Boys State 2020
A24 and Apple bought it out of Sundance: four Texas teenagers run a mock gubernatorial campaign at the American Legion's weeklong civics program, and the tactics get real fast.
The Big Picture · Review · Interview
The Movie of the Year Is Here: ‘Boys State’
August 17, 2020/ 77 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean and Amanda call the Apple TV+ documentary the best movie they've seen this year, then talk to directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine about casting four 17-year-olds and shooting a mock election in six days.
5 films across 2 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.
Boys Statedir. Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine
In conversation
Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine on
Boys State 2020
Cast three of the film's four central figures before the event even started, then found Renee Otero on day two, minutes before he gave the speech that put him in the movie.
Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine on
The War Room 1993
Moss calls it foundational to his own career: the film that convinced him to trade politics for documentary work.
Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine on
Primary 1960
The Robert Drew film they cite for Al Maysles's shot of JFK entering a room in Wisconsin.
Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine on
Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment 1963
Drew's film shot both sides of a standoff, JFK and George Wallace: the kind of access on each side of a conflict that Moss and McBaine also got at Boys State.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Also mentioned The OvernightersMinding the GapBeastie Boys StoryGreyhoundTimeHoop DreamsAlienBlade Runner
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
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Ads An American Pickle