Filmspotting

Is The End of Oak Street the best Spielberg movie of 2026? Or is one of your hosts committing movie heresy? Adam and Josh review David Robert Mitchell's dinosaur-filled family adventure and consider whether there's more on its mind than blockbuster thrills. Plus: thoughts on the Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony , Willem Dafoe in Late Fame , and Adam's conversation with the creators of the Table Read p...

Kristen Stewart is back in theaters with The Wrong Girls, which is an excuse to share our Top 5 KStew Scenes from 2017.  Unlock the full archive, Filmspotting Discord, ad‑free + bonus episodes, and more when you ⁠join the Filmspotting Family⁠ .  Promo code: summer for 20% off through Aug. 31. "Personal Shopper and the Movies That Haunt Us" Scott, Morris - Great Performances of 2016 Stewa...

It’s all fine and good to be sealed up in a house with Wagner Moura and Greta Lee, but the longer Netflix’s new The Last House keeps us there, the more time Matt and Jordan have for questions about the why and the how and… is that broccoli you’re growing in the floorboards, Greta? Matt and Jordan also discuss Netflix’s curious fascination with apocalyptic tales. Then...

Matt Johnson’s new biopic  Tony  sidesteps the infamous  Walk Hard  trap by narrowing its scope to a single summer that would end up shaping the rest of Anthony Bourdain’s life, but not necessarily defining it. Whether that approach is ultimately satisfying to fans of the late celebrity chef and author is up for debate this week, as we’re once again joined by...

Screenwriter and producer David Kajganich ( Suspiria , Bones and All ) joins Michael Phillips to test a provocative rule of adaptation from filmmaker Whit Stillman: "You owe everything to the movie and nothing to the original [source]." But what about the opposite approach? As the Coen brothers once joked about adapting Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men: "One of us types into the computer w...

Adam and Josh share their favorite discoveries, performances, and scenes from the recently completed Dissident Cinema Marathon, which included Chaplin’s The Great Dictator , Kurosawa's No Regrets for Our Youth , and Rossellini’s Rome, Open City . Links: -The Circle Ending Revealed | BFI ⁠old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/1960⁠ -Filmspotting Marathons https://www.filmspotting.net/mara...

Jane Schoenbrun’s uncategorizable third feature, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma , marks the director as among the most assured and provocative filmmakers of their generation. Adam and Josh agree that it’s the film of the year so far. Plus, other notable third features this decade, listeners pick their favorite Spider-Man movie, and Adam reviews The Brink of War . This episode is...

Anthony Bourdain, whose early experience working in a restaurant kitchen is chronicled in the new biopic  Tony,  once singled out  Ratatouille  as Hollywood’s best depiction of working in a restaurant kitchen, which is all the invitation we need to revisit Brad Bird’s 2007 Pixar classic. So this week, with the help of Vulture critic Roxana Hadadi, we consider how&nb...

In 2015, Adam and Josh welcomed poster designer Sam's Myth  on the show to talk shop and share their Top 5 Movie Posters. Unlock the full archive, Filmspotting Discord, ad‑free + bonus episodes, and more when you ⁠join the Filmspotting Family⁠ .  Promo code: summer for 20% off through Aug. 31.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When the author of “Marvel’s Spider-Man: From Amazing to Spectacular” is the co-host of your show, you don’t avoid talking about the new Spidey movie Brand New Day just because it’s not streaming. So Matt and Jordan use the release of the movie to theorize about its massive box office, and to share some related steaming recommendations. Plus, listener requests for an...

What can your body tell you about a movie? According to legendary Columbia Pictures chief Harry Cohn, everything. This week's Movie Racket explores Cohn's infamous rule for separating hits from flops. Joining Michael Phillips is Slate film critic Dana Stevens ( Camera Man ), who helps unpack what that deceptively simple dictum reveals about audiences, critics, attention spans, and streaming cultur...

For the final film in the Dissident Cinema Marathon, Adam and Josh discuss Jafar Panahi’s formally ingenious 2000 film THE CIRCLE, an unflinching chronicle of Iran’s oppressive treatment of women. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After a five-year hiatus, Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is back on the big screen with Spider-Man: Brand New Day , this time battling anonymity, a host of nemeses, and some arachnid-related changes. Adam and Josh have a review. Plus thoughts on the new doc Everybody to Kenmure Stree t and the latest from Pulse and Cloud director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, The Samurai and the Prisoner .   ...

It's been eight years since Adam and Josh did the Top 5 Superhero-Director Combos (We'd Like To See) and still somehow none of their pitches have been given the green light. Maybe that will change with this Archive edition. Unlock the full archive, Filmspotting Discord, ad‑free + bonus episodes, and more when you ⁠join the Filmspotting Family ⁠.  Promo code: summer for 20% off through August...

Chris Klimek presides over a multiversal showdown between two of the most beloved Spider-Man films: Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 and the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse . One is a live-action, early-2000s studio blockbuster that crystallized the modern superhero movie — grounded in practical effects, emotional melodrama, and a deeply human Peter Parker torn between responsibilit...

With the world’s Spidey sense activated by Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Adam and Josh look back at the webslinger’s first 25 years on screen with their Top 5 Spider-Man Scenes. Yes, even Andrew Garfield gets a little love. This episode is presented by⁠ Regal Unlimited⁠⁠, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Use code FILMSPOT26 to take 15%...

Christopher Nolan’s  The Odyssey  approaches Homer’s epic from a much more literal vantage point than  O Brother Where Art Thou,  but that doesn’t mean it’s a dutiful, beat-by-beat adaptation. So this week we’re talking through the ways in which Nolan put his personal stamp on one of the most well-known stories in all of literature, from the film&r...

Back in 2022, Adam and Josh gave Sam Raimi's Spider-Man the 20th anniversary Sacred Cow treatment.  Unlock the full archive, Filmspotting Discord, ad‑free + bonus episodes, and more when you ⁠join the Filmspotting Family ⁠. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jordan and Matt break format - and Zeus’s Law? - for an Odyssey -themed episode, including thoughts on the new blockbuster film, favorite Christopher Nolan films, and streaming recommendations inspired by the Homeric epic. And then a game, which Jordan dubs "My Big Fat Greek Filmspotting Game."    The Odyssey (00:00:00–00:23:33) #1 Nolans (00:23:34–00:47:08) Rec Seg: Od...

Story analyst Billy Mernit joins Michael Phillips to test one of Hollywood’s most enduring (and slippery) unofficial rules: Howard Hawks’ idea that a good movie is three good scenes and no bad ones. Mernit, an instructor and writer known as the “guru of rom-com,” brings nearly three decades of reading studio scripts and a working knowledge of how films get evaluated before...

Is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey a cinematic gift, or is it a Trojan Horse filled with the director’s narrative obsessions? Maybe both. In their review, Adam and Josh talk about the ways Nolan diverges from Homer’s epic tale, and which of the director’s previous films offer the best insight into his latest. This episode is presented by⁠ Regal Unlimited⁠⁠, the all-you-can-...

Considering  The Odyssey  is one of the most famous and influential stories of all time, there had been relatively few attempts to directly translate Homer’s epic poem to the big screen until Christopher Nolan came along to do it at a blockbuster scale. It’s been more common for filmmakers, such as Joel and Ethan Coen, to use it as the loose framework for a flawed hero’...

As part of 2020’s Christopher Nolan Oeuvre-view, Adam and Josh revisited The Prestige (2006), which – alongside his current The Odyssey – is among the rare Nolans adapted from existing material. Unlock the full archive, Filmspotting Discord, ad‑free + bonus episodes, and more when you ⁠join the Filmspotting Family ⁠. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt and Jordan give Hulu’s new multiverse revenge thriller Redux Redux a spin, crediting Kevin and Matthew McManus’s film for its low-budget stylishness and its central performance (by another McManus, sister Michaela). Then some Redux -inspired streaming recommendations, answers to a listener request for off-the-grid heist movies, and a game (“Multi-Box Letter-Verse”) hos...

Film critic Amy Nicholson joins host Michael Phillips to test a set of unofficial Hollywood axioms: Preston Sturges’ 11 Rules for Box Office Appeal. Written (or so the story goes) in the early 1940s, the list is equal parts joke and provocation, a series of blunt, sometimes baffling claims about what makes movies work. But taken together, the rules point toward something more coherent: a the...