Screenshot

As new film Tar hits UK cinemas, starring Cate Blanchett as a brilliant, highly-celebrated and highly-problematic conductor, Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore how genius is portrayed on-screen - and celebrated off-screen. Mark speaks to director Nick Moran about his 2008 film Telstar: The Joe Meek Story, which focused on another problematic musical genius, and to journalist Jon Ronson about 2...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore folk horror on screen. The genre is commonly associated with British film from the 70s, but Ellen and Mark investigate how it resonates across the globe and its resurgence over the last decade. Ellen speaks to the author and director of the folk horror documentary, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched, Kier-La Janisse about the first folk horror films, the hallm...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore the legacy of Rashomon, directed by Japanese cinematic master Akira Kurosawa. Mark examines Kurosawa's enduring screen legacy and why he is one of the most influential directors in film history. He talks to director Asif Kapadia, who is co-programmer of the BFI's upcoming Kurosawa retrospective. They discuss Kurosawa's filmography and what makes him one of th...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore how a couple of Christmas TV traditions have developed over the years - the made-for-TV Christmas romcom and the festive ghost story. Inspired by The Hallmark Channel's first ever gay Christmas film, Ellen speaks to made-for-TV film aficionado Linda Holmes. They discuss what The Hallmark Channel is and why it has taken until 2022 for the channel to feature a...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode investigate whodunnits and murder mysteries on screen, ahead of the streaming release of new Knives Out mystery Glass Onion. Mark talks to Glass Onion director Rian Johnson about why whodunnits are so enduring, who left him star-struck on set, and the classic films and books that inspired his new mystery. And Ellen takes a deep dive into the camp 1973 cult whodunnit...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode revisit Titanic in its 25th anniversary year, looking at James Cameron's epic blockbuster as both a disaster film and a story of immigration. Ellen explores the forgotten tales of immigration onboard the Titanic, talking to journalist Ray Hanania about the Syrian refugee stories only hinted at in the 1997 film. She also speaks to Sally El-Hosaini, director of new Net...

From the melodramatic gestures of silent movies to the immersive, intricate performances made possible by 21st century technology, acting styles have gone in and out of fashion. But no acting technique is more mythologised or misunderstood than The Method. Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones are getting under the skin of method acting to find out what it is, how it changed the face of American cinema,...

Inspired by the record-breaking success of huge action epic RRR, Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore the global popularity of contemporary Indian cinema, with the help of some of its key players. Ellen takes a closer look at the box office smash that is RRR. She talks to the film's director SS Rajamouli, who is responsible for three of the top five highest-grossing Indian films of all time. The...

Ellen and Mark take a turn into the exclusive gated community of housewives in cinema and television, ahead of the release of new film Don't Worry Darling. Ellen investigates why we're so drawn to housewives on screen, from original housewife satire The Stepford Wives to global reality TV phenomenon The Real Housewives, with the help of critic Anna Bogutskaya and Real Housewives exec producer Andy...

Ellen and Mark examine the legacy of the quintessential blonde bombshell ahead of the release of Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde. Mark speaks to Blonde’s director Andrew Dominik and US pop culture critic Angelica Jade Bastien about the very different personal connections both feel to Monroe and the reasons for her enduring star power. Meanwhile, Ellen explores some of the bombshells compared to Monro...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode celebrate 40 years of Film4 with a quartet of famous film-makers who have been part of its rich history and legacy. Founded in 1982, Film4 soon became an iconic and vital voice in British film. It has fostered a reputation for producing gritty, diverse stories from unheard voices as well as championing the more leftfield and experimental side of British cinema. Ellen...

To mark the 80th birthday of one of cinema’s most enigmatic and polarising characters, Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones explore the work, myth and legacy of Werner Herzog. An encounter with Herzog is always compelling, and sometimes risky. When Mark interviewed him in the Hollywood Hills in 2006, the director was shot - an incident he dismissed as ‘not significant’. From the safe distance of a few t...

From the Old Testament to Captain Underpants, via Jane Austen and pulp fiction, the relationship between the page and the screen is unbreakable. But the journey from book to screenplay can be a long and winding road that is sometimes paved with gold, and often filled with detours and potholes. To get under the skin of literary adaptations, Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones decamped to the Hay literar...

Fifty years ago a break-in at the Watergate complex in Washington DC caused a cover-up that ultimately cost Richard Nixon the presidency. From the moment the hearings into the scandal were televised, there has been a massive audience for all things Watergate. There have been feature films, plays, podcasts, online comedy series, documentaries and TV dramas. Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode investigat...

Ahead of Jamaican Independence Day, Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode immerse themselves in one of the island’s greatest exports, The Harder They Come, marking the film’s 50th anniversary. The Harder They Come was a sensation, but it took a while for its vibrations to be heard around the world. In 1972, the premiere in Kingston brought the area to a complete standstill. Outside of Jamaica, the film h...

Ellen and Mark discuss the enduring screen presence of Elvis Presley, from Love Me Tender to Wild at Heart. One of the most hotly anticipated films this summer is Elvis - director Baz Luhrmann’s biopic chronicling the singer’s career and complicated relationship with manager Colonel Tom Parker. Committed Presley fan Mark discusses Elvis’ prolific acting career with a couple of fellow obsessives -...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore big budget flops, from Ishtar to Cats. Ishtar – writer and director Elaine May's huge budget comedy starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman – was released in May 1987. The film, about a pair of incompetent singer-songwriters who become entangled in a CIA plot in north Africa, tanked at the box office and ultimately put paid to May's directing career. In the...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode celebrate one of the great doyennes of Hollywood in what would have been her centenary year. Cultural historian Christopher Frayling joins Mark to revisit the rare career retrospective interview he conducted with Day in 1989. And Ellen speaks to Queer cinema expert Emma Smart and singer Rufus Wainwright about the importance of both Doris Day and Judy Garland, who wou...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore the history of indigenous and native people on screen. In 1922, silent film Nanook of the North was released. Written, directed and filmed by a white man, the docudrama claimed to show the daily life of an Inuit hunter and his family in the Canadian Arctic - but all wasn't quite as it seemed. A century on, Screenshot explores the representation of indigenous...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore cinema's steamiest genre - the erotic thriller - 30 years on from the release of Basic Instinct. Mark reappraises recent best director Oscar-winner Jane Campion's oft-overlooked 2003 erotic thriller In The Cut, with the help of the film's author and co-screenwriter Susanna Moore and the film critic Maria San Filippo. And Ellen speaks to film historian Karina...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore the influence of David Simon and The Wire, as the Baltimore-set opus celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Beginning his career as a police reporter for the much respected Baltimore Sun, David Simon eventually became disillusioned with changes being made at the paper and spent a year embedded with the Baltimore Police Department’s Homicide Unit. That res...

Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones explore Christianity on screen, from faith films to nunsploitation. Mark speaks to priest Father Peter Malone and controversial director Paul Verhoeven about two very different cinematic depictions of the crucifixion - Pasolini's Gospel According to Matthew and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. And Ellen takes a look at nuns in the movies, from The Bells of St...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode jump on board to explore the role of trains on our screens. This week sees the release of Compartment No 6 - a strange and touching romance set on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Trains have played a recurring role in film, right from the inception of the genre. Mark is joined by silent film specialist Bryony Dixon and composer Neil Brand to talk about the appeal of the...

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore hoaxes, fakes and pranks on screen for April Fool's Day. Mark is joined by documentarian Morgan Neville and Anna Bogutskaya for a deep dive into Orson Welles’ 1973 docudrama about forgers and fakery, F for Fake. And Ellen looks back at small screen hoaxes, from the 1970s sci-fi mockumentary Alternative 3 to the terrifying BBC1 Halloween drama Ghostwatch via a...

Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street is released in the UK on 31 January. This feature length documentary provides a rare window into the first years of the ground-breaking children’s TV show.   Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode embrace the nostalgia of the television that shaped their childhoods.   Mark explores the impact of Sesame Street with Street Gang’s director, Marilyn Agrelo. He also ref...