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PODCAST

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Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode guide us through the expanding universe of the moving image revealing fascinating links and hidden gems from cinema and TV to streaming and beyond.

tv & film

All Episodes

42:32

Hitmen

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2025/01/31

The last few years have seen a number of new entries on the cinematic hit list, from David Fincher’s The Killer to Richard Linklater’s Hit Man. TV has also seen its fair share of hitmen in the last year; the reboot of the 2005 Brad and Angelina film Mr and Mrs Smith; Eddie Redmayne donning various elaborate disguises in a Day of the Jackal update, as well as Black Doves. It seems these days hitmen are among TV and film’s most wanted. Mark talks to critic Christina Newland about the history of crime

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42:32

Mike Leigh

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2025/01/24

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore the visionary world of veteran British filmmaker Mike Leigh, as he returns with Hard Truths - his first film in six years. Born in 1943 and raised in Salford, Leigh started his career in the theatre, before moving to TV in the 1970s, making a string of plays and films for the BBC. Since his very first film Bleak Moments in 1971, Mike Leigh has been at the cutting edge of British screen culture, creating a diverse body of work which ranges from the exquisitely

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42:33

Time Travel

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2025/01/17

How does film and TV make time travel real? Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode take a quantum leap into the world of time travel and time loops on screen, from Back To The Future to Groundhog Day. Mark speaks to theoretical physicist Sean Carroll about how movies like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Interstellar have handled the science of time travel - and whether it really is just the stuff of fantasy. And he talks to Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Knives Out director Rian Johnson about the

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42:18

Therapists

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2025/01/10

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore how therapists have been portrayed on screen throughout cinema and television history. From the benign care of Claude Rains’ Dr Jaquith in Now, Voyager (1942), and the neuroses of Woody Allen, to the deadly Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs (1991), they survey the archetypes, the foibles, and the dramatic potential of the psychotherapist - both fictional and real.Mark speaks with Richard Hughes, the TV producer and director turned psychotherapist, about

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42:36

Musicals

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2024/11/18

In the year that Jacques Demy’s beloved Umbrellas of Cherbourg turns 60, Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones reflect on their favourite aspects of the screen musical.According to some, we’re currently in the midst of a movie musicals revival, with Jon M Chu’s Wicked hot on the heels of Emila Perez and Joker: Folie à Deux, but will any of them match what Ellen considers to be the pinnacle of the form, the 1950s Hollywood musical? Her love of the classic MGM musicals primed Ellen to be a huge fan of the TV

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42:32

Las Vegas

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2024/11/08

Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner Anora is the latest in a long line of movies to use Las Vegas as a setting. So why is the desert gambling city such catnip for filmmakers? Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore Vegas on screen.Ellen speaks to author Shawn Levy about the unparalleled showbiz glamour of midcentury Las Vegas and the quintessential Rat Pack Vegas movie - Ocean’s 11. And she talks to DJ and producer David Holmes about his work on the soundtrack for director Steven Soderbergh’s 2001 Ocean’s

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42:12

Powell and Pressburger

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2024/11/01

As November marks the TV premiere on BBC 2 of Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, as well as a season of films on the BBC and iPlayer, Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore the films of these two titans of British Cinema.Film and culture writer, Lilian Crawford shares with Mark why the works of Powell and Pressburger are a matter of life and death, and how the duo's technicolour films took their cue from the worlds of ballet and opera. Mark also speaks to British filmmaker Jeanie

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42:33

Vampires

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2024/10/25

With Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu - a remake of the 1922 adaptation of Dracula - hitting UK cinemas in the new year, Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones take a look at one of cinema's most enduring monsters, the vampire. Mark talks to friend of the show and vampire expert, Kim Newman, about the evolution of vampires over the last century. They discuss everything from Bela Lugosi’s career defining performance as Count Dracula to the Twilight series.Meanwhile, Ellen meets host and producer of The Evolution of

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42:42

Archaeology

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2024/10/18

To mark the tenth anniversary of BBC sitcom Detectorists, Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones dig into archaeologists and treasure hunters on screen. Mark speaks first to stand-up comedian and actor Alexei Sayle about his small, but pivotal, role in the third Indiana Jones film The Last Crusade. Mark then talks to Italian director Alice Rohrwacher, whose recent film La Chimera is the story of a down-at-heel tomb raider, played by Josh O’Connor, looting Etruscan artefacts in 1980s Italy. Meanwhile, Ellen

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42:30

Saturday Night Live

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2024/10/11

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode look at the impact of Saturday Night Live, or SNL, as the long-running US sketch show prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Just how important is SNL in the history of American comedy? And why have we never quite understood it over here? Ellen speaks to actor and former SNL writer Paula Pell about how it felt to get a job on the show after growing up as an obsessed fan - and whether the hectic schedule of Saturday Night Live is always conducive to the best

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42:25

Prisons

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2024/10/04

As The Shawshank Redemption turns 30, Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore life behind bars as seen on screen, investigating how film and TV have shaped our ideas about the prison system. Why do prisons make such good settings for cinema? Ellen investigates the relationship between prison exploitation and prison reform, talking to director S Craig Zahler about his ultra-violent 2017 film Brawl In Cell Block 99 and the movies that inspired it, from Birdman of Alcatraz to Riot in Cell Block 11. And

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42:25

Shock Value

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2024/08/09

Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones ask if we still go to the movies to be shocked.As Caligula: The Ultimate Cut hits cinemas, Mark talks to stars of the notorious cult classic, Dame Helen Mirren and Malcolm McDowell. They discuss the film's long journey to the new version, and what it was really like on set of one of independent cinemas most controversial productions.Ellen examines what shock value means in the digital age and how shocking cinema has evolved over cinema's history. She speaks to film

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42:37

Mermaids

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2024/08/02

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode take a deep ‘dive' into the world of water to mark the 40th anniversary this summer of the joyous romantic comedy Splash hitting our screens. Splash features Tom Hanks' leading man debut as he meets and falls for mermaid Daryl Hannah in New York, before they finally swim off into the sunset together. From The Little Mermaid through Miranda to The Lure, mermaids have a long rich history in the movies.Mark talks to director Agnieszka Smoczyńska about her 1980s set

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42:16

Pop Idols

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2024/07/26

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode look at how popstars - and their fans - have been depicted in film and TV over the years. Mark speaks to record producer and documentary director Jeremy Dylan about some of the most memorable pop idols on screen, from A Hard Day’s Night to Spice World. And he talks to legendary songwriter Paul Williams about his dual role as both star actor and music composer on Brian DePalma’s prescient 1974 pop fable Phantom of the Paradise. Meanwhile, Ellen looks at portrayals of

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42:24

Do the Right Thing

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2024/07/19

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode take a deep dive into Spike Lee’s incendiary 1989 drama about simmering racial tension in and around a Brooklyn pizzeria.We celebrate 35 years of a film that announced itself like a beat box on full blast. Set within a single inner city block in Brooklyn, New York City on the hottest day of the summer, the movie depicts racial tensions that simmer, as things look set to explode.Ellen speaks to the film's director Spike Lee to find out how this extraordinary,

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42:32

The Western

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2024/07/12

The Great American Western is having a resurgence - from Yellowstone and Bass Reeves on TV, to Beyoncé's acclaimed country album Cowboy Carter. Kevin Costner is back in the director’s saddle too, with his Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 - the first in a planned series of epic Westerns - recently riding into cinemas.But has the cinematic Western adapted to the modern age or is it trapped in a one-sided history of the past? Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode examine the enduring popularity of a genre

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42:06

Love Triangles

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2024/07/08

In the past year, triangular love stories have loomed large in cinema - Past Lives, Challengers and Passages all had different angles on the spiky geometry of three-cornered relationships. Since Casablanca, these complicated love affairs have fascinated filmmakers and audiences alike. They can be the subject of romantic comedies, at the centre of a melodrama or the motive for murder in a thriller - the relationships can be gay or straight and the budgets big or small.Jean Luc Godard’s iconic new

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42:32

Meryl Streep

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2024/05/17

From early, Oscar-winning roles in The Deer Hunter and Sophie's Choice, through to Mamma Mia! and The Iron Lady, Meryl Streep has earned a reputation as the greatest actress of our times. As the star receives an honorary Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode discuss the remarkable depth, breadth and legacy of her career.Ellen speaks to writer Michael Schulman, author of Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep, about the actor's beginnings in the 1970s, and the power of a

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42:46

Films That Changed the World

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2024/05/10

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode explore whether films and TV can change the world.First up, Ellen talks to the award-winning independent filmmaker Eliza Hittman, whose critically acclaimed 2020 drama, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, charts the odyssey of 17 year-old Autumn, played by newcomer Sidney Flanigan from her home town in rural Pennsylvania, to her nearest accessible abortion clinic in New York City. Ellen also meets Caren Spruch, National Director for Arts and Entertainment Engagement at

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42:18

Chinatown

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2024/05/03

In 1974, Chinatown - now widely considered to be among the greatest films ever made - was nominated for 11 Oscars. Despite the creative confidence and freedom of the era, the 1970s were a time of tolerance for the morally questionable, or even downright illegal, behaviour of some of the powerful men creating these movies.Chinatown’s director, Roman Polanski, is the most totemic of those figures. His 1977 indictment for drugging and raping a 13 year-old led the director to flee the United States and

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107 results

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