Disclosure 2026
The new Steven Spielberg film, title unconfirmed, dated June 12, 2026. Josh O'Connor, Emily Blunt, Colman Domingo, Colin Firth, Wyatt Russell; rumored (the hosts doubt it) to be a Close Encounters quasi-sequel.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Review · Roundtable · Interview
‘Hamnet’ and the 10 Best Performances of 2025. Plus: Kleber Mendonça Filho on ‘The Secret Agent.’
December 12, 2025/ 146 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins · Joanna Robinson
Sean, Amanda, and Joanna Robinson review Chloe Zhao's Hamnet and Kleber Mendonça Filho's The Secret Agent, then each count down ten favorite performances of the year. Closes with Sean's interview with Filho.
46 films across 6 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
News before the reviewsa Spielberg billboard and a Supergirl trailer
Supergirl 2026
Second film in the new DCU, Craig Gillespie directing, Milly Alcock in the lead and Jason Momoa as Lobo. The read on the trailer: looks standard when it needs to look special.
HamnetChloe Zhao adapts Maggie O'Farrell
Hamnet 2025
Zhao's first film since Eternals, from O'Farrell's novel about Shakespeare's family and the death of his son. The table splits: a woo-woo, tell-don't-show first 90 minutes, then a final 20 in the Globe that flattens all three of them. Jessie Buckley carries it; Paul Mescal, Noah Jupe, and Jacobi Jupe get singled out. On the Nature of Daylight on the soundtrack is called a cheat.
The Secret AgentKleber Mendonça Filho, 1977 Brazil
The Secret Agent 2025
A 160-minute genre-mixer near the top of Sean's list, comped to One Battle After Another and to Paul Thomas Anderson. Wagner Moura's performance lands fully only once the ending recontextualizes it. Amanda didn't love the film but loves the hang and the sense of place.
An actor you have a big relationship with the warm-up round
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
Paddington in Peru 2024
Olivia Colman as a nun borrowing heavily from The Sound of Music. The first film Amanda took her son to in a theater.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Blue Moon 2025
Ethan Hawke as a composer near the end of his life, in a performance Sean says is unlike anything we've seen from Hawke before.
The 10 best performances of 2025 three critics, ten each, counted down 10 to 1
Picked by Joanna Robinson
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life 2025
No. 10. Camille Rutherford anchoring a small French film that feels like a cozy-but-real '90s indie.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
Now You See Me: Now You Don't 2025
No. 10, the villain-corridor trio, part one: Rosamund Pike as a South African diamond princess going all the way with the accent.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
The Running Man 2025
No. 10, part two: Colman Domingo as a preposterous, charismatic bad guy in the great tradition of accomplished actors funding a new wing on the house.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
F1 2025
No. 10, part three: Tobias Menzies, another utterly enjoyable villain who gets his one scene.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Friendship 2025
No. 10, comic relief part one: Conor O'Malley berating Tim Robinson in the garage, one of Sean's favorite things all year.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
The Naked Gun 2025
No. 10, comic relief part two: Danny Huston committing fully, funny opposite Pamela Anderson.
Picked by Joanna Robinson
The Phoenician Scheme 2025
No. 9: Michael Cera, born for the Wes Anderson role, alongside his Running Man turn.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
Companion 2025
No. 9: Jack Quaid, both Meg Ryan incarnate and his own person, holding the movie's pathos and smarm.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
One Battle After Another 2025
No. 9 (swapped to avoid overlap): Chase Infiniti, a real comeback from the worst TV twist to a performance that takes the movie away from Penn, del Toro, and DiCaprio.
Picked by Joanna Robinson
Freaky Tales 2025
No. 8: Normani and Dominique Thorne in the rap-battle vignette, the best thing in a shaggy movie.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
Mickey 17 2025
No. 8: Robert Pattinson taking the biggest voice swing; the movie didn't fully work but he did.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Sentimental Value 2025
No. 8: Inga Ibsdóttir Lilleaas as Renate Reinsve's sister, the most real person in a movie full of celebrated actors.
Picked by Joanna Robinson
Kiss of the Spider Woman 2025
No. 7: Tonatiuh as Luis Molina, handsome and charismatic in the William Hurt role, narrating nearly the whole film.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
One of Them Days 2025
No. 7: Keke Palmer and SZA, whose chemistry Amanda wishes they'd franchise Bob-Hope-style.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Rebuilding 2025
No. 7, Josh O'Connor writ large, part one: a quiet, affecting turn Sean underlines.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
The History of Sound 2025
No. 7, Josh O'Connor writ large, part three: a film Sean didn't care for but thinks O'Connor is good enough in.
Picked by Joanna Robinson
Marty Supreme 2025
No. 6: Odessa A'zion as Marty's childhood friend, funny and sexy and load-bearing for the plot.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
Black Bag 2025
No. 6: Tom Burke, the right amount of charming and amused among Blanchett and Fassbender, starting as villain and evolving.
Picked by Joanna Robinson
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery 2025
No. 5 for Joanna, No. 3 for Amanda, part of Sean's O'Connor bundle: Josh O'Connor working through a Knives Out movie, the one Joanna will think about longest.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
A House of Dynamite 2025
No. 5 (Amanda): Rebecca Ferguson in the best, first third, an un-flashy performance that sets impossible stakes.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
It Was Just an Accident 2025
No. 5 (Sean): Mariam Afshari as Shiva in the Panahi film, the best-written character and the deepest pain in the story, performed in secret.
Picked by Joanna Robinson
Nouvelle Vague 2025
No. 4: Guillaume Marbeck as Godard and Aubry Dullin as Belmondo, neither an actor before, Marbeck the one who carries it.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning 2025
No. 4: Tramell Tillman and Katy O'Brian, the only two who seem to know what the movie should be, bringing levity to a film tied up in itself.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Highest 2 Lowest 2025
No. 4, part one: A$AP Rocky as pure charisma trading verses with Denzel.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Lurker 2025
No. 4, part two: Archie Madekwe as a Drake/Dijon-adjacent star, a well-observed study of power in a small room, and one of the year's coolest debuts.
Picked by Joanna Robinson
Twinless 2025
No. 3: Dylan O'Brien in a dual role, a straight slacker and a mean gay twin, convincing at both.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
The Testament of Ann Lee 2025
No. 3 (Sean): Amanda Seyfried as a cult founder, all-in on the singing and the seriousness that make Mona Fastvold's movie work.
Picked by Joanna Robinson
Sorry, Baby 2025
No. 2: Eva Victor, who wrote, directed, and stars, hitting serious, absurd, and devastating in one movie. A newly minted Golden Globe nominee.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You 2025
No. 2, the two moms, part one: Rose Byrne, raw and recognizable.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
Die My Love 2025
No. 2, the two moms, part two: Jennifer Lawrence in an overlooked movie Amanda loved.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
No Other Choice 2025
No. 2 (Sean): Lee Byung-hun in the Park Chan-wook satire, funny, desperate, sad, violent, and crazed, sometimes in one scene.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
K-Pop Demon Hunters 2025
No. 2, Lee Byung-hun's other 2025 turn: the lead mountain demon.
Picked by Joanna Robinson
Hamnet 2025
No. 1 (Joanna and Amanda, shared): Jessie Buckley, who carries the film's final hour and whom Sean calls one of his favorite actresses alive.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Marty Supreme 2025
No. 1 (Sean): Timothée Chalamet, self-confident on the trail, playing the wrestling-and-entertainment intersection the movie is built on.
In conversation
Kleber Mendonça Filho on
The Secret Agent 2025
Written specifically for Wagner Moura, no plan B. Filho on shooting the St. Louis cinema like an actor, split-diopter shots borrowed from Blow Out and Close Encounters, and the Udo Kier sequence about identity and assumption.
Kleber Mendonça Filho on
Pictures of Ghosts 2023
The documentary/film essay that put him in the mood to write The Secret Agent; both are memory movies about Recife filmgoing.
Kleber Mendonça Filho on
Bacurau 2019
His previous fiction feature, also with Udo Kier, and a touchstone for the genre-cinema and John Carpenter love.
Kleber Mendonça Filho on
Neighboring Sounds 2012
His first feature, written in 2008 and shot in 2010; the film Wagner Moura saw before reaching out to work together.
Kleber Mendonça Filho on
Aquarius 2016
A contemporary story where he'd already used split-diopter shots, a tool he says just went out of fashion.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Hamnet comps and Zhao's filmography NomadlandEternalsThe RiderThe Zone of InterestTrain DreamsShakespeare in LoveArrivalBabylon
Performance-round comps and other titles NovocaineSaltburnThe SouvenirFuriosa: A Mad Max SagaThe BoogeymanHereticLars and the Real GirlThe TerminatorBlood DiamondMamma Mia!Les MisérablesThe BrutalistSaturday NightKnives OutGlass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
News and asides SupermanClose Encounters of the Third KindJurassic World RebirthBirds of PreyAvatarAvatar: The Way of WaterAvatar: Fire and AshWicked: For GoodThe DramaDream Scenario
Filho interview touchstones Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 BruxellesMy Own Private IdahoWake in FrightBlow OutCarrieThe OmenJawsThe Texas Chain Saw MassacreKiss of the Spider Woman
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV FrasierGame of ThronesHouse of the DragonNarcosThe BoysYellowjacketsSquid GameThe Book of Boba FettFalloutThe Crown
Podcasts What Do You Want to Talk About?
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