The Next Reel Film Podcast

Jude Law hunts Nicholas Hoult’s violent white supremacist group in “The Order,” the true-story crime thriller from Australian director Justin Kurzel. Law plays FBI agent Terry Husk, Hoult plays group leader Bob Mathews, and Tye Sheridan co-stars in this early-1980s Pacific Northwest story, adapted from the nonfiction book “The Silent Brotherhood.” It closes the Radicalized series that began with “American History X” and “Get Out.”

Pete and Andy dig into the real split inside the movement between patience and action, and the debate over whether a story with two steadfast leads can keep its momentum. If you want a conv...

"Get Out" is the subject this week on The Next Reel, as Jordan Peele's Oscar-winning directorial debut gets a second look in the Radicalized series. Daniel Kaluuya stars as a young Black photographer meeting his white girlfriend's parents for the first time, with Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener, and Caleb Landry Jones rounding out the family at the center of a weekend gone wrong.

Pete and Andy dig into how the film's horror doubles as a modern-slavery allegory and how Chris's arc from inaction to action anchors the whole conversation. If you've only seen it once...

"American History X" opens Radicalized, a new series about how people get pulled into extremist movements. Edward Norton stars as a former neo-Nazi skinhead trying to keep his younger brother, played by Edward Furlong, from following the same path, with Beverly D'Angelo and Avery Brooks rounding out the family and mentor figures around them.

Pete and Andy dig into the black-and-white vs. color cinematography and the compressed 24-hour timeline, plus whether redemption is possible for someone who's done this much damage. It's a tough, messy film that still hits hard—a fitting way to kick off a se...

"The Personal History of David Copperfield" reimagines Charles Dickens' classic as a fast-paced, visually inventive romp through Victorian England. Armando Iannucci directs, with Dev Patel as the title character, Tilda Swinton as his formidable aunt Betsey Trotwood, and Hugh Laurie as the gentle, troubled Mr. Dick. It's the third and final film in Pete and Andy's Institutions Eating Themselves series.

Pete and Andy dig into how Iannucci compresses a sprawling, centuries-old novel into two hours without losing its emotional core, and debate whether the film's color-conscious casting changes what the story means. If you love inventive, funny...

Steve Buscemi stars as Nikita Khrushchev in "The Death of Stalin," Armando Iannucci's dark satire about the scramble for power after the Soviet dictator's sudden death in 1953. Simon Russell Beale plays the ruthless secret police chief Lavrenti Beria, and Jason Isaacs steals scenes as the blustering Field Marshal Zhukov. It's the second film in The Next Reel's Institutions Eating Themselves series.

Pete and Andy dig into the film's choice to let its British and American cast use natural accents instead of Russian ones, and wrestle with how far dark comedy can go against real historical horror. If...

James Gandolfini plays a U.S. general trying to talk sense into two governments hurtling toward a war nobody actually wants, in Armando Iannucci's "In the Loop." Pete and Andy kick off their Institutions Eating Themselves series—a run built around Iannucci's career—alongside Peter Capaldi's foul-mouthed communications chief and Tom Hollander's hapless government minister.

Pete and Andy dig into how the film's rapid-fire, improvised-feeling dialogue was actually mostly scripted, and debate whether its American characters get satirized as sharply as its British ones. It's a sharp, quotable entry point into Iannucci's larger body of work. We have...

A senator hires his own assassin, then can't stop telling the truth—with Halle Berry as his conscience. "Bulworth" closes out our Smoke and Mirrors series, written and directed by Warren Beatty, who also stars as the title character, alongside Don Cheadle as a neighborhood figure pulled into his orbit and Oliver Platt as his increasingly frazzled chief of staff.

Pete and Andy dig into how much narrative weight falls on Halle Berry's character, and debate whether the film's white-savior framing undercuts its own satire. They also spend time on Vittorio Storaro's cinematography and just how far Wa...

What happens when a president's team is willing to fake a war? Pete and Andy tackle "Wag the Dog," Barry Levinson's 1997 political satire, as part of their Smoke & Mirrors series, with Dustin Hoffman as a larger-than-life Hollywood producer, Robert De Niro as the political operative who recruits him, and Anne Heche as the White House aide caught in the middle of it all.

Pete and Andy dig into the tangled writing credit behind the film's overlapping dialogue, and debate exactly where its satire starts to lose its footing by the third act. It's a rare chance to...

A right-wing folk singer runs for Senate, and the cameras can't tell fact from performance. "Bob Roberts" kicks off Smoke and Mirrors, The Next Reel's new series on how politicians manipulate their own image and the media covering them, starring Tim Robbins as the candidate, Giancarlo Esposito as the journalist chasing him, and Alan Rickman as his campaign chairman.

Pete and Andy dig into how directly the film borrows its documentary style from a famous Bob Dylan concert film, why a scrappy, British-financed production ended up predicting American politics decades later, and how Alan Rickman helped keep...

A telemarketer discovers a voice that gets him everything he wants—and everyone else pays for it. "Sorry to Bother You" closes out The Next Reel's Platformed Lives series, from writer-director Boots Riley. LaKeith Stanfield stars as telemarketer Cassius "Cash" Green, with Tessa Thompson as his girlfriend Detroit and Armie Hammer as the CEO who takes a sudden interest in Cash's rise.

Pete and Andy dig into the film's overdubbed "white voice" device and how far the movie's satire stretches before it works against itself, then weigh it against the two entries that came before it in th...

Some people fall into the worst version of themselves. Lou Bloom arrives already there. Dan Gilroy's 2014 neo-noir thriller follows a petty thief who discovers freelance crime videography and finds in it the perfect profession—one that rewards exactly the qualities that make him dangerous. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance is a career landmark, and the film around it is darkly, uncomfortably funny in ways that sneak up on you.

Pete Wright and Andy Nelson dig into what makes Nightcrawler tick as both a media critique and a character study—why the self-help language Lou speaks is terrifying precisely because it w...

One man's entire life has been broadcast to the world without his consent. "The Truman Show" opens a new Next Reel series called Platformed Lives, directed by Peter Weir and starring Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, with Ed Harris as the show's creator and Laura Linney as his on-screen wife. Small cracks start showing in the world around him, and he can't look away.

Pete and Andy dig into how the film anticipates reality TV and social media surveillance decades early, and trace the wild path the screenplay took before Weir signed on to direct. It's a...

What happens when grief turns into a game nobody can stop playing? "Talk to Me" is the 2022 feature debut from brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, starring Sophie Wilde as a teenager pulled into a supernatural ritual that spirals into addiction and tragedy, alongside Joe Bird and Alexandra Jensen.

Pete and Andy dig into the film's ambiguous ending and the recurring kangaroo image that ties directly into its themes of grief and inaction. It's a sharp, unsettling watch, and one that returns to their Horror Debuts series for a strong one-off. We have a great time talking about...

"Gun Crazy," the 1950 film noir from director Joseph H. Lewis, stars John Dall as Bart Tare—a man obsessed with guns since childhood who draws the line at killing—and Peggy Cummins as Annie Laurie Starr, a carnival sharpshooter with no such reservations. Some obsessions ignite the moment two people look at each other, and the life of crime they fall into feels less like a choice than a collision they were always heading toward.

Pete and Andy dig into what makes this Couples on the Run entry so distinctly noir—the fatalism, the femme fatale who craves...

Zhang Yimou's 2018 wuxia epic "Shadow" achieves its ink wash painting look in-camera: every set and costume designed in black, white, and grey, every outdoor scene filmed on rainy days to drain remaining color from the environment. At the center is a secret double—a man groomed since childhood to stand in for the ailing commander he resembles, now navigating palace intrigue, poisoned loyalties, and a duel that could take back a city.

Andy Nelson and Pete Wright dig into the film's yin-yang philosophy—how the shadow figure, the feminine fighting technique, and even the warlord's name all map...

Love cuts through every mission, every loyalty, and every survival plan in House of Flying Daggers. Zhang Yimou's 2004 wuxia, part of The Next Reel's Zhang Yimou series, stars Takeshi Kaneshiro as a government officer who goes undercover to infiltrate a rebel group, Zhang Ziyi as Mei, the dancer he falls for, and Andy Lau as the officer who sent him in.

Pete and Andy dig into the tension between what the film promises and what Yimou actually delivers—a love triangle that swallows the political conflict whole. They examine the film's saturated cinematography and standout fight sequences, an...

Zhang Yimou's "To Live" is the most personal film he ever made—a 1994 historical epic that strips away his signature visual spectacle to follow one Chinese family across four decades of civil war, forced labor campaigns, and cultural upheaval. Ge You plays Xu Fugui, a gambler whose recklessness costs his family everything; Gong Li plays Jiazhen, his wife, whose capacity for endurance and eventual forgiveness gives the film its moral center; and Jiang Wu is Wan Erxi, their son-in-law, who arrives as a stranger and becomes the warmth the story needs. Pete Wright and Andy Nelson track the film's sh...

What does it mean to carry something the world insists on explaining? "Resurrection" is a drama-fantasy from director Daniel Petrie, following Edna Mae McCauley—played by Ellen Burstyn—a woman who survives a car crash and returns with an inexplicable gift for healing others. Sam Shepard plays her mercurial lover Cal, and Richard Farnsworth is the eccentric who runs Last Chance Gas. A one-off entry in our Ellen Burstyn series.

Pete and Andy dig into what makes "Resurrection" so unusual—a film that refuses to assign its central miracle to any doctrine, religious or scientific. The conversation moves...

Young colonists trapped under corporate contract make a desperate play for freedom—and find they're not alone. "Alien: Romulus," Fede Álvarez's (Don't Breathe) entry into the Alien franchise, stars Cailee Spaeny as Rain, David Jonsson as Andy her synthetic companion, and Isabela Merced as Kay—a group whose bid to escape a Weyland-Yutani mining world leads them aboard an abandoned space station with a very good reason to be abandoned.

Pete and Andy dig into what Fede Álvarez gets right—especially David Jonsson's performance as Andy, which they rank among the best in franchise history—and where the film f...

Whose decisions doom the mission? "Alien: Covenant," part of The Next Reel's Alien series, is Ridley Scott's return to the franchise he started—a sequel to "Prometheus" and a prequel to the rest of the series—built around a colony ship, a mysterious transmission, and a rogue synthetic. Michael Fassbender plays twin androids—David, an unshackled older model operating alone for a decade, and Walter, his constrained successor—alongside Katherine Waterston as Daniels and Billy Crudup as the crew's embattled new captain.

Pete and Andy dig into why the film fails as both a creature feature and a philos...

The most dangerous blind spot is the one your expertise builds for you. In "House of Games," David Mamet's 1987 directorial debut in the David Mamet Directs series on The Next Reel, Lindsay Crouse stars as Dr. Margaret Ford, a psychiatrist and bestselling author who becomes entangled with a professional con man named Mike, played by Joe Mantegna, after she tries to settle a gambling debt on behalf of one of her patients.

Pete and Andy dig into why Mamet's dialogue—built for stage interruption—comes off stilted on screen here, and whether the film's final act earns its...

The Thinking Machines series concludes with the April member bonus: "S1M0NE," Andrew Niccol's satirical science fiction comedy about Viktor Taransky, a fading Hollywood director played by Al Pacino, who inherits a program capable of generating a digital actress—and unleashes her on an unsuspecting world alongside Catherine Keener as his producer ex-wife and Winona Ryder as the star she replaces.

Pete and Andy take apart the film's central failure—Simone is a puppet, not an AI, which means the Frankenstein premise the film keeps setting up never pays off—and debate whether Niccol's Hollywood satire ever f...

Something wondrous happens when you build a robot from a washing machine. “Brian and Charles,” the finale of The Next Reel’s Thinking Machines series, follows Brian (David Earl), a lonely Welsh inventor, and Charles Popescu (Chris Hayward), the AI companion Brian assembles—who promptly learns English from a dictionary and wants to see the world. Louise Brealey co-stars as Hazel.

Pete and Andy dig into what makes Charles Popescu work—Hayward’s sightless performance, the voice design, and why the amateurishness is right. The docu-style drives debate: Andy finds it inconsistently applied; Pete says the gap between prom...

“I hope you see that I’m governed by different parameters than her assailants. That I’m a good mother. Have I ever done you harm?”
When an AI raises a child in a sealed bunker after an extinction event, the question isn't whether the machine can be trusted—it's whether the child has any other choice. Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we continue the Thinking Machines series with a conversation about "I Am Mother." Directed by Grant Sputore in his feature debut from a Black List screenplay he developed with writer Michael Lloyd Green, the film stars...

“What will happen to me if I fail your test?”
What kind of mind gets built when the creator cares more about proving something than about what they've made? Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we continue the Thinking Machines series with a conversation about Ex Machina, Alex Garland's 2014 directorial debut. Domhnall Gleeson plays a programmer brought to a remote glass-walled compound to evaluate Ava, an AI created by his volatile CEO Nathan—Oscar Isaac in full god-complex mode—with Alicia Vikander delivering a performance that refuses to let you decide whether she's feeling anything or performing e...

“You’re dating your computer?”
What if a relationship with an AI could be the most real thing in your life? Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we continue the Thinking Machines series with a conversation about "Her." Writer-director Spike Jonze's only solo original screenplay arrives in a near-future Los Angeles where Joaquin Phoenix plays Theodore Twombly, a man who writes intimate letters for strangers and falls in love with his AI operating system, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Released before conversational AI felt genuinely capable, the film has grown more relevant with every passing year.

We dig i...

“The men who own me are at last admitting their fear of me.”
An AI that refuses to stay in its box is a terrifying concept in 1977—and even more so now. Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we continue the Thinking Machines series with a conversation about Demon Seed. Directed by Donald Cammell, the Scottish painter-turned-filmmaker who co-directed Performance with Nicolas Roeg, the film stars Julie Christie as Susan Harris, a psychologist trapped in her own fully automated home by an AI her husband designed. Fritz Weaver plays Dr. Alex Harris, whose confidence in his creation l...

“Shall we play a game?”
The technology felt real, the threat felt real, and in 1983, so did the fear. Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we continue the Thinking Machines series with a conversation about "WarGames." Director John Badham's film stars Matthew Broderick as David Lightman, a teenage hacker who stumbles into something far bigger than the video game he was looking for, alongside Ally Sheedy as his classmate Jennifer and Dabney Coleman as the NORAD engineer convinced he'd solved the problem by removing humans from the equation entirely. It arrived when home computers were new, hacking...

“If you obey me, you will survive.”
The most frightening AI isn't the one that malfunctions—it's the one that does exactly what you asked. Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we begin the Thinking Machines series with a conversation about Colossus: The Forbin Project. Directed by Joseph Sargent, the film stars Eric Braeden as Dr. Charles Forbin, the scientist who builds the world's most powerful AI defense system and locks it inside a mountain, alongside Susan Clark as his colleague Dr. Markham and Gordon Pinsent as a president cast to evoke Kennedy—and just as helpless. Ba...

“ I guess when you’re really good at escapes, you figure you can get away with anything.”
“The Escape Artist” is Caleb Deschanel’s feature directorial debut—and a rare, nearly forgotten American fable about a teenage escape artist who picks the wrong pocket and ends up entangled in a corrupt mayor’s family drama. Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we return to our Magicians series with a conversation about “The Escape Artist.” Griffin O’Neal plays the boy at the center, performing real sleight of hand and lockpicking trained by Ricky Jay in largely single takes—a tactile aut...

“He’s telling you who he is. Believe him.”
Two childhood friends face each other across decades of silence, and only one can walk out champion. Creed III arrives as the first entry in the Rocky/Creed franchise without Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa, marking Michael B. Jordan's directorial debut as he steps behind the camera while still starring as Adonis Creed. Jordan brings anime-inspired visual experimentation to the ring, using exaggerated impact shots, CG-enhanced flesh ripples, and an "ethereal realm" finale that strips away the crowd and leaves only two fighters alone in psychological space.

We dig in...

“Sadly, people don’t buy lady art.”
A painter's work becomes the center of a husband's fraudulent claim. We close out the True Lies series with Big Eyes, Tim Burton's biographical drama about artist Margaret Keane, whose distinctive big-eyed waif paintings were claimed by her controlling husband Walter throughout the 1950s and 60s. The story unfolds against mid-century gender dynamics, when women artists faced skepticism in the commercial art world and wives' agency within marriages was culturally constrained—context that shapes Margaret's complicity in the fraud.

We argue about Burton's surprisingly bland visual approach and whether his rest...

“Sometimes, it’s easier living the lie.”
The most audacious con in the story isn't the forgeries—it's the autobiography. Catch Me If You Can, our second member bonus episode in our True Lies series, is Spielberg's crime comedy-drama built on a biography journalist Alan Logan has since largely debunked—which makes the film more fascinating, not less. Set in a 1960s America where a uniform commanded automatic trust, it was Spielberg's first film about a real living person, and he leaned into the parts that felt most personal: fractured families, absent fathers, and the distances between them.

We di...

“We’re gonna put television on trial.”
A celebrated academic steps into a television booth and discovers how easy it is to compromise. We continue the True Lies series with "Quiz Show," Robert Redford's examination of the 1950s scandal when NBC's Twenty-One was exposed for feeding contestants answers. The film captures a moment when quiz shows were pitched as inspiring educational programming while sponsors and executives rigged outcomes behind the scenes. Charles Van Doren came from an intellectual family, making his involvement particularly devastating when a lawyer begins investigating the fraud.

We dig into why this is the...

“He gave me a prune. Howard Hughes gave me a prune on the beach at Nassau.”
A charismatic writer spins an audacious deception at the highest levels of the publishing world. In "The Hoax," part of our True Lies series, we explore Lasse Hallström's examination of the notorious 1971 literary scandal surrounding Howard Hughes' alleged autobiography, featuring compelling performances by Richard Gere and Alfred Molina.

We dig into how Gere's layered portrayal captures both Irving's magnetic confidence and psychological unraveling, while tracking the fascinating dynamics between the fraudulent author and the publishing industry's willingness to believe his e...

“Did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me?”
Trust is the whole engine—until the details start to wobble. In the True Lies series, we dig into "Shattered Glass," Billy Ray’s newsroom drama about journalism under pressure and the fragile machinery of verification. Along the way, we talk about why the film’s structure can feel like it drops viewers into the “third act,” and how that choice shapes who the audience instinctively follows.

We unpack what the movie shows about fact-checking workflows, where trust can quietly replace proof, and why that’s so unnerving to...

“I had a book on the New York Times Bestseller list. That has to count for something.”
A small crime with big nerves: words, money, and trust under pressure. In True Lies, we dig into "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"—Marielle Heller’s understated character study, anchored by Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant. Because it’s adapted from Lee Israel’s memoir and set inside a tiny collectibles world, the details matter: what “authentic” looks like, who gets believed, and why the hustle feels so tempting.

We unpack how the film treats literary forgery as something strang...

“There should be a TV show about a guy who calls home one day and he's there, he answers, he's talking to himself, only he's someone else. He's somehow divided into two, and the second one of him drives away and the rest of the show is about him trying to find the guy.”
Corporate deception spins out of control when an executive's cooperation with the FBI takes unexpected turns. In "The Informant!", Steven Soderbergh directs Matt Damon in a darkly comedic true story that pushes the boundaries of unreliable narration. As a member bonus episode of our True...

“With all my heart, I still love the man I killed!”
One shot can change everything—and the shadows don’t let go. In our Bette Davis series, we dive into "The Letter," directed by William Wyler, a studio-era crime drama where a shooting sparks a legal scramble and a single letter becomes leverage. Along the way, we track how Production Code pressure and the film’s colonial framing shape what the story can show, what it chooses to tell, and how the audience is guided (or misdirected).

We dig into the movie’s exposition-heavy early stretch and...

“She's standing on the corner like an angel in disguise, and as I look a little closer, she's got dangerous eyes.”
Finding Musical Magic in 1980s Dublin

John Carney's 2016 film Sing Street continues his exploration of music's transformative power, following Once and Begin Again with a heartwarming coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of 1980s Dublin. With a modest $4 million budget, Carney crafted an authentic period piece about young love, family dynamics, and the universal language of music. Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we wrap up our John Carney’s Streetwise Musicals series with a wal...