Ben Affleck's Next Movie and Five Behind-the-Scenes Hollywood Stories We Want

Chinatown 1974

Affleck is set to write and direct an adaptation of Sam Wasson's The Big Goodbye, about the making of it. Chris puts the film in his personal top five.

Argo 2012

Affleck's earlier backdoor love letter to moviemaking.

Rosemary's Baby 1968

Cited with the rest of Polanski's work as the reason he's a problematic figure to center a film on.

Repulsion 1965

Knife in the Water 1962

Macbeth 1971

Polanski's adaptation.

First Cow 2020

Sean's number one film of 2020 so far, name-checked in the opening grab-bag.

Apocalypse Now 1979

Really a narrative film about Eleanor Coppola's making-of doc Hearts of Darkness. Casting: Sofia Coppola as Eleanor, Nicolas Cage as Francis.

Sorcerer 1977

Friedkin's doomed Roy Scheider bridge picture, and an excuse to revive the Tangerine Dream score.

Winter Kills 1979

Mafia funding, a producer shot in the head, a set shut down three times: a seedy shoot behind a barely watchable film.

Ishtar 1987

The love triangle among Beatty, Hoffman, and Elaine May, and the debt Beatty felt he owed May for saving Reds. Cast: Chris Pine, Jason Schwartzman, Catherine Keener.

The Conqueror 1956

John Wayne as Genghis Khan, shot downwind of a Nevada nuclear test site; roughly half the crew later died of cancer. Probably a miniseries.

Host 2020

Rob Savage's Zoom-seance horror shot in quarantine. Chris's favorite of the year: the scares are built entirely out of Zoom itself, and it never overstays 56 minutes.

The Blair Witch Project 1999

The comparison point: DIY filmmaking that captures a specific technological moment.

Unfriended 2014

The earlier screen-life horror both hosts admire.

An American Pickle 2020

The episode's sponsor, but also the jumping-off point for a chat about the small, contained 'medium movie.'

Long Shot 2019

The bigger, busier comedy Pickle gets contrasted against.

The Tax Collector 2020

Bobby Soto stars, with Shia LaBeouf as the loose-cannon Creeper. Both hosts wanted Ayer back in Harsh Times mode; both found it gauzy, disjointed and dull.

End of Watch 2012

Widely held as Ayer's best, most inventive film.

Sabotage 2014

Sean's pick for an underrated, badass, well-made Ayer action movie.

Fury 2014

The method-acting war movie whose own making, they joke, is worth a movie.

She Dies Tomorrow 2020

Her self-financed second feature, a contagious-dread horror-comedy she paid for with her Pet Sematary check and shot partly in her own house.

Sun Don't Shine 2012

Her first feature, eight years earlier.

Pet Sematary 2019

The remake she acted in; its paycheck funded She Dies Tomorrow.

Alien: Covenant 2017

One of her recognizable acting roles.

Shirley 2020

Josephine Decker's film, her most recent obsession and a proposed double feature.

Uncut Gems 2019

One of the Safdie films she cites as anxiety-drama kin.

Good Time 2017

The other Safdie touchstone.

Frownland 2007

Ronnie Bronstein's film, which she calls an early example of anxiety-as-drama.

Resolution 2012

The Benson and Moorhead film going around when Sun Don't Shine was; they went on to produce She Dies Tomorrow.