The Next Picture Show
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The Next Picture Show
Looking at cinema's present via its past. From the former editorial team of The Dissolve, The Next Picture Show examines how classic films inspire and inform modern movies. Episodes take a deep dive into a classic film and its legacy, then compare and contrast that film with a modern successor. Host...
Recent Episodes
487 episodes
Our Aliens, Ourselves Pt. 1 — E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Disclosure Day is not Steven Spielberg’s first film about the confirmation of alien life, nor is it the first such Spielberg film we’ve discussed on t...
Negative Spaces, Pt. 2 — Backrooms
Backrooms’ journey to the big screen — from anonymous 4chan post to viral creepypasta to mega-popular YouTube series to A24-backed box-office smash —...
Negative Spaces, Pt. 1 — Phantasm
20-year-old Kane Parsons is now the youngest director to ever hit No. 1 at the box office thanks to his A24-backed horror film Backrooms, which made b...
Baby on Board, Pt. 2 — The Mandalorian and Grogu
The Mandalorian and Grogu plays like a few stitched-together episodes of The Mandalorian, which makes it a particularly apt pairing with the 1980 Lone...
#525: Baby on Board, Pt. 1 — Shogun Assassin (1980)
The Mandalorian and Grogu gives the feature-film treatment to a streaming series whose premise — an outcast warrior lives by a code of honor while tra...
Burden of Hoof, Pt. 2 – The Sheep Detectives
Kyle Balda’s new family film The Sheep Detectives pulls off a move George Miller was dissuaded from including in his 1998 sequel Babe: Pig in the City...
#523: Burden of Hoof, Pt. 1 — Babe: Pig in the City
The Sheep Detectives is about as short on pigs as Babe: Pig In the City is short on sheep, but Kyle Balda’s new family film still reminded us of the 1...
#522: Minnesota Not-So-Nice, Pt. 2 — Normal
Despite the snowy setting, law-enforcement-officer protagonist, and pointed poking at the idea of "Minnesota Nice," Ben Wheatley's new Bob Odenkirk-st...
#521: Minnesota Not-So-Nice, Pt. 1 — Fargo
As a comedic crime thriller set in snowy Minnesota and featuring a sheriff protagonist, it would be pretty tough for the new Bob Odenkirk-starring sho...
#520: Past Imperfect, Pt. 2 — The Drama
Kristoffer Borgli’s provocative new The Drama turns on the revelation of a secret past that is more of an abstraction than the one in the other half o...
#519: Past Imperfect, Pt. 1 — A History of Violence
Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama uses the revelation of one character’s dark secret as a provocative “twist,” but also as the basis for an exploration of...
#518: In a Lonely Space, Pt. 2 — Project Hail Mary
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s Project Hail Mary is an exceptionally audience-friendly adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, offsettin...
#517: In a Lonely Space, Pt. 1 — Silent Running
Already the biggest blockbuster of the year so far, Project Hail Mary has proven itself about as audience-friendly as a story about looming worldwide...
#516: Couples Getaway, Pt. 2 — The Bride!
The Bride! is already a certified box-office flop, but does Maggie Gyllenhaal’s ambitious but deeply flawed sophomore feature as a writer-director hav...
#515: Couples Getaway, Pt. 1 — Bonnie and Clyde
The obvious point of comparison for The Bride! is apparent in the title, but Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new revivification of The Bride of Frankenstein finds...
#514: If We Picked the Oscar Winners
With the 98th Academy Awards around the corner, we are breaking format this week to register the Next Picture Show's recommendations to the Academy of...
#513: Pop Classics, Pt. 2 — Wuthering Heights (2026)
Emerald Fennell’s new Wuthering Heights is full of stylistic provocations — skin walls, bed eggs, and light BDSM among them — but whether they are in...
#512: Pop Classics, Pt. 1 — Romeo + Juliet (1996)
With its bold stylization, pop soundtrack, and provocative sensibility, Emerald Fennell’s new Wuthering Heights appeals to a contemporary audience so...
#511: Both Sides of the Isle, Pt. 2 — Send Help
Sam Raimi's new survival thriller Send Help is more overtly comedic and cartoonishly violent than the other film in this week's pairing of dueling cas...
#510: Both Sides of the Isle, Pt. 1 — Swept Away (1974)
What happens when two people on opposite sides of a power imbalance end up stranded together on a deserted island? Before that was the premise of Sam...
#509: Captive Audiences, Pt. 2 — Dead Man's Wire
Even without Al Pacino's name in its cast list, the new Dead Man's Wire would invite comparisons to Dog Day Afternoon in its dramatization of a real-l...
#508: Captive Audiences Pt. 1 — Dog Day Afternoon
In adapting the true story about a '70s hostage crisis that played out on television and in the public eye, Gus Van Sant's new Dead Man's Wire is just...
#507: Our Top Films of 2025
We’re kicking off the new year with our old tradition of looking back on the film year that was, as Scott, Keith, and Tasha gather to talk through the...
Avatar: Fire and Ash (The Lobby Bonus Episode)
Due to the confluence of holiday and flu seasons, our Best of 2025 episode is delayed a week, so in its place we're sharing a recent episode of The Lo...
#506: Lose to Win, Pt. 2 — Marty Supreme
Whether he’s playing billiards or table tennis, a successful hustler requires no small amount of charisma, something Timothée Chalamet’s ping-pong pro...
#505: Lose to Win, Pt. 1 – The Hustler
The new Marty Supreme follows a table-tennis phenom with the talent necessary to beat the best players in the world, if only he can keep his self-dest...
#504: The Eternal Question, Pt. 2 — Eternity
David Freyne’s new Eternity shoves a thematically rich afterlife scenario into a romcom-shaped container, resulting in an above-average example of the...
#503: The Eternal Question, Pt. 1 — After Life (1998)
The new fantasy romcom Eternity turns on a scenario familiar from any number of films that imagine life after death as a bureaucratic process, but its...
#502: Human/Nature, Pt. 2 — Train Dreams
Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams uses gorgeous imagery of the natural world, combined with an omniscient narrator quoting from the Denis Johnson novella t...
#501: Human/Nature, Pt. 1 — Days of Heaven
Clint Bentley’s new Train Dreams uses the vast canvas of the natural world to frame a relatively tiny story of a single human life, a juxtaposition of...
#500: What's In a Name — The Last Picture Show
Don’t be alarmed by the title of this week’s movie selection, this is not our final episode — in fact, it’s our 500th, a milestone none of us expected...
#499: Impaired Visions, Pt. 2 — Radu Jude's Dracula
From its nearly three-hour runtime to its deployment of some of the most deranged CGI you’ve ever seen committed to screen, Radu Jude’s DRACULA often...
#498: Impaired Visions, Pt. 1 — 8 1/2
Radu Jude’s DRACULA is, technically speaking, yet another movie about one of the most depicted antagonists in all of cinema, but in actuality it’s abo...
#497: First Strikes, Pt. 2 — A House of Dynamite
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE is built on an undeniably hooky premise — a nuclear missile originating from an unknown source is heading right for us — but is th...
#496: First Strikes, Pt. 1 — Fail Safe
Kathryn Bigelow’s new A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE games out a scenario that filmmakers have been grappling with since the mid-20th century, in particular the...
#495: Revolutionary Roads, Pt. 2 — One Battle After Another
Paul Thomas Anderson’s ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is a very different film in form and function than the other half of this pairing, RUNNING ON EMPTY, b...
#494: Revolutionary Roads, Pt. 1 — Running on Empty (1988)
Paul Thomas Anderson himself cited 1988’s RUNNING ON EMPTY as a direct influence on the new ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, and it’s not difficult to see th...
#493: 'Til You Drop, Pt. 2 — The Long Walk
It took decades in development hell for an adaptation of Stephen King’s THE LONG WALK to trudge its way into theaters, and now that it has, we’re of s...
#492: 'Til You Drop, Pt. 1 — They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
It took decades for THE LONG WALK to make it to the big screen, in part because the Stephen King novel on which it’s based is so unrelentingly grim —...
#491: Kings' Ransoms, Pt. 2 — Highest 2 Lowest
Spike Lee’s HIGHEST 2 LOWEST is built on the rock-solid narrative foundation of HIGH AND LOW, but the “interpretation” of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime-...