Let Them All Talk 2020
Shot largely improvised aboard a real Queen Mary 2 crossing; Sean and Amanda call it quieter and more contained than the usual Soderbergh picture, closer to a Deborah Eisenberg short story than a heist movie.
The Big Picture · Review · Rankings · Interview
The Steven Soderbergh Rankings, Featuring Steven Soderbergh!
December 11, 2020/ 102 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean and Amanda rank all 32 Soderbergh films (plus three TV series, filed separately), then Sean talks to the man himself about 'Let Them All Talk,' editing on the fly, and why he stopped reading his own reviews.
45 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.
Let Them All TalkMeryl Streep, Diane Wiest, and Candice Bergen on a transatlantic cruise
The Steven Soderbergh Rankings32 films, best to worst
No. 1
Out of Sight 1998
No. 2
Ocean's Eleven 2001
No. 3
The Limey 1999
No. 4
Magic Mike 2012
No. 5
Sex, Lies, and Videotape 1989
No. 6
Ocean's Twelve 2004
Amanda's contested favorite; she fights, and loses, to get it into the top five.
No. 7
Haywire 2011
No. 9
The Informant! 2009
No. 10
Erin Brockovich 2000
No. 11
Solaris 2002
No. 12
Logan Lucky 2017
No. 13
The Girlfriend Experience 2009
No. 14
Ocean's Thirteen 2007
No. 15
Behind the Candelabra 2013
No. 16
Che 2008
No. 17
King of the Hill 1993
Based on A.E. Hotchner's memoir of Depression-era Missouri; both hosts were surprised by how well it holds up.
No. 19
The Laundromat 2019
No. 20
Side Effects 2013
No. 21
High Flying Bird 2019
No. 22
Let Them All Talk 2020
No. 23
Traffic 2000
No. 24
Schizopolis 1997
No. 25
Unsane 2018
No. 26
Kafka 1991
No. 27
Bubble 2006
No. 28
Eros 2004
Anthology film; Soderbergh's segment sits alongside entries from Wong Kar-wai and Michelangelo Antonioni.
No. 29
Full Frontal 2002
Amanda flags a Harvey Weinstein-adjacent producer character, played by Jeff Garlin, in a movie that was itself produced by Weinstein.
No. 30
The Good German 2006
Sean calls it the movie he came closest to matching his own vision for, despite the harshest reviews of his career.
No. 31
The Underneath 1995
Landed last as Soderbergh's most straightforward stab at a mainstream movie, and his least successful.
In conversation
Steven Soderbergh on
Let Them All Talk 2020
Made the bulk of the film during an actual Queen Mary 2 crossing from Brooklyn to Southampton with a roughly 30-person crew; he edited nightly and sent notes to writer Deborah Eisenberg while still shooting.
Steven Soderbergh on
The Good German 2006
He rewatched it recently while thinking about kinship with Fincher's 'Mank'; still stands by it as close to exactly what he intended.
Steven Soderbergh on
The Underneath 1995
Cites it as the low point that sent him to Richard Lester for advice, which led to 'Schizopolis.'
Steven Soderbergh on
Schizopolis 1997
Calls it the 'detonation' that blew away the formalism creeping into his work.
Steven Soderbergh on
High Flying Bird 2019
Says its Netflix viewership beat likely theatrical numbers by a factor of five to nine.
Steven Soderbergh on
The Laundromat 2019
Steven Soderbergh on
Logan Lucky 2017
Steven Soderbergh on
Out of Sight 1998
Notes it flopped on release but has been retroactively remembered as a hit.
Steven Soderbergh on
Traffic 2000
Financing fell together only three weeks before shooting after every other studio passed.
Steven Soderbergh on
Erin Brockovich 2000
He initially turned the project down as 'the worst idea for a movie,' then came back to it while editing 'The Limey.'
Steven Soderbergh on
Mank 2020
Asked about David Fincher's film, made by a friend, in the context of 'The Good German' comparisons.
Steven Soderbergh on
The Damned Don't Cry 1950
His answer to the closing 'last great thing you've seen' question: a Joan Crawford melodrama he caught on TCM.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing Knives OutThe Midnight Sky
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
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