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PODCAST

The Beatles Films Podcast

Ed Williamson and Matt Looker

Two film writers and Fab Four fans discuss movies and TV about, starring, and inspired by The Beatles: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

music film reviews

All Episodes

1:15:00

Sam Mendes' four-film Beatles cinematic event: Beatle...

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2026/01/13

Time for some wild speculation, now we've got a lot of the Beatle wives and fifth Beatle candidates' casting confirmed. We look in particular at SaoirseRonan as Linda McCartney, and discuss the film Foe, in which she and Paul Mescal played a couple living in an isolated setting. A bit like Paul McCartney and Linda's Scottish farmhouse exile? We've been watching lots of films featuring the cast too, and we look at what their performances suggest they'll bring to these roles. Does the casting of

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47:08

War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/12/25

Happy Christmas! Let's have a look at Dave Mullins' film, co-written with Sean Ono Lennon, which won Best Animated Short Film at the 2024 Oscars. We discuss the animation techniques, including use of the Unreal Engine, and talk about how John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Christmas song Happy Xmas (War Is Over) came about in 1971, and how it came to be used in the film.Watch the film on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W68-XaFepOgWe made a donation to the War Child charity for this episode, which

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58:16

The Beatles Anthology (2025 remaster): episode 9

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/12/08

What did we expect from the new episode? Well: the big decision here is not to include any new interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr from the 2020s. We discuss the effect that decision has on this episode, and on how it rounds off the series as a whole. Does the episode work as a general making-of-Anthology, or as a patchwork of unused clips from the other eight episodes? And is there any more Threetles footage to come, or is that your lot?The 2025 Beatles Anthology is available to watch on

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1:05:58

The Beatles Anthology (2025 remaster): episodes 1 to 8

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/12/01

They couldn't let it lie, could they? Well, fair enough: The Beatles Anthology felt like a sleeping giant for Apple: gathering dust on a lot of fortysomethings' DVD shelves when it could be out there, brand spanking new and showing a whole new generation how great these guys were.And of course these episodes have been altered: we talk about what's new, and what's been removed and why. Plus there's the subject of the AI upscaling of some of the early performance footage: what effect does it have and

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53:01

Concert for George (with Nothing Is Real's Steven...

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/11/24

It's part 2 and we're getting into it: what were the standout performances? There's a lot to choose from: Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney all had a go, but what motivated their song choices? We also discuss Paul in particular: less secure than Ringo in his relationship with George Harrison, it's fascinating to watch Paul tread carefully through his contributions. What would a Paul McCartney tribute concert look like and who would appear at it?You can find ways to watch

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1:06:45

Concert for George (with Nothing Is Real's Steven...

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/11/17

As reluctant as he famously is to talk about it, Steven Cockcroft, one half of the Nothing Is Real podcast, attended the George Harrison tribute concert on 29 November 2002. So when it came to discussing the 2003 concert film we thought, Who better to invite on as a guest? Part 1 of our conversation touches on our memories of George's death in 2001, how Steven got a ticket, which artists were confirmed when, and which were rumoured, and the differences between the DVD's two versions: the full

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52:55

Son of Dracula (1974)

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/11/10

Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson playing Merlin (yes, the wizard) and the son of Dracula: what could possibly go wrong? Well, a fair bit as it turns out: some baffling choices are made and it can't quite make up its mind what it is, but at least Ringo enjoyed being a producer, didn't he? No, not really. Still, he had a bar in his Apple Films office, at least.Watch the film in this fairly ropy VHS transfer: https://youtu.be/cfkHN_QxNcwOr in this weird but fascinating HD upscale made using AI:

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39:39

Paul is Dead (2018 British short film)

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/11/07

It would've been remiss, having just covered the German Paul is Dead, not to do a quick bonus episode on this lovely little short from British writer-director George Moore. He imagines a Lake District writing retreat in which the Beatles wake up after a drug-fuelled night to discover Paul McCartney is dead, and go about trying to recruit local shepherd Billy Shears as a replacement. We talk about the characterisations used for the group and how much that allows a comprehensive story to be told in

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58:33

Paul is Dead (2000 German film)

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/11/03

We really enjoyed Hendrik Handloegten's 2000 film, which uses fandom and the old Paul is Dead mystery trope to great effect in a coming-of-age story. Tobias maybe has some stuff going on at home, and at 13 is on the cusp of noticing girls, and the film perfectly shows how kids get obsessed and wilfully believe outlandish things because the fantasy is more appealing than reality.We go down the rabbit hole of the Paul is Dead theory ourselves, and ask: is there anything in it? (No, no, there

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1:07:39

Good Ol' Freda

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/10/27

We look at Ryan White's 2013 documentary about Freda Kelly, employed by Brian Epstein and The Beatles from 1962 to 1972, and president of their fan club. How influential was she in what became Beatlemania? We discuss her obvious empathy with and yet professional distance from the Beatles' female fans, and her instinctive understanding that a personal connection with fans strengthens the relationship. Also, this small film made with Kickstarter funding secured the rights to use four Beatles songs:

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47:40

Ebony and Ivory

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/10/20

Strap in for Jim Hosking's deliberately provocative and frustrating take on the "genesis of a song" story. In fictionalising a meeting between Paul McCartney (Sky Elobar) and Stevie Wonder (Gil Gex) at Paul's Scottish cottage, and throwing narrative structure and logic out the window, is he poking fun at how seriously classic rock fans take these stories? We discuss the comedy of repetition, how it can force you to reinterpret simple statements by overexposure to them, and, briefly because it can't

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1:16:28

Borrowed Time: Lennon's Last Decade

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/10/13

Alan G Parker's latest Beatles-related documentary is about John Lennon's last ten years - or maybe the last 15 or so? We look at the film's unfocused approach, its long, seemingly unedited anecdotes, and the perspective lent it by its choice of talking head contributors. We also discuss its use of AI animation, from both a creative and ethical perspective.You can currently watch Borrowed Time on Prime Video. If not it's widely available digitally, and as we mention, it had a Blu-ray and DVD release

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1:28:30

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/10/06

A film that contains one of the most famous cinematic depictions of the Beatles: Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Justin Long and Jason Schwartzman's brief cameo as Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in Rishikesh, India is widely quoted and memed. We ask what assumptions it makes about the Beatles' personalities. How responsible was the Yellow Submarine film for how a generation, particularly in America, thinks of the Beatles' individual characters and does that play a role here?The

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1:12:08

John Lennon and George Harrison on The Frost...

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/09/29

On Friday 29 September 1967, John Lennon and George Harrison appeared as guests on The Frost Programme, whose host David Frost had just interviewed Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, with whom the Beatles were then prominently associated in the press. They discussed their newfound practice of transcendental meditation and the public were interested enough that the two appeared again, five days later, on Wednesday 4 October to continue the discussion, this time in front of a questioning audience of academics and

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59:58

One to One: John & Yoko

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/04/17

First question about this new documentary from Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards: is there anything new in it? It's a resounding yes: we discuss the framing device the film uses to evoke the chaos and political turmoil of Nixon-era early 1970s America. One big selling point for the film is also the archive of recorded phone calls between John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Allen Klein, May Pang, and other assistants, and we look at what this reveals about them. And it's interesting to note that this seems

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38:18

Sam Mendes' four-film Beatles cinematic event: cast...

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/04/04

Sam Mendes has his cast, then: Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison. What do we think of the official cast announcement? Can fans get past the idea that not every actor looks exactly like the Beatle he's playing? What do these actors' other performances suggest they could do with the Beatles story? Plus we discuss the release strategy, now it's seemingly confirmed that all four films will be released in the

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51:16

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years...

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/03/17

We finish off this season with a look at the film's use of footage that's been colourised from black and white. Was this done, as Iain Lee suggested to Ed on his Talk Radio show in 2016, because American audiences don't like black and white? We think there's a bit of mileage in that: more specifically that the brief here was to present this footage to a new audience with a bit of sheen. We also discuss talking heads in the film like Eddie Izzard, and look at what they contributed, as well as some

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50:35

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years...

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/03/10

Has Ron Howard's 2016 documentary effectively been superseded by other films since? Probably the first official Apple film to be released as part of the Beatles legacy project, it's very polished and pays a lot of respect to fan culture, in particular teenage girls. But nine years on, does it cover too much of the same ground as other films, like Beatles '64, to be significant?You can rent the film online in a few places:

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1:05:23

Doctor Who: The Devil's Chord

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/03/03

The coming together of two great British cultural institutions feels fated, but how well did Russell T. Davies pull it off? We look, of course, at how accurate they've been when it comes to Beatle detail, and in particular at the characterisations of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Matt, a Whovian, explains how this episode fits into the canon and how this season of Doctor Who compared tonally to others, while Ed, who thinks he might have seen a couple of the Christopher Eccleston ones 20 years ago,

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49:50

Yesterday (1985 Polish film)

The Beatles Films Podcast ·

2025/02/24

We look at Radoslaw Piwowarski's Beatles-themed film, which won the Golden Shell at the 1985 San Sebastián International Film Festival. It's the story of teenagers in 1964 communist Poland trying to forge an identity through their love of the Beatles. We talk about cinema behind the Iron Curtain (the Polish People's Republic was under communist rule both in the story and when the film was released) and what that means for freedom of expression, both for the filmmakers and the characters. Is the

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45 results

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