A Very Good Year

Justin Chang is one of the genuine greats of contemporary film criticism - chief critic for the "Los Angeles Times" and NPR’s “Fresh Air,” a title he previously held at "Variety." He joins us to talk about the films of 1944, and to explain how he became so enamored of crime fiction, hard-boiled movies, and film noir at such an impressionable age. (Sponsored by th...

Craig D. Lindsey was a working critic in 1997, so he has a LOT of pleasant moviegoing (and reviewing) memories from that year; he also made a top ten list at the time, so he took particular pleasure out of revisiting and revising those favorites. And there were many: a new Tarantino, a new Lynch, breakthroughs for Paul Thomas Anderson and Matt and Ben, and a big blockbuster about a big-ass boat. H...

Character actor, cartoon doctor, and general bon vivant James Urbaniak joins us to walk through the cinema de 1957 - a year of foreign triumphs and domestic groundbreakers, of media satires and existential examinations. You won’t be surprised that a Hal Hartley regular is a knowledgeable and eloquent cinephile, but you WILL be delighted!  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inform...

Jessica Pickens is a film blogger and historian specializing in World War II-era cinema, movie musicals, and, luckily for us, the films of 1939. She started a side project of watching every damn movie from that greatest of movie years clear back in 2011, so she decided to leave aside the greatest hits of the year (your Wizards of Oz, your Gones with the Wind, etc.) to bring us some of the lesser-k...

Daniela Taplin Lundberg was born into film production - her father Jonathan produced the first major movie for a promising young filmmaker named Martin Scorsese - and her producing credits include “The Kids Are All Right,” “Honey Boy,” “Harriet,” and “Together Together.” Now she hosts the essential podcast “Hollywood Gold,” where she welcomes other producers to tell their war stories about iconic...

 Beloved film critic and niche culture aficionado Jordan Hoffman was wise enough to call dibs quite some time ago on not only one of the great years of the ‘70s, but great movie years, period—a game-changing 12 months for the movies, thanks to a pair of sci-fi smashes, a modest romantic comedy, and a big movie with a bigger soundtrack. Come for the high-profile flicks, stay for the tales of J...

"Vulture" TV critic and author Jen Chaney was, like us, a young and deeply impressionable moviegoer in the year of our Lord 1982, when the Spielberg double-tap of "E.T." and "Poltergeist" lit up our dreams and haunted our nightmares. We talk all about both of those movies, as well as the sex comedies, sci-fi bummers, and romantic comedies that made '82 feel like, really and truly, the first year o...

We've never attempted a two-guest show before, but we think you'll agree that it was kind of essential here, since legendary film critic and historian Stephen Farber and former theatre executive and CARA member Michael McClellan collaborated on a perfect book for our purposes: “Cinema ’62: The Greatest Year at the Movies,” in which they write all about why 1962 was a peak year for film, with a hig...

Pop culture expert, Substacker extraordinaire, and fellow flyover country escapee Hunter Harris joins Jason and Mike to talk about the Year of our Lord 2004, in which Marty and Leo re-teamed, Julia Roberts said some really dirty words, and Tom Cruise chastised Jamie Foxx for being a bad son.  Sponsored by MUBI. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’ve welcomed critics, authors, actors, directors, and on and on—but this week, we welcome our very first production designer, and Judy Becker is one of the greats. Her credits include “Carol,” "I’m Not There,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” and “American Hustle,” for which she was nominated for the Academy Award. (She’s also the latest subject of...

Alexandre O. Philippe has funneled his life-long cinematic obsessions into movies of his own, directing such documentary treats as “78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene,” “Memory: The Origins of Alien,” “Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on the Exorcist,” and the new “Lynch/Oz” (out Friday 6/2). He made an entire movie about “Psycho,” so it’s not toooo surprising that he picked 1960 - but his picks also...

We're now on Substack, and you can get more of the show for just a few bucks a month. Let's talk about it! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We welcome Film Twitter's favorite crime novelist, the Edgar Award-winning, New York Times-bestselling Megan Abbott, author of the new and spectacular "Beware the Woman." She joins us to walk through her favorite year of classic cinema: 1933, the end of the Pre-Code era, when women could be bad and men could be horny and movies could kinda-sorta reflect contemporary life candidly, for the last tim...

Kristen Meinzer was already a movie podcaster during her very good year, 2011 - when she noticed a trend of women behaving badly in mainstream movies that still makes her happy. The feisty co-host host of "Movie Therapy with Rafer & Kristen" and "By the Book" (and contributor to NPR's "Pop Culture Happy Hour") also offers up alternate takes on some of Jason's 2011 favorites, and joins us for o...

When Jason was at SXSW, you didn't think we’d still be running episodes from that trip two months later, did you? Well, while he was there, he stopped by the University of Austin to chat with our pal Sergio Muñoz, who is a grad student in Film Production there; he’s also the host of the 300-plus episode strong “Esta-Okay” film podcast, where he reviews new releases and film festivals, AND he's an...

Stephanie Zacharek - film critic for TIME magazine and Pulitzer Prize finalist - has always loved the movies of the 1940s. But 1946 is particularly special to her, because of the potent complexity of theme and emotion in these post-war pictures - and because of one film in particular, which pulls off the very rare A VERY GOOD YEAR hat-trick. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informat...

John Pierson wrote the definitive book about '90s independent cinema, "Spike, Mike, Slackers, & Dykes," and he wrote it from the inside - he was the producer's rep who made the deals that put such legendary pictures as "She's Gotta Have It," "Roger & Me," "Slacker," and "Clerks" on your screens. He brings that insider's perspective to our conversation about the year 1989, a crucial tipping...

Karina Longworth basically invented the film history podcast with her meticulously researched and ridiculously entertaining “You Must Remember This” (if you heard our “Fun City Cinema” show, you can tell we’re fans). She just kicked off her new season, “Erotic ‘90s,” so she was kind enough to pay us a visit and talk about her favorite year of that decade, 1993, and her favorite films of it, erotic...

Our first (but not last!) Pulitzer Prize finalist guest, Soraya Nadia McDonald brings her experience in multiple fields - sportswriting, theatre criticism, television, AND film - to her rundown of her favorite movies of 1978, a mixture of films she grew up adoring and discovered as a budding cinephile. Plus: A headlines segment full of tragedies, from Jonestown to ‘The Star Wars Holiday Special.’...

We're back with another episode (recorded) live from SXSW in Austin, Texas, where Brian Tallerico - managing editor of RogerEbert.com, president of the Chicago Film Critics Association, and film-and-TV-critic-at-large - talks to us about the magical year of 1991. He was a wide-eyed 16-year-old moviegoer that year, and his favorites of the year (some of which you'll guess, some of which may su...

Raquel Stecher has spent most of her career writing about classic movies, so it doesn't come as a shock that she's dipped back into the 1940s for her very good year - 1949, to be precise, the year that marked the beginning of the end for the studio system. It was also the golden age of film noir, so her top five is bursting with examples and variations on the genre (as well as a VERY non-noir turn...

April Wright is our favorite kind of documentary filmmaker, because she makes movies about movies. Her latest, “Back to the Drive-In” (out now!) looks at drive-in exhibition in the COVID era - and she picked 1980, a year of great drive-in movies (and movies in general). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Film critic and author Charles Bramesco had to look at movies in a new and different way while researching and writing his new book, "Colors of Film: The Story of Cinema in 50 Palettes" (out this week) which examines filmmaking through the prism of color. And one of his favorite eras, for that book and as a film lover in general, is the 1970s - so he selected 1971, a year in which the movies were...

There are allllllll sorts of ‘80s classics that hit theaters in the year 1985, but our guest (and friend) W. Axel Foley of the DVR Podcast Network went in some WILD directions for his top five of the year, plucking out some less-discussed documentaries, sci-fi, and more. Plus, Axel is roughly the same age as Jason and Mike, so hear all about how this year’s headlines...

Filmmaker and actress Isabel Sandoval (“Señorita,” “Aparisyon,” "Lingua Franca”) went to a rather non-traditional film school: the pirated DVD stores of Philippines flea markets. It was there that she discovered the auteurs of the 1970s, the giants of American and world cinema who made that era what it was, and she chose the year 1974 - perhaps the MOST 1970s year of the 1970s. List...