Retro Grade Podcast

“HE WAS ALL OF US.“ Hello everyone! We are back to talk about another film that may have aged a little better than we hoped, and we might all be worse off for that. We are talking about 2005’s V For Vendetta, directed by James McTeague, starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving, written by one of the podcast’s favorite sibling duos, the Wachowski sisters! On this episode we talk about just how rel...

“THIS IS YOUR TIME.“ Hello everyone, we hope 2026 has been treating you well. We apologize for the lack of updates, its difficult to schedule time and be in the right mental space for regularly releasing episodes. We hope to keep doing them, as watching and talking about movies helps keep us sane and grounded against the insanity of the world. Movies might be make believe, but the stories they tel...

“IT’S SHOWTIME!“ Happy Halloween everyone! We hope you have a good night on the best holiday on the planet, and to celebrate we are releasing an spooky themed episode, just a year and some change after recording it! This episode will be on, Beetlejuice (1988,) directed by Tim Burton, starring Winona Ryder, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, and Michael Keaton as the titular character himself! Tim Burton w...

Hello everyone! It’s been a minute but we are back with another episode selected by vote from out discord community! We will be talking about one of the greatest films of the 21st century (according to a New York Times poll l,) No Country For Old Men, directed by the Joel and Ethan Coen, also known as the Coen Brothers. It is the first film we have covered from the acclaimed duo, and to make this...

“I’M NOT AN ANIMAL! I’M A HUMAN BEING!” As you may already know, we lost one of the great ones this year. In honor of David Lynch, we decided to go back to one of the earlier films in his career, The Elephant Man from 1980, starring John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time, a critical and commercial su...

“MY FAMILY HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN MEAT.” We hope you had a great Halloween! We know we are late, but over spooky season Jorge and Austin figured it was time to return to the horror genre, with one of the films that started it all! The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, directed by Tobe Hooper, released in 1974. While The Texas Chainsaw Massacre wasn’t the first horror film, it certainly laid the blueprint out...

“WHY’S EVERYTHING SO BLACK, TOOT?“ (CONTENT WARNING: Although this movie was very good, we do have to warn you that it might not be for everyone. The subject matter is difficult and might be triggering for some, as it deals with domestic violence, sexual assault and suicide.) On this episode, we explore mid 90’s New Zealand Maori cinema in the critically acclaimed Once Were Warriors, directed by L...

“AND IT WAS HERE, IN THIS BLIGHTED PLACE, THAT HE LEARNED TO LIVE AGAIN.“ On this episode of the podcast we talk about one of the most influential post-apocalypse films of all time. One that’s legacy has just been extended in an incredible prequel film that hit theaters on this year’s Memorial Day weekend. We are talking about Mad Max 2, also known as The Road Warrior, directed by George Miller, s...

“YOU BETTER HOLD ON TIGHT SPIDER MONKEY.“ On this Valentine’s Day, we decided to cover a romance movie that captured the attention of an entire generation of girls, contributed to the YA adaptation craze, and gave us vampire baseball. Today, we are talking about 2008’s Twilight, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.  When the film franchise was making...

“KEEP THE CHANGE, YA FILTHY ANIMAL.“ On this episode, we are going to be talking about one of the most popular and beloved Christmas films of all time. We will be talking about 1990’s Home Alone, directed by Chris Columbus, starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, and Catherine O’Hara. It is the first movie we have covered that was written by John Hughes, the second Chris Columbus movie,...

“UNTIL THE BREAK OF DAWN..” On this Halloween, we decided to cover one of the first horror films ever made. We cover the famous, German Expressionist film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, directed by Robert Wiene from 1920. If you would like to watch the film before listening to us, the film is available for free on various sites, but we recommend watching the one that has fancy intertitles for the t...

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Due to recent events in the film industry, Retro Grade Podcast decided to take a different approach to the movies we will cover on the podcast until the strikes are over in support of the unions. We will be covering films that are not under the companies being struck, starting with one of the greatest anime films of all time: Akira, directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, from 1988. We talk...

“YOU CAME HERE PREPARED TO FIGHT A MAD MAN, AND INSTEAD YOU FOUND A GOD?“ On this episode of Retro Grade Podcast, we talk about an adaptation to one of the most beloved video game series of all time. One of Hollywood’s earliest attempts at adapting a video game movie, and the first financially successful one. We are talking about 1994’s Street Fighter, directed by Stephen E. de Souza, starring Jea...

“THEY ARE THE BAD GUYS, WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS. UNDERSTAND?“ On this week’s episode of Retro Grade Podcast, we talk about a film from a genre we have never covered before. We talk about the 1983 Hong Kong Wuxia classic Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain, directed by Hong Kong New Wave filmmaker Tsui Hark, starring Yuen Biao, Adam Cheng, Corey Yuen, Brigitte Lin, Moon Lee, Damian Lau, Mang Hoi, and...

On this special episode, we give a FREE preview of all the fun we have over at on the Retro Grade Podcast Patreon ! We have our Modern Grade series where we review newer movies, our This Month In Movies series where we talk about current events in the industry, our Tier List Special where we make up tier lists for movie topics, and finally our Sequel Speed Pitch which is a little bit more complica...

“IN SHORT THERE’S SIMPLY NOT, A MORE CONGENIAL SPOT.“ On this episode, we return to the 1960’s to catch the beginning of the end of the big budget musical era. We watch the film adaptation of the Broadway musical, Camelot, starring Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero, and David Hemmings. Although this was the 10th highest grossing movie of the year, neither Austin or Jorge have ever hear...

“IT WON’T LET US LEAVE!“ On this week’s episode, we go back to another horror classic from the 1980s independent scene: The Evil Dead ! Directed by Sam Raimi, starring Bruce Campell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManicor, Betsy Baker, and Theresa Tilly. Already having spoken about Sam Raimi in our Spider-Man episode, we were excited to re-watch the film that made him famous on the 40th anniversary of...

“HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, KID.” On this episode of Retro Grade Podcast, we talk about one of the “greatest films of all time,” 1942’s Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains. What makes this film so good? Is it still that good 80 years later? Is this movie just for movie nerds, or does this film still resonate with audiences today? Since we b...

Continuing from out last episode, we go in the Behind the Scenes and making of for the 1996 classic, Scream, directed by Wes Craven. In the first part, we discussed our history with the film, how we familiar with the franchise and upon rewatching the film, how we felt about it now. We went over the writing, characters, structure, and reception of the film. Now, we go over the actual process of mak...

“DO YOU LIKE SCARY MOVIES?“ On this week’s episode, we talk about the 1996 horror classic, Scream. Directed by the legendary Wes Craven, starring Neve Campbell,  Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich, Drew Barrymore, Rose McGowan, Jamie Kennedy, and last but definitely not least, Matthew Lillard. In this first part, we get into our history with the film, and how even though Jorge hasn’t...

“YOU THERE, OGRE!“ On this episode, we cover the first film to ever take home the Best Animated Picture at the Oscars. We talk about the first film in the Dreamworks tent-pole franchise, Shrek, directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, starring Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and John Lithgow. What was it about Shrek that permeated throughout pop culture for over twenty years since its o...

“LET THE DREAM BEGIN, LET YOUR DARKER SIDE GIVE IN“ On this Valentine’s Day, we decided to cover a romantic film for Retro Grade Podcast. Upon a listener’s birthday request, we are going back to 2004’s critically panned, audience adored, movie adaptation of the longest running show in Broadway history.. The Phantom of the Opera, starring Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, and Patrick Wilson, directed by...

“TREES AND PEOPLE USED TO BE GOOD FRIENDS.“ On this episode of Retro Grade Podcast, we cover our first 2D animated film, Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbor Totoro, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki from 1988. Although we both know Totoro from seeing that fluffy, grey creature, neither of us have seen the movie he comes from. We only know him as the mascot for Studio Ghibli. However, we are going to...

On this week’s episode, we finish our retrospective on James Cameron 1997 classic, Titanic . In the previous episode, we summarized the entire story, going through Jack and Rose’s blossoming romance to the Titanic crashing into the iceberg and the aftermath of it all. We talked about our initial thoughts, what worked and what didn’t, mainly how some of the dialogue has not aged well. But as a whol...

“ITS BEEN 84 YEARS..” On this week’s episode, we go back and revisit one of the highest grossing films of all time. The behemoth of a movie about the “unsinkable ship,“ Titanic . Written and directed by James Cameron, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, and the late great Bill Paxton. We talk about our early memories of the movie, how it came in a two-part VHS casset...