Movies We Dig | Film, Antiquity and Everything in Between

What made Dante Alighieri one of the world's greatest poets and a foundational figure for Italian culture? We're not sure because we left this film more confused than when we started. Yes, we descend into the Inferno that is In the Hand of Dante (2025), the very-hard-to-follow noir about an author recovering a manuscript of La Divina Commedia from the criminal underworld, set alongside the story of the poem's creator (sort of). Fortunately, we have our own personal Vergil to guide us through heaven and hell, professor of Italian Studies and a very special guest, Dr. Gianna Albaum. Listen to...

Needing a break from Odysseus, we thought it was time to look at another important mythohistorical figure from the ancient Mediterranean world: Mary. You know, the Blessed Mother, Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Our Lady, Holy Virgin, Madonna (no, not the musician). Lucky for us, we got our hands a brand new historical fiction novel titled Marble, which is set to hit the shelves later this month. Even luckier, the author Taylor Catalana joins us to discuss her feminist retelling of Mary's life story (before all the aforementioned titles). We talk about the the media and history that inspired...

Travel through space (and time) as we wrap up our coverage of early-2000s animated films with Treasure Planet. The crew sits down to discuss children's literature, pirates in pop culture, and why pre-teen boys are to blame for letting this one flop. Come for the cool animation, stay for the Goo Goo Dolls!

As always, if you like what you hear, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show! Stay up-to-date on all the Movies We Dig news by visiting movieswedig.com or checking out our socials.

Movies We Dig i...

We're back! Cramming ourselves once more into the water-logged, toilet-water horse that is podcasting, we return once again to finish our conversation on Christopher's The Odyssey (2026). The whole gang's here: Amy, Joe, Joel, Kermit, Piggy, Spider-man (listen through, it'll make sense). We talk the women of Homer, the nature of adaptation and why Plato keeps showing up in our group chat.

You can find more thoughts from Amy and Joel on Homer and other subjects at amypistone.com and Sententiae Antiquae, and Joe's music and merch at Joe's Odyssey.

For those looking for links specific...

What's more Homeric than ending up right back where you started? Or wandering an endless sea of textual criticism? Or your co-hosts and guests fighting you every step of the way as you struggle to bring the ship to port? (sorry Christie!)

We reconvene our Homeric council (see our episode on The Return) for the first part of our great debate of this summer/year/decade/Age of Bronze: Do We Dig Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (2026)?

You can find more thoughts from Amy and Joel on Homer and other subjects at amypistone.com and Sententiae...

What can be said about Nolan's Odyssey that hasn't already been said? Well hopefully a few things! The MWD crew gives their initial impressions on the biggest thing to hit the world of film and Classical studies since probably Gladiator. The main question on our mind: What version of Odysseus ended up coming home? Just beware of any sirens (spoilers) you may run into along the way if you have not had a chance to see the film yet!

As always, if you like what you hear, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the...

It's more podcast for your buck! That's right, in anticipation of a certain small-budget indie film coming out this month, we're not talking about one movie, but five! We quest out in search of Matt Damon as he appears in Good Will Hunting (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Bourne Identity (2002), Interstellar (2014) and The Martian (2015), all in service of the great question: "Do We Dig Odysseus?"

As always, if you like what you hear, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show! Stay up-to-date on all the Movies We Dig news by visiting movieswedig.com or...

Hop on board listeners as we take a look at another early 2000s animated film that maybe should have just fallen off the edge of the world. Helping us to discuss yet another problematic man lost at sea is none other than Liv Albert, the host of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! and founding member of Mnemosyne: The Memory Collective. If, like us, you missed this swashbuckling-adventure in favor of another pirate film, than hold on to your harem pants! This film's got it all: blatant misogyny, erasure of Arabic culture, and a lovable crew! But hey, you can't...

Two brothers united by friendship, divided by podcasting. Yes, we're rounding off our Month of Mummy's (and movies about princes) with the 1998 animated musical The Prince of Egypt. We talk about such far-ranging and fascinating topics as biblical archaeology, killing babies and why Shrek was a mistake. We may not get 2D animation like this ever again, but the soundtrack will live on in our hearts because... there can be miracles when you believe!

As always, if you like what you hear, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show! Stay up-to-date on all...

From ambitious ancient architects to sexy evil priestesses, we've seen the "Mummy" take many forms, but none quite as horrifying as a modern teenage girl. Join us in unwrapping the latest reincarnation of this monster franchise with Lee Cronin's The Mummy. Helping us to investigate yet another creepy pyramid and it's resident demonic entity is special return guest and Egyptologist, Dr. Briana Jackson. While some might question if this film even has a real Mummy, there is no doubt Cronin drew inspiration from from all the previous films to explore fears that are timeless. Plus, we'll never look at...

Men will rob ancient tombs with no qualms, but the second a woman starts accessing ancient magical powers then they start caring about morality. Yes, we watching Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, the 1971 Hammer horror about an ancient sorceress possessing a modern London woman. Joining us to discuss this cult classic are our good friends, the Ancient History Fangirls, Genn McMenemy and Jenny Williamson. We talk Bram Stoker, Egyptology, the anxieties over female liberation throughout the 20th century and why Freud might have really vibed with this movie. Also, if a corpse bleeds continuously from a severed hand for...

It's May, so you know what that means? It's time to celebrate all those wonderful Mummies in film! With the help of return guest and Egyptologist, Dr. Julia Troche, we travel back in time to unravel the humble beginnings of the entire Mummy movie franchise. For a film nearing 100 years old, it has some surprisingly progressive takes on archaeology, colonialism, and female sexuality. It's a dangerous venture, and not all of us will make it to the end (of the podcast). But since when has that ever stopped a curious archaeologist/librarian?

To learn more about Julia's...

We wish we had our own magic time-traveling sands as we review 2010's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Is it a creative re-imagining of a popular game? No. Is it a fun action-adventure with comedic tones? Also no. Does Alfred Molina run an illegal ostrich-racing circuit? Yes he does.

We could have been watching Prince of Egypt...

As always, if you like what you hear, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show! Stay up-to-date on all the Movies We Dig news by visiting movieswedig.com or checking out...

It's been well over a year (and season) since we last checked in on Wiros and Yemos (AKA Romulus and Remus) to see how their little city of Rome is managing. While both brothers are still alive, they are definitely not prepared to handle the wildcard that is Titus Tatius, King of the Sabines and Son of Sancus. Helping us to separate the original founding myth from an imaginative modern retelling are The Partial Historians, Dr. Rad and Dr. G! We discuss the Sabine Women, masculinity in the ancient world, and just how seriously everyone takes religion in this...

We're back and this time untethered from history with a new season of your (but not Colin's) favorite gladiator show: Spartacus: House of Ashur (2025). Also helping us rewrite history in some pretty radical ways is Dr. Monica Cyrino. We talk gladiators, sex, crucifixion and more, everything a growing ludus needs. What does a gladiator-turned-aspiring-nouveau-riche-fight-promoter have to do to get any respect in this town? Who's the worst GM in NFL history? Is love real? Has anyone checked to see if Caesar's alive? Find out the answers to all that and more here on Movies We Dig!

...

Maybe, like, the fourth or fifth best entry in the Transformers series? Yes we're talking Gods of Egypt (2016) a... film. Joining us is extra special guest, Dr. Julia Troche, who is here to help educate us on ancient Egyptian mythology and the many hidden benefits of lettuce. We talk gods, Egypt, robots, forced-perspective, arm workout routines and much more. Listen now or you'll need to spend money to get into the afterlife and a giant cosmic snake will devour your soul!

To learn more about Julia's work with The American Research Center in Egypt Missouri Chapter...

If ever a series made us feel our age, it's this one! Once again, we return to Rick Riordan's fantastical world of teenage demi-gods with Disney's second season of Percy Jackson & The Olympians. Since your hosts are lost at sea when it comes to this series, we called upon a true aficionado and fellow Mnemosyne member, Lexie Henning, to help us navigate the world of prophecies and Party Ponies. Inevitably we find ourselves moored in discussion of early 2000s YA novels and their pitfalls. In the end, the sirens reveal to us the fatal flaw of adapting such tomes...

Grab your spears, grow out your dreads and get ready to hunt some mammoth because we're going back, waaaay back to 2008 and 10,000 BC, Roland Emmerich's stealth prequel to Stargate. And what conversation about Stone Age tribes battling Atlantean Pyramid Enthusiasts (Aliens?) would be complete without our resident pseudo-archaeology expert, David S. Anderson. We talk mammoth hunting strategies, megafauna, why farming was a mistake and all walks of conspiracy theories from star-aligned pyramids to Shakespeare-wasn't-real.

If you would like to learn more about David and stay updated about his research and tabletop card game Excavation!, then follow...

As part of our "Unfinished Business" season, we return to the Netflix animated series Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. It wouldn't surprise the three of us to learn that you might have missed the second (and final) season of this series, but we spend a good chunk of time discussing why that may have been the case. So let's all dive in to the story of a tomb raider turned repatriation advocate and help stop a random tech billionaire from forcing the world into a hard reboot. Hmmm, prescient.

As always, if you like...

Ancient Rome. MWD's podcasts are masters of the world, the heat of its takes heard from the Iberian peninsula in the west through the halls of the great library of Alexandria in the east. As oppressed people everywhere writhe under the Roman lash, freeman and vassal are united in one compulsory listenership. But there is a new wind, exploring this Cohen Brothers' 2016 comedy on the eccentric personalities here at Capitol Pictures. We talk sword and sandal cinema, the Red Scare, Jesus, Marxism, split nature of man, and more, all of course with extreme taste and panache. Would that it...

Once again, we sift through our backlog of episodes to take another look at a mostly forgotten film, this time with fresh eyes and new takes. What we find is a film about a Roman legionary that is actually, dare we say, good!? Joining us on the journey to find The Eagle is special return guest, Roel Konijnendijk. From a Roman military fortress to the wilds of Scotland, we discuss the charm of this underrated film. While it has a few problematic elements, one can't help but root for the budding "bromance" between Channing Tatum's Marcus Aquila and Jamie...

Chug your milk, don your ruffled shirts and get ready to shoot lightning bolts through your lymphatic system because we're re-animating Guillermo del Toro' latest creature-feature: Frankenstein (2025). Returning to play god with us is Dr. Marina Escolano-Poveda, Senior Lecturer in Classics, Ancient History and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. We talk the horrors of science, the sins of the father(s) and the benefits of a classical education for developing Creatures, along with all the changes, big and small, between del Toro's adaptation and Mary Shelley's 1818 novel.

Be sure to follow Marina on Instagram under...

The holidays are upon us, so we figured it was a good time to delve into a remake of a remake that nobody really asked for. That's right, we're talking about 2016's Ben-Hur! And sorry to say, this one might have sent your hosts off the rails. We discuss the major changes from the 1959 film, including Messala's backstory, the inciting incident that destroys the Ben-Hur family, and the interesting choice to cut Judah's trip to Rome. What do we learn? Mario Kart rules apply to chariot racing and the Pope gets a lot of interesting asks.

...

In this season's attempt to highlight films that might have fallen under the radar, the Movies We Dig Crew revisits Agora along with special guest, Dr. Marina Escolano-Poveda. Despite (or more likely, because of) the film's the unorthodox setting in Late Roman Alexandria, the central story focusing on the life of Hypatia (played by Rachel Weisz), and amazing use of costuming and set design, there's a good chance you've yet to see this one. And while we might have our hang-ups on the lack of a real plot, you would be hard-pressed to find a better film that depicts...

What's your favorite scary movie? Ours is Scream 2! Joined by super special guests and professional Scream-heads (Screamers?) Lizzy Adams and TJ Bolt, we breakdown the metatextual masterpiece that is the Scream franchise, starting with the 1997 follow up to the original cult classic: Scream 2. We talk ancient Greek tragedy, horror as genre, VHS cassette tapes and all things 90's.

You can read more about ancient literature and modern horror by Lizzy and TJ in their contributions to Eidolon.

As always, if you like what you hear, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to...

What better way to start our season of "Unfinished Business" than with a Part I film that was never supposed to get a sequel? Well, at least until that streaming money was just too good to pass up. With the help of fellow Mnemosyne: Memory Collective member Emma Pauly we take a look at Mel Brooks' world history comedy spanning the Stone Age, the Roman Empire, the Spanish Inquisition, and the French Revolution. While this film might not be our favorite installment in Brooks' filmography, it offers a great opportunity to talk about comedy as a genre, both in...

What "archaeology" film set Colin off? To find out, check out our latest episode closing out Season 5 of Movies We Dig! For our Wrap-Up episode, we reflect on our season surveying archaeology in film. Listen in to hear our official tier rankings of every archaeology film (that we've covered). We also end the show with a fun guessing game about AI's interpretation of our own body of work.

And if you'd like to make your own tier-list of "archaeology" films discussed on Movies We Dig, you can do so here: https://tiermaker.com/list/movies/archaeology-in-films-popular-media-18622188/5560763<...

Get ready for Season 6 of Movies We Dig, where we are determined to leave no stone left unturned! If you want to be in the know for upcoming episodes and special events, be sure to follow our socials. And show some love by subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show wherever you like to listen to your podcasts!

As always, if you like what you hear, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show! Stay up-to-date on all the Movies We Dig news by visiting movieswedig.com or checking out our socials.

M...

Mnemosyne: The Memory Collective got together for the first time to celebrate International Podcast Day! Various members and contributors hopped on throughout the day to answer questions, play games, and much more! This event is meant to be an opportunity for our audiences to get to know many members of and contributors to the Memory Collective, which you can learn more about by visiting collectivemem.com!

In this episode you'll be hearing highlights from all the exciting activities we did throughout the day including Listener Q&A sessions, Myth and History Trivia, a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure: Survive Pompeii...

Grab your trowels, apply your sunscreen and get ready to get down and dirty as we sit down with author Kate Myers to discuss her smash-hit novel Excavations. We talk all things archaeology: dirt, artifacts, repatriation, dirt, organized crime, horse-loving donkeys, more dirt and all the character types that seem to crawl out of the woodwork every summer to dig in remote Mediterranean villages.

You can read more about Kate on her website; be sure to read her latest book, Salty, and look out for Dig, the upcoming television adaptation of Excavations created by Amy Poehler...

If pressed to recall this film, one can probably remember its most iconic line "I'm gonna steal the Declaration of Independence," but not much beyond that. And maybe that's a good thing. Part heist, part treasure hunt, and part historical conspiracy, this film works hard to make the United States' settler colonialism past seem a lot cooler than it actually is. We talk ships (both nautical and romantic), the apparent monetary value of world heritage, and the eccentric nature of Nicolas Cage's acting career.

As always, if you like what you hear, please be sure to...

Dust off your linguistic skills and join us as we decipher the myriad of meanings presented in the science fiction drama, Arrival. What on the surface appears to be a conflict between humans and extraterrestrials, in reality, is the longstanding rivalry between Humanities and STEM. With the help of our special guest Dr. Deb Trusty, we discuss the similarities and differences between the film and Ted Chiang's original short story titled "Story of Your Life". As a nice change of pace, the film's aliens put a lot of faith in humanity's ability to come together and problem-solve. Yet after...

We clearly had lots of thoughts as this is one of our longest (and most swear-ridden) episodes ever. Joined by super special guest Genn McMenemy, we excavate the layers and layers of volcanic ash that is Pompeii (2014). We dive deep not just into this film as an artifact of cinematic cliches circa the 2010's but also the actual artifacts from the site of Pompeii. Really, we spend most of our time pitching our rewrites for a much more interesting version of this story.

You can follow Genn on Instagram and Threads; check out her books Women...

Get your divining rods and apotropaic phalli and get ready for some dark magical realism. We excavate Alice Rohrwacher's 2023 film about a British archaeologist-turned-tombarolo, La chimera. This film has everything: Etruscan tombs, musical interludes, Isabella Rossellini, ghosts and more! We really dug this film and the way it unpacks the complicated relationship between past and present, living and dead, wealth and poverty, plus Italian nonna's favoritism towards their granddaughter's ex-boyfriends.

As always, if you like what you hear, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show! Stay up-to-date on all the Movies We...

It's summertime! You know what that means? Time to head to the beach with a historical, smutty romance book! And boy do we have a recommendation for you! In this episode we are joined by romance novelist and fellow historical podcaster, Jenny Williamson, to discuss her debut book Enemy of My Dreams. We discuss everything from the historical figures that inspired the story, the importance of Romance as a genre, and the texting style of each of our favorite characters. No major spoilers, but we do encourage you to read Jenny's book ASAP because the sequel was just recently...

This episode originally aired in February 2021. It is also a historical record documenting the start of wonderful friendship between three scholars/nerds talking about ancient history and archaeology in popular media.

A movie actually about digging! This week we're joined by special guest, Dr. Christie Vogler, to talk about the 3 D's of The Dig: death, dirt and drudgery. We get into the ins and out both of this Netflix original and the realities of archaeology today. Many feels about our field.

If you like what you hear, please be sure to rate, review...

For all those who like to read their Greek myths in comic form, this one's for you! With the help of special guest Erica Rose Hampton, we delve into one of the most famous web comics in the world. While you may love it or hate it, it is undeniable that Rachel Smythe's Lore Olympus embraces and modernizes the heavy topics presented to us in myths, making it a compelling piece of modern reception. Plus, who doesn't love revisiting the messy relationships of the Olympians? We discuss the perils of modern dating, critiques of YA and Romance (looking at...

It wouldn't be a series finale episode if we didn't go out with a bang! Joined by the creators of Blood of Zeus, Charley and Vlas Parlapanides, as well as the voice actors for the series' leads of Heron (Derek Phillips) and Seraphim (Elias Toufexis), we delve into the creative process of producing one of our favorite modern retellings of Greek myth. Though our heroic brothers may be at odds in the show, the camaraderie of the writers and performers is evident as we discuss the importance of storytelling in our modern era.

Please be sure...

It wouldn't be a Blood of Zeus episode if we didn't bring back the reigning champ and monster 'enthusiast' Zoé Thomas. We break down our reactions to the third and final season of Netflix's animated myth-fest, Blood of Zeus, created by Charley and Vlas Parlapanides. Highs, lows and Bacchic hallucinations, we've got a lot to say about this one, so grab your lightning bolts, hop on your flying chariot and join the sparagmos.

As always, if you like what you hear, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show! Stay up-to-date on all the M...

"All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players." That's right! We trade in one mysterious bard for another as we tackle Christie's pick for a favorite film, She's The Man. This adaptation of a Disney Channel Original Movie, Motocro... uhh we mean, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night has everything one could hope for: shenanigans, soccer, romance, and early 2000s female empowerment through masquerading as a man. Oh, and did we mention this film has Channing Tatum?

While it's all fun in games for the majority of the episode, their is a short di...