Lights Camera Accolade

This episode spoils Cat People (1942) and The Uninvited (1944). It's spooky season once again, meaning another horror double feature! This October we continue our horror journey with a double feature from the 1940s by watching Val Lewton's atmospheric Cat People (1942) and the haunted-house mystery The Uninvited (1944). As horror evolves from shadowy monsters and gothic spectacle into psychologica...

This is the full release of 2025’s October bonus and spoils 1931’s Dracula and Frankenstein. It's alive! Or, technically, undead. This episode we spoiled the movies that launched Universal's cinematic Monsters universe which defined what cinematic horror could be. If you don't want to wait an entire year before listening to our full bonus episodes, consider supporting us on Patreon

Abby and Sarah spoil 1945’s La Otra for Hispanic Heritage Month. Deeper into Mexico’s Golden Age of Cinema, this film noir drama has some interesting ideas about what to do when you’re fed up with struggling to make ends meet while your twin sister has a wardrobe to die for. Feliz Navidad! If you don't want to wait a year before listening to our full bonus episodes, support us on patreon and get a...

Sarah and Abby spoil the best picture nominees from the 18th Academy Awards, celebrating movies released in 1945 including: Anchors Aweigh, Mildred Pierce, Spellbound, The Bells of St. Mary's and winner: Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend. We heard you have some postwar trauma in need of treatment. For that, we're going to prescribe a healthy dose of early film noir, some questionable psychiatric the...

Full release of 2025’s September bonus and spoils 1933’s La mujer del puerto (The Woman of the Port). The Hays Code would never have approved of the film picked for our first foray into the beginning of Mexico’s Golden Age of Cinema. The main character of this movie truly cannot catch a break, and this movie certainly doesn't shy away from taboo subjects and shock value. If you don't want to wait...

Spoils 1946’s Brief Encounter for the preview of our August 2026 bonus episode. Abby was merciful for her special Host Choice month episode this year and didn’t force a dusty western. Instead, we were treated to a quiet, tragic romance (emphasis on the tragic) about two married people who find themselves unintentionally falling in love. If you don't want to wait a year before listening to our full...

The full release of 2025’s August bonus spoils the movie Slow West (2015). For Abby’s (not) birthday month, she decided to abuse her power and force us all to make an impossible choice: a choice between two westerns. Some would potentially consider a contemporary western as taking the easy way out-- but the consequences of that decision would weigh heavily on Jake for at least 24 hours after credi...

This is a preview of our July bonus episode and spoils 1946’s Lust in the Dust. (And technically the smallest of spoilers for parts of Skinamarink (2022), The Exorcist (1973), and The Conjuring (2013)? If you squint, there’s a connection here. Or maybe we just went on some wild tangents this episode.) For July, we’re focusing on the highest grossing movies of their respective decades. For the 1940...

This episode spoils 1944's Best Picture nominees: Gaslight, Double Indemnity, Since You Went Away, Wilson, and winner Going My Way. Yes, that's right. A shorter list than usual. We made it! We're celebrating five, you read it right, five best picture nominees for the 17th Academy Awards. Arguably, all of these movies are searching out an answer to the question 'What do you do in times of uncertain...

This is the full release of 2025’s July bonus and spoils Paul Schrader’s First Reformed (2017). If you don't want to wait an entire year before listening to our full bonus episodes, consider supporting us on patreon

This is a preview of our June 2026 bonus episode. Celebrate Pride Month with us as we watch and discuss/spoil 1931's Madchen in Uniform, a(nother) German milestone in early queer cinema. Featuring an all female cast backed by predominantly women and queer creatives, Madchen overtly lesbian and anti-authoritarian themes led to its eventual banning in Nazi Germany. Luckily, distribution abroad saved...

This episode spoils 1943’s nominees: In Which We Serve, The Human Comedy, The Ox-Bow Incident, The More the Merrier, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Heaven Can Wait, Watch on the Rhine, Madame Curie, The Song of Bernadette, and winner Casablanca. For the 16th Academy Awards, our nominees chiefly explore how the war impacted the lives of those at home, how communities (be they a ship's crew, Spanish gueri...

This is the full release of 2025’s June bonus episode for Pride Month and spoils the German movie Anders als die Andern ("Different from the Others", 1919), a film that challenged Germany’s anti-gay laws and feels as relevant as ever as it explores our understanding of sexuality, gender, and the harm that legal and social oppression inflicts on queer lives. If you don't want to wait an entire year...

For our second celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month we watched China’s 1948 film Spring in a Small Town -- an intimate movie about the interweaving lives of a family and their surprise guest trying to figure out how to navigate moving forward in a landscape where many of them can no longer envision a happy future in the aftermath of the Second Sino-Japanese War...

This is the full release of 2025’s May bonus celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, where we watched the 1930 Japanese film What Made Her Do It? -- a movie that takes the concept: “life is suffering and then you die” to the next level. But who's to say that you can't choose how you go out? If you don't want to wait an entire year before listening to our full bonus e...

This episode spoils 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Join us alongside a special guest as we discuss the movie that birthed a dynasty (of princesses). Snow White convinced Hollywood that animation was a viable medium for full length movies and propelled Disney animation and similar studios into a golden age of animation. Heigh-ho! If you don't want to wait a year before listening to our ful...

This episode spoils 1942’s nominees 49th Parallel, King's Row, Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Pride of the Yankees, The Talk of the Town, The Pied Piper, Wake Island, Random Harvest, and winner Mrs. Miniver. America officially joins World War 2 which means Hollywood officially endorses it. This year's movies universally deal with the question of being steadfast and determined...

This is the full release of 2025’s April bonus and spoils the movie Misery (1990). For our April bonus, we let Chrysantha pick a birthday movie. What better than a feel good movie about a writer connecting with his number one fan? If you don't want to wait an entire year before listening to our full bonus episodes, consider supporting us on patreon

This episode spoils Dorothy Arzner’s 1932 film Merrily We Go to Hell starring Frederic March and Sylvia Sidney. We’re back to pre-Code movies as we celebrate Women's History Month this year, so of course that means the movie is going to tackle themes of infidelity; stooping down to the level of your philandering, alcoholic spouse; and recognizing when it's time to cut your losses. Technically the...

This episode spoils 1941’s nominees Sergeant York, Blossoms in the Dust, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, The Little Foxes, Citizen Kane, Hold Back the Dawn, One Foot in Heaven, The Maltese Falcon, Suspicion and winner How Green Was My Valley. This year had a little bit of everything: patriotism, biopics, scheming families, biopics, ghosts, biopics, private investigators, biopics, important discourse about...

This is the full release of 2025’s Women's History Month bonus and spoils the movies Suspense (1913) and The Blot (1921). Did you know women were directing Hollywood films years before they gained the right to vote? Neither did most of us, until we were introduced to Lois Weber. Listen to this preview of our bonus episode where we take a look at two of this trailblazer's most famous films. If you...

This episode spoils 1929's Hallelujah. For Black History Month, we’re revisiting King Vidor’s 1929 film Hallelujah (one of the first major studio productions to feature an all-Black cast). Celebrated for groundbreaking performances and sound design, yet complicated by stereotypes and studio-era framing, Hallelujah sits at a crossroads of representation, exploitation, and opportunity. We unpack its...

This episode spoils 1940’s nominees The Grapes of Wrath, Our Town, All This and Heaven Too, Foreign Correspondent, The Long Voyage Home, The Great Dictator, The Letter, The Philadelphia Story, Kitty Foyle and winner Rebecca. This year brings us some of the highest highs and the lowest lows. It’s the year in which the looming world war becomes more real and Hollywood has to start acknowledging it....

This is the full release of 2025’s February bonus and spoils the movie Within Our Gates (1920). We honored Black History Month by viewing the oldest existing feature film from a black American director; Oscar Micheaux's 1920 classic: Within Our Gates, a landmark of early Black cinema that confronts racism, violence, and hypocrisy in Jim Crow America head-on. Unfortunately, the type of narrative th...

This episode spoils the pre-code movie Baby Face (1933). Join us as we discuss one of the movies credited with causing the enforcement of the Hays Code. A woman sleeps her way to the top, and gets away with it relatively unscathed? Can't say the same for the men she leaves in her wake or William Hays's ghost. If you don't want to wait a year before listening to our full bonus episodes, support us...