The Big Picture · Discussion · Roundtable
September 4, 2024/ 99 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean Fennessey is back from Telluride; Amanda Dobbins is home with a newborn on the way, watching Venice from the couch. Sean runs down what he saw at the festival, the two of them game out an unusually unsettled Best Picture race, and they each count down their five most anticipated films of the fall.
41 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.
The Telluride reportwhat Sean saw in the slot canyon
The movie of the festival. Sean Baker's Palme d'Or winner, with Mikey Madison as a stripper/sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch. Every screening was mobbed; Sean, who'd already seen it, heard no walkouts. Neon has it in October. Sean and Amanda have both seen it and floated pre-taping an episode.
Jacques Audiard's Cannes musical-crime-family-drama with Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña. Sean was mixed (Audiard 'tries to make three movies at once') but stunned by Saldaña. On Netflix in November.
Sean's favorite of the festival and the boldest thing he saw. RaMell Ross's first scripted feature, from the Colson Whitehead novel, shot almost entirely in first person. Ethan Hawke, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Alienating and profound; Amazon, November. 'Anybody who likes challenging movies likes this movie.'
Malcolm Washington's rock-solid August Wilson adaptation. Samuel L. Jackson gets top billing but Danielle Deadwyler (a 'with' credit) is, Sean argues, the lead. John David Washington co-stars; Ray Fisher took Sean's breath away. Netflix.
The surprise. Tim Fehlbaum's thriller about the 1972 Munich hostage crisis told entirely through the ABC Sports control room. Peter Sarsgaard as Roone Arledge, John Magaro as the lead, plus Ben Chaplin and Leonie Benesch. No distributor yet at the time; Sean saw a low-key Best Picture/Best Actor case.
R.J. Cutler's Netflix Martha Stewart doc, built like Amy around one candid interview subject and voices you never see. 'She missed lemons in prison.' James Comey turns out to have prosecuted her. Sean loved it.
Edward Berger's papal-election thriller from the Robert Harris airport novel. Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, and a standout Sergio Castellitto. Silly, loud score, big twist, damn entertaining. A commercial winner Sean liked.
Jason Reitman's real-time run-up to the first SNL. Sean calls it the best-made movie Reitman's done; 16mm, fast, 95 minutes. Rachel Sennott is the standout as Rosie Shuster; Gabriel LaBelle plays Lorne, Cooper Hoffman is Dick Ebersol. Bill Murray introduced it; David Ehrlich hated it. The festival's best moviegoing experience.
Sean's big disappointment and most-anticipated title going in. Joshua Oppenheimer's post-apocalyptic bunker musical with Michael Shannon, Tilda Swinton and George MacKay. Two and a half hours, the songs aren't good, and most of the cast can't sing.
Morgan Neville's Pharrell Williams biodoc, told entirely in Lego. Half brilliant (the early Virginia rise, Lego Jay-Z, Lego Snoop), half empty once it reaches a manufactured 'he hadn't written a hit in a while' third act.
Sean says you don't need to see it. Sebastian Stan slowly evolves into the Trump we know, Maria Bakalova is Ivana, and Jeremy Strong disappears into Roy Cohn. Great performances, but if you've read one Trump feature you know the story; Sean came out feeling gross.
The Will Ferrell / Harper Steele road-trip doc out of Sundance. A heartful movie about their friendship after Harper came out as a trans woman.
Daniel Roher (Navalny) follows a family whose children are losing their vision to a degenerative eye disease and travel the world before they do. A hard watch as a parent; Sean recommends it.
Pablo Larraín's Maria Callas portrait with Angelina Jolie, fresh off Venice. Sean, an admitted Larraín mark, ranks the trilogy Jackie, Maria, Spencer; the Callas opera scenes are the highlight. Netflix acquired it, which reshuffles the Best Actress race.
Naomi Watts and Bill Murray in the adaptation about a woman who inherits her late friend's dog. Sean didn't care for it.
Andrea Arnold's latest, about a young woman. Sean, unfortunately for him, didn't love it.
Saoirse Ronan, who got a Telluride tribute, is very good, but Sean didn't love the film out of Sundance. Part of a big Ronan year alongside Blitz.
One of the rumored secret screenings, and it happened. Kieran Culkin is phenomenal in Jesse Eisenberg's film, out later in the fall.
The Hillary Clinton-attached documentary about the women suing Texas over abortion rights; one of the most crowded screenings. Sean didn't see it.
The Best Picture raceVenice from afar, and a wide-open field
One of the few things people feel is locked into a very unsettled Best Picture field.
Still lurking despite a baffling A24 rollout that kept expanding and contracting the theater count. Everyone who's seen it likes it; Sean and Amanda both keep it on the list.
Sean's contrarian keeper: three of his last five director guests named it their favorite recent movie. If Amazon repositions it, he thinks it can get in. Queer being stranger, he argues, only helps it.
The James Mangold Bob Dylan movie with Timothée Chalamet, unseen and not playing festivals, out at Christmas. A soft year and an Academy that loves a recreation make it plausible.
The Todd Phillips sequel bound for Venice; Lady Gaga showed up engaged. In the mix by default.
Sean can't see a Part 1 getting nominated no matter how hard Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are working. Amanda's candidate for her yearly 'mulligan' unseen movie.
Demi Moore's brave performance; a genre film some thought should have played Telluride, which doesn't do horror. Amanda plans to watch it while waiting out her pregnancy.
94-year-old June Squibb doing 94-year-old action sequences; Sean wouldn't be stunned by a nod.
Marielle Heller's Amy Adams movie, which Amanda has pre-decided she can't stand. Sean's 'black licorice.'
Michael Gracey's Robbie Williams biopic, in which Williams is a CGI monkey. Wildly divisive reviews; Paramount is opening it wide in an America that doesn't know Robbie Williams.
Adam Elliott's stop-motion feature, raved but not a Best Picture play.
One of two international titles Sean flagged for the field, possibly India's submission.
The other international contender with real buzz out of Cannes, possibly Germany's submission.
The 10 Most Anticipated Fall Films five each, counted down
No. 1 for both. Ridley Scott's sequel; Sean's increasingly excited about Denzel Washington and hopes he's a real Best Actor contender rather than 10 minutes and a trailer. 'I need it to be good.'
No. 2. Already seen, already loved; he just wants everyone else to see it.
No. 2. Sight unseen, on the strength of the Venice tweets: Brady Corbett's 3.5-hour VistaVision immigrant epic with Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones. Sean is deeply skeptical (he hated Vox Lux and is sick of the 70mm-canister discourse) and thinks it may be too arty, or not even come out this year.
No. 3. Robert Eggers's Christmas vampire adaptation, secretly his real No. 1 for the rest of the year.
No. 3. Nicole Kidman got raves at Venice; Amanda's all in on Harris Dickinson. Halina Reijn directs, reportedly closer in tone to her first film, Instinct.
No. 4. Pedro Almodóvar's English-language debut with Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore. Very mixed Venice reviews and a rocky Spanish-to-English transition, but Sean loves Almodóvar too much to write it off.
No. 4. Steve McQueen's WWII film with Saoirse Ronan and Harris Dickinson, premiering at the London Film Festival. Industry buzz is muted, but Amanda respects everyone involved.
No. 5. A Clint Eastwood courtroom thriller with Nicholas Hoult, uncertain how Warner Bros. will release it. Sean is ready for the Clint Eastwood pod.
No. 5. Amanda's pick as a fan of Luca Guadagnino, Daniel Craig, and sex in all its forms; A24 picked it up. Reportedly the strange, Suspiria-side of Luca.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Last year's settled slate, for contrast BarbieOppenheimerThe HoldoversThe Zone of InterestMaestroPoor ThingsPast Lives
The kids' cinema this weekend Monsters, Inc.The Wizard of Oz
Filmmakers' earlier work Hale County This Morning, This EveningThe Act of KillingThe Look of SilenceThe September IssueAmyNavalnyAll Quiet on the Western FrontThe Two PopesGirl, InterruptedJackieSpencerEl Conde
Genre and the case for a Telluride midnight slot LonglegsTalk to Me
Actors' other credits The Teacher's LoungeTillTo LeslieMurder on the Orient ExpressThe AviatorThe ReaderRevolutionary RoadBumblebeeJustice LeagueAvatarThe Maze RunnerThe Northman
Brady Corbett and the Felicity Jones filmography Vox LuxThe Childhood of a LeaderThe FountainheadRogue One: A Star Wars StoryLike CrazyThe Theory of EverythingOn the Basis of SexThe AeronautsThe Midnight Sky
Ridley, Luca, and the A24 back catalog NapoleonThe MuleBodies Bodies BodiesInstinctSuspiriaCall Me by Your NameMoonlightLady BirdThe Greatest Showman
The Robert Zemeckis question HereTrapForrest GumpCast AwayPinocchioThe WitchesWelcome to MarwenAlliedThe WalkBeowulfThe Polar ExpressI'm Thinking of Ending Things
Also at the festival Swim to BillBeetlejuice Beetlejuice
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The ChallengePresumed InnocentStation ElevenTales of the CityIndustryCosmosTeen WolfSaturday Night LiveThe Graham Norton Show
Podcasts Death, Taxes, and Bananas
Ads Ringer Reality TV