The Every Movie Ever! Podcast

Ben and Rob swing into ‘Spider-Man 2’, Sam Raimi’s beloved 2004 superhero sequel that transformed a comic book blockbuster into one of the most emotionally enduring films of its genre. Starring Tobey Maguire, Alfred Molina, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Rosemary Harris and J.K. Simmons, Spider-Man 2 follows Peter Parker as he struggles to balance responsibility, romance and heroism, while facing th...

Ben and Rob intercept the frequency in John Carpenter's They Live (1988), starring Roddy Piper as a man with nothing, Keith David as a man with just enough left to lose, and an entire ruling class of skull-faced aliens doing their most convincing work in business suits. What begins as the story of how a six-page pulp story from 1963, written by a man almost nobody has heard of, adapted into a comi...

Ben and Rob sling their way back to 2002 and into the webbed world of Spider-Man , Sam Raimi's blockbuster that somehow managed to turn decades of comic book history, a nervous Tobey Maguire, and a maniacally committed Willem Dafoe into one of the defining superhero movies of the modern era. Along the way they untangle the long and surprisingly complicated journey that brought Marvel's most famous...

Ben and Rob disappear into the monkey suit and hit the dusty New Mexico road with Sunlight (2024), the feature directing debut of Nina Conti, co-written with and co-starring Shenoah Allen, with Bill Wise and Melissa Chambers rounding out the cast. What begins as a tale built around a familiar prop from Conti's ventriloquism act slowly unfolds into something far more layered; a conversation about a...

Ben and Rob strap themselves into the feedback loop and jack all the way in to The Lawnmower Man, directed by Brett Leonard and starring Pierce Brosnan, Jeff Fahey, Jenny Wright, and Mark Bringelson. What begins as a deceptively simple fable about a gentle simpleton turbocharged into a god by virtual reality and experimental drugs slowly mutates into something far weirder; a conversation about the...

Ben and Rob dive headfirst into the churning, sun bleached chaos of The Surfer, directed by Lorcan Finnegan and starring Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Finn Little, and Nick Warnock. What begins as a straightforward tale of a man trying to reclaim his boyhood beach slowly mutates into something far stranger; a conversation about exploitation cinema, Australian genre filmmaking, territorial masculin...

Ben and Rob conclude their journey through Panem with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part Two , directed by Francis Lawrence and starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Donald Sutherland. What begins as one final YA franchise finale slowly mutates into something far stranger; a conversation about propag...

Ben and Rob step back into the summer of 1986 with Flight of the Navigator, a film that has spent forty years being wildly underestimated. Warm, strange, and quietly melancholy beneath its adventure film surface, it tells the story of a boy who falls into a ravine and wakes up in a world that moved on without him… but is it the misunderstood masterpiece its most devoted fans insist it is? Or has o...

Ben and Rob return to Panem with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2014), the instalment that divides fans and demands a verdict. Directed by Francis Lawrence, this chapter strips away the spectacle and doubles down on the psychology. But does that make it a bold creative swing, or a franchise stumbling under the weight of its own ambitions? Two visions of the same film. Ben and Rob don't just...

Ben and Rob plunge into the feverish, unraveling psyche at the heart of Die My Love, a film that blurs the boundaries between passion, isolation, and psychological fracture. Set against a raw, untamed landscape that feels as volatile as its characters, the story captures a relationship pushed to its emotional limits, but what exactly is Die My Love? A romance? A descent into madness? Or something...

Ben and Rob step back into the arena with The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), the sequel that proves it’s anything but a middle movie. Directed by Francis Lawrence, this chapter doesn’t just continue the story, it sharpens it. But what is it that makes Catching Fire feel so complete, so essential, rather than just a bridge between beginnings and endings? They dig into the making of drama, from...

Ben and Rob descend into the stark, vertical nightmare of The Platform (2019), the Spanish sci-fi thriller from director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia that turns a simple premise into a brutal, unforgettable allegory. Set within a mysterious tower where food and morality cascade from the top down, the film strips human behavior to its rawest form. But how did this claustrophobic concept become such a sha...

Ben and Rob step into the fractured districts of Panem with The Hunger Games , the 2012 phenomenon that turned a brutal dystopian novel into a cultural lightning strike. Directed by Gary Ross and led by a breakout performance from Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, the film walks a tightrope between blockbuster spectacle and unsettling social commentary, but how did it all come together? Who i...

Ben and Rob wander into the whimsical streets of Montmartre and a carefully constructed fantasy with Amélie, the 2001 French sensation directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Starring Audrey Tautou in her star making role, alongside Mathieu Kassovitz and a kaleidoscope of unforgettable side characters, Amélie blends romance, surrealism, and meticulous visual storytelling into a film that feels as handmade...

Ben and Rob return to childhood (and possibly psychological warfare) with Matilda, the 1996 family classic directed by and starring Danny DeVito. Featuring Mara Wilson, Pam Ferris, Embeth Davidtz and DeVito himself, Matilda blends Roald Dahl’s dark whimsy with a surprisingly chaotic energy, serving up a story of genius, neglect, and just a hint of revenge. Do our hosts have wildly different reacti...

Ben and Rob bring the saga to a close with ‘The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 2’, the 2012 fantasy finale that ended one of the most talked about franchises in modern cinema. Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Mackenzie Foy, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning and Anna Kendrick, Breaking Dawn Part 2 delivers the final chapter of vampires, werewolves and eternal love, while wr...

Ben and Rob head back into the Frankenstein mythos to tackle The Bride! (2026), the bold, chaotic, and very Maggie Gyllenhaal take on one of horror’s most famous monsters. Before diving into the film’s wild ideas, the pair rewind to ask the obvious question: what exactly is this movie trying to be? A gothic romance? A feminist monster movie? A gangster road film set in 1930s Chicago? Somehow, it’s...

Ben and Rob head back to Forks to crack open Breaking Dawn – Part 1, the strangest chapter in the Twilight saga. Before getting into the chaos, they rewind to ask the obvious question: what is this film actually trying to be? The pair unpack the cultural moment surrounding its release, what critics made of it at the time, and why a movie that feels like it has three completely different acts someh...

Ben and Rob crack open the lab and fire up the lightning rods for their trip into Frankenstein, the long-gestating passion project from Guillermo del Toro, and things get stitched together fast. Before they even get near the operating table, the pair dig back to the source, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, unpacking the Creature’s original, deeply human motivation and how often adaptations miss the t...

Ben and Rob head back to Forks for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, the third (and somehow most openly unhinged) entry in the glittery supernatural mega-franchise. The one where the love triangle becomes a war movie, the subtext becomes text, and everyone suddenly starts giving speeches like they’re in a fantasy epic instead of a rainy teen melodrama. Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Tayl...

Ben and Rob hit the road with Rain Man (1988), and this week they’re graciously joined by dear friend, Amber of the Ctrl Alt Critique podcast to unpack one of the most celebrated (and complicated) Best Picture winners of the late ’80s. Starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, the film follows a fast-talking yuppie who discovers he has an estranged autistic brother with extraordinary abilities, then...

Ben and Rob return to Forks for The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), the moodier, louder, and somehow even more emotionally chaotic sequel that turned a teen vampire romance into a full-blown blockbuster franchise. Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner (now with significantly more screen time and significantly fewer shirts), New Moon finds Bella Swan reeling from heartbreak,...

Ben and Rob dive into Sinners, the intense, genre-blurring drama that’s become one of the most talked about films of the year and, remarkably, the most Oscar-nominated movie in history. Often mistaken for a vampire story but driven more by themes of guilt, faith, and morality than horror, Sinners uses its haunting atmosphere and tightly unified style to tell a story that feels uncannily contempora...

Ben and Rob sink their teeth into the endlessly debated phenomenon of Twilight (2008), the moody supernatural romance that launched a franchise, a thousand memes, and an entire generation of Team Edward vs. Team Jacob discourse. Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, Twilight follows an awkward new girl who moves to a rainy town, falls for a mysterious classmate, and quickl...

Ben and Rob plug into the charming chaos of Short Circuit (1986), the beloved sci-fi comedy about a military robot who accidentally gains self-awareness and discovers the joys and dangers of being alive. Starring Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, Fisher Stevens and the unforgettable Johnny Five, Short Circuit follows a runaway robot as he escapes government capture and learns about humanity through p...