Midsommar 2019
One of two films this year he's given four stars; seen twice, likely a third.
The Big Picture · Discussion
Mailbag Special: Favorite Acting Performances Ever, Lingering Tarantino Thoughts, and the Dark Future of the Movie Business
August 13, 2019/ 79 min/ Sean Fennessey · Bobby Wagner
With Amanda Dobbins away, Fennessey and producer Bobby Wagner work through a listener mailbag: 2019 top fives, a Midsommar spoiler chat, the best acting performances ever, and where the movie business is headed.
161 films across 17 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.
Top five of the year so farnot in any order
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 2019
The other four-star pick.
The Souvenir 2019
Joanna Hogg; growing in his estimation.
The Souvenir Part II 2021
Hogg making a sequel in the age of IP, which he finds funny.
Toy Story 4 2019
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese 2019
The Scorsese Dylan doc; inhaled it.
American Factory 2019
Netflix doc on a shuttered plant reopened by a Chinese firm.
The Farewell 2019
Lulu Wang; likely Best Original Screenplay nominee.
Her Smell 2019
Walked back three-and-a-half stars; near-lock top ten.
Wild Rose and Jessie Buckley
Wild Rose 2018
Fine, uplifting; more star-making for Buckley than Oscar buzz.
Beast 2018
Well-received earlier Buckley role.
Judy 2019
Renée Zellweger Judy Garland biopic; Buckley features.
Dolittle 2020
Called "The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle"; troubled Robert Downey Jr. tentpole with a voice-cast that's mostly animals.
Doctor Dolittle 1967
The Rex Harrison 60s musical it reimagines.
Syriana 2005
Also from Dolittle writer-director Stephen Gaghan.
Under-the-radar Best Picture hopefuls
Just Mercy 2019
Wendy 2020
Benh Zeitlin's long-in-development follow-up; whereabouts unknown.
Beasts of the Southern Wild 2012
Zeitlin's debut.
Waves 2019
Trey Edward Shults musical with Lucas Hedges and Sterling K. Brown.
Krisha 2015
Shults's debut.
Nomadland 2020
Chloé Zhao, Frances McDormand; from a non-fiction book.
The Rider 2017
Zhao.
Eternals 2021
Zhao's forthcoming Marvel film.
The Laundromat 2019
Soderbergh's Panama Papers movie; going straight to streaming.
La La Land 2016
The energy he hopes Waves has.
Honey Boy and Shia LaBeouf
Honey Boy 2019
LaBeouf's autobiographical script; he plays his own father. Fennessey hasn't seen it.
A Quiet Place 2018
Where you'd recognize young-Otis actor Noah Jupe.
Holes 2003
Cited as formative LaBeouf kid-star work.
The Best Picture history projectthe 1981 field, as a microcosm
Chariots of Fire 1981
The serious British drama that won.
Atlantic City 1980
On Golden Pond 1981
Reds 1981
Stripes 1981
Named to show what the Oscars left out that year.
Time Bandits 1981
The Cannonball Run 1981
Arthur 1981
Superman II 1980
Midsommar, spoilers on
Midsommar 2019
Reads the final 20-30 minutes as grotesque comedy; the closing smile fits a film about a toxic relationship.
Hereditary 2018
Ari Aster's debut.
The Lighthouse 2019
Robert Eggers; Fennessey seeing it that day.
The Witch 2015
The one Eggers film he'd seen.
Modern Romance 1981
Albert Brooks, cited by Aster as an influence.
Real Life 1979
Early Albert Brooks.
Adam Driver, best movie star working
The Report 2019
Amazon CIA drama; a claustrophobic corrective to Zero Dark Thirty.
Marriage Story 2019
Baumbach; the one he's most interested in, pitched as his Kramer vs. Kramer.
The Dead Don't Die 2019
Jarmusch zombie comedy; Driver very funny.
BlacKkKlansman 2018
His 2018 Oscar nomination.
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote 2018
Gilliam; came and went.
Kramer vs. Kramer 1979
The Marriage Story comparison.
Zero Dark Thirty 2012
Turn-your-brain-off comfort flicks
Get Shorty 1995
Elmore Leonard as satire; Travolta right after Pulp Fiction. His pick that's getting lost to time.
Dazed and Confused 1993
Jackie Brown 1997
The cooler, stylish strain of Elmore Leonard.
Out of Sight 1998
Pulp Fiction 1994
Aliens 1986
Role Models 2008
Bobby's dumb-high-school-boy comfort watch.
Superbad 2007
An Education 2009
One of his wife's "kitchen movies."
Brief Encounter 1945
David Lean; another kitchen movie.
Before Sunrise 1995
Before Sunset 2004
Before Midnight 2013
Guilty pleasures (a category he rejects)
Face/Off 1997
Broken Arrow 1996
Con Air 1997
The kind of dumb action he admires without guilt.
John Wick 2014
Exhibit A for movies having their optimistic moment.
Avengers: Endgame 2019
Brightburn 2019
Evil-Superman origin; nasty, exploitative, and he still likes it.
Top Gun 1986
A "guilty pleasure" at NYU that isn't one: a perfect movie.
Most anticipated 2020 movies
Last Night in Soho 2021
Edgar Wright chasing a theatrical event, like Baby Driver.
Baby Driver 2017
The Many Saints of Newark 2021
Called "Newark"; the Sopranos prequel about Tony's father.
Not Fade Away 2012
David Chase's underrated film; compared to Euphoria's finale.
The Gentlemen 2020
Guy Ritchie back in Snatch/Lock Stock mode; lots of handsome men in tweed.
Snatch 2000
Aladdin 2019
Crazy Rich Asians 2018
Where you'd know Henry Golding.
Nightmare Alley (2021) 2021
del Toro's next; based on the 40s novel.
The Shape of Water 2017
Nightmare Alley (1947) 1947
The Tyrone Power original.
The Invisible Man 2020
Leigh Whannell, underrated genre stylist.
Tigertail 2020
Alan Yang's Netflix film.
The Rewatchables white whale
There Will Be Blood 2007
The masterpiece of the 21st century; the episode he keeps trying to get made.
Blackhat 2015
If Bill does this Michael Mann movie first, Fennessey is worried.
Thief 1981
Criterion Channel picks
The Red Shoes 1948
Powell and Pressburger; "I dare you to watch it and not be moved."
Bicycle Thieves 1948
Volver 2006
Almodóvar; prepping for Pain and Glory.
Pain and Glory 2019
The Manchurian Candidate 1962
Frankenheimer; a Blu-ray he paid hard-earned money for.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God 1972
Herzog; Klaus Kinski going for it.
Walkabout 1971
Nicolas Roeg.
Don't Look Now 1973
Performance 1970
The Third Man 1949
Carol Reed; his favorite film of all time.
Odd Man Out 1947
The Fallen Idol 1948
Our Man in Havana 1959
Alec Guinness.
Unrelated 2007
Joanna Hogg; brace for stillness.
Archipelago 2010
Exhibition 2013
Tarantino: Pitt, muses, and soundtrackssoundtracks ranked Kill Bill first
Reservoir Dogs 1992
Moneyball 2011
Pitt calm and even-keeled, much like Once Upon a Time.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 2007
Pitt flexing more: accent, weight loss, melancholy.
Fight Club 1999
Legends of the Fall 1994
Hot-young-90s-star Pitt.
Thelma & Louise 1991
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 2008
His most "respectable" turn, per Fennessey, though his least-favorite Fincher.
Inglourious Basterds 2009
Ocean's Eleven 2001
The Pitt performance he'd pick for a lifetime-achievement reel.
The Tree of Life 2011
World War Z 2013
The Counselor 2013
The Hateful Eight 2015
Not top-tier Tarantino, but Samuel L. Jackson is extraordinary.
Django Unchained 2012
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 2003
His No. 1 Tarantino soundtrack for how it repurposes existing music.
Death Proof 2007
The best acting performances everEnglish-language only, all cynical or dark figures
Strangers on a Train 1951
Robert Walker as pure malice, decades before Hannibal Lecter.
To Die For 1995
Nicole Kidman's fame-hungry cipher, prescient for 2019.
Dog Day Afternoon 1975
Pacino at the peak of his powers.
The Godfather 1972
Recessed Pacino, the counterweight to Dog Day.
The Master 2012
Philip Seymour Hoffman, his favorite actor; genuinely moving.
Scent of a Woman 1992
Where he first came upon Hoffman.
Mission: Impossible III 2006
Hoffman as the best MI villain.
The Talented Mr. Ripley 1999
Hoffman as a shit-heel.
Boogie Nights 1997
Hoffman as pure vulnerability.
Network 1976
Faye Dunaway's Diana Christensen, in a top-five movie for him.
Sweet Smell of Success 1957
Burt Lancaster.
Mulholland Drive 2001
Naomi Watts playing three parts and nailing it.
There Will Be Blood 2007
Bobby's pick: Daniel Day-Lewis "singed my eyebrows off."
Blue Velvet 1986
Bobby's pick: Dennis Hopper yelling about beer types.
Luce 2019
Julius Onah film in theaters; Watts gives a performance that lived up to his expectations.
The future of Sundance
Late Night 2019
An anxiety cycle dented its performance.
The Big Sick 2017
The overperformer everyone wants to replicate.
Brittany Runs a Marathon 2019
Paul Downs Colaizzo's film, a coming bidding-war story.
The Cloverfield Paradox 2018
Julius Onah's savaged Netflix debut.
Luce 2019
Onah's reset: taken to Sundance, bought by Neon, doing decent business.
What comes after the MCU
The Lion King (2019) 2019
The photoreal remake as a sign of things to come, built with no location and no live actors, just technicians and voice work. The first time "uncanny valley" made sense to him.
The Lion King (1994) 1994
The version people found better.
Avatar 2009
Star Wars: The Last Jedi 2017
The still-rooted counterexample.
Defining the decadeand the most important movie since 1960, one per decade
Star Wars 1977
If you had to pick one: the movie that changed movies and gave us the IP stranglehold.
Jaws 1975
The film people point to instead.
Bonnie and Clyde 1967
His 60s pick: changed a hit's violence and sexuality.
Jurassic Park 1993
His 90s pick; still mind-blowing.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1991
The other 90s technological leap.
The Dark Knight 2008
His pick for the century: changed the Oscars and the box office.
Moonlight 2016
In his view, part of what we're at the end of.
Gone with the Wind 1939
No movie will be bigger, inflation-adjusted.
Sorry to Bother You 2018
Boots Riley; the unhinged, unsafe cinema he wants more of.
Blinded by the Light 2019
Gurinder Chadha's Springsteen film, teased for the coming week.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing Eyes Wide Shut
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV SuccessionChernobylFargoEven StevensGirlsWestworldEuphoriaForeverMaster of NoneParks and RecreationThe Green Hornet
Web/Podcast Number One BoysThe Ron Burgundy PodcastProject GreenlightQuentin Tarantino's Feature PresentationThe A24 PodcastThe RewatchablesThe Dave Chang Show
Ads MasterClass