The Big Picture · Review · Hall of Fame · Interview

The Adam Sandler Hall of Fame and ‘Jay Kelly’ With Noah Baumbach!

December 10, 2025/ 145 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins

Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins spend the first hour arguing over Noah Baumbach's 'Jay Kelly': Sean thinks it's a mess he wishes he loved, Amanda likes it with notes. Then they build a ten-slot Adam Sandler Hall of Fame by walking his whole filmography green, yellow, or red. The Hanukkah Song takes a slot without being a film. Baumbach closes the show, talking to Sean about movie stardom, getting something desperate out of Sandler, and the six years since 'Marriage Story.'

13 films across 3 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.

‘Jay Kelly’Sean saw it twice; Amanda's the inverse of him on it

Jay Kelly 2025

Sean fought his way to the Venice premiere and has now seen it twice; he thinks it's 'a real mess' he wants to like more, because the movie-star/daughters thread and the Jay/Ron manager thread never fuse and the farce keeps undercutting the sadness. Amanda's the inverse: the family melodrama is the weaker, un-Baumbachian half, while the film works whenever people talk about the 'empty vessel' star rather than when he talks. Both love Sandler as Ron (heartbreaking), and rate the family-therapy scene, the woods scene with Riley Keough, and Billy Crudup's menu monologue; both are cooler on the train set piece and the cinema-tribute ending, and both catch the daughters aging inconsistency. Clooney maybe very good. Shot by Linus Sandgren, scored by Nicholas Britell, co-written with Emily Mortimer, and in conversation with 'Sentimental Value.'

The Adam Sandler Hall of Fameten slots; The Hanukkah Song takes one without being a film, so nine movies get in

as Billy Madison

Billy Madison 1995

'Incredibly green.' The 26-year-old heir who repeats grades one through twelve a week at a time. Sean singles out the James Downey principal/trivia scene opposite Bradley Whitford as one of '10 or 12 moments of extremely special shit.' Non-negotiable, even though it and Happy Gilmore 'represent the same thing.' They just like them both.

as Happy Gilmore

Happy Gilmore 1996

A Happy Gilmore year, with the sequel out and named Craig Horlbeck's favorite of 2025. Not a huge box-office hit at the time but a VHS/video-store staple that set Sandler on his way. In on the same instinct as Billy Madison.

as Robbie Hart

The Wedding Singer 1998

Auto-green. The movie that changed the trajectory of his career and proved he could be a heartthrob, with real chemistry opposite Drew Barrymore. Amanda's caveat: it's the reflexive answer whenever you ask a man his favorite rom-com. Also stands in for 50 First Dates.

as Sonny Koufax

Big Daddy 1999

Sandler going more grounded, with real notes of drama in the bond with the kid played by the Sprouse twins. Sean greens it partly to 'live in it' with his friends, and because it's lived on; Jon Stewart and Leslie Mann in support.

as Barry Egan

Punch-Drunk Love 2002

Green. Paul Thomas Anderson saw that Sandler's anger could be redirected into a sad character study that becomes a romance, the whole duality of the persona. Yelling at Philip Seymour Hoffman down the phone; the little dance in the SnackWell's aisle.

as George Simmons

Funny People 2009

Judd Apatow; an established comic pulling in a younger one (Seth Rogen), and both their emptinesses. Has made a comeback as underrated-but-good, still too long; Sean compares it to Jay Kelly. Started yellow, pushed to green.

as Lenny Feder

Grown Ups 2010

Jack Sanders pounded the pavement for it. The highest-grossing live-action non-Dracula Sandler movie, and the slot stands in for the whole Blended / Just Go with It / Bedtime Stories dad-comedy box-office era: a guy who could still draw hundreds of millions just goofing off with his buddies.

as Danny Meyerowitz

The Meyerowitz Stories 2017

'Wonderful.' His first Netflix film and first with Baumbach, with great singing and dynamic scenes opposite Dustin Hoffman and Grace Van Patten. Chosen over Jay Kelly on the '25-for-25, only one Baumbach allowed' rule; Sean thinks he has more to do here.

as Howard Ratner

Uncut Gems 2019

'Green, green, green.' The gambler who can't quit. A now-beyond-cult classic that somehow missed the 2019 awards. The Safdie energy that baffled the 65-year-olds at the Telluride premiere is now part of the grammar.

Noah Baumbach on ‘Jay Kelly’

Noah Baumbach on

Jay Kelly 2025

Baumbach on co-writing with Emily Mortimer, the dreamlike memory language that expands as the film goes (Jay walks into his own flashbacks and eventually speaks in them), hiring Linus Sandgren, and getting something needy and 'destroyed' out of Sandler, whom he calls a shadow version of Clooney's Jay. Peter's plea to Jay draws on his closeness with Peter Bogdanovich. He sees the film as an elegy for a kind of movie stardom, and worries we make too little for new stars to reveal themselves.

Noah Baumbach on

White Noise 2022

He's proud of it but 'didn't have a good time making it,' shot during COVID; thinks it got read as a COVID movie nobody wanted to sit with, and hopes it gets another look. Working on Barbie with Greta Gerwig 'brought him back' to loving filmmaking after that shoot.

Noah Baumbach on

Small Change 1976

His last-great-thing: Truffaut's 'Small Change,' which he and Greta Gerwig projected and then talked about for days. 'As good as The 400 Blows,' and a rebuke to the idea that '70s Truffaut was selling out.

Also mentioned raised along the way

Sandler's filmography, walked and weighed Going Overboard Shakes the Clown Coneheads Airheads Mixed Nuts Bulletproof Dirty Work The Waterboy Little Nicky Mr. Deeds Eight Crazy Nights Anger Management 50 First Dates Spanglish The Longest Yard Click Reign Over Me I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry You Don't Mess with the Zohan Bedtime Stories Just Go with It Jack and Jill That's My Boy Hotel Transylvania Grown Ups 2 Blended Top Five Men, Women & Children The Cobbler Pixels Hotel Transylvania 2 The Ridiculous 6 The Do-Over Sandy Wexler The Week Of Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation Murder Mystery Hubie Halloween Hustle Murder Mystery 2 You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah Leo Spaceman Happy Gilmore 2

Everything else that came up Marriage Story Michael Clayton Wild Strawberries 8½ It's a Wonderful Life Babylon Sentimental Value Train Dreams Frankenstein Nouvelle Vague The Squid and the Whale Frances Ha Lady Bird While We're Young Asteroid City The Peacemaker Leatherheads Traffic Syriana Ocean's Eleven Barbie Kicking and Screaming Margot at the Wedding Greenberg Network The 400 Blows To Be or Not to Be All the President's Men 25th Hour Eddington Forrest Gump Wayne's World Clueless Friday Dumb and Dumber Office Space Tommy Boy Juice Midnight Run Knives Out Spotlight The Station Agent The Visitor Stillwater The 40-Year-Old Virgin Knocked Up The Wolf of Wall Street The Thursday Murder Club Beasts of No Nation Avatar: The Way of Water Dazed and Confused Hairspray Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made Wicked Wicked: For Good

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

TV Saturday Night LiveIn Living ColorRemote ControlEntourageHouse of CardsDoll & Em

Music & bits The Hanukkah SongThe Thanksgiving SongTollbooth WillieThey're All Gonna Laugh at YouWhat the Hell Happened to Me?

Podcasts The RewatchablesNew HeightsJam Session

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