The Big Picture · Discussion · Top Five · Interview
March 30, 2026/ 161 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean and Amanda clear the awards-season backlog: early-2026 releases they missed, from a Colleen Hoover melodrama to two near-identical Satanist horror movies to Christian Petzold's smallest film yet. Then each reads out a top five. Sean closes with Ben David Grabinski on his time-travel buddy comedy Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice.
27 films across 4 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.
15 We Missedthe awards-season backlog, in the order they hit it
The third Colleen Hoover adaptation, with Maika Monroe as an ex-convict trying to reach the daughter she gave up and Tyriq Withers as her dead boyfriend's best friend. Sean's read: a straight-line melodrama, almost Douglas Sirk, and the least lurid and least memorable of the Hoover films.
Morgan Neville's post-Beatles McCartney documentary, made with Paul as an executive producer. Watchable and slickly assembled; Sean, deep in his Ram-era Paul study, wanted a tighter focus and less pro-Paul management of the John Lennon story.
Radio Silence's sequel picks up with Samara Weaving still in the bloody wedding dress and widens the Satanist-in-laws world. Kathryn Newton, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Elijah Wood join; the exploding-bodies gag that made the first one land gets run into the ground.
Kirill Sokolov's near-identical twin to Ready or Not 2: a maid walks into a Satanist co-op that needs sacrifices. Zazie Beetz is a surprisingly good action lead; more Kill Bill by way of Looney Tunes than horror, and thin on plot at 94 minutes.
Polly Findlay adapts the novel; Lesley Manville plays half of an empty-nester couple whose Amsterdam trip surfaces old wounds. Amanda found it a well-acted movie about Irish Catholic guilt she couldn't connect to.
Daniel Roher (post-Navalny) and Charlie Tyrell's survey documentary, framed by Roher's impending fatherhood. An effective 'AI for dummies' that boils the field down to five men racing to AGI by stripping out safety; Sam Altman sits for it near the end.
Rebecca Zlotowski's Paris-set drama with Jodie Foster acting mostly in French as a psychiatrist looking into a patient's death. Shaggy and charming, more Woody-Allen-in-Paris than thriller; Sean thinks Foster may be the one miscast note.
Gore Verbinski's first film since A Cure for Wellness: a time-traveler (Sam Rockwell) recruits misfits to stop an AI apocalypse. Sean, a big Verbinski fan, found it under-lit and more gag than stakes, with Rockwell grating.
A first-time director's sub-$500K one-location horror, bought by A24 after the festival circuit: a call-in-show podcast host alone in a house with her ailing mother. Great sound design, some cheap jump scares, and a very smart piece of business for A24.
Oscar Boyson's feature: a wealthy teen (Jaeden Martell) posts gun-control videos to impress a crush, then drives to Texas to confront a troll he's convinced is a mass shooter. Both hosts agree the movie comes alive when Asa Butterfield turns up as the Texas kid.
The McManus siblings' lo-fi parallel-universe indie: Michaela McManus's grieving mother kills her daughter's murderer across timelines, over and over, and gets addicted to it. A great core idea, occasionally draggy; Sean's most enthusiastic recommendation of the batch.
Tom Harper's feature capper to the Netflix series, with Cillian Murphy, Rebecca Ferguson and a Nazi-financier Tim Roth. Neither host has seen the show; they clock it as a well-made period crime piece doing Oppenheimer-adjacent Cillian Murphy, fine on its own terms.
The animated sports hit produced by Stephen Curry: a pygmy goat breaks into 'Roarball,' a multi-species basketball. Better than Sean expected, with a Nick Kroll Komodo dragon; he's convinced the Jet character is a subtle shot at LeBron James.
Christian Petzold's stripped-down, 87-minute Hitchcock riff, with Paula Beer taken in by a family after a fatal crash. Sean's pick for one of the year's best and most modest films.
Sofia Coppola's A24 documentary on her friend Marc Jacobs, closer to a fashion music video than a fashion doc. Amanda had a great time; pure '90s and 2000s nostalgia, completely without conflict.
Matthew Shear writes, directs and stars opposite Amanda Peet as a laid-off paralegal nannying for a fading rock star (Alessandro Nivola) and an actress in crisis. Very Baumbach and Woody Allen; a self-lacerating Peet performance Sean would love to see get an awards push.
Sean's top fivethe year so far, released
Amanda's top fivethe year so far, released
In conversation
Grabinski's 20th Century studio debut: a time-travel buddy comedy where a future Nick comes back to stop Mike's murder, built around two Vince Vaughns, James Marsden, and a five-minute Gilmore Girls debate. They talk McTiernan lenses, step-printing, needle drops (an Oasis song, Dave Matthews in a strip club), casting Keith David, and getting a studio to leave every edge on.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In the movie news Avengers: DoomsdayDune: Part ThreeKnives OutEverything Everywhere All at OnceSwiss Army ManBarbieThe Fall GuyThe NotebookTwilightRemember the TitansThe Place Beyond the PinesThe Super Mario Galaxy Movie
Colleen Hoover & the romance shelf It Ends with UsRegretting YouVerityThe HousemaidGhosted
Scream queens & the horror shelf LonglegsIt FollowsHimI Know What You Did Last SummerBabylonReady or NotKill Bill: Vol. 1The RingA Cure for WellnessNow You See Me: Now You Don'tDeep ImpactArmageddonPhase IV
AI anxiety & the sci-fi lineage NavalnyTunerThe Social NetworkMission: Impossible - The Final ReckoningSilent RunningSoylent GreenVox LuxStand by MeThe Terminator
Petzold & the arthouse UndineAfire45 Years
Downton, Sofia & odds and ends Downton Abbey: A New EraSkyfallMistress AmericaSinners
From the Ben David Grabinski interview HappilyBatman ReturnsBatmanAliensAlienLast Action HeroSpeedHard BoiledBack to the FutureGoodFellasSexy BeastStar TrekCreedShrek 2Lady BirdRoninNext FridayChungking ExpressWarriors of VirtueThe Bride with White HairRoad HouseThey LiveMen at WorkRed OneWick Is PainJohn Wick: Chapter 4AmélieSkiptracePsycho IIThe IncrediblesPredator: Badlands
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Murder, She WroteGilmore GirlsThe Mickey Mouse ClubThe ChallengeSeinfeldLaw & OrderAre You Afraid of the Dark?Scott PilgrimSurvivorGargoyles
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