wit, 2017) and how it's a film with "spirit." The Red Turtle looks like a survival story, but its real escape may have nothing to do with leaving the island. This Studio Ghibli co-production uses almost no dialogue to turn loneliness, nature, love, and loss into a mystery that keeps changing the longer you si...

Sarah Ruiz, aerospace engineer, describes how Apollo 13 (Ron Howard, 1995) propelled her toward a career with NASA. Apollo 13 was nominated for 9 Academy Awards and won for Best editing and Sound. Based on the 1994 book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, the film details how the three astronauts on Apollo 13 were forced to abandon their mission to land on the Moon and instead return to E...

Jenny Chan of Pacific Front Untold podcast joins Heather to discuss Asian representation--they focus their remarks on Empire of the Sun (Spielberg, 1987). Empire of the Sun stars a young Christian Bale in a historical war drama about the Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1941 and a boy caught in a concentration camp with other British colonials. But the film is emblematic of challenges in other Ame...

Two Gen Z all-stars join Heather to discuss whether the Hunger Games influenced them or not as young people. Claire and Cyrus were once members of the high school chess team and they bring with them a long-term friendship that informs today's chat. Watch them react to each each other as much as they react to the films under discussion. Claire Cirelli is a software engineer in Phoenix, with a Bache...

Gareth Higgins, a Reconciliation scholar from Belfast, Ireland, talks to Heather about Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952), a film about a city bureaucrat who decides to build a playground for a local women's group. While Akira Kurosawa is best known for his samurai films, Ikiru won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Gareth Higgins' most recent book, co-authored with Kathleen Norris, is A Whol...

Kawika Allen and Leone Saaga joined Heather for a bonus discussion about Chief of War (2024) and Hawaiian spirituality. Chief of War is a limited series created by Jason Momoa for Apple TV that tells how the Hawaiian islands were unified under Kamehameha in the face of encroaching Western colonialism. Chief of War has won multiple awards, including from the Critic's Choice for Social Impact. Leone...

Nina McConigley talks to Heather about her new novel How to Commit a Post-Colonial Murder (Pantheon, 2026) and how her feelings have changed about Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1941). Rebecca is an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel, which is itself a reworking of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, from 1847. And we only just realized that in this interview! Nina McConigley's short story collec...

Heather chats about three films playing on BYUtv: It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, The King's Speech, and Young Victoria. Hear a few things to look for in each of them and a little behind the scenes info about how they were made. Every month BYUtv adds new movies to their movie collection, available on the BYUtv app. Simply sign in and watch any number of films for free.

Aubrey Chaves chats with Heather about how Little Women influenced her as a young woman and how the film reads today, especially the power and wisdom of Marmee. They chat about which sister they identified with (as you do) and the stacked cast that made this film great. Aubrey Chaves serves on the executive board of the Faith Matters Foundation and co-hosts its weekly podcast with her husband, Tim...

Abby Olcese talks to Heather about Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955): the director's motivation, the use of music, the film's massive influence, and why it's a Christmas movie. Abby Olcese is the author of Films for All Seasons: Experiencing the Church Year at the Movies. She is also the film editor for The Pitch, a website and magazine serving the greater Kansas City, Missouri, area.

Movies can become part of your family's identity in a profound way. Heather chatted with her friend Kathy about how Kathy instituted LOTR Day, first as a chance to recover from the intensity of the December holiday onslaught, and then as a way to bring her family closer together. Kathy Weinzinger is a Senior Executive Assistant at Northern Arizona University’s Center for International Education. S...

Oindrila Mukherjee talks to Heather about Charulata, directed by Satyajit Ray from 1964 and adapted from Rabindranath Tagore’s 1901 novel Nastanir or The Broken Nest. The main character Charu was married before puberty and now as a young woman in her 20s, she blossoms as a writer under the guidance of her husband's cousin. But the film is a tragedy as it examines what it means for a woman to awake...