The Brattle Film Podcast

For July 4th weekend, we celebrate actors many consider "National Treasures" in films that are typically over-the-top examples of Amercian excess and Hollywood hokum. 

Our annual Reunion Week season premeire takes us back to three excellent years in cinema: 1951, 1976, and 2001.

Our Mother's Day Series brings out some deep feelings (about actors and movies more than parents and parenthood) as we explore movies about good moms, bad moms, nostalgic moms, traditional moms, alterna-moms, protective moms, over-protective moms, and chosen moms.

The "lost episode" from Season 6, this show dedicated to movies set and shot in Chicago was recorded as our Thanksgiving episode, but it was eaten by a computer. We bring it out now, even though the series it was meant to drop in conjunction with has come and gone. But Chicago movies are evergreen, and we talk about many of our favorites from the Windy City and debate many finer points about certa...

We close out our look back at the year in movies with a deep dive into many of the Oscar nominated films and several smaller pictues we don't want people to forget about. While our conversation doesn't get quite as heated as on our previous episode, we do discover than many of us have strong feelings about some surpinging movies. With the Academy nominating films ranging from F1 to Train Dreams as...

Our annual tradition of looking back on the past year in movies engenders passionate debates as we discuss the Brattle's biggest ever "Some of the Best of" program (30 films!), touching on cinema trends of the past year and giving some love to some of our favorite lesser known titles of 2025. 

We bid a fond farewell to the legendary actor, director, producer, humanitarian, activist, and cultivator of emerging talent with a program of films from the period in which Robert Redford came into his fullest self. Starting with the pivitol year of 1969, when he made Downhill Racer and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, through the early '80s when he made his astonishing directorial debut, Ordi...

For the final episode of our Boston on Screen series, we're joined by Adam Roffman for a look behind the scenes of many of the films featured in our three previous episodes. Adam, an on-set dresser, documentarian, and former programmer of the Independent Film Festival of Boston, shares his stories of working on The Town, Little Women, American Hustle, Patriots Day, The Heat, and countless other Bo...

For our third episode, looking at the way Boston is depicted in movies, we look at the wave of independent pictures that began shooting in the city during the 1990s, as well as some of the more outlandish genre pictures that have used (or destroyed) the city.   

For this second part of our reissued Boston on Film series, we go beyond the crime movie to focus on how the institutions of Boston – educational, social, scientific, medical, legal, and the press – are depicted on screen. Because the focus of these pictures is not on the underground criminal element, they are more likely to feel like time capsules giving us a glimpse into a Greater Boston that ma...

For Thanksgiving, we're reissuing all 4 of our Boston on Screen episodes. Inspired by partnering with the Massachusetts Historical Society for a program focusing on the dichotomy of Boston's image in Hollywood films, we did, what turned out to be, a four part series with a selection of pictures that could be called "The Boston Crime Wave," or, as Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr calls this subgene...

We're unable to bring you our planned Episode #87, "Give Thanks for Chicago." So we'll be re-running our Boston on Screen series for Thanksgiving. But first, take a listen to voice messages from listeners who called in with their responses to Episode #86, "Scariest Movie Moments."

For Spooky Season, Allisa, Ian, Ivy, and Ned share their personal top five scariest movie moments and invite our listeners to share their own rankings of this most subjective of cinematic rankings.

On the occasion of his latest feature, Where to Land , coming to the Brattle, we welcome indie cinema icon Hal Hartley to discuss his text-built and performer-driven films, the ways the industry has evolved over the decades of his career, as well as his fondness for Kojak and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

We wrap up the summer with an episode and a film series devoted to movies about house cats, of which there are a lot more than you can shake a stick at. Whether they appear in animated movies, horror films, comedies, or historical fictions, felines play an outsized role in cinema, despite being notoriously difficult to train in the craft of acting.

For Robert Altman's centennial, we dive deep into the filmography of the great maverick.

We kick off Season Six with our typically epic Reunion Week show, highlighting films celebrating their 75th, 50th, and 25th anniversary of release.

Author Marya E. Gates joins us on the occasion of her new book, Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words, as a prelude to a series of screenings at the Brattle introduced by Marya. Two of the directors from her book will join her for these screenings: Bette Gordon on April 17 and Mira Nair on May 10th.

Ned, Alissa, and Ivt attempt to explain March Madness to non-sports fan Ian, and we engage in a freewheeling conversation about the many films going head-to-head in this year's March Madness movie brackets.

With the Oscars just days away, we conclude our annual deep dive into more of our favorites from the past year, including most of the films nominated for Academy Awards, alongside many more smaller films that may not have caught the attention of our listeners, and numerous favorite 2024 movies suggested by our audience through voice messages.

In our annual deep dive into some of our favorite, mostly lesser-known titles of the past year, we touch on 50 films recommended by at least two, if not all four hosts. If you think 2024 was not a great year for movies, this might change your mind. We also pay tribute to friend of the Brattle and personal hero to us all, David Lynch, who passed away the day we recorded.

Every January 1st, The Brattle kicks off the new year with a Marx Brothers marathon. 2025 seemed an ideal year to dive deep into the history and films of the legendary comedic team of siblings whose films and distinctive humor have endured for nearly a century and still have as much to say about contemporary times as they did in the 1920s, '30s and '40's

In November, The Brattle invited bestselling author, cinephile, and Brattle regular Rebbeca Kuang to program a day of movies in conjunction with the release of a special collector's edition of her first novel, The Poppy War. That whole day of screenings sold out rapidly, so we invited her onto the podcast to share her thoughts on watching movies, how movies differ from novels, how movies impact an...

For this year's "spooky season" episode, we take a look at some outside-the-box options for October viewing. From those lesser-known or under-celebrated horror movies to counter-programing options to comedies and thrillers with a cozy, Halloweeny vibe, Ian, Ivy, Ned, Alissa, and our listeners have suggestions for you.

We pay tribute to one of our favorite movie stars on the occasion of what would have been her 100th birthday. Lauren Bacall's early films played a major role in the history of the Brattle Theatre, and she's a figure all four of us have long admired. We take a deep dive into some of Bacall's most revered pictures as well as some of her lesser-known films, discuss her life and work, and Ned shares t...