The Top Five Movies of 2024

Sean is joined by Chris Ryan and Adam Nayman to discuss the ascendance of ‘Wicked’ in the awards race and the release of a handful of movies, including ‘Queer,’ ‘Kneecap,’ and ‘The Order’ (1:00). Then, the three each share their top five movies of 2024, a mix of widely seen blockbusters, smaller art-house movies, big swings from emergent auteurs, and more (43:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Chris Ryan and Adam Nayman Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, except we did 120 songs. And now we're back with the 2000s. I refuse to say aughts, 2000 to 2009. The Strokes, Rihanna, J Lo, Kanye, sure. And now the show is called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s: The 2000s. Wow. That's too long a title for me to say anything else right now. Just trust me. That's 60 Songs That Explain the 90s: The 2000s, preferably on Spotify.

• 0:36Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach, and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not-so-great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that: bullspend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO?

• 1:21Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:54Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the best movies of 2024. Chris Ryan and Adam Naaman are here. Amanda Dobbins, of course, is not here. She's usually here with the three of us to share her best films, but she has contributed a voice note and she will be giving us her favorite films of the year at the end of this episode. So please stick around after we've had a chance to talk through everything here and you can hear Amanda's wonderful voice and her extremely strong opinions about the year in movies. Before we get into the year in movies, we have to talk about the year in awards for the movies of the year. They've started. We had the Gothams last week. This week, the New York Film Critics Circle, as well as the National Board of

• 2:36Sean Fennessey?

  Review, gave us some, an early glimpse into what's going on in the minds of the cinema lovers.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:44Sean Fennessey?

  How are you feeling, Chris, about some of these results?

• 2:45Speaker 02

  First of all, I just want to say, you know how Rissolo, when he does life advice or when he gives out picks, it's the Alliance? You know, that's, that's their crew. Could we be the, the Atlantic Division? Knicks, Raptors, Sixers, right?

• 2:56Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. That's true.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  That's what the Adam, Sean, and Chris pie can be.

• 3:00Sean Fennessey?

  Who are we missing? Who else is, is the, are the Orlando Magic in that division?

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Uh, it's the Brooklyn Nets, so we'd need a, a Brooklyn A. And, you know, if we can find a Boston Celtics fan, that would be great.

• 3:08Sean Fennessey?

  Of course, the Celtics. How could I forget?

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Um.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  Sorry, what was your question?

• 3:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we can be the Atlantic Division. Uh, the, the New York Film Critics Circle is also in the Atlantic Division.

• 3:17Speaker 02

  Oh, that's right.

• 3:17Sean Fennessey?

  They gave out some, some prizes. Uh, Adam, they gave the best film of the year to The Brutalist. We'll come back to that film at some point in this discussion, I'm sure. Ramel Ross, the director of Nickel Boys, won Best Director. Screenplay went to Sean Baker for Enora. Best Actor went to Adrian Brody for The Brutalist. Best Actress went to Marion Jean-Baptiste for Hard Truths. And then in Supporting Actor categories, Carol Kane for Between the Temples, a movie I liked quite a bit. And Kieran Culkin won for Real Pain, probably the least surprising of all these awards. Adam, what do you make of the New York Film Critics Circle choices?

• 3:48Speaker 03

  Uh, they would seem to be, you know, they're usually bellwethers, you know, harbingers, pretty good predictors. I think that any year where you could look at, you know, an actress from a Mike Lee movie getting nominated, or, um, you know, an actress like Carol Kane for Between the Temples, shout out to the film's co-writer, Chris Wells, one of the, one of the, one of the great good guys. Um, yeah, I mean, that's, that's a good thing. I think that the New York Film Critics, as a predictor of the Oscars, has gotten a little... You know, you know, sometimes a little bit overstated. I think that their choices tend to be, you know, a little higher end, a little more chin strokey and then, you know, certainly more high end than something like the Golden Globes. But this is not, there's nothing that is terribly unexpected. There's the, there's the whispers of category fraud around Kieran Culkin.

• 4:31Speaker 03

  It's a good performance, but it's like, he's essentially a co-lead. Uh, you know, a co-lead within the film. Um, the question of the brutalist winning awards will be interesting to talk about since it has awardy aspirations kind of cooked into it, to it, to its storyline. But no, nothing like out of left field.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  Can I ask you a question?

• 4:50Sean Fennessey?

  Please.

• 4:51Speaker 02

  Starting to get these, was Gotham Awards already happened too as well? Uh, is there any rising and falling going on that you are surprised by in terms of, uh, a film's, uh, futures?

• 5:03Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you've set up, I think, the National Board of Review conversation by asking that question because that was the other big body that handed out their awards. The National Board of Review is kind of a, a strange, uh, collection, agglomeration of figures, sort of film enthusiasts is how they're defined. It's, you've got some, some critics, some scholars, some people who are just really into movies. I'm not quite sure how you get selected to be a member of the National Board of Review. There's not a ton of crossover in terms of.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Oh, you don't know?

• 5:30Sean Fennessey?

  I, I, I honestly do not know.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Don't tell him, Adam.

• 5:35Sean Fennessey?

  So you guys vote, you guys, so you guys are responsible for the best film selection of Wicked.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:40Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, it's picture of the year. Um, their top films of the year, they always provide a top 10 are Enora, Baby Girl, A Complete Unknown Conclave, Furiosa, Gladiator Two, Juror Number Two, Queer, A Real Pain and Sing Sing. You know, um.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  That's a, that's a good, solid, like, I get up every day, eat breakfast, you know? Read the Wall Street Journal and these are the 10 best movies of the year list.

• 6:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I don't, I don't know what you mean by that. Like, it's normie?

• 6:11Speaker 02

  It's like, it's like a double to left. Like, there's no, there's no chances taken, really. Baby Girl, I haven't seen that, but like, for the most part, like, I'm furious is pretty high, uh, I guess.

• 6:20Sean Fennessey?

  On your list?

• 6:20Speaker 02

  On their list, yeah, but it's, I think it's, it's like a safe and, and good list.

• 6:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's, this is a list that does not feature Dune Part Two or The Brutalist, which is pretty notable. I don't think Emilio Perez was eligible for this list because it's an international production. But, um, I would say the inclusion of Juror Number Two is fun. Obviously, Adam, you and I really liked that movie. We had a chance to talk about it on the show. Uh, the inclusion of Gladiator Two is straight up weird.

• 6:48Sean Fennessey?

  And The Wicked Win sucks, like, in my opinion. I think that's super corny to make a part one of, uh, musical fanfic, uh, the best film of the year.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  How far out on the ice flow do you want fantasy to go with this Wicked can't win Best Picture thing, Adam? Do you, do you think it's healthy?

• 7:06Speaker 03

  I mean, how much power do we think Sean has in this situation? He's more, more power than some, but probably still close to zero, right? Like, like, it's just, you know, if it happens.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  He's not even on the National Import of Review!

• 7:19Speaker 03

  My, my, my, my, my prediction is that they will give it to part two in a Return of the King type, uh, scenario. That it will be premature to reward the magnificent artistry of the first Wicked movie, which is eight hours long.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  So, give it, to give it to, uh, to part two, which, as a, someone who knows the musical, is gonna feature zero good songs. Whatever good songs are in that show are all in the first half. I have no idea what they are gonna do.

• 7:45Speaker 02

  I totally didn't even think of that. Is that true?

• 7:46Sean Fennessey?

  That's what they say. They say, they say part two is significantly less.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  The flip side of that soundtrack?

• 7:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're gonna be like, we have to, Define Gravity Part Two will be written for, for, for Wicked Two.

• 7:58Sean Fennessey?

  The speculation is that they're going to add songs and moments, in theory, to the second half of that story. As I said, I'm not an expert on the Wicked story. The Wicked movie is fine. I think, you know, making a list that features, I don't know, Enora and choosing Wicked is pretty lame to me.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Sean, on, Sean, on that point, who did they give Best Director?

• 8:19Sean Fennessey?

  Best director went to John M Chu for Wicked.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, there you go. You know, definitely a storm, a storm is brewing.

• 8:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and NBR is not terribly predictive historically of Best Picture winners, but Wicked is clearly rising. It's been rising steadily since I would say roughly two weeks before it was released, when people started to get a chance to see it. And especially fans of the musical, I think, feel really, really excited about this movie's big box office hit, at least here in the United States, not international. That is notable that The Wizard of Oz and this related story does not have as much purchase internationally, because the Academy is so international these days. Like, how is a movie like this gonna do it? The BAFTAs? I'm not totally sure. It may be not as well.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  Who's the, uh, who's the future David Lynch, whose movies are all gonna be coded remakes of Wicked? You know, there's that thesis that every David Lynch movie is a kind of, you know, submerged remake of The Wizard of Oz. I'm like, who's the sicko David, who's the sicko David Lynch in 25 years? You'd be like, actually, I just, I'm trying to recapture the feeling of filming Wicked on my phone while singing along to it. And that's how I made Wild with Heart.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  It's probably somebody who's shooting a Get Ready With Me TikTok right now, like.

• 9:29Sean Fennessey?

  I was gonna say Lights, Camera, Jackson. Maybe he'll, he'll be making Wicked-inspired films 25 years from now. It's a really good question.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Is his top 10 list out? Because it is always good.

• 9:39Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't seen it.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  Is that to see you at the movies, guy?

• 9:41Sean Fennessey?

  No, that's a, that's, Lights, Camera, Jackson is the OG underage child movie recommender.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm a, I'm a hu, I'm a huge fan.

• 9:51Sean Fennessey?

  His legacy is extraordinary, honestly.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it is.

• 9:53Sean Fennessey?

  And he's also one of those guys who credit to him does not blink. He's like, what bit? I'm not gonna what bit. There are no bits. I'm a man who enjoys films, and frankly, I admire it. I admire the approach.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  You see yourself in it.

• 10:04Sean Fennessey?

  I do. We are, we are brothers, me and Lights, Camera, Jackson.

• 10:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so this is a, this is kind of a funky list, and there were some good, some good prizes. Mike Lee won for Hard Truths for screen, for original screenplay. Clint Benly and Greg Queedar for Sing Sing won for Adapted. Nicole Kidman won Actress for Baby Girl, a choice that I like. Daniel Craig made, uh, won for Best Actor for Queer, which we'll talk about momentarily. Kieran Culkin also won here. And then by far the weirdest choice at non-Wicked division is Elle Fanning winning for A Complete Unknown.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:34Sean Fennessey?

  Not because Elle Fanning is a bad actress, or because she's bad in A Complete Unknown, but there is another female performer in the film, Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez, who's like. Just significantly more a standout. Would you agree? You just saw the movie.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I, I think they both gaze at Bob Dylan a lot. But I would definitely think that the Joan Baez part is meatier. But I thought they were both quite good at what they, what they had to do there, which is essentially be like, god damn, that's Bob Dylan.

• 11:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, Bob Dylan. I would like to have sex with that guy. Which, you know, who among us? I can't say I don't relate. Any other thoughts on the NBR picks, Adam?

• 11:10Speaker 03

  No, I'd just like to repeat that Wicked won best director.

• 11:16Speaker 03

  I just want to repeat it, you know, so that, so that no one is unclear that it was the best directed film that, that came out this year. That's all, that's all I have to add. It's actually not, I'm not adding anything. It's just repeating a fact a couple of times.

• 11:29Sean Fennessey?

  You're just underlining.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  What is the last time a film won best director or best picture that you also are on record as describing large swaths of it as unwatchable?

• 11:39Sean Fennessey?

  I honestly don't know. I mean, it's gotta go back to, it's probably Crash, right? I mean, crap, like Green Book is an example of a movie where it, I think it is now over criticized because of the, its win. Like Green Book is a perfectly fine, fairly brother movie that's, you know, certainly has some, I would say, issues culturally. Maybe not the most sensitive portrayal of race relations, maybe a bit of a fantasy. But like, is it a horrendous movie? No. There are parts of Wicked that I, I did find hard to watch. But not all of them. Some of them are fine. Some good performances. I enjoyed Ariana Grande. You're, how do you, as the leader of the Ariana Grande fan club, this must be hard for you to have a mixed feelings on Wicked, Adam?

• 12:20Speaker 03

  It's very hard for me. It's kept me up for a few days now, but, you know, I'm, I'm dealing with it. Are you guys frozen?

• 12:28Sean Fennessey?

  I believe you're freezing a bit here and there. Yeah.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. This is, this is because of the incredible geographic distance between America and Canada.

• 12:35Speaker 02

  It's also the, the divide between people who love Wicked and don't love Wicked, you know?

• 12:39Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  When do we do, when do, when do we do the tariffs podcast? When do we do the America, Canada? Tariffs podcast.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  When we fucking did take you over as the 52nd state, man.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know. I hope. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that means we might be closer together after, after we're invaded. I think you were asking me how I feel about Wicked. Again, best directed film of the year, apparently.

• 13:00Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks for weighing in. Chris, I did want to speak with you about an Irish film that was released earlier this year, but not very many people got a chance to see it. It's now available on Netflix. I first saw it out of Sundance. Adam, I'm not sure if you've had a chance to see this one.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  I, I have, and I couldn't scramble in time. I am sorry.

• 13:17Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, the movie is called Kneecap. Probably the movie I have gotten the most requests to discuss on the show. I think, I think I talked about it for 90 seconds on a pod 11 months ago. Um, it's written and directed by Rich Pepiatt. It's, uh, the story of two young lads, two young men and a teacher who together form a rap trio that becomes a kind of activist group in favor of, uh, returning Ireland to its native Irish language. And it's also a family drama, a crime drama, a number of other things, a romance, um, a musical, incredibly energetic, alive movie that, uh, people are now discovering, you

• 13:58Sean Fennessey?

  know, a series of Irish actors in the film, um, Liam O'Hanlon, uh, most notably probably Michael Fassbender is, um, in this film.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:07Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think of Kneecap?

• 14:08Speaker 02

  I loved it, man. Uh, just an absolute blast from start to finish. I, I hate to sound like, you know, Gene Shallit, but like, it was honestly like one of the most fun experiences of watching a movie this year. The music's incredible. The performances across the board are great. I'll also just shout out Adam Best, who plays the Republicans Against Drug Dealers guy in the movie. He's shown up now in Black Doves, this and Say Nothing and is excellent in everything. But just like, uh, Basically like a satellite beaming in from like some world that you obviously most of us don't get a chance to experience, the music we don't get a chance to experience, the language certainly we don't get a chance to experience, but feels entirely familiar because of the

• 14:52Speaker 02

  beats of the story and the kind of almost sports movie nature of it. So I just, I just thought it was awesome.

• 14:57Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I really liked it too. It reminded me a lot of a period of time in movies and a lot of British films that I was thinking about because you and Yasi did an episode about Blur on Band's Plane.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:08Sean Fennessey?

  And you talked a lot about Trainspotting and I was thinking about movies like Backbeat that felt, I think sometimes when there's like a focus on a, like a musical act that is not famous, it's a little bit easier to get sold on the quality of the music.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 15:20Sean Fennessey?

  You know, as opposed to like, I'm humming along to, like, I know you were crying singing Blowing in the Wind last night when you saw Complete Unknown, which is totally admirable. But um, in this case, like, it felt like I was discovering something.

• 15:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:31Sean Fennessey?

  For the first time.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:32Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like a, a brand of music. And frankly, like, what, what incredible representation for Belfast white boys.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:39Sean Fennessey?

  To, to, to spin a yarn. I, I thought it was really fun and people should definitely check it out if they are interested. Adam, will you be watching Kneecap?

• 15:47Speaker 03

  I'm going to, I'm gonna see it soon. It sounds good. I've heard nothing but good things about it, including and especially from you. So I'm, I'm there. I gotta get through, you know, Nosferatu and other, other award season essentials first.

• 15:59Sean Fennessey?

  What do you, when you say get through, what do you mean by that?

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, he has the, the Criterion edition of Wicked, part one that he's doing. So it's just.

• 16:06Sean Fennessey?

  Have you written that essay yet?

• 16:08Speaker 03

  Uh, no, no, I, no one's letting me write about Wicked.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 03

  It was funny. I was watching the movie. We, we got a screener to watch it at home legally and my, my wonderful wife, Tanya, was like, no comments during the movie. And then an hour in, she's like, this is very long. I'm like, hey, that's it. The dam is broken. I've not said anything. You, you said something. So now it's open, open.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Are you a big at home when the movie's on? Do you, do you have like a running commentary going or are you respectful of the process?

• 16:35Speaker 03

  Uh, depends on who's asking. Think, you know, people have known me a long time, say only sometimes semi respectful. Sometimes movies, uh, you know, are, are actually good. So you don't talk during them.

• 16:46Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty good. When I watch movies with my kids, I tell them to stop asking questions and say, and say, we're gonna find out, we're gonna find out what happens soon. The minions are gonna break into the whatever next.

• 16:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  You know, I'm trying to keep them from asking to make questions.

• 17:00Sean Fennessey?

  That's what they should do is add minions to Wicked Part Two. That would improve it, I think. That would be.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  Then it would break globally.

• 17:06Sean Fennessey?

  Very, very true. You, Chris, you don't really talk during movies, but you will furiously masturbate from time to time.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  No, but I do turn to you and I emotionally intellectually masturbate where like when something cool is happening like, we saw, I saw Complete Unknown last night, Adam, and when Boyd Holbrook appears as Johnny Cash, I looked to my left and Sean wasn't there, but I wanted to shake him and say, it happens. Like we did it. We did it, Joe.

• 17:34Sean Fennessey?

  The first, the first message I sent after I saw A Complete Unknown was directly to Chris and I said, big winner of A Complete Unknown: colon Boyd Holbrook. He has risen again. Um.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  Has, have people made the joke that, why didn't they just port Johnny, uh, Joaquin Phoenix in from the James Mangold cinematic universe? Has that been done?

• 17:50Speaker 02

  They did, but he quit the day they started shooting.

• 17:52Sean Fennessey?

  Like as a, like force ghost Johnny Cash? That would have, that would have been an interesting choice.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  As a, as a, as a force ghost Johnny Cash, yeah.

• 17:58Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Adam, you've seen Queer?

• 18:01Speaker 03

  I have.

• 18:02Sean Fennessey?

  You haven't seen it yet. So we can, we can trade thoughts briefly. I'm trying to hit a couple of titles that I don't know when I'm gonna get a chance to talk about them again, cause this month is so packed, but Queer is released in limited, um, over the holidays. And as I just mentioned, Daniel Craig just won the NBR Prize for Best Actor. I think there's speculation that he's, strongly being considered for Best Actor in the Academy race. This is Luca Guadagnino's second movie of the year. It's his second movie with, uh, Justin Karitskas script. It's adapted from the William Burroughs novel. Um, a kind of a, not a, not considered like a major Burroughs novel, right?

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Not to my knowledge, no.

• 18:36Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  No, it's kind of, it's kind of considered leftover from other material. It's like parallel to other stuff he was writing around the time. It doesn't.

• 18:44Sean Fennessey?

  Right? Like it's pretty, pretty thin.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  It's short.

• 18:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 18:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's very short.

• 18:48Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and set in Mexico City in the 1950s, it follows a man named Lee, who has fled New Orleans after a drug bust and is kind of like bumming around Mexico City and having affairs with men throughout the city. And he stumbles upon one man in particular named Allerton, a former Navy serviceman who has been discharged, who he falls into this sort of deep and passionate lust, love, kind of romantic obsession with. And it follows their story closely. Drew Starkey plays Allerton. And I was a bit stumped by this movie, Adam. I'm curious what your reaction to it was.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  I was stumped by it too. You know, like I wasn't stumped by Challengers, you know? I mean, whatever you say about Challengers, you know, strengths, weaknesses. It's a movie that sort of I think knows what it wants to be. And this is a film by a director who I think is taking this material very seriously. He's not bowing to it. I definitely think he's trying to complicate it a little bit. I think he's trying to complicate some of his own movie making too. Cause a lot of the discourse around Call Me By Your Name was that it was kind of prudish about depicting, you know, queer sexuality, gay, you know, gay sex scenes. This movie is not squeamish about that. It's not recessive about that. Those scenes are quite good. You know, the question of him as a sensual kind of filmmaker, I think, has been answered.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  Like by the standards of now, he's pretty pervy, you know? But there's still something kind of yacified about this movie as a Burroughs adaptation. It's a little too clean and a little too crisp. Burroughs is a really nasty writer and that nastiness kind of doesn't come through, I think. And I think Craig's performance is sort of extraordinary, but I don't like him more than like Peter Weller in Naked Lunch.

• 20:41Sean Fennessey?

  That's a good call.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  You know, it, it, he doesn't have the same depth of kind of mystery. He's a little bit, it's, it's kind of goofy performance. He's very good. I'm not, not saying he's not. He's a good actor, Daniel Craig.

• 20:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, it is, um, it's extremely mannered and a little bit silly in the characterization, which is sort of a path that he's been on. Obviously in the Knives Out films, he's doing something, it's extremely different tonally, but the performance style is actually not that different. There's something kind of like Tex Avery cartoon character about him throughout the movie when he's looking at Drew Starkey.

• 21:20Sean Fennessey?

  You know, the movie also is shot, I believe in Chinachita, and so it has this kind of like artificial feeling in Mexico City.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  I read about this, yeah.

• 21:28Sean Fennessey?

  Which is an interesting choice, but maybe not an effective choice. And then it becomes kind of a road movie where they go on this quest looking for things and, you know, their, their various addictions play out in complicated ways. There's a wild third act, um, featuring a very funny performance by Leslie Mannville that features him like really diving into some explorations of consciousness and what, you know, certain kinds of drugs can do to your body and to your idea of romance and connectivity to people. Like I find it to be a very sincere movie, but, um, not a successful one.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Do you, uh, like, what do you think of his prolific nature? Like this is obviously his second film in, in this year.

• 22:07Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, awesome. It's great.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  He's got a bunch dialed up. He does TV. He's like, he's really, I, I'm curious whether or not you look at that and you're like, this is how it should be done, or if you think some of his stuff is a little undercooked.

• 22:18Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm. I think it's always deeply considered. He, he was on WCF this week and he's just such a great talker about theme and, and ideas and what he's trying to accomplish in his films. And he takes chances. Um, you know, he's got a movie coming out with Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield and I O Debré, like, I think in the middle of next year. So he, he is on a hot streak right now. I think it's okay if some movies don't work. This was just one to me that ultimately didn't work.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I thought you're talking about the, the set shooting, you know, that, uh, What I always thought was interesting, but a bigger splash is how much it kind of became a movie, but insularity within this larger reality, right? Like, it's not just that it's a beach house vacation movie, but like it's a beach house vacation movie surrounded by a real population. And I thought that this was an aspect of Burroughs writing that he seemed to be trying to contend with a little bit, that Burroughs really not interested in like the reality of life in Mexico, just more in Mexico City, just the interest in like his experience of being there and drinking and, and you know, fucking and all of that stuff. I thought that this movie was a little bit accusatory of that, or at least making it a bit of a, a point showing that distinction, showing that insularity and the idea of a

• 23:28Speaker 03

  larger, um, you know, even if it's a small one, kind of a society around it. But also by the end, when it's going into the trip stuff and the ayahuasca stuff, I just, I, I just missed friendship, you know? That was the better, the better ayahuasca type, uh, scene of, of two movies that played at, at TIFF this year. I find that when, when, when Guadagüino gets really stylized and really kind of surrealistic, like when it's around the edges, it's fine. When he kind of commits to it, I don't know, like Adam McKay is better at it, you know? Uh, uh, I, I thought it was, uh,

• 24:00Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe the last time we hear that sentence uttered this year.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  No, I, I, I, I thought, I thought that the drug trippy stuff in it was like frankly kind of weak.

• 24:07Sean Fennessey?

  That's interesting. I, I think I enjoyed it just as a change of pace from being on this kind of deathless, deathless journey of obsession. Anyway, we can kind of leave it at that, Chris.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  I'm definitely gonna see it.

• 24:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Uh, let's talk about The Order, which is one film that the, all three of us have seen.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Definitely saw this.

• 24:22Sean Fennessey?

  Um, not as much, uh, ayahuasca in The Order, although it is probably how Chris feels inside when he gets to see grown men do what they do in this Justin Kersel movie, um, Australian filmmaker who's had an interesting career. Uh, maybe we can talk about it a little bit. This movie is set in 1983. It's about an FBI agent who is essentially tracking a series of bank robberies and trying to figure out who is committing them. And it turns out that it is a slightly more politically motivated, uh,

• 24:50Speaker 02

  Militarized.

• 24:51Sean Fennessey?

  militarized group.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:52Sean Fennessey?

  Um, rather than your typical, uh, Heat style bandits and all takes place in the Pacific Northwest. And this was like a really classical, tightly gripping, men grinding their teeth, doing hard-bitten things, kind of serial drama.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:12Sean Fennessey?

  That I think is very, like deeply solid, you know what I mean? Like, nothing is spectacular, but incredibly watchable. And I thought two terrific performances from Jude Law and Nicholas Holt as the kind of rival figures in the film.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  So, worth mentioning that Adam Arapaul shot this. He shot a bunch of early Carrie Fukunaga stuff, and it looks extraordinary. And it's worth the price of admission alone is just to see these two guys shoot Idaho and eastern Washington and the Pacific Northwest. I love this movie despite the fact that within four minutes, I could tell the entire plot to you, you know what I mean? Like, this is what's gonna happen. This is like, this guy's introducing his family and talking about what a loving father he is, it's probably not gonna go great for him. But man, like, just as like a bare-knuckle B-movie that looks way better than it has any business looking, and Kurtis really good at set pieces and is really good at landscapes.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  I thought Jude Law was really good. Your mileage, I've been kinda like noting with interest the British Invasion and how, like, American actors don't get parts after they turn 30 anymore.

• 26:23Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean, Marc Maron is in this film?

• 26:24Speaker 02

  Okay, but like Holt and Jude being like a hard-bitten New York FBI agent and a Aryan Nation offshoot bank robber, it's pretty interesting, but it's like, I thought it was, I thought it was just a really, really, really solid.

• 26:39Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think, Adam?

• 26:41Speaker 03

  I thought it was very good. I think this guy, this guy's a good director, you know? And it's interesting, the similarities to the last one, to Nitram, which Caleb Landry-Jones won an acting prize at Cannes for and got very little traction when it came out. But the two performances in that movie, which is about a spree shooter, you know, it's a kind of a recreation of a really, really horrific sort of gunman attack in, is it Australia or New Zealand? It's in Australia.

• 27:07Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's Australia, yeah.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  Which ended up getting gun laws changed, but you know, that movie, Caleb Landry-Jones and Judy Davis as the character's mother were amazing. And this movie reminded me of it, or one half of it did, because it's about radicalization, you know? Nicholas Holt's character is a really interesting. Character for a particular moment, you know? I mean, for one thing, it's the second performance he gives this year about a guy who thinks he's doing right by his family. You know, it's obviously a very different kind of character than the character in Jura number two, but that whole idea of, you know, the tension between looking after his household and what he's willing to sort of do to preserve that, but. I don't know, the idea of like a populist Aryan, uh, you know, uh, system smashing kind of ideologue.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  Fall, getting people to follow him and complaining about the media and essentially, you know, advocating for the overthrow of the government. It's not untimely.

• 27:59Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 28:00Speaker 03

  And the historical narrative about the Turner Diaries. And about, you know, the incredible impact that that had on various acts of domestic terrorism. That's the part of the stuff that's really interesting to me. Jude Law being Gene Hackman. With his jowls and all the, you know, like cop on the edge stuff. That's fine. It's very solid. Everything Chris said about how it shot is great. He's a really good location shooter. Kurtz, like he's great with mountains and lakes and, and roads. But I thought the Nicholas Holt half of it was very. Good. And the climax, which we won't spoil, although you could spoil it by like going on Wikipedia, I guess, but. You know, it's fictionalized, but you know, the climax is fantastic. It's a really good set piece at the end, I thought.

• 28:44Sean Fennessey?

  It's a, it's a very effective semi slow reveal of Holt's character's power throughout the movie too. It's really funny. He, the, the archetype you're describing is also one that is somewhat similar to. His character in Nosferatu as well, trying to do right by his family. Um, and it doesn't go as well for him in that respect. Uh, and then he's going to play Lex Luthor.

• 29:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:04Sean Fennessey?

  Next year in Superman. So we're in a kind of a fascinating. Nick Holt period right now. I've always been a fan of his. I don't think I, you know, he's really getting, he got cucked out a couple of times on screen this year, but, uh.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  Like by Toni Collette, you mean?

• 29:18Sean Fennessey?

  Well, yeah, I mean, in theory, it depends on how you read that movie. Uh, Superman, we'll see. We'll see if Lex Luthor can, can try him. What do you think?

• 29:24Speaker 02

  I think I like him when he's doing, uh, the favorite or the great rather, uh, or, um. Uh, Mad Max.

• 29:32Sean Fennessey?

  Mad Max, yeah.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Uh, more than straight, narrow, like my jaw is like iron set. He, this was sort of the perfect split the middle, uh, performance for me. So enjoyed him in that. Sometimes like when he's just playing straightforward leading man parts, I'm a little less enamored with him.

• 29:47Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, so those are three films that are out in the world right now that people can check out. Let's talk about the year in movies.

• 29:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, we gave Nicholas Holt something to think about there.

• 29:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's right. Straighten up.

• 29:58Sean Fennessey?

  Adam, was this a good movie year?

• 30:00Speaker 03

  This is what everybody says, and it doesn't mean that it's not. I mean, it all, it's all the politics of release dates and what are you going to sort of count? And where are you publishing your lists? You know, I get to publish the top 10 list in The Ringer next week and trying to be fair about what people have seen or haven't seen. But it always, you're talking about the national border view. I like how Chris described it as like a list for like a normal person who sees movies, right? And then there are different levels of exposure or accessibility. I've written about this a few times, which is the whole way recency bias works for top 10 lists and awards. It's, it's just very annoying. It's amazing people haven't cottoned on to this yet, that just because something opens in December does not mean it's good. Any more than things opening in January, February, it kind of means that it's bad.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  But, you know, the fact that I had like a long list of 18, 19 movies that could have gone on a top 10, I think is pretty good. You know, and, and a couple of things that came out this, that came out this year, I think are extraordinary. So not a, not a bad year at all.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Thought it was a pretty good year and to piggyback off what Adam's saying. Uh, I do think that movies could learn a little bit from the way television has been honestly shattered, where there isn't this kind of like gold rush at the end of a year that I think mixes everybody's signals about what's good and what's bad. I think a healthier movie industry would promote all types of different movie going experiences throughout the year. That being said, I've just had an extraordinary last like six weeks going to the theater and seeing stuff at home that winds up on streaming. And I actually really wound up like, like Adam, like I think I have like a 15 to 20 movie long list that I was like, this is really good.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  It's weird because like I feel like we go through months if when I appear on the show like bemoaning things or talking about like I think it was a really dry summer. Um, and I think that maybe has like an outsized impact on the way I saw the year.

• 31:54Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  Um, and maybe it wasn't the dumpuary that we crave every year. But man, if I didn't have like a pretty cool list and and up until like last night was still like moving things in and out of my top five just to just to try and figure out what was what.

• 32:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I was doing the same thing. I think to for me, it was not a great year by any means. Um, and I think part of that is maybe the sense that there were not as many genuinely breathtaking forever movies for me personally.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 32:24Sean Fennessey?

  Um, and that's an odd, that's just my own personal metric. Uh, your mileage may vary. I think also I think one of the reasons why there is this real pileup this year in particular is because just a lot of movies could not be finished because of the strikes. And so this was an odd release year and it was odd, honestly, doing the show this year because there would be two and three week stretches with no significant release, wide release. And I'm not sure that that has ever really happened.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:50Sean Fennessey?

  Since movies became so massively commercialized in the 1930s. So having, you know, November 8th, for example, being like a dead release weekend or having something like a movie like Sing Sing only reaching a very small number of people or a movie like Jury Number Two only reaching a small number of people over time. I think it created a sense of dissonance that has already been growing over the years with the amount of streaming only movies that we get. And the clear, I do feel like that has really shaken out. I do feel like there is now clarity on streaming movies are lesser than theatrically released films. The studios have the data they need to realize that and that for the for the most part, the quote unquote, real movies are going theatrical.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:32Sean Fennessey?

  And then there is the hot Frosties of the world and they're like, this is great for people at home who want to hang out and watch movies like this. And hopefully we're not seeing any more movies. You know, I guess with obviously with the notable exception of the way that Netflix still does business. So in that way.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  Can I, uh?

• 33:45Sean Fennessey?

  No, go ahead, Adam.

• 33:46Speaker 03

  Can I make a point based on the title of this podcast, though, and it is particular? To viewership and listener here, listenership here, because I was thinking the other day, I freelance for a lot of places. And I have tremendous editorial freedom here, considering that there's, you know, the site with a really wide reach. Never told what to put on my ten best list. I'm allowed to write about foreign language cinema, experimental cinema, older film. Very grateful for this, you know. The title of the podcast, Big Picture. It's a big playing field of movies. So at the end of the year, when lists come out. And people, not necessarily listeners or readers of The Ringer, but social media introduces you to all kinds of people. People say, I haven't heard of that. Well, because things aren't all equally widely distributed, but they exist. Or I haven't heard of that. Well, but aren't you curious to now watch it?

• 34:30Speaker 03

  But I can see where the where the polarization comes from, because people feel that if it's movies that they haven't heard of, they must not be worth seeing or not be worth. Promoting or people are making them up, which is why whenever people describe what they think art house or foreign language films are, they're very far from the mark. You know, people are like, oh, a seven hour Belgian documentary from the point of view of a pigeon. I'm like, I'd love to see that. That's not a thing. What it probably is, is a boring coming of age movie set on an island somewhere, you know, I mean it. It's all perceptual. So I think at the end of the year, if critics aren't calling attention to. Films that aren't as widely seen, they're not doing their job. Otherwise, what's the point of their job? So something like the National Board of Review has a very populist mandate. So of course it looks like a list of ten.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  Kind of normie movies. Those are all pretty wide release movies. Don't they also do lists of foreign and independent, like they silo these things apart? That's their mandate. To me, a good critic is someone who doesn't silo those things apart, but sort of tries to bring them together. You don't exclude. Populist movies if they're good, but you also don't privilege them. It's like Gladiator two, they suck. Uh, and you also don't look too askance or too suspiciously at like good movies made in other countries or. In other styles. Most people who are skeptical of that would never consider themselves to be like discriminatory or xenophobic. But it's like, if you haven't heard of something, watch it. If they can't see it, that's the problem, right? So the podcast being called The Big Picture is a good thing for me.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  Let me ask you a question that I don't mean to narrow cast your personal experience influencing how you feel about a year, but I'm genuinely, genuinely interested in your answer. You've done a lot of, whether it's Hall of Fames, you know, like top fives or whatever, like we wind up looking backwards a lot. We live in a city that's got an ascendant repertory theater scene. That, those repertory theaters seem to be hotbeds of young people going to the movies and discovering film history. The best moviegoing experiences I've had this year were going to see Thief at Vidiot's and going to see Sorcerer at the Vista, all, both of which were completely packed out with people having their minds blown by that experience.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  I also was at a fully full Lawrence of Arabia screening at the Arrow, like.

• 36:50Sean Fennessey?

  I had Apocalypse Now.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Do you think that the introduction of Letterboxd as like a really viable social media platform and film sharing platform and this obvious like groundswell of interest, at least in major metropolises, of young people going 10, 20, 30, 50 years into film history, but reacting with the passion that you would kind of expect because they're not being given this thing necessarily routinely on a week to week basis by Hollywood now? Does it change how you feel about going to AMC and seeing a movie that was just like kind of meh?

• 37:27Sean Fennessey?

  Um, it's a, it's a, it's a good point, but the question doesn't really resonate because the mission of the show is still ultimately like the contemporary cinema, right? So it's like, what movies are out now? And then how do they relate to that history and how can we kind of contextually discuss them? I do I wish that rather than going to see Despicable Me 4, I could just go to a 70mm festival? Of course.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  I think I'm more asking like the same way that streaming music kind of made all music history flat because it was given equal kind of shelf space, whether or not this sort of emergence of like a very active social culture and interest in older films has like maybe kind of like taken new movies down a peg or two in terms of like the pecking order.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  I I think as someone who teaches undergrads, right, I I teach undergrad regularly at U of T, Toronto is a film-going metropolis, we have a big film festival, you know, and big film community, big cinemat tech in the lightbox, I think Chris Asking is exactly right, actually, and that some of my, not all of them, it's students are all different people, but I think people are very sometimes hesitant to go see new stuff when there's the ability to catch up to older things. And if you go to reparatory screenings in Toronto, where I spend a fair amount of time when I'm not like parenting or or writing mean reviews, it's a lot of young people and they're much, much more interested in seeing things that are rare or seeing things that have been historically contextualized

• 38:53Speaker 03

  or things that have some kind of conceptual connection to now or thematic connection to now than just turning up for whatever is new. Like when I taught at the Film Criticism Seminar at U of T earlier this year, my students seemed much more interested in trying to write about and analyze and unpack old movies than the assignment of like go see a new release. They're like, really? Now, that also meant I got two separate papers on The Beekeeper with Jason Statham, which were very good reviews of that.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  You're about to get your third when I do my top five list.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Of that movie.

• 39:26Sean Fennessey?

  One of the most politically complicated movies of the year.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  It is. It'd be a great double bill with the with the order, you know, be a great great double bill with a lot of things. But I do think that that that Chris is kind of on to something. And I also know from knowing Sean that you. Know your film history and know your like larger currents of film history and and connections. Those are often brought to bear on this podcast, even though it is about new stuff.

• 39:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I I I think that you were right. I think I'm a little bit. I I used to caution against this when I was a music critic. I really didn't like what has happened to me, which is when someone was was an active critic for a long time, was engaging with music that could be defined as youth culture. And got they got too old and they fell out of step with the modes of current creativity. And then a lot of their writing and criticism and experience with culture just seemed very angry about a kind of loss of their own youth. Yeah. And I'm very suspicious of that. And I try. It's one of the reasons why I try to give a lot of time to very mainstream, successful things like Marvel movies, like Hot Frosty.

• 40:35Sean Fennessey?

  Like, I think it's worthwhile to understand why those things resonate with certain groups of people. And by the same token, I think there's always going to be very few genuinely great awe inspiring movies. But it's important when they happen to put a big red circle around them and say like, you know, like Enora is not on my top five list, for example, but I think Enora is a great movie. And I think it's really exciting to be able to say, Sean Baker's been doing this for almost 20 years. There's a lot to discover about what he does and what he means to the American cinema. And if you pay attention on a regular basis, the experience of Enora will actually be that much deeper. You just have to keep paying attention. Sure. So if you backslide into I only watch Sorcerer now and like I watch Sorcerer is my personality is a thing that has happened

• 41:20Sean Fennessey?

  to like thousands of men in Los Angeles in the last 10 years, literally thousands. And look, I fucking love Sorcerer. I'm in many ways, one of those guys. Yeah. But you can't be just that guy and be like, I love movies. You actually have to make the effort to see the kinds of films that Adam is describing. And to also, at least for my purposes. You know, see the wild robot and take it seriously.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:42Sean Fennessey?

  You know, and make an effort to understand it and figure out where it fits in the constellation of movie making and movie creativity. So, I don't know. I'm, what I'm trying to do is not fall out of step with movies the way I did with music. And when I started to feel it, I stepped away from music.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. No, I, I think I was really more asking whether or not this is a bubble conversation or not. I was just curious whether or not the time is a flat circle experience has come for cinema.

• 42:08Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  And I think that there are elements of Letterboxd that are amazing and they're the way that people can organize lists and share and like for people to be like, oh, okay, like now I can go back through and like, I just can, I just have a list of 200 spaghetti westerns I can watch.

• 42:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  And like, that's just awesome. That was like hard work 30 years ago.

• 42:26Sean Fennessey?

  It was.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  And now it's like, I have 14 lists that I can cross check and make sure like.

• 42:30Sean Fennessey?

  Well, just to circle back to that band splitting conversation that you had with Yasi, Adam, they were pointing out that once upon a time, if you really wanted to hear a British band that didn't have a US release strategy, you had to pay $12 for a two song,

• 42:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:43Sean Fennessey?

  you know, cause single or CD single and have it imported to you. And how that, that, that rarity, that feeling of rarity created a sense of anticipation and excitement around things that is much harder now because of what you're describing. But, and look, nobody advocates harder for Letterboxd than I do. I think it's an amazing platform, but one of the things that I think it does now that is super cool is when you open the app, The Substance has been among the top three logged movies on that app for like two months. The Substance being a successful film period is like an incredible long shot.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:17Sean Fennessey?

  You know, not a, a non-American filmmaker, a star who has never, has not led a major production in like 20 years, a movie starring almost entirely women about women's experience in the world and it's body horror. And that app, because of the fervor that it sometimes drives around a certain kind of a movie, can help grow and sustain the success of certain kinds of films. And that is ultimately, you know, Universal was behind that movie and then punted it. But it's like that movie distributed that movie.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:44Sean Fennessey?

  So I still think it has an incredible power in that respect too, not just for the, here is my spaghetti westerns list.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 43:51Sean Fennessey?

  We could pontificate all day about what this year in movies means. Maybe it's better to just talk about the movies and talk about our lists. So we'll share five films. We've got some honorable mentions and then, like I said, Amanda will share hers at the very end of the episode. Chris, why don't we start with you?

• 44:05Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 44:06Sean Fennessey?

  Number five.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Strange Darling, J.T. Mullner's cat and mouse serial killer movie told in nonlinear fashion. Featured, I think, my favorite performance of the year is Willa Fitzgerald.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  Well, in case people haven't seen Strange Darling.

• 44:21Sean Fennessey?

  As a young woman.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  As a young woman. And also features Kyle Gallner and Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley. This was a film that kind of hit me out of nowhere, has stuck with me, has some bones of like the 90s indie cinema that I kind of was grown up, grew up with. So it's obviously, like, I'm already like speaking the language, but I thought that it looked incredible. It felt incredible. It was challenging in really interesting ways. I think that a bunch of the films that I have here felt very contemporary and felt very like of the moment in a variety of different ways.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  And it's just a little bit difficult to talk about Strange Darling without spoiling it for people. So I will just implore them to see it if they haven't already. And it was one of the like most thrilling experiences of the movies that I had this year.

• 45:20Sean Fennessey?

  One thing I wanted to point out about this is that at the New Beverly tonight, Strange Darling is playing on a double feature with a film called Mademoiselle, which I was not familiar with. Adam, if you were familiar with it, please let me know, but it's.

• 45:33Speaker 03

  I haven't seen it, but I've heard of it, yeah.

• 45:35Sean Fennessey?

  So it's Tony Richardson's follow-up to The Loved One and Tom Jones. Made in 66 in France, starring Jean Moreau.

• 45:46Sean Fennessey?

  And here's the log line. Jean Moreau delivers a sultry and powerful portrayal of a frustrated schoolteacher whose suppressed sexual desire leads her to commit devilish acts of destruction in this erotic tale of eccentric human behavior. This is the movie that the director J T Mulliner and Giovanni Ribisi have said has most directly influenced the film Strange Darling. I watched it and I thought it was very interesting and very un Tony Richardson and kind of a fascinating pure art house movie. Anyhow, I like Strange Darling. Adam, what's your number five?

• 46:21Speaker 03

  Well, keeping in mind that when the list gets published Tuesday, I reserve the right to move it around. I'm trying to give, I think, the most honest top 10 in terms of where it's at. So I'm going to say that my number five is Nickel Boys, a movie that may or may not pop up for you guys on your list.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is the only one that I didn't see that I wish I had seen.

• 46:39Speaker 03

  By the aforementioned Ramel Ross, you know, there's a lot I want to say about it, but I'm going to write about it. And also I don't want to step on any future episodes about it, but just it's a really unique approach to literary adaptation. It is a completely cinematic translation of a literary medium. It has a use of point of view that I think is genuinely original and a couple of moments that stand out when that point of view between, let's say, two characters converges. It's just extraordinary. You know, this is a director who's just thinking through, how do I do this material in a way that honors it, but also changes it a happened to see Ramel Ross in conversation in Toronto, where we talked about, you know, being a point guard as well as being a filmmaker.

• 47:23Speaker 03

  He's a really nice guy. And he, his approach to this, to adapting the Colson Whitehead novel is, I think it's ingenious, you know? And I think it's a movie that you don't want to risk saying too much about, not just because of narrative spoilers, but because the experience of watching it is very surprising. Usually prestige season literary adaptations, even good ones, are not formally surprising. In fact, the whole point is they want to be formally accessible. So just for the way he plays with language without completely obscuring the history and the cultural relevance of the material, I think he did an amazing job. And I think that the best directing prize that he won from the New York film critic

• 48:05Speaker 03

  circle is one of the most heartening prizes I've seen in a long time.

• 48:10Sean Fennessey?

  I love this movie. It will come up later in our conversation. And I think you'll find a lot to admire, but you've been talking about it longer than anybody I know, actually. Had you read the novel?

• 48:19Speaker 02

  I have, yeah.

• 48:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, okay. I would say it is faithful, faithful but wildly different.

• 48:24Speaker 02

  That's cool. I can't wait to see it.

• 48:26Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, my number five is a movie called Evil Does Not Exist. This is, uh, Hamaguchi's follow-up to Drive My Car, a movie that has stuck with me pretty profoundly. I was thinking about this movie, Adam, when you were talking about how sometimes we get a little stuck on the December releases as the good movies. I have some December releases on my lineup, you know, Nickel Boys is a December release, but Evil Does Not Exist, um, premiered some time ago, earlier this year, and it's been haunting me. And I was reminded of it because it feels not in conversation, but connected to another movie that I really liked this year, that I was a little bit on an island with, which is Robert Zemeckis's Here. And I'm thinking about those two movies together because they're very much about place,

• 49:08Sean Fennessey?

  pride of place, and what you can have and what other people think they deserve from a place. And Evil Does Not Exist is about a small fishing village in Japan that a kind of industrialized glamping company comes to and intends to build a campsite, which will then have a meaningful ecological impact on the community that lives in this Japanese village.

• 49:30Sean Fennessey?

  All non-professional actors in this film. Hamaguchi, incredibly patient filmmaker, someone who's unafraid of mystery and interpretation. This movie has one of the most unusual and kind of confounding endings to a movie that I've seen in recent times. As with all of his movies, it has incredible music, um, by Aiko Ishibashi. And I have only watched this movie once, and a lot of times when I make these lists, I feel it is imperative to see the movie a second time to make sure that the feeling I had the first time is right or not right.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  It's like water tate, yeah.

• 50:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And this is the rare case where I'm sort of like, I had a very special experience watching this movie and the way that it made me feel. And I almost don't want to sully that, but I also want to continue to understand what he was going for because it is quite complex. So I don't know when I'm I'm gonna see it again, but uh I'll probably buy it and when I buy it and have a physical copy, that's when I'll do it. But I I I adore this movie and I adore here too for somewhat similar reasons.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  Those are but they're they're both in my top 10, though not in my top 5. And just to second what Sean's saying, Evil Does Not Exist is exactly the sort of movie that people who might look for more mainstream titles on this list would be well advised to check out, not least of all because it has major horror movie vibes while not being a horror movie. The score, the sense of atmosphere is quite frightening and if anyone is fans of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who is one of the world's great directors and who actually made three great movies this year, none of which are eligible for my list for different reasons, but three great movies by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Hamaguchi was his student, you know, he he was he was a Hamaguchi's film instructor. And there's a Kurosawa-ness in in this movie for sure. A great movie.

• 51:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, Chris, number four.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Uh, do you want to, when we have a real app, do you want to just address them separately?

• 51:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  Number four for me is The Brutalist, uh, which I got to see with you last week. Um, and lived up to all my expectations. Uh, amazing cinematic experience, uh, like when people talk about four quadrants, this one hit the quadrants that like are actually what you care about with movies, which is like sound, image, performance and writing. And I was mesmerized by it. It felt like an event. It felt like someone reaching for greatness in a way that you don't see directors do that often um, anymore. And I I really, the story itself is actually a little bit of a surprise to me. Um, you could say that it's a guy trying to cram Godfather 1 and 2 into one movie.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  Uh, and that sometimes has loose, loose ends or or like uncomfortable moments, but I was completely blown away about the story of this guy who comes to America as a refugee uh, and rises, but not too far in the world of architecture in Pennsylvania in the post-war era.

• 52:25Sean Fennessey?

  I'm very fond of The Brutalist. It'll come up again. Adam is a little bit less fond of this movie. I think we're gonna, hopefully we'll have a spirited conversation about The Brutalist sometime soon on the pod.

• 52:35Speaker 03

  Let's, let's talk about it in time. I'm writing about it for the site. Let's, let's, let's leave it for now.

• 52:40Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Um, Adam, number four.

• 52:43Speaker 03

  Uh, number four is a movie called The Beast by Bertrand Banello. This is another movie that is very worth seeking out if the title is not immediately recognizable to you. This for me is, I mean, everything Chris said about the ambition and craft of The Brutalist is true, by the way. I mean, that's a movie that is going for a lot. This is a movie that's going for a lot in a different way. Brutalist is chasing Coppola. I think Banello's kind of chasing Lynch. He's chasing a lot of really kind of conceptual melancholy sci-fi. It's a movie that has three timelines, past, present, future, three performances each by Lea S. Doo and George Mackay. They may or may not be the same characters in each timeline. They may be reincarnations. They may be astral projections. Uh, I think Banello's the real

• 53:28Speaker 03

  deal. Every movie of his is interesting. It's often genre adjacent and horror adjacent. Not everything he does works. I'm tired of movies where everything works. I like movies where things kind of don't work, so the stuff that works is extraordinary. I like that parts of this movie feel like Titanic. I like that parts of this movie feel like Minority Report. I like that parts of this movie feel like Mulholland Drive. Uh, I like everything about it. And I think that it's the movie I saw at TIFF last year that I've wanted to re-watch, uh, at least, other than one other movie on my list, the movie that I felt inclined to re-watch the most, and yet I haven't, because I don't want to spoil that first experience. A little bit like what Sean was saying about Evil Does Not Exist. I loved my first experience

• 54:13Speaker 03

  of The Beast. I even wrote about it for Film Comment, and they were like, do you want a screen or do you want to look at it again? And I'm like, no. Let's, let's, let's, I would just, I remember seeing it at TIFF and some guy walked out. There were a lot of walkouts at this movie, which is often a very good sign, you know? And there's this scene where like Lea S. Doo is like floating naked in a tub of black goo and a robot. It's like, you need to go to a nightclub and it's gonna be the year 1982. And a guy walked out. I'm like, what are you doing? Where are you going? What possible better thing do you have to do right now than see where this is is going? So shout out to Bertrum Benello, he's a real one, he's a really good director, I think.

• 54:51Sean Fennessey?

  Where are you at on David Lynch? I don't know if we've ever had that conversation.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  A massive Twin Peaks fan, massive Mulholland Drive fan. And then kind of up and down with other stuff.

• 55:02Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 55:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:03Sean Fennessey?

  I would be curious to know what you think of this movie. I'm of the camp that what works is remarkable and what doesn't work holds me back from loving it the same way that Adam does, but I get exactly what he's saying. We're sort of forgiving of our favorites a lot of times too, you know, and the messiness sometimes is an adventure that a tightly constructed movie maybe doesn't give you.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:22Sean Fennessey?

  So I get it, I fully relate to what you're saying. My number four is a tightly constructed adventure. It's called Dune Part Two.

• 55:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:30Sean Fennessey?

  Which I don't know that I would have thought for sure would have ended up on my list when I first saw it because I was like, we're gonna, it's gonna be a great movie year. It's March and Dune Part Two hit. And as I look back, I'm always fond of trying to find one event style film to place into my list because it is one of my favorite types of movie experiences to have is to be amongst a big crowd of common moviegoers and to love a movie together.

• 55:57Speaker 02

  Because Deadpool and Wolverine is number one for you, so like it is.

• 56:00Sean Fennessey?

  Let's not spoil things, please. Keep them, you know, with some bated breath there. But Dune Part Two, I think is as close as we got to that this year. It is the second, but perhaps not conclusive installment in the Denis Villeneuve adaptation of the

• 56:16Sean Fennessey?

  Herbert novel. I thought this was like movie synchronicity at its finest, like a person with a very strong point of view on a piece of literature who knows how to make wow moments with arguably the most stacked young movie star cast in recent memory. I actually could not think of a comp where you were kind of getting into like Dazed and Confused territory here where they, you know, Linklater had foresight about people who were going to be famous, but this movie brings together what feels like a next generation in a lot of ways to tell a very old kind of story with a very messianic kind of structure. But the moment very early on in the film where you see the

• 56:56Sean Fennessey?

  Sort of rival Harkonnen soldiers gliding through the sky to get to the top of a mountain. I was like, I have not seen that and I don't know what this is.

• 57:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:05Sean Fennessey?

  I feel like I'm in safe hands with a genuinely creative artisan and, you know, visionary is a strong phrase and I'm not sure if I necessarily believe that Phil Niv is a visionary, but I think he's an amazing movie maker and this is an amazing feeling movie. So, number four.

• 57:21Speaker 02

  Also, just really awesome to see a blockbuster that ends on a tough note, you know?

• 57:27Sean Fennessey?

  Complicated, yeah.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  We don't get tons of those anymore. Um, so it's, it's nice. It's, there's no like Michael Caine being like, you did it, Paul Atreides, you know? Like, it ends and you're just like, fuck, man, like, that was a real choice he made.

• 57:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, I really like it. Um, okay, number three, CR.

• 57:44Speaker 02

  Okay, uh, Enora, uh, Sean Baker's film we've referenced a couple of times in this podcast. I haven't really gotten a chance to talk about it here.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  I just really cared about what happened to this person. I really, really did. It's basically three movies in one. It's, you know, a Cinderella story in the beginning. There's a middle section that's brilliant, that's basically after hours. And then there's this sort of complicated relationship dramedy that happens at the end. But throughout it, I was just like, I, I don't feel like I've ever seen. It's not that I've never seen a character like this, but I just was like, I really, really care what happens to this woman. And that's, I'll do credit to Mikey Madison for that. Um, I think it's a really, really, really special performance. This from the opening music cue in the beginning, as you glide through the strip club on a, on a pan, like,

• 58:37Speaker 02

  you're just like, I mean, I, this guy knows exactly how he wants this movie to sound. I love exactly how this movie should look, should feel to go from that nightclub to her small, like apartment where she forgets to bring home the milk. You're just so enmeshed in the highs and lows of this character's life. And then that just roller coaster continues throughout the film. Um, I thought, I, I left it like with a gut punch, thinking a lot about what the end of the film meant. I love that people are arguing about that. Um, that's a kind of a theme of some of the films that I picked as films I think are going to be very divisive and people are going to have a lot of different opinions about. But I was just, just mesmerized by this whole thing.

• 59:18Sean Fennessey?

  Is Enora on your list, Adam?

• 59:20Speaker 02

  No.

• 59:20Speaker 03

  No, it's not. Um, there's a lot of things about it that are very good. I think Sean Baker's a really good filmmaker. There's also things about this film that uh that that don't land for me. I will say to Chris's point, because I always love everything Chris, you know, has to say and where everyone comes from. No, I mean it. Like, it is a movie to talk about. Because probably at TIFF last year, some of those interesting chats I had with other critics and with friends, working backwards, you know, was about the upshot of that last scene, or about the depiction of sex work, or about the culture clash within, or the idea of extreme wealth. I will say that Sean Baker tends to make very similar plots. It's just interesting to see as he's gotten more successful, it's leveled up

• 1:00:02Speaker 03

  in terms of the kind of wealth and privilege that's kind of put on the screen. It's not, it's not a bad thing. The movie it reminds me of, I don't like it as much, but it's saying that it reminds me of it as a compliment. It reminds me of Uncut Gems. Both in the sense that it is like a madcap, realistic, screwball thriller movie, and also that it is by far the biggest movie that the person associated with it is made. So with the Safdie's, the question like where do they go from here is still open. I don't know where else Sean Baker goes, because he just won the Palme d'Or and is making a lot of money and Oscar nominations for this movie. It's not a criticism, it's just to like, what do we do? Because he's a real indie hero filmmaker for me, I think.

• 1:00:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, when we did our episode about it, I, it's not on my list, but I said I think that's a cul- a culmination of all of his themes. And maybe that elevation of wealth that you're talking about is a part of that. Um, and I think that is absolutely a neat pairing with Uncut Gems, because these are both movies about people who have incredible desire that is unexamined. And I think that our own, we're meant to think about ourselves in that respect, and why we want these things.

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  They're both movies also that use time in a really wise way. You know, like, uh, time seems to last forever in the first act of Enora. It seems to go by in the blink of an eye in the second, and then in the third, it's kind of this. Ellipsis of like, where are we going next?

• 1:01:17Sean Fennessey?

  Dragged out, yeah, yeah, very purposefully. The fall is always a little bit more painful. Um, okay. Adam, number three.

• 1:01:24Speaker 03

  My number three is very similar to Enora in that it is a gig economy, uh, scruple comedy. The female protagonist sort of in the ruins of European communism, which is do not expect too much from the end of the world. Which I would also hugely recommend to anyone who's listening to this or watch it and saying, I don't know what that is. Go find out what it is. It is fucking hilarious movie. It is about a woman driving through, uh, Bucharest. She basically is working for a company that makes work safety PSAs, but from the point of view of like, don't get hurt. You know, it's like, it's like looking for people who will sort of give testimonials, but how it's not really their fault. Uh, there's a cameo from Nina Hoss as the, I think the great granddaughter of Gertrude. There's a cameo by Uwe Boll as himself.

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  There's probably the worst language of any movie ever since Goodfellas. The, the slur per moment ratio or the expletive per moment ratio is off the charts. And it's hilarious. It's a movie about social collapse and late capitalism and, uh, just the absolute hostility that vibrates from this character who half the time is pretending to be Andrew Tate using a face filter. Uh, the, the female protagonist has this kind of alter ego she posts to Instagram with where she just has Andrew Tate's face and just vents her spleen about, uh, the world. And then it culminates, I'm going to write about this too, when we do shots of the year. It has the greatest long take I've seen in years. A forty minute long take, which is not about camera movement.

• 1:02:52Speaker 03

  It is just about pure duration. It's a shot that you could have taken in eighteen ninety-five. And it is also a better Bob Dylan movie than A Complete Unknown. Because the, the end of, uh, of, uh, Do Not Expect You Went to the End of the World is a parody of the Subterranean Homesick Blues video, except the idea is you add the words in post because it's green screen, uh, cards. It's the best comedy of the year. And, uh, a movie that even though it's long, it feels like it's about two seconds long to me.

• 1:03:19Sean Fennessey?

  I like this movie. It's a good pick. Um, okay, my number three is Challengers. Uh, Challengers and Dune coming out so close together again was a sensation of like, we are, we are truly back.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:33Sean Fennessey?

  We are in incredible hands and Guadagnino, I think resisting the impulse to make something so commercial for so long, I found fascinating because you could always sense right underneath the surface, is a very kinetic filmmaker and somebody who if he picked up the pace, had a chance to do something extremely cool. This is a very simple seeming soap operatic story, a love triangle on the surface, a sports movie on the surface, um, that I think is also about incredible, unquenchable passion for victory that exists inside some people. And in this case, it is in the character portrayed by Zendaya and she is using everyone around her to supplement her desire and her ambition.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  Cause her body won't cooperate.

• 1:04:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Um, and her willingness to use other people and to sublimate, you know, certain feelings in order to get where she wants to go. And it's also just like a hilarious and relentlessly propulsive story about what happens to everyone who gets in her way. Um, also just features one of my five year performances of the year, which is Josh O'Connor as the sort of weasely bastard who won't ever get out of her way, um, and continues to place himself right in front of her. I really, really loved this movie. I think that this is a, it is, it is more of a divisive movie than I think I imagined when I first saw it. And I first saw it in 2023 and when I saw it, I was like, god damn, the score alone,

• 1:05:00Sean Fennessey?

  the Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor score and the inspired decision to basically put a four on the floor dance beat behind.

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  Tennis.

• 1:05:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And 70% of the movie.

• 1:05:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:11Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it's just a relentless, um, use of music as well. It's just so, so inspired to me and I, I've seen this movie three times now. I really, really love it. Um, it's a good meeting point, I think for me and Amanda and our interest on the show. So, uh, as I look down the list, there's a lot of stuff I did like. There were some movies that maybe could have been swapped into here, but I'm not sure if I ever had quite so much fun at the movies as I had at Challengers. So that's my number three. Okay. Number two, Chris.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  I'm gonna go with Rebel Ridge, Jeremy Sonnier's film about a martial arts instructor who comes to a small southern town to bail his cousin out of jail. And everything that goes wrong from there, it's about the corrosive forces of local law enforcement forced to, not forced to, but engaging in this thing called civil asset forfeiture, taking people's property, their money, their time, their freedom for essentially financial benefit. But it also is just like a movie that could have come out in 1983 and starred Chuck Norris. It is made, though, with such care and such excellence in scenes that you're just like,

• 1:06:22Speaker 02

  this is just a transition scene to get him from one part of a riverbed to a bridge. You're like, how the hell do they do that? Why did he take so much time to do it that way? But it pays off. It's just watching someone who really still cares about making really good genre films. And that's excellent. It's a kind of a triumph that this film is as good as it is, given how the reshoots and the delays they went under. And then on top of all of that, aside from really cool performances from Don Johnson, who's reliably awesome anyway, and Emery Cohen, Anna Sophia Robb, Aaron Pierre just becomes a movie star in this movie. And so if you didn't know that already from watching Underground Railroad, you will know it from watching Rebel Ridge. It was just one of the most satisfying films I've seen all year. Watched it like two or three times.

• 1:07:05Sean Fennessey?

  Great movie on my honorable mentions, for sure.

• 1:07:07Speaker 03

  It's terrific movie. Aaron Pierre's fantastic and it's really good.

• 1:07:11Sean Fennessey?

  Adam, number two.

• 1:07:13Speaker 03

  We probably can, we probably don't have to talk about it. We did a whole pod on it. Juror number two.

• 1:07:18Sean Fennessey?

  Look at you. Hey.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, people, people may have heard of.

• 1:07:22Speaker 02

  You saw that Forerunner yet, brother?

• 1:07:24Speaker 03

  Is that Forerunner, buddy? No, I mean, I was, I really loved talking about it with Sean. That was a fun chat. I do think there is a little urgency around this movie and critics rallying around it. There's a sort of like white knighting of Clint Eastwood who can take care of himself, but still. And it is a movie. Remember we talked about that idea of distracted viewing? You know what the common thing people have been texting about this movie with me is they're like, I didn't look at my phone. It is a, it is a great, you can't look at your phone movie because it is told in such a precise, measured, classical, pressurized way. And again, what an amazing ending. That last scene, which I wrote about, so I won't go on about it here. Uh, that's an extraordinary ending in every way, the way it's written, the way it's shot, the way it's acted.

• 1:08:09Sean Fennessey?

  We haven't talked about it.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  We haven't.

• 1:08:11Sean Fennessey?

  What'd you think?

• 1:08:11Speaker 02

  It's quite good.

• 1:08:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  It was quite good.

• 1:08:13Sean Fennessey?

  Some flaws?

• 1:08:14Speaker 02

  I, I, I, I, I wish I could do the Pepsi Coke taste test of not knowing who directed that film and know who, how I would have felt about it.

• 1:08:22Sean Fennessey?

  Really?

• 1:08:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, cuz I think I went into it with a lot of like God, Clint, late, late style, like, you guys need to understand the mastery at work here. Uh, and so I went in with like, kind of like, looking for that when I was watching it. Um, I think it's fair to say that it's like also a very like procedural, kind of like for as much like mysticism as might be attached to it, it's kind of a bare bones like, like Showtime movie of the week kind of movie in some ways.

• 1:08:50Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think I, the kinds of movies that I thought about when I was watching it, and I, I think we talked about this a little bit, Adam, when we had to the episode, but you know, that period where he makes Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and True Crime and Bloodwork?

• 1:09:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:04Sean Fennessey?

  And he's like, working through genre adaptation, that is a very comfy period of movies for me personally, you know, that's sort of like 96 through 2003 era. Where he's like semi mailing it in, but him semi mailing it in is so much better than everybody. And the, for me, Jerry number two distinguishes itself because it is like a big moral gray cloak over his questioning of institutions for the last 15, 20 years in his films. And I love that about it. And I, I echo Adam's sentiments about the ending, which I just think is like. I was, I don't know, floored is the wrong word.

• 1:09:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:41Sean Fennessey?

  Because it's sort of inconclusive in some ways, but just like knocked out, just like took my breath away. Um, so, great pick, Adam, I like it. Uh, my number two is a movie that Adam also has on his list, which is Nickel Boys. Um, which I think both formally, intellectually and emotionally and spiritually is just like wildly deep and new and exciting and is the kind of movie, this is why, to go back to your question earlier about like, the Sorcerer Boys, you know, like, this is why I'm doing the show, is to discover a movie like this at a film festival and to tell people to watch it.

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  And The Beekeeper, too.

• 1:10:18Sean Fennessey?

  And The Bee, well, I do, I, I do like promoting movies like The Beekeeper as well. Um, those two films have a lot to say to each other politically, Nickel Boys and The Beekeeper. Uh, you know, Nickel Boys is, because of its decision to remove perspective and amplify perspective at the same time, I think, really confronts the viewer about what they're willing to tolerate in a narrative style film. Um, in addition to that, it has something in common with my number one movie in terms of the use of archival footage that I find to be fascinating and in the wrong hands could go very badly, but in both cases, I think is an amazing

• 1:10:59Sean Fennessey?

  choice and I think the film gets into, this is so pretentious, but like legitimately abstract poetry in the final 20 minutes of the film where you're like levitating, you're being lifted off of your feet or off of your ass while you're watching the movie because it's so deep. Now, I saw it with a bunch of friends, a telluride who I see a lot of movies with, and half of them were just like, what the fuck was that? And I think a lot of people will watch Nickel Boys and have the same feeling and frankly, if you watch it in your house, like on Amazon, it's probably gonna seem even more strange, but, um, I, it just knocked me out and I'm very excited about Ramon Ross as a filmmaker, so that's my number two. Okay, Chris, number one, I'd love what you're doing here.

• 1:11:38Speaker 02

  My number one, uh, is Savoir. Uh, so Alex Garland's movie from earlier in this year. Featuring Kirsten Dunst and Kaylee Spahn and Wagner Mora as journalists who are covering the fall of a, I suppose, fascistic or at least third-term president. I say suppose because a lot of people took a lot of issues with the lack of clarity and lack of world-building that went into this very straightforward Heart of Darkness-style Up the River but just down the Pennsylvania Turnpike-type movie. I found that the imagery from this movie stuck with me. Yes, the ideas from this movie stuck with me, even though I know it's been criticized

• 1:12:20Speaker 02

  for having no ideas whatsoever, Amanda, but I keep thinking about it and it's a fucking heavyweight title contender of a piece of filmmaking. And I'm not actually always like Alex Garland can do no wrong. Like, I definitely have issues with some of his films. I think they get really sloppy in places. I think sometimes he gets enamored with the things that I'm not particularly interested in. This movie was not that. I was absolutely gripping my armrests for the entirety of this film. It was sonically and visually overwhelming and, I don't know, it's an interesting conversation to have to ask people whether or not their feelings about this movie have changed since the election. Probably not, can't squeeze it in here, but I did think about it in different ways.

• 1:13:03Sean Fennessey?

  You're saving it for JMO.

• 1:13:05Speaker 02

  I'm saving it for JMO. I'm saving it for my Letterboxd livestream. But yeah, that's my number one. Did you hate this movie?

• 1:13:13Speaker 03

  No, I wrote about it. I didn't hate it. I didn't like it very much. The last thing that you said about, "I wonder if people's feelings about the movie have changed," is partially what I resisted about it, which is, among other things, it felt opportunistic.

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:13:26Speaker 03

  But I suppose it is a very thin line because I always, again, respect what Chris says. It's a thin line between opportunism and, like, prescience, right? He's not making a movie about the wrong thing. So my issue is kind of with the filmmaking itself, but that's, that's, that's, that's subjective. And I'm not really a Garland fan. There's some good scenes in it, and the one scene performance by, um...

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  Lemmons?

• 1:13:50Speaker 03

  What's his, by, by Jesse Plemons, obviously very memorable and not just because it's been memed a lot. You know, that's a, that's a memorable little performance. He's very good.

• 1:14:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I mean, I really love this movie and I had a very similar experience that you did. And I rewatched it right before the election. And I think I liked it a little bit less, but felt like it was it was better. You know what I mean?

• 1:14:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Sean Fennessey?

  Like, I am actually in the Church of Garland and I love his movies and I love the way that he thinks. And I like his novels quite a bit. And I'm so excited that he is doing another 28 movie with zombie movie with Danny Boyle.

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  And some other movie Warfare, right?

• 1:14:28Sean Fennessey?

  And he's making this movie Warfare with Ray Mendoza, who is the consultant on some of the military action in Civil War. And it's a friend of mine who works in the business was like, this is going to be the best movie of the year next year. I'm fully in the in the cult.

• 1:14:44Sean Fennessey?

  And I think it's prescience and my sense that it will be very warmly understood long term.

• 1:14:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:50Sean Fennessey?

  Part of is part of kind of like undid me a little bit.

• 1:14:54Sean Fennessey?

  But I, you know, I, I really like it. It's kind of like right, it's literally, I think, a number six for me right now. So it's a good pick. Okay, Adam, you've got a number one slot.

• 1:15:04Speaker 03

  Well, I wanted to be a surprise when I published the list, but I've also got to be consistent, right? I can't not mention it and have it be number one. I went with Pascal Plant's film Red Rooms.

• 1:15:14Sean Fennessey?

  Thought about putting this on as well.

• 1:15:15Speaker 02

  Amazing movie.

• 1:15:15Speaker 03

  Which is a French, a French Canadian film. And what I'm going to say about it as a mea culpa is I didn't think it worked the first time. And Letterboxd, which we've talked about for this entire podcast, you can find it there. Someone shared it the other day, but like, oh, there's some really good thoughts on Red Room by by Adam. I'm like, no, I disagree with myself. And I wrote about the film, wrote about the film for a movie later and said, I think it's really good. And I think it's better than really good. I think it's an amazing film. And I'm really loathe for spoilers. I think spoilers are essential to like written, serious criticism. But when you're trying to introduce people to a movie, you don't want to say too much. Interesting companion piece to juror number two in that it is a courtroom drama that is not really a courtroom drama at all.

• 1:15:59Speaker 03

  It has extraordinary courtroom sequence for about 10 minutes. And then it's not about that. It's about a woman who. And hesitant how much to say a vested interest in the trial of a cer- of an accused serial killer. And the ways that she pursues this interest, which is kind of like investigative journalism and kind of uh like obsessive fandom and maybe something else, uh constantly surprised me. I have not seen a movie. I we see movies for a living to greater lesser degrees, all of us, right? We try not to be cynical. I think Sean does a great job of not being cynical. I don't, I do a less good job of not being cynical. I had no idea what this character was capable of.

• 1:16:41Sean Fennessey?

  Hmm.

• 1:16:42Speaker 03

  That's rare. I don't just mean that a movie is unpredictable. Movies can be twisty. That's easy to do, but I'm like, who is this person? What the hell is she thinking? And doing? And why is she doing this? And the performance by this French Canadian actress Juliette Cariapi, I think it's an all-timer. I mean, I don't know if the movie's an all-timer. I like it a lot, obviously, because I'm putting it at number one. She's unbelievable. And it's a movie that I think for for fans of the pod who like a very obscure director, none of us have ever talked about named David Fincher, uh, might wanna watch because it has the Fincher juice.

• 1:17:16Sean Fennessey?

  That was my, that was my in for it was, I was like, this is, this is really good Fincher methadone. And, and you know, a movie in its own right, obviously.

• 1:17:24Speaker 03

  Really good Fincher methadone. And this performance, a lot of it is in close up. Uh, the close ups are quite often nightmare fuel. A few critics have described this movie as being as scary as something that is not a horror movie can be in terms of, and it all comes back to this idea of what this character is capable of and why she is doing these things. And I love the idea of a movie about a character who knows exactly what she's doing and maybe not why, or has no idea what she's doing, you know, but is super competent in a kind of Stieg Larsson Girl with the Dragon Tattoo way. Great movie. Number one.

• 1:17:59Sean Fennessey?

  We've talked about how quite a bit over the last couple of years, many great filmmakers are resistant to making contemporary set stories because of the way that they resolve some of the natural plotting that comes from telling a story in the past because of cell phones and technology and what have you. This is an incredibly contemporary movie, Red Rooms, and there's a sequence in a bedroom near the end of the movie that is the most like.

• 1:18:26Sean Fennessey?

  Stunning portrait of a modern mentality that I've ever seen. And I won't say anything more about it, but I know I relate deeply to the way that you're describing the like, what she's what? What is she? She's now she's doing what?

• 1:18:42Speaker 03

  And to reiterate.

• 1:18:43Sean Fennessey?

  We're pretty like sick fucks, you know, this is like a trio of guys who are into some gnarly shit.

• 1:18:49Speaker 03

  It's and to reiterate, for anyone who's now curious about seeing the movie, this is not incoherence. It's sort of a movie about a completely self divided moment because everything that Sean said about the way I usually, when movies are like, we're about the way we live now, it usually means they're bad, you know? But this is a movie about screens and prisms and about self curation and like how people present themselves in private versus public and absolutely about just like interacting with and interfacing with AI. And it does it all within a genre framework because Fincher, when he's really good colors inside the lines of genre. He just colors vividly, you know? Pascal Plante is not a household name like that, but the way that this movie is directed, I hope it does good things for him in a good way.

• 1:19:34Speaker 03

  I hope it means he gets to make more movies that are as uncompromised as this, as opposed to, you know, leveling up to making some horror remake in the States or something. But, uh, you know, really good film.

• 1:19:46Sean Fennessey?

  That's a good segue to my number one, which is The Brutalist. And I will, I will. Brutal Boys. I will echo Chris's feelings about the film. I've seen it twice. And now that I know more about the movie, I think that that has probably infiltrated even more of my appreciation. And what you're saying about Pascal Plante and the way that he made Red Rooms at him, I think resonates to this conversation too. Because this is someone who I hope gets to make more movies and gets more and more freedom. There's something fascinating about The Brutalist being made for such a small sum because it is such a big movie. And it is such an extraordinary accomplishment and a sweeping movie. And it's not just its length, but its scope that is so thrilling. The performances, I think in this movie are amazing.

• 1:20:29Sean Fennessey?

  And I don't, while I do understand the concern that it is a very transparent and.

• 1:20:37Sean Fennessey?

  To some desperate grasp for greatness. I would rather have that than settling for mediocrity, settling for something small, settling for something that is cheap or cynical. And this is like, to me, I see no cynicism in this movie. I see no cynicism in the ambition to make something big and great. And it's evident to me like what some of the inspirations are. And I think that Godfather is there. And I think the American productions, the moral fables of George Stevens are there. And I think Visconti movies are there and Bergman. And I think all, yeah, 1900 is there.

• 1:21:14Speaker 03

  Sequences from Paul Thomas Anderson movies.

• 1:21:17Sean Fennessey?

  With The Master is vividly on the surface of this.

• 1:21:20Speaker 03

  Vividly on the surface of this movie.

• 1:21:22Sean Fennessey?

  No, no question about it. You know what? All of those movies I just mentioned are phenomenal. They are, they are among the best pieces of art that have been made in the last hundred years. And trying to conjure that feeling that those movies give us is why I'm doing this, is exactly why I'm doing this. So, you know, we'll talk about, a lot more about the movie. And most people have not had the chance to see it yet. And I am excited, I'm looking forward to the debate. I am looking forward to the, the division, you know, to, to, to quote your list. Because I just was so knocked out. And seeing it again with you is fun, too, because not only did we get a chance to talk about it, but I got a chance to kind of like wrap my arms around my expectations versus

• 1:22:06Sean Fennessey?

  my, the actualization, you know?

• 1:22:08Speaker 02

  Of course, of course.

• 1:22:09Sean Fennessey?

  And we, we made a lot of jokes about this movie before it came out. And I had been desperate for a big, important seeming film all year. And then you come to see the movie and it's just like, just deathly serious story about alienation and assimilation and capitalism and pain and

• 1:22:27Speaker 02

  Art.

• 1:22:28Sean Fennessey?

  Physical deterioration and how you, and you know, patrons versus artists. And so many big ideas. Some are going to say too many ideas. That's fine. But I, I love this movie and I, I hope a lot of people go to see it. And I hope Brady Corby gets to make a lot more movies. Uh, honorable mentions?

• 1:22:47Speaker 02

  I'll just rattle some off.

• 1:22:48Sean Fennessey?

  Go ahead.

• 1:22:48Speaker 02

  Right? We don't have to spend a ton of time on them, but the one movie that I was like, this was like still last night, trying to figure out whether it was going on is I Saw the TV Glow.

• 1:22:57Sean Fennessey?

  I just rewatched it last night.

• 1:22:59Speaker 02

  Thought it's just an extraordinary film. Couple others, uh, Snack Shack.

• 1:23:02Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:03Speaker 02

  A Real Pain. And then A Complete Unknown.

• 1:23:07Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:07Speaker 02

  Conclave and In a Violent Nature.

• 1:23:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Adam, you want to cite some?

• 1:23:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, I want to give a shout out. Someone whose movie I probably can't write about because she's a friend, but Brett Story's documentary, Union, which is about the unionization of an Amazon factory. This is courageous political filmmaking. You know that because people are hesitant to distribute it. It's a really good film. It made the New York Times Top 10 list and got a big feature written about it in The New Yorker. Big contrast with Nomadland in that they did not want to film inside Amazon. You know, it's a really interesting companion piece to Nomadland. Brett Story captured cameras outside and used cellphone footage that was stuck into the union meetings. So that's great to me. It's a kind of co-authored film. I mean, the movie that I can't put on the list because it's not a feature is Chime by Kiyoshi Kurosawa,

• 1:23:57Speaker 03

  who is, I mentioned before, best horror movie of the year, and it's 45 minutes long. And I don't want to steal Sean's thunder, but I want to tee it up for him. I'm going to throw Sean a lob here and I'm going to say, much to the consternation of my actual editor here at Ringer and with a couple of my friends looking at me like I'm a psycho. I put Here on my top 10 list. In the end, I kicked off two or three other movies that I'm more certain are actually good for something like Here, which I wrote about for a different publication. I was very happy with that piece. That movie's bananas. That movie is bananas. And thinking about it and deconstructing it is necessary, I think.

• 1:24:43Sean Fennessey?

  That's Here is my The Beast in that I know that there are things about it that do not work and I do not care because what does work about it is so powerful to me. And the thing, I'll just pitch this to you guys. I'm putting you on the spot by asking you this. I've asked a few friends this before. Can you name me, what's the last movie made by a movie star like Tom Hanks that is about the erosion of the middle class and the impossibility of the American dream?

• 1:25:11Speaker 03

  Deadpool and Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds.

• 1:25:13Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, that's the thing is that that is what movie stars do in 2024. Movie stars don't make movies like here. And Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis, and is he absolutely boomerfied and obsessed with the past? And obsessed with the own impossibility of his, of the life that came before him and his parents' world? Yes, all that stuff is true. All the criticisms are true. I am willing to let them go. But the actual act of getting Sony Pictures. Yeah. To adapt this graphic novel about the arc of time and what is lost in that time? And how it affects individuals is fucking deep, man. That's really deep. And it's easy to make fun of the movie because they D H Tom Hanks or whatever. But I think if you really make an effort to approach it sincerely, it's a meaningful movie. So thank you for putting it on your list, Adam. I appreciate it.

• 1:25:56Speaker 03

  It's the great double bill this year with Megalopolis. Because with Megalopolis, there's no tension. He just financed it himself. So the movie is whatever it is on Coppola's own terms. For Zemeckis to make that movie when a studio is footing the bill and for it still to be on his terms like that. That's what makes it an interesting double bill with The Brutalist, right? Like they're, they're, they're, they're very much both movies. But how much control can you exert while you're being patronized? I don't mean made fun of patronized. I mean, literally being subsidized to make this thing. And I, I'm sure people who work for the studio wouldn't want to hear this. It's great that here is going to lose so much money. Because that's what cult reclamation is made of. I wrote a book about showgirls, man. This is how it happens.

• 1:26:41Speaker 03

  You need to have the nuclear blast site of, of, of negative consensus for people to go look at something else. So when they see a movie that is about like American self-interest and colonization and the arc of the universe bending towards McDonald's. With the, and I'm not going to spoil it, but anyone who watches that movie, please think about where the last shot ends up. Not just where it finally goes when the camera moves, like whose position we're looking at the, the frame now from at the end with the stupid Benjamin Button hummingbird winking at everybody like. That movie is kinda evil and kinda great. And in 15 or 20 years, people are gonna say, how would everybody miss thinking this was interesting? At least.

• 1:27:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, here we'll be heard from again. And I think it's also an amazing pairing with Forrest Gump. Robert Zemeckis's

• 1:27:30Sean Fennessey?

  less embittered version of a piece about the arc of time passing in America. Okay, honorable mentions for me. You guys mentioned a bunch of movies that would be on mine, Civil War, Nora. I wanted to give a shout out to a movie that I'll spend maybe a little bit more time on in a couple of weeks that I just saw called Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat, which is an unbelievable documentary. That unlike one I've ever seen before, Chris, are you familiar with this movie at all? I'm not. It is essentially told entirely through archival footage, jazz music and text on cards. It's about the relationship between American black music and La Mamba and the Congo in 1960.

• 1:28:15Sean Fennessey?

  And the sort of radicalized politics of a new Africa in the middle of the 20th century. And the way that the CIA may or may not have used some of the musicians who traveled to Africa during that time to implement force and power.

• 1:28:32Sean Fennessey?

  Two and a half hour movie, so dense as to be overwhelming. There you have to be fully engaged because there is a lot of reading involved. But because of the way that it is scored by Max Roach and Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie and on and Charles Mingus, on and on and on. Coltrane makes an appearance in the film, Miles Davis makes an appearance. It's like, um, it's like going down the big slope on a roller coaster and never stopping. So fascinating movie that I hope more people get a chance to see. I think it's only in theaters now and not available on VOD, but that's Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat. I had Red Rooms on my list. I had The First Omen on my list, which is of course a horror movie that I liked quite a bit that I've talked about quite a bit on the show already. I had Rebel Ridge, you know, I, I, I think I should give a shout out to Furiosa, which, you know, we've been tough on this year.

• 1:29:17Sean Fennessey?

  But when I look at my list, it still is like 13 or 14. It's not like it's that far down. Uh, I've only seen it, I've seen it twice, in theaters twice. I have not watched it at home, but I will do that. And then the last one I wanted to mention is A Different Man, which had a surprise win at the Gothams last week for Best Picture. This is Aaron Schimberg's movie starring Sebastian Stan. And Adam Pearson. And I did talk to Sebastian Stan at length about the movie on the show, but I never really devoted any time to discussing the movie, which is about a man who's born with a condition that disfigures his face and that he has a remarkable surgery that makes his face look like Sebastian Stan's face. And he seeks out an opportunity to become an actor and play a man who has the condition.

• 1:30:01Sean Fennessey?

  That play is written by a woman that he has fallen in love with, who lives in his apartment building. Very convoluted, dark comedy, very, very black satire of self-worth and self-image. That features Adam Pearson's like bright, jovial, exuberant spirit in the center of it.

• 1:30:18Speaker 02

  Really enjoying Sebastian Stan's somewhat post-MCU movement.

• 1:30:22Sean Fennessey?

  Just very cool.

• 1:30:23Speaker 02

  I know he's still in it.

• 1:30:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I was very mixed on The Apprentice, but not at all mixed on him and Jeremy Strong in The Apprentice. And people should check out A Different Man. It's on VOD right now. Uh, I think that's it. Should we throw to a man? Any guesses on what's on Amanda's list?

• 1:30:36Speaker 02

  Civil War.

• 1:30:37Sean Fennessey?

  No, Adam, you have any guesses?

• 1:30:39Speaker 03

  No, I just look forward to hearing it.

• 1:30:43Sean Fennessey?

  I know challengers will be there. I do know that Amanda has seen Wicked. Do we think Wicked will be on Amanda's list?

• 1:30:48Speaker 02

  I think Nora will be on her list.

• 1:30:50Sean Fennessey?

  Uh huh, yeah. I think you're right, but maybe not. No Wicked?

• 1:30:55Speaker 02

  I only saw the Instagram story that was like, okay, like.

• 1:31:02Sean Fennessey?

  Adam, what do you think? Will Amanda select Wicked for her top five?

• 1:31:05Speaker 03

  Uh, no. No, Amanda will not select Wicked for her top five.

• 1:31:08Speaker 02

  But she will have John Stewart as best director.

• 1:31:10Speaker 03

  Amanda will have something to say about you saying she would select Wicked.

• 1:31:13Sean Fennessey?

  I know, I'm almost certain she will not. Uh, all right. Let's go to Amanda now.

• 1:31:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Hi, everyone. It's me, Movie Mom, AKA Amanda Dobbins. That's my legal name. It is Wednesday night. Everyone else in my home is asleep. I'm in my pajamas and I'm here to tell you briefly about my favorite movies of the year. And I say favorite and not best because I haven't seen everything. As you know, I have been on leave since October. Just kind of, it's just the prestige season, definitely the fancy movie season of the year. And so I haven't seen a lot of what I suspect will be at the top of at least Sean's lists. Respectfully, I haven't seen The Brutalist, okay? I've seen your memes, but I haven't seen The Brutalist. I haven't seen A Complete Unknown. I haven't seen Nickel Boys. I haven't seen The Piano Lesson. I haven't seen September 5.

• 1:32:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I haven't seen Baby Girl, though I am going next week and I'm very excited. So this can't be authoritative. You know, I have great respect for list making and I'm not going to be out here proclaiming the best when I haven't seen everything. But I have seen a lot and I do have some favorites. So I made a very, very quirky top five. And it's really a top seven because there are no rules when it's just me alone talking into my phone. But here they are. Number five is it's two movies. It is The Beekeeper, the Jason Statham, David Ayer movie that came out in January 2024, and Lonely Planet, the Netflix film written and directed by Susanna Grant, starring Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth.

• 1:32:53Amanda Dobbins?

  If you can't tell by the pairing, this is the junk category, the transcendent garbage. I haven't revisited The Beekeeper since the election and I don't plan to, but I remember enjoying it at the time. And Lonely Planet really got me through a dark three days in early October because it took me three days to watch it. If you have seen it, I'll just say to you, swing route. And if not, check it out. It's on Netflix. You know, what else are you doing? Okay. Number four, The Bike Riders, the Jeff Nichols film starring Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, and yes, Austin Butler, Mike Shannon, Boyd Holbrook. Hi, Chris, how are you?

• 1:33:36Amanda Dobbins?

  We podcasted about this over the summer and I remember, I believe it was Sean, but maybe it was Chris saying, I really like this movie, but I don't think it's going to be on my top five list at the end of the year. Guess what? It's on mine. Okay. Number three, The Glenn Powell Special, Twisters and Hitman.

• 1:33:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Dune 2 is not on my list because I figure that I, Chris and Sean at least have it covered. Adam, I know how you feel about Denis Villeneuve. So Twisters is my blockbuster of the year, aside from Dune 2, which is very, very good and should be nominated for a lot of Oscars. Like, get off my back. But Twisters had the fun summer and actually released in the summer. Like, you know, we used to build things in this country sort of vibe. Hitman, which is the best movie that I saw on Netflix this year, probably. Delightful Richard Linklater movie, co-written with Glenn Powell. And it occurs to me now that this would have been a really great adult Halloween costume.

• 1:34:38Amanda Dobbins?

  I wasn't really around for that. Did people go around as all the Hitmen? I hope someone did. I hope that you guys had a great group costume and a great Halloween night. I don't really do adult Halloween, even when I'm dialed into the world, but that would have been funny. And to Glenn Powell, wherever you are, happy holidays. Congratulations. I'm back in January. Please come draft with us. Okay. Number two.

• 1:35:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I might be betraying myself here by putting Challengers at number two, but I'm going with my heart. This is like the most Amanda movie of the year and we covered it a lot. Please go back to and listen to those if you haven't. It is everything that I want in a movie. Luca Guadagnino, Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, Mike Feist, just absolutely bump in soundtrack. Tennis, which I'm thinking about pursuing as a, as a player in 2025. Stay tuned. You know, fancy hand creams, incredible product placement up and down the line. I, I loved this movie. I loved also just the vibe of this movie, which was, let's just.

• 1:35:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Put a bunch of cool things together and let it and and let it rock. Luca, I really feel sees me. So listen, I love this movie. Really cool. I'm really bummed that it's not an Oscar conversation, but I do think that my number one has to be Anora. I'm just when Sean texted me, asked me to do this, Anora was my number one. I it we did a whole podcast about it before I left, but what what an amazing, what an amazing movie that makes you feel so many things at the same time. I've been thinking a lot about that last scene and what I felt when I first saw it. And then how Sean and I talked about it on the podcast and kind of our different interpretations.

• 1:36:31Amanda Dobbins?

  And then the different interpretations that every person I've talked to about the movie since it came out has had in it. Just everyone takes something like slightly different from it while also, you know, being completely entertained and amused. And, you know, a little repelled by the perform by the not repelled by, but the performances, but some of the the characters. And it anyway, it's a completely engrossing, like movie ass movie. And also something just really like intellectual and provocative that stays with you. So I'm, I just, I love it. If if Anora wins best picture, we're in a great spot.

• 1:37:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Got to be honest with you guys. I saw Wicked today and if Wicked wins best picture, you all have some explaining to do. Well, we're gonna, we're gonna do that in January 2025. I love you all and I, I just, I, I remain confused. And I will continue to seek to understand what is, what the hell is going on. But I, I, I love doing this podcast and I love listening to all of you guys while I'm gone. So thank you for letting me talk about movies and thank you for all your kind wishes. And I will be back to yell at you very, very soon.

• 1:38:00Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you to Amanda. Good to hear her voice. Thank you to Chris. Thank you to Adam. Thank you to Jack Sanders. Thank you to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode. Speaking of the best movies of the year or not, next week, the Golden Globe nominations come out Monday morning. I will be here with Joanna Robinson covering the first truly big domino of award season. We'll see you then.