The Empire Podcast Review Of The Year 2025

30:40Okay. Okay. Nos for a two. Good movie. Good movie. We Live in Time. Good movie. Nickel Boys. Good movie. A Real Pain. Good movie. This could become repetitive. This could become repetitive. You could become repetitive. We could all become repetitive. I'm going through a panda plan. Nope, no idea what that is. Wolfman. Wolfman. I liked Wolfman decent decent movie yeah I hoped for something else and I'm not sure what it was you know what I thought it was a great year of horror it might have been so I still haven't seen Bring Her Back because I was told it would upset me it will upset you very much but by all accounts it was very good for those who have seen it of which I am not one it was a very good year that's Dracula I did however see I saw Talk to Me This Year for the first time so you know that's good did you like The Nosferatu voice of the Bill Skarsgård.

31:38I mean, if he'd used the Pennywise voice in Nosferatu, it might be more entertaining. You can do that voice, but I can do the other voice, Alitas. I don't know if I'm ready for dueling Bill Skarsgårds here. Yeah, it might be a bit, yeah. Only one of us has a giant prosthetic pin. Hey, it was a big year for prosthetic Skarsgård Cox. Yes, it was. Because Pillian also has one. That's right, yes. Also, there's a terrifying prospect that one of them wasn't prosthetic and that they're just that well-blessed. Did Stalin whip it out at any point this year? I mean, in Andor, actually deleted scenes he might well have done.

32:15He is called Luthan Rail. I burned my knob! Like, on my... On a George Foreman grill? Who hasn't been there? Who hasn't done that? That is so disturbingly specific.

32:33just as an experiment please don't elaborate further I would like to take this George Foreman grill back to the Argos what is happening? it has some damage you're going to be a penny wise again it veers into Scooby Doo territory it's a really fine line a really fine line if you go too far it's okay, Jackie. It's just, you have to, you've got to rein it into the touch. Serious film journalists, for fuck's sake. What are they talking about in the Sight and Sound podcast right now? They're talking about their favorite subtitle of the year. We're talking about Skarsgård dicks. That said, what was your favorite Skarsgård dick of the year?

33:13Oh, Alexander's. Pillian, yeah. Pillian? Pillian, yeah. Because it has a, you know, a Prince album. If you could zero in, I mean, James has, if you could zero in on a reason why one Skarsgård dick was elevated faded above the other. What would... Prince Albert? Yeah. But also, I mean, the undead, we don't know how that works. We don't know what kind of circulation he has. It had a... It might be totally ornamental. Yeah. A little bit dilapidated. Fetid. Fetid, yes. Like it had been left too long on a George Foreman grill. A little bit toasty. A little bit toasty. Anyway. A Complete Unknown also came out in January.

33:51That was a good film. Good movie. It was, yeah. Yeah, we liked that. But awards films so we're not going to talk about them. Okay. Yeah. So there you go. That's January fucking sacked off. Screw you. January. January's the shittest month. Apart from this January when we're doing a live show at King's Place in London. Thank you. January 9th, episode 700. There may still be tickets available at kingsplace.co.uk should you wish to find out. There will be great guests. Many, many wonderful people. All right. We're into February now. September 5th which was confusingly released. I think it was in the wrong month.

34:27It was a good movie, though. But yes, I mean, it would have maybe done better in a month that wasn't February. Yes, I think so. I think so. Oh, one of the most disappointing films of the year, sadly, Love Hurts. My heart bled for Kee Hiwi Kwan, who was left really shouldering the responsibility of a quite bad action movie. And he really, really gives it his all. He's not the problem. He's absolutely not the problem. But yeah, the script in the story weren't the best. I didn't hate it, but yeah, it was a disappointment. We may sidebar some discussions here, by the way, folks. A film may trigger us down different little alleyways.

35:07I don't know why I'm saying that. I don't know why I'm preparing you for tangents and maybe going down alleyways with different types of movies. But on Friday, the 14th of February, 2025, Valentine's Day, came the most romantic film of the year. Captain America Brave New World in which we learned to love again I mean we didn't wow well we kind of did did we? we tried hard I mean I liked it I liked it I did not I admired it I thought it was and I think I went on record as saying this I thought it was by degrees the worst of all MCU movies including Incredible Hulk oh what? no genuinely because I think there is nothing in Brave New World which is as good as the prologue sequence of Incredible Hulk.

35:52I thought Brave New World was a very disappointing, very disappointing entry in the MCU and so it's a shame. But you're being unfair to it by comparing it to other movies on itself. I mean, that is true. In a world where it's the only movie... Oh, sure, but then it's five stars. I'm not so sure. Even then, I think. Okay. Even then, you could go outside and play in the garden. I went low four. Yeah, so that was exceptionally generous. I realize that, but I was just... It's Valentine's Day, right? I was in a romantic mood. You were just looking for love in all the wrong places. I really was. I went three, which is a recommendation.

36:33I thought there was enough in there, but it has not aged well even over the last 10 months. I think it's probably fair. And does that mean we can sidebar about the MCU? Because we're obviously going to be talking about Thunderbolts. We're going to be talking about Fantastic Four, The First Steps. Or is this a larger sidebar, talking about superheroes, but it might lead us to a larger sidebar by box office and the state of cinema in general. I think, I mean, there are a lot of conversations we've had here. The superhero fatigue is definitely a thing at this point. Don't mention tiredness. They hear superhero fatigue.

37:04The ennui of the cinema going public as a whole. But I don't think it has been helped by the fact that it hasn't been a banner year for Marvel. That said... That's better. Good. Very good. Except there was a banner year, although he wasn't in it. That's true. I enjoyed Fantastic Four, but it has not stuck in my mind particularly. I liked it a lot at the time. I didn't love it, but it has not really stuck with me. But as we come to the end of the year, I have to say, if I were to pick one Marvel movie from this year, it would be Thunderbolts. I do think Thunderbolts is the best of the three Marvels.

37:39I kind of agree. I think Thunderbolts was imperfect, but really fun and had a point of view and had something to say, I felt like. first steps I loved what it was going for I didn't think it always got there but I loved the tone I loved the colour I loved the casting I thought the casting was great actually in the end I think they second guessed themselves a bit too much with first steps I think that might be what happened and I think all of them are suffering from this feeling of what are we building to I don't think anybody really I don't think anyone is 100 or was 100 % sure when they were finishing off those films maybe they are now that they're making they're deep into Doomsday and they may have a very, very clear idea of what's coming now.

38:21I would imagine, I would hope that that's been sorted. I think, and this is not a 2026 preview because we've already recorded that, but this, I think 2026 bodes well for Marvel because Spider-Man is usually a very safe bet and Doomsday... Usually. Well, yeah, it could go horribly wrong. There's some very famously bad Spider-Man movies. But I mean, as in the Tom Holland Spider-Man have all been pretty solid stuff, really fun, really entertaining stuff. and Doomsday has the potential to be something spectacular and if I were to put odds on, I would have thought at worst it would just be good. I don't see it being terrible.

38:53I could be wrong, but I feel quite optimistic about that. I don't think there's a world in which it comes within 100 million light years of Infinity War Endgame, but I think that would be unreasonable to expect it to. I think if it just lands a really fulfilling, you know, multi-stranded, exciting story, I think that would be great. That would be great. No, I agree on that. I think that's, the things are looking up. But it has not been a great year, I think it's fair to say. And I think the box office has reflected a degree of disattachment. I think, you know, it's also, it's just the problem of any long-running series that you don't completely reboot, which might be what we get after Secret Wars.

39:29It feels like homework. And you feel like, even if you were a fan, it is hard to remember exactly where you left everyone. Well, if Secret Wars comes out 2027 at the moment, but maybe 2028, I would say maybe realistically 2028, that will be 20 years to the year since Iron Man it would make sense to maybe do some sort of multiversal thing and reboot it but it is interesting this year I think last year it was only one MCU movie and that was Deadpool and Wolverine which made over a billion dollars and seemed to have rekindled the appetite for the MCU among the general movie going public and I think it's a general movie going public which is the reason why the box office is really tailed off for the MCU like none of these movies I think got anywhere close to what Disney or Marvel would have wanted or maybe even expected in these films this year.

40:20You know, Captain America Brave New World made just over$400 million worldwide, which is nowhere near what the previous Captain America movies. Obviously, they had Chris Evans and Steve Rogers. And as much as I like Anthony Mackie and Sam Wilson, I don't think there's the same general affection for him and for that Captain America. And I don't think people necessarily remember that he's taken over and he's the new captain. I don't think that's something that's, again, unless you watch the TV show, which we're not talking about TV. I know it was at the end of Endgame, but that's the kind of thing, that's a one scene thing that we know is leading to something.

40:57But if you're a casual cinema goer who just went to see Endgame, you don't necessarily remember that. True, but the marketing makes it very clear that he is Cap. But at the same time, you are still starting from a lower position of knowledge with people. And I think also just you are, I think there is just a sense of everything is struggling to connect. Everything is struggling to break through the noise of our culture. You know, there is no, I don't know. There's no TV that everybody watches. Like old people watch. Well, Helen. Old people still watch terrestrial and they still see ads for things.

41:35But apart from that, It's very hard to break through two people en masse. And there has to be a sense that you're watching something, I think, truly extraordinary that needs to be seen on the big screen. We'll get onto it because we're running out of time in this studio. So we may talk about box office when we move to the other studio. And we should. And we should. And we'll talk about things like F1 and Mission and Superman and things like that. But there's a sense, I think, with Marvel that people can check out from certain individual episodes, if you can call it episodes, certain individual movies, and then it'll be fine, and they'll come back for Doomsday, and Doomsday will be huge.

42:14I've said before, I don't think it'll be as huge as Infinity War or Endgame, but will it be as huge as something like Age of Ultron? Will it be between those two stools? More than likely, I would say. But with these three movies, I don't think that creatively there was a huge chasm this year yeah I think it's fair to say now that Captain America Brave New World was by some distance the weakest of the three entries that they made and Thunderbolts weirdly which is the one that did least well at the box office and which we thought was not going to be good early on yeah absolutely not that it blew me away I don't think any of these movies are troubling my MCU top 10 but Thunderbolts is certainly in the it's certainly top 15 pleasant surprise and you know Jake Schreier clearly did a job that impressed Kevin Feige because he's been given the keys to the X-Men kingdom as a result of this movie it had a lot on its mind it actually you know it had a subtext that was well maybe more text at times but it was still really refreshing it was about mental health and loneliness it had a really really good ensemble as well Fantastic Four as Helen said had a lot of a lot of things going for did it really work overall 100 % as a movie.

43:27No, but it was a good first step. But I will say that I'd imagine that there's still, maybe not full-blown panic, but certainly a degree of disquiet over at MCU HQ because these are the movies that were the big run-ins to Doomsday. Fantastic Four was meant to be the big run-in to Doomsday, which of course was meant to be coming out in May next year, was moved back to December. And the idea was that you'd be surfing into those movies on a wave of just overall acclaim and audiences going to them in their millions, as happened with Infinity War, where people were going into it off the back of Ragnarok and Black Panther, and these movies just getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

44:10And that kind of hasn't happened here. And instead, you're kind of going into hardcore going, like we're going, and other Marvel gigs are going. But the general public, by and large, have shrugged their shoulders at Thunderbolts, and they've shrugged their shoulders by and large at Fantastic Four and also the mechanism now that meant that people would have been exposed to these films on a casual basis has by and large gone which is all these films now will live in Disney Plus and you have to be in the mood to watch it on Disney Plus if these movies rocked up on Sky Cinema say or the BBC in a year and a half or so you know the BBC is still showing things like Civil War and Winter Soldier.

44:55And whenever that happens, my Twitter explodes, people going, oh my God, you see how fucking good this movie is? I've forgotten how good these movies were. That's not going to happen with these movies. They're not going to show up in terrestrial TV. That's a contributing factor, right? But there are a lot of contributing factors. There's the fact that when all of those movies started to dovetail together the first time around, everyone was just like, this is so cool what is happening. This is cool and new and exciting. This is cool and new and I've never seen anything like this before and this is redefining cinema for me as a long-form storytelling experience, which is not traditionally.

45:29And then to culminate with... And also, there was a quality issue there where every film, to an extent, was getting better. They were getting bigger and they were getting better. And then you finish up with Infinity War and Endgame, which exceeded so far beyond expectations. They were fantastic. So anything coming off the back of that, as we've said many times, was going to have its work cut out. But then, again, you have a discoverability issue, you have a homework issue, because of all the Disney Plus stuff, which came straight afterwards. And you have a quality issue in that the films generally haven't been as well received or resonated in quite the same way.

45:59And then there's the fact that how do you top something that is that good? I don't know how... You can't go bigger. You can only go smaller or you can try and replicate it and that hasn't worked very well. I also do think there's a wider cultural issue. It's far beyond the Marvel and the MCU. There's a wider cultural issue of people wanting something new and not knowing what that is. And I think we're seeing this with the box office of everything, nearly everything. Deadpool and Wolverine felt new, even though it was old characters, because Deadpool is so unpredictable and was doing weird shit.

46:32And it was in the MCU for the first time. And Barbie was new, not just because it was a Barbie and that's a brand name that is known, but because it felt weird and different. So much as glimpsed an advert, you were like, oh, this is going to be something new. and I feel like this is the one thing that these studios are consistently denying us is freshness and newness and when they have delivered that they have gotten results Sinners was a huge hit this year it can be done but they are not consistently choosing newness they keep trying to give us the same things and I think people are beginning to see Marvel rightly or wrongly as the same old thing well it feels wildly risk averse and I would understand And if the old things, the old tired things, the reliable things were delivering the results they wanted them to do, you could understand them being risk averse.

47:24But at this point, even the safe bets are not safe bets. So at this point, you have nothing to lose by rolling the dice, nothing. But this is not what they're choosing to do. Instead of rolling the dice, they're doubling down on the algorithm, they're doubling down on AI, they're doubling down on the same old shit. And with respect to, we love that shit, right? We love it. We are here for Star Wars, Star Trek. No, but I mean, Star Wars, Star Trek, MCU, DC, Terminator, Aliens. We're going to be there for all of that. But we would also like there to be new things like those that we love as much.

48:00That you can then spin off and we can get bored of the drive. Yes, and we should be talking about those for 40 years. The one thing I will say, which I found quite heartening this year, in a year where IP farming has become the norm, is storytellers having the courage to say, okay, I can't do something new, I have to work with an established IP, but I'm going to do something very different with it. So, going back to TV, Alien Earth, for example. Andor. Staying on the big screen. Yeah, Andor as well. Staying on the big screen, Predator Badlands. It's like taking an established IP, which is old, which is tired, which is, you know, on paper, deeply tedious, and doing something fun and fresh.

48:29And in Andor's case, absolutely mind-blowingly excellent with it. And in doing so, reinvigorating the entire IP. So that's something. That would be better. Yes, more of that, please. but I don't know if it did reinfigorate the entire IP Andor Andor's amazing but I don't think it had any influence on say The Mandalorian and Grogu which is going to feel I think that audience is so different but what it has done and I can only speak for myself personally it has done it has it's reinfigorated you it's opened my heart to Star Wars again in a way that it wasn't previously same with Alien Earth it's made me look at aliens in a way which it feels fresh and I feel excited about the alien property going forward and about Star Wars going forward when I was basically done with those things at that point.

49:14So it's been very... Basically, it's worked for me, and I appreciate it. It's been a great year for movie monsters we thought were passé, we thought had long died off, Alien, Predator, Bridget Jones. All back, all back. And a new movie monster hit this year. We're going to finish off February in two minutes. The Monkey. Oh, that was fun. Oz Perkins, The Monkey. Of course you didn't. it was too silly dare I say it a bit stupid and no I loved it I know you did that's a different horror franchise guys it was like fuck em hall with blood I thought it's not my favourite horror movie of the year in which terrible terrible disasters befell people we'll get to Final Destination Bloodlines whenever we move to a new studio because there is a man at the door who wants to take over the studio and quite rightly because they have to do a show from here so we are about to finish this one off.

50:12The monkey's amazing. Check out the monkey. We'll be back in two seconds in the studio. You won't hear any difference. All right, so we have now moved to a different studio. I don't think you can tell the sound difference. Is there a marked difference in the quality of the sound, folks, or is it exactly the same? No. If I hadn't told you we'd move, would you know? No. You don't think? I still don't know that we moved. The only thing that's really a tell for me is if I'm to look around the studio. Hang on a second. What? What is this? It looks a lot more. Can you take a picture of this? Yes. What is happening?

50:41I can take a picture of this. The Pilot TV podcast logo has somehow appeared in the branding on the walls. James, is this you're doing? No, this is the best part of this. I didn't do this. It was like this when we came in. When I came in, this room was empty. I think James has been a little gremlin in the works here. It is true. I walked in the room with him and it was already piloted. It's the ghost of Christmas present. This is a locked room mystery to rival that of Wake Up Dead Man. Who is responsible for changing the logo to the Pilot TV podcast? Maybe they just like yellow. Yeah. I need to change this.

51:18I cannot do a podcast. This is like, you know the way that yellow is bad to Green Lantern? The shocking yellow of the Pilot TV podcast logo. It's a bilious shade, isn't it? It's like, wow. Yeah, a vomitous shade of yellow. It's like kryptonite for you. Yeah, it is. It's sucking my powers. So I need to move it back. Here we go. Brand one. Please work. Nope, it's just a black screen. Pilot has consumed all things. This room is a critic. There is no empire, only pilot. We have a question. We have a question. I'm not taking listener questions yet, but I saw this one when I was in the toilet. Thank you.

52:01Too much information. Who doesn't? Who doesn't surf Twitter when they're on the toilet? This is from FlixCollector. If cinema drops off even further due to mergers and acquisitions, is the pod safe, or will it merge and acquire the other pod concerning the small screen? James, I put it to you. M-Pilot. M-Pilot. M-Pilot. I'm really dating myself here, but you know when you were growing up and there were certain comic books, things like Wizarding Chips and the Dandy and the Beano and things like that? Well, every now and again, one of those would be swallowed up by a bigger publication. and for a while that's how Wizz and Chips became Wizz and Chips because there were two comics called Wizz and Chips and then Wizz consumed Chips and it became Wizz and Chips right M-Pilot we would consume Pilot right but they would remain the first four letters would be Empire and the last three letters would be Pilot although technically egalitarian all five letters of Pilot would also be in the name so I'm not sure about it yeah Empilotter or you could just keep the name but call it the Empilot TV Podcast the Empilot TV Podcast yeah yeah it wouldn't work brand two let's see if this works nope yes we have a logo we have a logo it's a dark logo we have yes it is dark and ominous just like the monkey directed by Oz Perkins we talked about that it was good wasn't it some good deaths in that fun fun deaths yeah there were some fun deaths in there but it was very very silly and I didn't like the ending.

53:35Also had some of my favorite edits of the year. There were some really, really hard contrasting edits in that where someone is talking about being optimistic about the future and then immediately hard cuts to their funeral. Just, ah, sort of thing that tickles me. Anyway, The Monkey came out in February, as did, we can't really talk about this because it is an Oscar movie, The Last Showgirl, and I'm Still Here. Walter Salas' I'm Still Here. Oh, good movie. with a great performance from Fernanda Torres, Liverpool's number nine. Bounce! No? Okay. Should we move on to March? Oh, let's. Let's do it.

54:15Let me see. Mickey 17. Any love for Mickey 17? Yeah, so much love for Mickey 17. How much love for Mickey 17? Quite a lot of love. I like, I just like Robert Pattinson being a weird little guy. That is just one of my favorite sort of sub-genres in cinema. I'm more of a weird big guy. Okay, but... He's Batman. Even his Batman was a weird little guy. I can't explain it. He's just a weird little guy. He has strong, weird little guy energy. Yeah, he does. And just, I was lucky enough to interview Bong Joon-ho for this. And he basically talked about how Robert Pattinson bamboozled him and told him that he was going to do a very normal voice and accent.

54:52And he was like, well, I trust my actor. I guess that's what's happening. And because he doesn't, he isn't fluent in English. Obviously, he isn't fluent in accents. and then got that sort of slightly oddball performance. So I just really enjoyed that. Slightly oddball performance? Everybody was very oddball in it, but I enjoyed that energy. It was a big old oddball performance in so, so many ways. Yeah, good film. I don't think Bong Joon-ho is greatest. No, that's fair, but that's a very high bar. Yes. What would you say is his best? What's his favorite film? What was his favorite film? Avengers Endgame.

55:32Is it Parasite? Or is it the host? Or Snowpiercer? No, it is Parasite. It is Parasite. I love Snowpiercer and I adore the host, but it's Parasite. Here's a film that when I saw it, I thought, oh, this could be a fixture on my top 10 of the year list. And it has proven to be so. I'm going to say two words to you now, and those two words are black bag. Yes. But I can't tell you why I'm saying them. All I can say is Black Bag. Yeah. I feel like it might be the sexiest movie of the year. It's pretty sexy. Is there any Skarsgård penis in that movie? Yeah, apart from its lack of Skarsgård, which is obviously a failing on Soderbergh's part.

56:15Maybe that's what was in the Black Bag. We don't know how big the bag was. But they do have Michael Fassbender, so I feel like they are covered. Well, you need a lot of cloth. Ha ha ha ha ha. Also, it has a Gustav Skarsgård, so, you know. It does have a Skarsgård. And he is a penis in it. Right, so it has a Skarsgård penis. Oh my God. Well, the year is saved. Black Bag, everybody. We've stumbled into relevance. Well done. I fucking love Black Bag so much. It is so, so good. I think it is Steven Soderbergh's best film in years. David Koepp had an incredibly prolific year this year. He wrote three films this year.

56:55Jurassic World Rebirth, Black Bag, and another Steven Soderbergh movie, Presence, which we kind of glossed over in January. I saw it and I went, eh. I have said it. But this script, this script is phenomenal. It has such acid dialogue, great characters. Fassbender is ice cold in this. It's got Pierce Brosnan being a prize bellend. It's got everything you want. Cate Blanchett being full Cate Blanchett. It's drama, sexy intrigue without a hint, really, of sex. Oh, it's a little bit. It's a little bit, but no one's like, you know, pushing each other up against tables and, you know, and whoa, you know what I mean?

57:38Like getting hot in the collar, you know what I mean? Not really. Whoa. Keep making those noises, I'm sure that helps. No, please stop. Please stop making sex noises. Okay. But it's a really sophisticated adult spy thriller. And it's funny. With a great central mystery. It is funny as fuck as well. the dinner table scene we did it in our review of the year in the magazine I got to speak to Marisa Abela about that about shooting that about her memories of shooting that an extraordinary dinner table scene right at the beginning as George the Michael Fassbender character is trying to wheedle out the traitor in their midst and does so with a simply or tries to do so anyway with a simply capital idea of drugging inviting people around to his house for a dinner party and then drugging the dish that he's making including his wife by the way who is not beyond suspicion.

58:26He does warn her, though. He does. But it's an incredibly also really wonderful affirmation of a really strong and powerful marriage as well. It's so good. If you haven't seen it, it didn't do that well at the box office. But if you haven't seen it, it's tremendous. It makes me sad. Sad that Soderbergh's not directing Ocean's 14. and that all of this cast isn't in Oceans 14. Oh my God, they'd be amazing. I mean, Cate Blanchett is already one of Oceans 8. True. It doesn't, it's not that great a leap to suppose her as part of Oceans 14. I would watch. It's all I'm saying. black bag black bag it's so good what else came out in okay here's a film The Alto Knights the Robert De Niro and Robert De Niro multiple De Niro's Barry Levinson movie that was fine it was okay it was Goodfellas Light even from the same writer Nicholas Pelleggi I'm singling it out because I think it has for me one of the great unsung comedic performances of the year which is Cosmo Jarvis It's Cosmo Jarvis being a really weird little dude.

59:46He's a really weird big dude, to be fair. But no, he's smaller than... He's smaller than Arpats. Do you think? Yes. Even if he's shorter, he's definitely broader. He's junkier. He's like a Yorkie, whereas Arpats is like a... A whippet. I wasn't thinking dogs, I was thinking chocolate bars. I know you're like a Yorkie as in like a Yorkshire Terrier. No, Cosmo Jarvis. And then Arpats would be a whippet. No, he's packed. Cosmo Jarvis is packed. He's small, but he's packed. You're saying he's not for girls. Is that what you mean? I'm very confused. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. But Cosmo Jarvis, is this a tangent?

1:00:23Cosmo Jarvis, am I tired? Cosmo Jarvis, who's on TV in Shogun. Cosmo Jarvis is so funny in this. Yes. I don't know what our pants is in terms of chocolate bars, but Cosmo Jarvis is so, so funny in the Aldo Nights, almost to the point. He's just this weird mob man. He's not very smart. He's doing a really strange voice in it. He does this sort of affectation with his neck where he's pressing his neck into his chest almost all the way through. He holds his neck so far back that it blends into his... Yeah, there's no discernible. His chin blends into his neck. Yes. And to the point where it took me most of the film to realize who it was because he looked so freaking weird.

1:01:07His hair is different. Do you know what he looks like? He looks like one of the characters in Dick Tracy who's buried under... who's buried under plastic. He's like Mumbles or something. Yeah. Yeah. And have you seen this one, Jimbo? I have not seen. It's a bit towards the end where he and De Niro are driving towards this kind of meeting of mob bosses and he can't help it. He's just pushing De Niro's buttons and De Niro's getting more and more aggravated with this guy. And in any other movie it would end with this Cosmo Jarvis character being whacked. But he's just a buffoon and they can't do anything about him.

1:01:34And he's just in the car saying buffoonish things. And he made me laugh so hard. He is so better than the film he's in. I can't even begin to tell you. I can't believe we've spent this much time on this film because it was so not good. No, it wasn't, but he is great in it. And I think it's great when you see a gem of a supporting performance in a movie that itself is mediocre. All right. I know I said no discussion of Oscar films. This is an Oscar winner. I think we should talk about it. It's flow. Oh, it's beautiful. Go with the flow is what you're saying. yes it is beautiful it's absolutely stunning it's beautiful dialogue free it's got Glenn Powell in it it's extraordinary it doesn't have Glenn Powell it does he's in the boat oh my god it's like you can see him he's right there Helen put this man straight the capybara yes Glenn Powell yeah okay I mean you could even have like sold him as a golden retriever you could actually he would work for you he has multiple rivals it's like the Alto Knights it's really not it's Glenn Powell in a boat very much not like the Alto Knights but it is a beautiful film and has one of the all-time great cat performances, which obviously is animated.

1:02:45And yeah, I just loved it. I loved the way it looked. I loved the story. I loved the world of it. This idea of a sort of post-human, vaguely alien, possibly fantastical world, question marks over all of those. But just a little cat doing its best to get through. And showing that it's not just humans, they're massive twats. Is it a monitor bird? What sort of bird is it? The birds are bastards. Is it a heron? It's not a heron. Not a heron? It's some kind of fishing, but anyway, it's big. But yeah, they're twas. I think it's a heron. No, but they're not. They're messengers of whatever. I mean, yeah, but the whole torturing and maiming aspect of it.

1:03:22I mean, that's not the nicest. Of course, it was directed by Gint Silbolodis, who was Latvian. And I was so lovely to see the joy that Latvia as a country felt when he won the Oscar and various other things. I think they won the BAFTA as well and the Golden Globe. and Latvia as a country was like, oh my God, look at this. He's put us on the map. I mean, Latvia was on the map before. You checked? Yeah, I checked. Yeah. Anyway, I was so overjoyed to see how overjoyed they were by this. And because he made this on software that's available to everybody and it's really inspirational. There's going to be a whole generation of people who are going to be making movies that are inspired by flow.

1:04:01I gave it a go. Mine was fucking shit. But I'm sure that someone out there is going to make a flow-style epic using Blender, and it's going to be amazing. Look at you knowing the lingo. Look at me having just read it on Wikipedia. Let's move over to April, shall we, you April fools? Wow, rude. Death of a Unicorn. That came out in early April. I enjoyed that film, but no one else did, it seems. It had some good moments. I don't think it was a good film. Yeah. I liked it it made me laugh although it did have some very very obvious reversals and some obvious kills but hey ho alright here's a movie that made a huge huge impact at the box office but I would argue not really anywhere else including this podcast because I don't think we even reviewed it it is a Minecraft movie which for a while was threatening to be the biggest movie of the year and for a terrifying moment looked like it might actually join the billion dollar club which is of course sacrosanct and reserved only for great films.

1:05:11Like Alice in Wonderland. Yes. And the remake of Moana. Or no, Lillian Stitch. Also out in April was The Amateur, that thriller with Rami Malek. Yeah, that was not great. It was okay. Yeah, fine. But that came out the same week as Drop, didn't it? And that was lots of fun. Yes, Drop dropped the same week. That's very good knowledge, James. Which one was Drop? Drop was the one with the airdrop thing where she goes on the date. Oh, that was very good. Right, yeah. Yeah. We've all been on that date. As the joke that I made then, which is as true now as it was then, is I have been on worse dates.

1:05:47I dropped the latest Christopher Landon film. And it did indeed drop, and I don't think it made much of an impact, despite being a decent year for horrors and psychological thrillers, which brings us to, I think, the most terrifying release of Friday, April 18th, 2025. I'm talking of course about the penguin lessons folks oh boy terrifying fake out fake out Helen's hatred of penguins came to the fore yeah were you okay with that film I mean look I appreciated the you know political commentary on 1970s South America but didn't love the penguins that's for sure didn't love the penguins did you know the penguin the chocolate bar and I realize this is a tangent but bear with me is no longer chocolate I read about this on the BBC yesterday it is now it now has so little chocolate content in it.

1:06:39Yeah. I think there's a lot of it is Soylent Green. I'm not sure, but that they have to legally call it a chocolate flavor bar. Yeah. Same thing with Blue Ribbon and Toffee Crisp. But it's still called a penguin because there's enough actual penguins in it that it can keep that. True story. And that's why Helen consumes many p-p-p-p-penguins. It is. Yeah. She's munching her way through one right now. I believe it's an emperor penguin. They're the crunchiest. Oh. Yeah. All right. The film that came out on April 18th that got everyone all a quiver was, of course, Warfare. It's a good film. It's a very, you know, put you in the shoes, put you in the moment, put you in the situation of these very young, very well-trained, but very young men who have not all experienced this kind of conflict before and who are tested to an unbearable degree in some cases.

1:07:29They are tested. It's really, really visceral and, yeah, really quite hard to watch. It's not one that I ever plan to go back and watch again, if I'm honest. Which is not to say it's not a good film. This kind of goes back to what Chris was saying about being in the mood to watch things on streaming services. Because Warfare, I was desperate to see that film when there were screenings of it, and I couldn't make any of them. And since then, I've had many opportunities to watch it at home. but I've never been in a mindset where I want to put myself through that of an evening. Is it on the streaming service now?

1:08:02It's on streaming, yeah. Oh, really? Well, you can get it on PVOD. Oh, PVOD, okay. But I could have it in my home. Just for$15.99? Admittedly. I mean, you pay so much here at Empire. That's nothing, isn't it? It's a gold that they pay us in. It's nothing. But a couple of times I've kind of hovered over the buy button on it and I've just thought, I can't. Have you? Yeah, because I really wanted to see it. But then I realized I would just be putting myself through abject misery for two hours, and I just, I can't bring myself to do it. Okay. But there's a lot of, you know, hearts and even some humor in the way that they interact and stuff.

1:08:36It's not, you know, wall-to-wall misery. I don't want to give you that impression. All right, Jimbo, I'm going to save your life. And your wallet as well. It's available to watch right now on Prime Video. Well, that's good. You don't have to pay for it. Yeah, but I have to pay for it emotionally, if not with money. And I think that's... So one day I will be in a place, in an existential place, where I think, do you know what? This is the film I really want to watch tonight. But that time has not yet come. All right. So you could watch it. If you watched it on Prime Video, of course, you would have to sit through a couple of adverts unless you paid the extra to be ad-free.

1:09:07That would be upsetting. Although maybe in that case, it would be a welcome breather. I don't know. I find if you download Prime Video stuff onto your phone or your tablet, there are no adverts. That's a nice hack. If you stream it, there are adverts. Although the adverts, I think, they do mitigate it somewhat. The adverts on Prime tend to be at the beginning and at the end. And occasionally you'll be completely ad-free throughout your movie. But sometimes you will get, if you pause it, there's a little yellow dot that tells you when the adverts are coming up. So they pick one place to put the adverts.

1:09:40So it's not too bad. It's not too egregious. But I still, I have checked on a just moral ground. Do you think they should go the route of that, was it that South American channel? Do you remember when it went viral, when it was the original Star Wars and they cut in the Sir Faisa Christie? No. You don't remember this? What? So they cut the ads into the footage of the film. So it's a bit where when Obi-Wan Kenobi shows Luke the lightsaber, he goes in and he opens up the box and there's two beers in it and he goes, Sir Faisa Christie! Or Christo, whatever it is. And then it comes back to the film.

1:10:13So it's seamlessly into the narrative. How do you not know about this? Helen, have you heard this? I have not, no. All right, I'm going to bring it up. No, we really don't need to. I think we should. Remember the no tangents rule? Remember that? This is a related tangent. Here we go.

1:10:41Probably because it started a bit further in. Here we go. What's he saying in English at this point? I have something for you. I have something for you. Your father's surface.

1:10:58Okay, okay, okay, okay. Is this a real thing? Or is this something that someone has done as a joke and then we've swallowed it? My understanding of this is this is actually a real thing. Which country is this? Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Uruguay. I do a lot of sporkle. I'm learning very slowly. I'm looking out. All the countries in South America. It's a series of television commercials made for Cerveza Crystal, owned by whoever it is, broadcast in Chile. Chile. In December 2003, during broadcast of the original Star Wars trilogy. That's absolutely insane. Also, that's a dreadful Obi-Wan Kenobi voice.

1:11:39They don't necessarily try to do the same voice. They just try to get across the same energy. They were inserted in such a way that they appear to be continuations of scenes from the film. Just to continue the same, in other commercials during these broadcasts, Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back can be seen in a scene reaching for his lightsaber, but instead grabs a can of crystal beer, or Palpatine in Return of the Jedi using the Force to levitate a can into his hand.

1:12:08George Lucas is okay with this? I mean, who knows? He's just sitting at home counting his billions, going, yeah, I'm okay with it. All right, okay. So there is a film that came out on Friday, April 18th, 2025, that I think will be talked about for many, many years to come. Ryan Coogler's Sinners. Yes. Sinners. Very good. Very, very good indeed. This was one of those films where, despite the fact that they gave away, I think, more than they should have done in the trailer. Yes. And even if not specific plot points, but there were visuals, I think, that gave away too much. This was something, I guess, I guess it was more than any of us really expected it to be because at the one hand it's like a really good vampire story but it's got some really really weird character beats and then of course there are people who incorrectly describe it as a musical it is not a musical but the musical sequences in it are outstanding I think it has the bones and the structure of a musical it has the heart of a musical and the soul of a musical is it a musical in the sense that there are original songs that people break into every five minutes no, okay, that's fair enough that's not a musical yes, it's not a musical but yes, there are incredible musical moments in it.

1:13:16The closest thing to a great musical this year for me is Highest to Lowest, but that's a whole other story. Oh, we'll get there. Oh, that's a good streaming film. It won't be showing up. That is a good streaming film that won't show up at all. Yes, yes. No, in the sense that there are not, again, songs that people break into, but there's an incredibly intrusive score. I was about to say. It does essentially build to a rap battle climax. It does. It does. That is true. The score was the most upsetting score of the year. I liked it. I hated it. You're not alone. It was so intrusive that it was actively distracting.

1:13:47Helen, that means James preferred the score of Thackham Hall. I did. Oh, my God. Anyway. Sinners. Sinners. It's terrific. And that one-er, right? Yes, the one-er. The one-er, incredible. And the music that goes with it. The two Michael B. Jordan performances, incredible. The whole cast, actually, were pretty much on form. Yeah, I really liked it. I had some quibbles, which is why I gave it four, not five. come for me bros in the trailer in the review but I I think I still think it's terrific I mean this is Empire's spoiler film of the year whoa whoa whoa whoa dude am I not allowed to say that whoa whoa whoa am I pulling back the curtain you are destroying suspense it's outrageous yeah sorry about that like some sort of faux Hitchcock but this you know I I would say this is probably my number one film of the year four stars I agree with Helen okay it's in my top 10 it's not my number one it's kind of yeah it's almost tied with another film that we haven't mentioned yet almost almost okay I'm very intrigued it's terrific and it's pure cinema and it's Ryan Coogler who I think you know the making of Wakanda Forever was for obvious reasons an arduous one and this is him and Michael B.

1:15:06Jordan cutting loose and you know it is a player in the Oscar race yeah and we shall see what happens yeah it's great to see a genre film being even in that discussion quite frankly yeah agreed and Ryan Coogler has made a pleasant sum of money off it good for him I think it's the same good for him yes indeed he'll be in Cerveza Crystal for quite a while to come so that's good Israel Cut of Sinners where yeah that's right Michael B. Jordan reaches for a stake like S-T-A-K-E to kill a vampire and the city goes Cerveza Crystal yeah that would be Instead of biting into someone's neck, they bite into a bottle of this beer.

1:15:45Oh, that's a sexy film too, isn't it? It's a sexy film. Sinners is pretty sexy. It is a sexy film. Yeah, it's a sexy film. Sexy vampire, sexy blood. I wouldn't say that the vampires are the sexiest. I mean, they're quite sexy. They're quite sexy. Really? Yeah. Well, they're horny. Ah, that's a different thing. But then again, the humans are horny. Everyone's horny. Everyone is the very horniest film of the year. Very horny film. She needs to leave, Chris. Do you need a moment? Let's talk about something else. Let's talk about something else that will not stir me in any way, shape, or form. Except it will.

1:16:22Because just one week later... I know what you're going to say. Came a date... Does the maths work? ...of such, such significance that scientists, astronomers, archaeologists, medics, paramedics, teachers... What's happening? and podcasters were drawn to it like moths to a flame I am speaking indeed of the great the great convergence that probably wasn't that great once the convergence actually arrived and was only a convergence in this country that's true yes wasn't a convergence elsewhere but it was still a lot of fun and I enjoyed the convergence and I enjoyed the bits of the convergence where people's faces were shot off I'm talking of course about the arrival of not one not two but three of the greatest action movies of all time Helen I'm saying of all time you are Den of Thieves 2 Pantera the sequel to Den of Thieves yeah I feel like people could have figured that out The Accountant 2 sequel to The Accountant featuring Christian Wolfe and his brother Braxton who is adopting a dog who is adopting a dog but then he adopts a cat in the end so he oh spoiler wow wow Oh, that's a spoiler!

1:17:40That's a spoiler! That's a spoiler! That's a major emotional pivot point of that entire film. I can't be having it. He's a dog person. He turns out to be a cat person. My birthday bro, Jon Bernthal, has betrayed me by choosing a cat instead of a dog. No. I mean, no. He was only doing it for the character. He himself, I'm sure, is a dog person. I'm sure he is a dog person. I'm pretty sure he is a dog person. Yeah, he must be a dog person. Yeah, he's got to be a dog person. Yeah, he's got that energy. September 20th, 1976, you're a dog person. Wow. I don't dictate it. It's where the stars were in conjunction with the planet.

1:18:14Dictates exactly who you are. How you look. How your abs shape. And Jon Bernthal and I were like peas in a fucking pod. Anyway, The Count and Two came out. Gavin O 'Connor directed it. I had a whale of a time with that movie. And then Gareth Evans' Havoc, the return of one of the greatest action directors on the planet with his long-delayed Netflix movie. I recognize that the movie itself is somewhat flawed, but the action sequences, oh, you can feel the sizzle, can't you? When they eventually come, you can feel the sizzle. I mean, Havoc was well-named. I think there's a lot of bullets flying in those.

1:18:52And the nightclub scene was great. The cabin scene, siege, was really bullet-riddled to an astonishing degree, to the point where I fear for the structural integrity of the building. I didn't love the opening car chase because I saw it. I think we've talked about this at Nauseam, but I saw it on the big screen and it looked a bit CG. Yeah, and I didn't really notice and someone on Twitter called me an idiot. But yeah, it was a lot of fun. Yeah, the convergence, I was not quite as excited about it as Chris was because I don't think any human being on the planet, including Gavin O 'Connor and Gareth Evans and the rest, were as excited about it.

1:19:29I interviewed Christian Gutegast. I interviewed all three of those directors and none of them were buying into the concept at all. Christian Gutegas was just actively nonplussed he just couldn't give a shit can you be actively nonplussed anyway he didn't care he was very much unmoved by my attempt to make this a thing anyway I enjoyed them for what it was worth and The Accountant 2 just like low-key one of the funniest films of the year it's very very funny Ben Affleck and John Bernthal and that are terrific together alright that's April we put a stake in the heart of April folks let's move into May shall we?

1:20:06it's gonna be May what was that? are you okay? NSYNC it was it? it's what everybody does every like at the end of April every year everybody does? everyone it's really widespread on social media is it? how widespread? very widespread is it just in your timeline? no maybe but it's it's the it's just the way Justin Timberlake in that song says it's going to be me it sounds like it's gonna be May. That's a good joke. Well, all the best ones have to be explained to idiots who have never heard them. Wow. Fucking knives out here. No, that's out later. Oh, yeah, that's true. All right. So we've already discussed Thunderbolts.

1:20:48That was a big release on May 1st. Yeah, again, I'm going to say very, very good. I think Bucky could have been integrated a little bit better into the overall ensemble, as could indeed Taskmaster. Oh, this was the year, was this the year I discovered Taskmaster or did I love it last year? You loved it last year. You've loved it for so long. Not for so long. I can't remember a time when you didn't love it. I'm an early, I'm a late early adopter. I'm a late adopter of Taskmaster. Yeah. You were definitely banging on about it a year ago. Was I? There's been a lot of, yeah. We did Taskmaster Live this time last year.

1:21:18That's right, we did. For your birthday? That's right, yeah. Oh, what days. What days. Memories. Memories. We have nothing lined up for your birthday this year, by the way. Well, you've got some time, yeah. I mean, you are running rapidly out of time. In so many ways. Yes. As Pink Floyd famously said, shorter of breath and one day closer to death. I had a friend who wrote that on my birthday card every single year. Genuinely. You said wrote it on your birthday. Are they not dead? No, he wrote. He wrote it on my birthday card every year. Yeah. But he doesn't send me birthday cards anymore. I'm so sorry, Chris.

1:21:50As I say, I didn't mean to. Is he dead? That's what I'm asking. No, but why would that change the tense of the word? He wrote it. What do you want me to say? He written it? He writes it. No, but he doesn't do it anymore. So therefore, I used the past tense. Please continue this conversation. Any love for the surfer? Nick Cage is a surfer? Alex Godfrey thought this was such a wonderful film. And so I came into this with very high hopes. I mean, it's good. I didn't love it, though. I found it a little bit slight and a lot grubby. Like really, really just nasty. And not in a particularly gore way, but everything in it is dirty and nasty.

1:22:26and just this is a film that you absolutely feel like you need a shower afterwards and so yeah I didn't enjoy it it's good but I didn't enjoy it that's fair it's yeah it's again not an experience I ever want to have again but one I'm glad I saw it was well made and as Nicolas Cage going nuts films go it's one of the best dramatic ones yes yes yes but a kind of a hang dog nuts for him yes I'm looking at this I don't think I've actually sat down yet and made a list to my top 10 of the year and I probably won't because I'll look at it and then horrify myself. But probably in my top 10, maybe in my top 10, around the outskirts of my top 10, mentioned it already, I haven't laughed in a cinema more this year than I laughed at Final Destination Bloodlines.

1:23:17The screening I was in and I paid to see it with my own money and the screening of Oik's, Norm's, scum subhuman scum but I love those guys because we were all on the same wavelength we had gone to see people die in the goriest messiest most fucked up most over the top manner possible and we we ate well that day I love this movie it's terrific it's the maybe not the best Final Destination movie overall that's Final Destination 2 obviously but it is I would say absolutely the funniest and the director's Adam B. Stein and Sackdapovsky know what they are doing. Very exciting. It was a real return to form, I feel like, for the franchise.

1:24:04I don't know if it was all form. They've all been much of a muchness for me. They've been dormant for 14 years, which is unusual for a franchise. Like Pennywise. Yes. Every 14 years, the Final Destination franchise returns to life and terrorizes a child. One of the funniest moments in Final Destination Bloodlines is when, frankly, the appalling little shit who starts everything off, the chain reaction of events that leads to the opening massacre at the beginning, is crushed by Grant Piano. And it's a great applause moment. Wow, we went to very different screenings. People loved it. He was a little shit.

1:24:43A little shit. But there's so many great deaths in this. There's the garbage truck death. There's the... And then, of course, the double whammy. There's the lawnmower death. there is the double whammy of the MRI death, which we'll have. That's going to haunt people. Yes, especially you have a genital piercing. Jimbo, we've known each other now for some time. Do you have a genital piercing? Do I have a Prince Albert? I couldn't possibly tell you. Please don't answer the question. This MRI is so powerful, it pulled in Alexander Skarsgård from a different movie into that scene. It's tremendous. Love it.

1:25:21love it love it love it love it love it bloodlines yes please I'd like to kiss it would you like to kiss Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning yes a chaste peck on the lips a chaste peck what like how you spelling chaste as in you're being chased by Ethan Hunt and then there's a peck on the lips because that's as far as he goes yeah I think so we don't do that here look this has been much maligned I had a really good time with this film I thought the submarine sequence was a absolutely outstanding. And, you know, is it the franchise, if indeed it is going out, going out on a high? No, but it's a solid entry.

1:25:59I don't think it's a bad film by any stretch. As in, is it going out with the best entry? No, it's definitely not doing that. No, yeah. No one's pretending that's fair to say. Yeah, yeah. I think that first half, while it sets up the stakes very, very, very effectively... Sinister's the same? I guess so. Again, I think we're spelling, yeah, we're talking about different kinds of stakes, maybe. I think that it's, is so heavy and so dark that it's hard to kind of enjoy the action. And look, I appreciate that on some levels because I know I complain a lot about when, you know, there are world-threatening things happening and people aren't taking it seriously.

1:26:37But also, you know, it's hard to kind of get that balance right when they're taking it this seriously. Because this, honestly, half of this film is like House of Dynamite. I know. And then there's some action going on. You know what? As you, it won't be shocking for you to hear, but I have a real soft spot for things that take themselves painfully seriously and are entirely humorless. And so when I came out of this, I was like, you know what? I really enjoyed that. It was great. Oh my God. Oh my God. I really, really liked it. You know, obviously I was on set and did the big old spoiler special with Macquarie.

1:27:07So you can completely discount my opinion, I'm sure. And many people will. And you should probably come into the Least podcast pre-discounting my opinions on anything, quite frankly. But I think that last hour is inarguable. I think it is a juggernaut of action filmmaking. The biplane sequence is extraordinary. Cruise jumped from a plane with a burning parachute, set his own parachute on fire, and then fell several thousand feet before pulling his backup parachute. And if that backup parachute hadn't worked, we would have had no Tom Cruise cake this year. well it would have been Tom Cruise cake but they would have been scraping it off oh no wherever wherever he landed wow I think it is absolutely yeah I can see the criticisms of the first hour but the last hour is just like a big old punch to the face a submarine sequence which is the I think the only underwater sequence I have ever liked in any movie ever because I hate underwater sequences when I heard they were doing one I was like oh god but it's absolutely claustrophobic and horrifying and the bioplane sequence has just gone so nuts.

1:28:18It's brilliant. And if people are wondering, if people are listening to this going, hey, Chris, you did a three-hour supported special with Chris McQuarrie, and you ended it on a cliffhanger, and McQuarrie actually even said the words, to be continued, and then you didn't do a second part. That's because we were both very, very busy, and McHugh had other things to do. But fear not, folks. I have spoken to him recently, and I think I can say that we are going to be looking to do it next year but early next year so hopefully part two of the Mission Impossible the final Reckoning spoiler special with Chris McQuarrie will come next year and it's going to be really really worth the wait also I think you know if you listen to that spoiler special we may be talking later on about interviews we did because I know there's a question about that if you listen to that spoiler special he is a man who has literally just finished this movie and he's not quite sure what he's made and I think giving him this time and space to sit back, reflect on what the movie is and his feelings and thoughts in the movie and you know he's going to have some feelings and thoughts in the movie and he's going to articulate those quite beautifully, that's going to be worth the wait.

1:29:29I would hope that you would agree. So keep your eyes peeled for that at some point early next year. Also in May was a film that when I saw it back in May, I fell in love with it and thought if this isn't my film of the year by the end of the year, then we'll have done well. It is still my film of the year despite the fact that I think it's been a pretty good year. It's The Ballad of Wallace Island. I adore this movie. I think this movie is a minor miracle. It is funny. It is moving. It is sad. It has great performances from a central trio of Tim Keehan, Tom Baston, who also wrote it, and Carey Mulligan.

1:30:09It has great songs as well. the sequence in the kitchen where Tim Key's character Charles who is a huge fan of this this musical folk duo McGuire and Mortimer and has reunited them in his kitchen and his wife his late wife was a huge fan of them as well and he's watching them reconnect and sing in his kitchen and he can't quite believe it and the camera goes in in his face you know Tim Key is largely known as a comedian and a poet but in that moment I would have given him all the acting awards that you could possibly bestow upon someone. It's a beautiful film. It's so, it's got such a strong sense of place.

1:30:51It has such incredible grip on its characters. It's so funny. It's so, so funny. And then, so when it breaks your heart, it comes as a complete shot. And the music is fabulous. Yeah. Genuinely fabulous. And I think that's always the difficult thing in this. Like, if you're writing a story about songs that move people and are wonderful, that's all very well, but then you've got to create the songs that are wonderful and move people and this does which is fantastic I think Tom Bassman does an extraordinary job and it's no surprise to me that he was doing sort of live gigs off the back of this film yeah really lovely and obviously we had them both on when we did our live show earlier this year and they were a delight they were as was this film and this was this was the one I was talking about and I said it was like it's Sinners or something else for my number one this year and this is the something else this is the something else this is the something else Jimbo you and I are in a court I know and that makes me so uncomfortable this is up there for me as well I haven't made a list I don't do lists Unless someone's paying me.

1:31:42But this is joint number one, really, with Sinus. Both musicals. Okay, let's move on. It's so great. It's so great, The Ballad of Wallace Island. And it's one of those movies that kind of, you know, I know it's not a box office behemoth by any stretch of the imagination, but it made over a million pounds in the UK, which is pretty big for a movie of that size. And I did a Q &A with Tom and Tim and the director James Griffiths last night. it's one of the reasons why I'm so tired rule number one because I did it off the back of two Avatar Q &As as well but there was so much fun and the cinema the Prince Charles cinema which is a 300 seater cinema was packed out so there's a really fervent swell of support for this movie I think it's a movie that when people find that they just they fall in love with it I showed it to my wife and she just absolutely bawled in all right places as well and laughed in all right places too so yes that is my film of the year spoiler alert but it's not Empires we'll get to that in a few minutes I guess because we are somehow only in fucking June June!

1:32:50So we're skipping the year's biggest film so hang on we're out of from the west of course obviously we left May we didn't mention Hello Road which I would like to give a shout out to because I really enjoyed Hello Road which was Babac Anfari's film and stars Matthew Rhys and Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys and Rosamund Pike and if you understand that joke then you've definitely seen the film I do but really low key it's like Locke but with a supernatural twinge to it they're just in a car but it's chilling it's upsetting it's scary it's all of those things and it was a lovely little lo-fi film yeah really really good kind of moral dilemma film as well indeed also with the Lilo and Stitch remake which I think is maybe the highest grossing western film of the year not by the time people listen to this okay probably not well I'm guessing it'll definitely be surpassed by Satopia 2 which may be surpassing it oh any second now and maybe by Avatar let's hope it was fine I mean I think no blame to the human cast who I think did their best but just leave some things in animation guys and yeah I guess that's the big one and we didn't even talk about the new Wes Anderson the Phoenician scheme oh yeah I think by his standards a little bit mid-level I enjoyed it I had a nice time great basketball game that was a very funny the basketball game was probably the highlight yes and then other things happened as well Michael Cera a good addition I thought to the world of Wes.

1:34:10But yes, I agree. My apologies. I was so overjoyed about talking about The Ballad of Wallace Island. I forgot to mention those movies. Oh, well. They're pretty big. They can handle it. Into June. June! From the world of John Wick, Ballerina wasn't... I enjoyed it again. I enjoyed a lot of films. I'm a very easy lay when it comes to movies. But it did have a couple of things I'd never seen in action movies before, one of which was a grenade fight another one which was a flamethrower duel. In close quarters as well. I mean, really can't emphasize that enough. They were way too close to be using either grenades or flamethrowers.

1:34:51And yet, here we are. And yet they did. And obviously had a crowbarred in John Wick cameo with Keanu Reeves showing up. Do I have to do this? Yes, you do, Keanu. We need to bump up at the box office. Sadly, it did not do well at the box office. we've seen the ballerina no more no it was not on point no oh no I don't know any other ballerina terms I don't know why she'll be barred oh yeah that's good yeah that's good yeah any more something pirouette pirouette jeté she'll be jeté'd I guess no that's not really working jeté kills oh no oh well okay that happened that was a film that came out and Anna de Armas was very very good with her Anna de Legas kicking people

1:35:40rule number one other films that came out one of the best villain performances of the year Jai Courtney yes I know dangerous animals dangerous animals who saw that coming really fun shark horror movie but the shark is not the real horror no it's bloody Jai Courtney it's Jai Courtney I can't do it I'm sorry Go on, try. No. I can't do it. It doesn't stop me. Joy Courtney, mate. Yes, fun film, but he was great in it. Helen, did you like the How to Train Your Dragon live-action remake? No. Okay. It doesn't need to exist. But not even... No, look, I liked it because Toothless is in it and I'll watch anything with Toothless in because Toothless is the greatest.

1:36:27And crucially, Toothless, and this is true, is played by exactly the same dragon as he was in the animated series. Pretty much, yeah. Reprising his role. best Jared Butler movie of the year, or is that Den of Thieves 2, Pantera? Oh, definitely Pantera. Yeah, I think so. Honestly, Pantera has a great heist sequence. If you thought the silent heist sequence in Rafifi was good, I mean, it's better than this one, but this is also very good. It is good. Yeah. Big Nick. Big Nick Energy Hills. Big Nick. Big Nick O 'Brien. The Scottish policeman from Los Angeles. That's right. love him it's incredible I love Jerry Butler so much what else came out in June did I say that out loud you did oh god you did June also out in June was Elio the Pixar movie of the year yeah it's cute I don't think it's it hasn't lingered in my mind the way the best of them do but it was it was very sweet he's a lovely little character yes but yeah you know three films I wish to talk about three films three films of such a lethal coming a kind.

1:37:35Number one, F1. Yes. Number two, Megan 2.0. And number three, 28 Years Later. All good films. All good films. Megan, it's a shame that people didn't take to Megan in the way that we did. I think maybe people didn't like pivoting from a horror film to was essentially, yes indeed, like a kind of crazy caper film. I thought it was an absolute laugh and I genuinely did the thing. What's the thing that you do when you make the noise and you shake? that thing there that weird thing that weird spasm you just did I was such an easy lay right I did a number of those while watching the film so yeah it was funny I know why you laugh but it is something I apparently can do in Megan 2.0 he's a genuine monster do you ever ask yourself Helen why we're friends with this man so often so so often so F1 Megan 2 yes and 28 years later you should have tried harder to get a 3 what are you thinking I can't retrocon.

1:38:36I can't retrocon. Me fail English. That's impossible. I mean, it's the third film, so we can get away with that. Oh, yeah. Okay, fine. It's 28 Days Later 3. That is true. That is true. Yeah, which 28 by 3, that, of course, as we all know, is, I'm going to do the math very quickly here, it's 84. 84 Days Later, yes. No, it's not. What? The human calculator here. Oh, boy. Okay. I loved all these movies I really did I'm not even as ashamed that people didn't like Megan 2.0 I'm actively calling people out who didn't like it Grow up Yeah 28 years later though what a freaking film I love that it does something completely different it doesn't just have you know zombies again Infected Infected No Fuck it Fuck you Fuck you They literally say it's okay in one of the films and you know they must eat people as well right they're very bitey we saw them in the first film they are quite bitey it is true and there is no Nando's in post-apocalyptic Britain so well so an upside is what you're saying whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa that's the worst thing you've ever said on this podcast and there's some serious competition wow that was peri peri naughty of you how dare you listen I have to bring it up massive cock in 28 Years Later as well.

1:40:02Samson. Samson. Swinging back and forth. Yes. It was a pathetic. The actor, Chai Lewis Parry, who's like a kind of, he's been a stuntman for years. I'm really, really glad that he's getting his big break with this role. I have looked up, and this is true, I've typed him into Google. He is also an MMA fighter. Is he? I believe that. Yeah, Chai Lewis Parry. His name, his MMA name, no word of a lie, is Chopper. so maybe it wasn't a prosthetic

1:40:34that's incredible it really is I yeah I adored 28 years later it was Danny Boyle and Alex Garland kicking ass and taking names and it was incredibly tense for the first hour and then incredibly beautiful and moving for the second hour when Ray Fine shows up and Jodie Comer kind of takes over the story a little bit and Alfie Williams was great Spike Spike he's running for his life speak which was you know really really nice and yeah it evolves the mythology of the infected zombies you know to my satisfaction yeah loved it yeah really good I didn't love it as much as you guys did but I did enjoy it I preferred the first half to the second half oh there's a shock he prefers the running and the screaming and the ooh and the ah ooh and the ah yeah speaking of ooh and ah what did you think of F1 I didn't care I loved it and I have no interest in Formula One and indeed let's be honest sport and although a lot of people who like F1 found the shall we say the commentators to be infantile and kind of spoon feeding oh he appears to be overtaking you know thank you very much even I followed it to the extent I didn't need it quite so spoon fed but actually I liked that and I appreciated them you know little things like tyre temperature which I had no idea about it made me interested in the sport as a whole and I got quite caught up in the drama of it so yeah I thought F1 was loads of fun.

1:42:00Even if it has more product placement than every other film this year combined. In association with Shopify. Was it Shopify? Or was it something... There was one weird company I'd never heard of before. Which is on everyone's uniform. Yeah, love it. I thought it was great. I thought it was a lag topic on Maverick. It was a perfectly calibrated crowd pleaser. It kind of rekindled the love of F1 for me. Very briefly. Then it got very bored again. And I stopped watching it. Although apparently this year, I didn't watch the final race, but the final race in Abu Dhabi was apparently amazing and very, very close to the wire.

1:42:35And the championship went down to the last gasp. And weirdly, Brad Pitt won it. Oh, boy. Who knew? Who knew? But really good. Some great racing sequences as well. Joseph Kaczynski at the helm. Yes, please. Shall we move into July? July! Films to talk about. Jurassic World Rebirth. That is a film to talk about. I don't know if you want to talk about David Cronenberg's The Shroud. which was fine it was okay yeah Jurassic World Webirth was wonderful and not not in any way because it enabled me to go to Thailand for a week to interview Gareth so I thank him very much for making that film in Thailand so that I got to go there thank you Gareth I also really enjoyed the film the other Gareth Gareth Edwards right yeah as a film I thought it was okay I yes I agree with you I don't think it was a great film but I do think it was better than the previous Jurassic World films.

1:43:28Again, bar on floor. Right. And you're not wrong. And swiftly digging. First Jurassic World's really good. The first Jurassic World is quite good, yes. The first Jurassic World is fine. The first Jurassic World, if we were doing a Jurassic World, Jurassic ranking right now, I'm probably putting Jurassic World number two. I mean, that's not, again, it's a relatively low bar. But I would say that it is, yeah, I mean, you can certainly make that argument. But I thought this one was kind of on a par with that for me. Like, I didn't, I wouldn't separate the two. Alright, let's set this once and roll.

1:43:59I want both of you now to rank me. Jurassically speaking. Jurassic Park, Lost World, Jurassic Park 3. You can't just list them in release order. I can. I'm going to be pretty close. Jurassic World, Rebirth, Jurassic World, and then the other two. I don't remember the names. Well, Fallen Kingdom is bad, but it's not as bad as Dominion. Yes, so then Fallen Kingdom, then Dominion. Jimbo, rank me. I would probably go Jurassic World and then... At number one. No, sorry. I would go Jurassic World that took me to Thailand and then all of the other films. Just joint films. They're all in second place.

1:44:47The one that took me to Thailand is 100 % in first place. They're all equally good. Thank you, Gareth. Edwards. Too many Gareth's this year. go on quickly no obviously Jurassic Park is number one obviously it is obvious nothing has ever been more obvious but I would say the distance between Jurassic Park and any of the others is significant because even if you were to say Lost World a second it's still not a great film and a lot of people would argue as you did that Jurassic World is the second best and again it's a significant drop off from the original Jurassic Park yeah it's a tough one I refuse to answer it quite frankly fair enough so let's move on shall we Jurassic World Rebirth it did have a good opening sequence with the Snickers the Snickers wrapper that was nice as well and yeah there's some there's some things I liked about it had a really gruesome death sequence this was a this was a big year for again a couple of things people playing twins gruesome deaths prosthetic cocks and people being half eaten in the Quint style by sea monsters happens to Ed Skrind spoiler alert in Jurassic World Rebirth and happens to another character in another film that has just come out so I'm not so comfortable with spoilering stuff Zootopia Zootropolis sorry I was so surprised when they killed off Nick Wilde sexy Nick Wilde halfway through eaten by a manatee I just did not expect that no what with them being vegetarian precisely yeah All right.

1:46:25Okay. Also out that month, this should be interesting, James Gunn's Superman.

1:46:35Your enthusiasm about this movie is in marked contrast to your enthusiasm about it when the movie came out. True? It's very true. You're now like cheerleading for the movie. Yay, Superman. You thought it was fine. What happened? He's a really good Superman. He is a good Superman. He's a very good Superman. She's a very good Lois Lane and he's a good Lex Luthor and I liked the premise of sort of the way they pitted them against each other. I liked Luthor's aims in this film which we talked about extensively in the spoiler. I think it's a very clever way of talking about it. We did two spoilers for this actually.

1:47:14Okay. Yeah, we did. I wasn't invited back. No, you weren't.

1:47:20Yeah, I had fun. Do you know what? I would call this my biggest disappointment of the year, but it isn't because I don't think I was expecting that much from it going in. I wasn't like, because again, from the trailers, I hadn't really got a good feeling about it. But I was genuinely surprised when we did the spoiler special, there were a lot of people, Helen is not alone. Ben really liked it. Amon really liked it. People really liked this film. I was battled by that fact. I felt almost gaslit by that fact because when I came out, I was so like, oh my God, that was terrible. And loads of our listeners, again, I was pilloried on the subreddit for this.

1:47:51people really people have really liked this film and I still don't fully understand why because I thought it was not good best superhero film of the month or did you prefer the Fantastic Four first steps I think I actually prefer Superman Night Live but it's close it's close I like them both I preferred the Fantastic Four first steps but we've talked about that enough we have have we? I think so I think we have I think we have but can we use this to bounce off the box office conversation that we said we were going to have and then didn't. So what are we going to do? Because it's been an interesting year because I would say that, by and large, the box office of most movies has not been where studios would have preferred them to be.

1:48:34But we've also had interesting readings of certain films. Everything's got huge budgets these days. So it's been really interesting to me to see certain films cast as disappointments or failures or even outright flops based purely on their budget. Well, Jurassic World Rebirth, people were initially disappointed by the box office. I mean, that ended up at, what, 860-odd-something million? It's the biggest... Right. It's the fifth largest... Live-action film of the summer. Right, currently. And relative to the rest of the box office of the year, it did really well. It just didn't break a billion, and it didn't do as well as the previous films.

1:49:08Yes, but I guess the budget must have been a bit less, right? Yes, it was. Yeah, there was a much cheaper... Like, Dominion was redonkulously expensive, and this was much cheaper than that. Yes, it's the first Jurassic World movie, as James says, to not make a billion. But there were other films that, because a lot of films kind of finished in and around the same amount of money. And some were cast as failures, some were cast as disappointments, and some were cast as successes. The sort of 600 million, right? Yeah. So Superman makes$660 million worldwide. And we know, at least we guess from stories about it at the time, that it needed to make$700 million to break even.

1:49:47didn't do that. Mission Impossible Final Reckoning huge budget made just under 600 million again categorized as a certainly a disappointment. F1 the movie 631 million also probably equally huge budget compared to those two movies but a slightly different business model as a success. Yeah, because I think it made a lot of money in sponsorship. Yeah. It's just again people don't know how to reach the audience and the audience is getting tired of the same old stuff. I mean, look at the top 10. Okay, you have sequel, remake, sequel, adaptation of a video game. This is a worldwide top 10, yeah? This is a worldwide top 10 for the year.

1:50:29Remake of an animated movie. Original movie at number eight, F1. But a spin-off of the biggest sports franchise. And do people need it as a movie? If they like it that much, they can watch the fucking races. Superman, re-adaptation if you want to be fancy. but like it's otherwise a remake, a reboot, whatever. And then Mission Impossible, number eight of the franchise. Am I around saying you have to go down to 16 to Sinners to find something genuinely original plucked out of the air? Yeah, you do. Yeah. And then you have to go down, okay, 18 and then 22. Yeah, 18 being weapons, 22 being one battle after another.

1:51:12Although that's just the adaptation of a book, so does that count? I think that's okay. I think we still, I think book is a niche thing. I mean, sadly, yes. And therefore that's all right. And even then, it's a very loose adaptation, I think. Yeah. Yes, very, very interesting year at the box office and we shall see what happens next year because I don't know how many heavy hitters there are next year, but any of you want to hear us talking about heavy hitters next year, why don't you listen to our 2026 preview podcast to be recorded to fill the gap while we're off before episode's 700. That'll be out in a few days' time.

1:51:47Probably Jan 2nd or so. I've got to edit it. But there you go. That is July. Very, very nicely dealt with. Unless, of course, anything you want to add to that? Just that The Bad Guys 2 was good. It was alright, wasn't it? Yeah. It was good fun. Alright. Moving into August. We have Bring Her Back. Another good year for horror. Jimbo hasn't seen it. No. Too scary. Very scary. Also, The Naked Gun. Too scary. Same reason. So funny. That's a funny film. And I was very, very predisposed to not liking it. Were you, though? It is 100%. I suppose you're right, because Snakey Gun is a sacred cow, so I get that.

1:52:27But it is very much in your humorous weirdness. The trailer looked terrible. The people involved were good, and also Seth MacFarlane. But it won me over pretty quickly. Pretty quickly, indeed. Anything else you want to talk about from August? What else happened in August? Weapons. weapons happened in August weapons was genuinely wonderful there seems to have been a little bit of a backlash to weapons since that have you felt this that people are not quite a lot of people when we were discussing when we were discussing films of the year there seems to be a distaste not within our office thankfully but there seems to be oh those weapons is good everyone said it was brilliant is it brilliant yes it was because it's funny and it's wacky and it's crazy and it's also scary and it's horrifying but it's a really fun film and I really like the fractured narrative as well I really, really enjoyed Weapons.

1:53:15That was a proper surprise as well because we went into that and that was just a perfect example of how to construct a trailer because the trailer was all vibes and it gave away nothing. Especially not the big, you know, the sort of standout performance and the big turn in that film. It wasn't even in the trailer. So, yeah, a great, great way of putting together a trailer, a great way of, like, you know, keeping your powder dry and really a fun film. Very good. I liked it a lot. I don't know if it's my, I don't think it's my horror of the year, but it's real good. Sinners, I'm guessing. I think Sinners.

1:53:44Yeah, I think Sinners over this. But like, I mean, very different films. They don't have to be the same. It was a good month again for horror generally because you also had Together that month, which is, that's going to haunt you if you've seen that one. A Materialist. Well, Materialist was honestly one of my biggest disappointments of the year. Was it? Yeah. I loved it. No, like it wasn't bad, but I hoped for greatness and it was just good. I thought we got greatness. Well, maybe. No, Celine Song, you know, And that cast, I thought, was going to be fantastic. But there were moments of greatness, but it just felt a little bit like, follow your heart.

1:54:20And I was hoping for something a little bit more. I think it's deeper than that. But yeah, I really, really like Materialist. I've seen it a couple of times now. Yeah, I think it's got really, really interesting things to say about the state of modern love. And touch wood, a scene I never have to go to modern dating. And it also... also drop. It also had my best letterboxed entry of the year the best letterboxed sub-genre of the year. I'm not on letterboxed very often but I saw someone had, spoiler alert, someone had put it in Fantastic Four in a category entitled films where Pedro Pascal's limbs are lengthened which I thought was very nice very nice indeed.

1:55:07Similarly inspired I put Predators, Predators predators and heat in a subcategory on Letterboxd films in which Danny Trejo is the subject of a mercy killing wow yeah it's a very very very niche category genre but there you go we should if we're talking about things that disappointed a lot of people and polarized audiences the life of Chuck is probably another one to talk about here because that was loathed and loved in equal measure in our office there were one star reactions to it and then there were four star reactions to it I don't see how I think there is some sentiment in it but I just went with it and had a lovely time but if you are allergic to sentiment you're not going to like it yeah and then also kind of like the dance sequence is going to be polarizing in and of itself I think the problem with that film generally I think we talked about in the review is it starts so well because it's a mystery box you're like oh my god this is fascinating I don't know what's going on it's weird it's interesting and it's split into three different sort of segments and each one is less interesting than the last so it ends on an absolute low which is a real shame because you start with the best parts of the film and it just gets progressively more boring so I actually enjoyed the film but I felt a bit deflated by the end just because of the limitations of its structure huh I mean I thought the reveal of what's sort of happening I thought was really weirdly I think the reveal is what turned people off well partly that but I think like the first sequence which is the strongest is weakened by the reveal and I always think great reveals like they enhance the larger story and I felt like the reveal here just deflated the whole thing for me I was like oh okay great but didn't hate the film didn't hate the film high praise indeed there from from James Steyer I really liked it I know what you mean about the structure of it but that's kind of the appeal of it and if we're talking disappointments I think sadly Nobody 2 was a big disappointment for me yeah loved Nobody and Nobody 2 just didn't didn't come close to recapturing that magic formula that's a real shame it is a real shame also disappointments and I haven't seen it but I have been told it was very disappointing Thursday Murder Club adaptation of the Richard Osman it's not good I didn't love Eddington either but I did love just to be positive for a minute Sorry Baby oh Sorry Baby which is a fantastic movie that came out in August so good I was so glad to see Ava Fichter get nominated for was the best actress drama I think I believe so yes at the Golden Globes which means that she might not be out of the running for the Oscars because it's one of those movies that is very easy to forget about and can get bullied out of the way by behemoths and movies with much more Oscar campaigning spend available to them.

1:57:51And hopefully that won't happen. Hopefully she'll be in the running because it's a really great film, really touching and funny and well-observed. So check it out. Sorry, baby. And sorry, baby, we're into September now. We are into September. There's a lot of films that came out. The Country Last Rites, I think was the biggest horror film of the year. Fine. Okay. A nice farewell to the Warrens. Jimbo, how did you feel about the farewell to the Crawleys? Downton Abbey. The grand finale. I enjoyed it a lot. I thought it was great. It wasn't as good as Downton Abbey, A New Era, which I think was basically a better send-off for this because it ended with the Dowager Countess, Maggie Smith, obviously with that fantastic line.

1:58:32But yeah, I had a really good time with the grand finale and it gave me the warm, fuzzy feeling, which I like from my class porn. Yeah. It's certainly a film that happened in front of me. I mean, it is. Helen would put them all under the guillotine. Who'd be first against the wall? Out of the Crowley family. Not just the Crowleys, but just in Downton Abbey in general. Oh, I mean, they're all either class traitors or just the worst. I don't hate them as people but they're the worst you hate them as as symbols symbols of of an outmoded and outdated nonsense and just this servile attitude that everyone around them has bleh I'd love it if people treated me like that if James had a forelock he'd tug it well there you go he would tug it in their general direction there is your problem I think of you two as the downstairs people to the upstairs of my life so you took a bull You there, boy.

1:59:33You, James, you took a bullet for me in the Somme. And I'll never forget that, James. You took a bullet for me. That bullet was destined for me. It had my name written all over it. And you spent six months in Convalescent, as I recall, from that. And you still have a limp. You still have a limp to this day. And I've never forgotten what that sacrifice that you made for me. So I've decided to lend you my car for four hours. To bring my stuff to my new home. I mean it's extraordinary Hugh Bonifill walking around a flat with a look at disgust in his face what's a flat oh what's a flat the bedward Noel Coward played by Artie Frushin from Daredevil Born Again Buck Cashman that's his character name I'm not making this up in Daredevil Born Again he plays a character called Buck Cashman but he plays Noel Coward in Downton Abbey a grand finale he does and at some point someone is he's trying to come up with a title for his new play.

2:00:32And at some point, someone goes, oh, it's a real insight into our private lives. He goes, what was it you said, dear boy? Private lives? Private lives, you say. Dreadful shit. I mean, yeah. The Long Walk was also there. The Long Walk was, you know, a good movie. Good movie. Good movie. Another good horror, another good Stephen King adaptation. Was it the, where did this stand for you on your Stephen King adaptation? So it was this, Life of Chuck, and... The Monkey. The Monkey. And The Running Man. And The Running Man. It'd be number one. The Long Walk is number one. I would say that is the case for me.

2:01:10Also, I love this movie. I'm not on a race or indeed a walk to see it again anytime soon. No, it was a tough watch. It really stayed with me. I love the novella, the King novella, Richard Bachman novella. But that also packs a punch. That also packs a punch. but this one Francis Lawrence I think his best movie since Constantine and I don't say that lightly that's big I don't say that lightly too Steve was out Steve Steve which is great great great performance by Cillian Murphy yes it was really loved it and just a really moving and incredibly stressful look yeah it was at a day in one man's life looking after a bunch of excluded pupils basically in the, I think, 80s, early 90s.

2:01:59But yeah, superb, superb performance. I think, again, unduly overlooked. Dear boys and girls, there was a film, if there's any contender to be to us up the position of sinners as the film of the year. It came in the form of one battle after another. Yeah. It did. It's pretty superb, I'll be honest. I had some questions about the timeline, which I think reading a bunch of pieces about it has somewhat quietened me down on. But I think it is pretty magnificent. I think it's not because particularly of DiCaprio, but because of everybody else around him. I think he's good, don't get me wrong, but it's everybody else that kind of has stuck with me.

2:02:40Tiana Taylor and Chase Infinity, incredible name. And Benicio Del Toro, I think, really just take that film to another level. I loved it. And the undulating car chase lives long in the memory. It's incredible. Absolutely incredible concept, part of anything else. Best car chase of the year, or does that belong to Tron Ares? It's not even a car chase, really. It's more of a bike chase. And even then, no. The light cycle chase was pretty cool. I mean, it's the high point of the film, but... Again, low bar. Yeah, a low bar. That's not a good film. It's good car chase in The Running Man. It is an average music video to an outstanding soundtrack.

2:03:21Tron Aries of course was in October but then again One Bat Left Another was at the tail end of September so I think we can we can move swiftly and seamlessly into October and this is where the Oscar bait begins to come out so we have Catherine Bigelow's House of Dynamite which stressful has stayed long with me perhaps suffers from diminishing returns due to its interesting structure perhaps doesn't quite have the courage of his convictions who knows but certainly that first 45 minutes just put the shits right up me as they say put that in your poster I don't think people say that very often I don't think they do that's something you say well now other people will say it too Oh no.

2:04:05Urchin came out in October, which is the directorial debut of Harris Dickinson, which is a really impressive, impressive debut. There were a bunch this year, but he's really someone to look out for as a director and not just as a star, I think. Yes, indeed. Yeah, there were so many interesting films out in October. One of which was the documentary by Kenny Dalgleish called Kenny Dalgleish, that I will always cherish the Asif Kapadia film because it allowed me the opportunity to meet and interview on this podcast the great Surrey Kennedy Dalgleish Liverpool legend and yeah film of the year I'm saying it right now yeah it was terrific a contender for me is actually I swear I was about to say that yeah Kirk Jones film which Robert Arameo is so good in that as John Davidson and it's really touching beautifully told little story I love it yeah it's really good it's basically if you don't know about a man with Tourette's a very severe form of Tourette's syndrome He has been working to build awareness of it and understanding of it for basically his entire life.

2:05:09And now his life is told in fictional form. And it's cracking performances. I would say not just Aramayo, but also Scott Ellis Watson as the young John Davidson is also off the charts. Peter Mullen. Peter Mullen. Peter Mullen. Peter Mullen. Peter Mullen. Yes. Yes, indeed. I swear. Terrific stuff. Where are you standing? Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. wherever you want he won't care it was good I wanted it to be my favourite film of the year and it wasn't right there yeah if there was one transformation I mean Jacob Elordi into the creature is is one thing 10 hours of makeup every single day taking that that face of his which I believe some people find pleasing and turned it into the creature's face which I believe some people find pleasing incredible incredible transformation but if we're talking about chameleonic transformations.

2:06:04I think I know where you're going. There was none better this year than when Jeremy Allen White, Carmi from the Bear, transformed himself, his face, his posture, his body language, his voice into Jeremy Allen White. And then some people called him Bruce Springsteen. Amazing. Which I thought was weird because he was clearly Jeremy Allen White in Jeremy Allen White Deliver Me From Nowhere. I think this is harsh. I must admit, I'm not a Bruce Springsteen fan, but having seen pictures of the young Bruce Springsteen, I can see it. How can you? Are you squinting? Are you in the dark? Are you looking at these pictures from a distance?

2:06:43From a distance. What are you doing? There's some similarity. Both are human men. I mean, there is that too. Capture would say this guy looks nothing like Bruce Springsteen. If you had to take the Bruce, people who look like Bruce Springsteen in this picture, and you clicked on Jeremy Allen White, Captcha would say you are a fucking robot get out of here no Oasis tickets for you harsh listen it was a fine film Springsteen delivered me from nowhere and Jeremy Allen White was very very good as Carmi from the bear picking up a guitar but he is not Bruce Springsteen he looks nothing like him he sounds nothing like him it's a bold strategy Cotton let's see if it pays off anyway enjoyed it three stars yeah I I just want to say a quick word I think Relay is a good thriller and it came out this month and nobody saw it and you should check it out and also Begonia the new Eurus Anthemus with Emma Stone fantastic performance from her and incredible premise alright we are racing through the last two months of the year because these are films that are all in our current memory banks folks and yours as well so we probably don't need to talk about them as much as the other ones that you had forgotten about.

2:08:01But there are some films in November. Train Dreams, Die My Love. We're really getting into the new Oscar bait territory here. These are films that may well feature. I'd be amazed if Jennifer Lawrence wasn't nominated for Die My Love. I'd be surprised, not amazed, surprised if Joel Edgerton is not nominated for Train Dreams. And of course, speaking of awards bait, Predator Badlands also this month. And we obviously haven't mentioned Predator Killer of Killers, which was no we haven't earlier this year and which was streaming only which was also very good yes it was good year for the for the Predator and I have to say I think on reflection thinking about it Predator Predator Badlands is probably in my top 10 of the year yeah and I think it might be my favorite quote unquote blockbuster of the year That's not a controversial position.

2:08:59It depends on your definition of blockbuster, but yeah, I can see it up there. Yeah. I thought it was extraordinarily inventive and surprising and very, very funny. And it's done really, really well at the box office, especially for a Predator movie, which is great to see. And hopefully Dan Trachtenberg will be chained to a desk and forced to make nothing but Predator movies for the rest of his life because he's three for three so far. Killer of Killers is also really good it's on Disney Plus if you haven't seen it but Badlands was so consistently surprising and entertaining to me it was a real a real surprise and a very very pleasant one at that Amen Amen to that Yeah it was I mean it was a good month we had great films Blue Moon I thought was great Christie is a great performance from Sidney Sweeney even though it's died on its arse at the box office but it did deserve better.

2:09:55Wake Up Dead Man, of course, we've already, I think, talked about. And Sisu, Road to Revenge is one of my favorite action movies of the past, not just year, but like five years. You saw Sisu 2? I saw Sisu 2. I haven't seen Sisu 2 yet. And would it be, I mean, in the action pantheon? I mean, are we talking a film as good as Den of Thieves 2, Pantera? I mean, don't be ridiculous. Look, if the next convergence is Den of Thieves 3 and Havoc 2 and what was the other one? The Accountant 3. The Accountant 3 and Sisu 3. Don't threaten me with a good time. I mean, then we're into some real shit. Yeah. We are into some serious shit.

2:10:31I cannot wait to see Sisu. A road to revenge. Tremendous. Also, by the way, it could be the subtitle of Wicked for Good. They should have called it Wicked Yellow Brick Road to Revenge. Yes. They should have. You know what I'm saying? Where do we stand on Wicked for Good now that the dust has settled? Well, obviously, as a close personal friend of everyone involved, I did interviews with them on Zoom for the feature I thought it was good I think they did the best they could with the second half of the musical and I'm not sure how much else they could have done or what else they could have done without basically redoing it no I agree with you 100 % they were damned if they did and damned if they didn't but it was okay it's good but as is the second half of that musical so I thought it was fine I mean talking also while we're in November Pillian was obviously November I mean, parts of Alexander Skarsgård reached all the way back to January, but yes, indeed.

2:11:29Pillion, great film. Great film. Funny, sweet, sad, thought-provoking. You know, just genuinely like, oh, these people are all into being BDSM bikers, and isn't it lovely that they find each other and they have a community? Oh, bless. And picnics. They have regular picnics. Unusual picnics, but picnics nevertheless. so well done to everybody involved I thought it was great yeah also out in November was of course Edgar Wright's The Running Man which I think it's safe to say was a little bit disappointing we were maybe expecting something with a little bit more Edgar Wright panache to it and it maybe fell a bit short of our expectations yeah fair play to him for trying to not lean on his usual tricks and still deliver an exciting action movie but it just I would have liked his usual tricks because I think they're great yes lots of films came out in December or at the time of recording or are about to come out, but we have seen, or let's be honest, Jimbo, Helen has seen.

2:12:28Yeah. Helen's seen loads of them. It's too late. She's seen everything. So we've got the likes of Marty Supreme. You've seen? Yep. You love? I like a lot. You like? Yep. Marty kind of Supreme? Marty's pretty Supreme, but like, you know. She ping-pongs back and forth. Hey. Helen's seen sentimental values? Superb. superb. It was just an accident, also superb. There's one huge film in December. We've all now seen it. What could it be? Facom Hall, of course. That's the one. It is Avatar, Fire and Ash. Yes. The film that, looking at the release that you hear, the other studios are avoiding like the fucking plague.

2:13:12Are they right to? Bear in mind, we are recording this about two weeks before this is going to come out. Yeah. And a week before Avatar, Fire and Ash, the third in James Cameron's series, comes out. And we don't even have an Empire review at this time. We don't know what we're giving it. But what do we think? How do we think it's going to do? Yeah, how do we think it's going to do? Do you know what? That is a question I couldn't even begin to answer. But then I would never have seen The Way of Water doing the kind of money that it did. But you wouldn't have seen Avatar doing the kind of money?

2:13:43No, I wouldn't. But even off the back of Avatar, and that being the biggest film ever made, which it still is, I wouldn't have thought that Way of Water could have repeated that and so it's like can he repeat it a third time you know will this clear a billion yes I think so will it trouble two billion that I would say would be a stretch but I think that's mainly part I mean if you look at the box office this year like everything is scaled down so I think you know a billion would be an incredible result for it at this point but weirdly the film would be seen as a failure if that's all it did so it's a really strange situation I think this film is and I'm not going to go into this too much because we're going to review it on the podcast next week.

2:14:18But I think it is a cinematic event without peer this year. I don't think there is another experience like it you can have in the cinema this year. I would almost say it's an essential watch for that reason. And yet, and yet, I think as an Avatar film, it's if not entirely disappointing, it treads the way of water, if you will. It just doesn't do enough new things for me. It feels like a greatest hits package of the first two films now and I can't emphasize this enough those films are fantastic so that's a good thing but I would have liked a little bit more I see you James Tyre I see you uh Helen O 'Hara can I interest you in a billion I think it's gonna I think it might get like 1.5 and you're right still be seen as a failure which is a bananas situation absolutely bananas but it's bananas I think it's I I would pretty much agree and you know how that annoys me I think I think it's story-wise nothing really moves forward but I had an incredible time watching it and I've seen it twice and I had an incredible time watching it both times and I was completely immersed and in it and I didn't mind the time it took which is impressive for a three and a half hour film and yeah I think I mean he has mad skills he does honestly James Cameron I mean I don't want to be needlessly controversial but I think he is a gifted film director there I said it what?

2:15:41Helen are you okay? Do you want to sit down? I mean, and even like just there's little bits of animation over the credits that I swear cost more than about every other film on this that we've talked about put together. You know, the craft and the effort put into this is like nothing else. But you are absolutely transported by it, even if it is the same thing. But then it's one battle after another, isn't it? You know, maybe there's a commentary there that we all have to keep fighting the same battle over and over again. Maybe. Or something. Yeah. also the um yeah i thought at times honestly watching this movie that i thought have they gone to pandora and just shot some film have they just gone to a different planet and because they it's there is a shot of water on stones in a stream right and i i mean genuinely i don't know if it's real and i feel like maybe they went out in on a sunny day in new zealand and they took that shot and then they just panned up into what mad Pandora weirdness but like it's so real.

2:16:42The realism is incredible. It's absolutely wild. Yeah. I don't know how it's going to do either. We shall see. My feeling is the opposite way of water was 700 million or so under Avatar. I don't think that's going to happen this time but I'm 1.8. I'm going to to hang my hat in 1.8. Okay. All right. I'd be all right with 1.8 billion. I'd be okay with it personally. Yeah. I'd be a good billionaire, Helen. You don't like billionaires, but I'd be a good one. I'd be a benevolent god. Great. I'd be a naughty vampire god. Chris Hewitt. Ruler. Ruler of Australia. No, he would never be ruler of Australia.

2:17:24Too many snakes. No, I would. But then I would order all the things that can kill you. Whacking die. Yeah. Sorry, New Zealand. You've got them now. What? Yeah. Sorry. That doesn't seem fair. It's the nearest place. We had to dump them somewhere. So like Brexit for snakes. Yes. Snakes it. I don't think you understand how snakes work, if I'm honest. You just usher them out of the country. I don't think they've taken referendums. You're not St. Patrick. Have you seen Sootropolis 2? Am I not St. Patrick? No. No. It's the lack of saintliness that's kind of a clue. Well, let's examine the evidence, shall we?

2:18:00Okay. Am I a saint? No. Am I Irish? Eh, debatable. Neither was he, right? I'm totally sure. That's fair. Oh, but this is inconclusive. It's possible we need to drag this kicking and screaming back onto topic, lest we not have time for any listening questions. Have you been to Armagh? Yes. Okay, maybe he is. I have been to Armagh. Shall I name you some other places I've been to in Northern Ireland? Porta Down. Have you been to Slemish? Oh my God. What? It's a legitimate question. what the fuck is that well okay so you're not St. Patrick who spent a lot of time on Slemish oh Slemish oh yeah sorry I was too busy getting the snakes out and I didn't have a list of every place I went to anyway I'm just saying if I was ruler of Australia those snakes are on fucking notice they're on notice I'm serving notice right now snakes you're serving something spiders owl from home and away if he's still alive get out of here mate you bloody tip nipper right I think we're pretty much done here apart from maybe a couple of listener questions real quick, and then we'll race through the top 20 of the year, because, spoiler alert, we've mentioned them all.

2:19:11So, let me see. We only have time to take a couple. Here's one from Hamish Dwyer. What was the pod team's favorite experience in a cinema this year? It might be when Pedro Pascal turned out randomly at the Ballerina from the World of John Wick, or whatever it's called, premiere screening. we don't go to all the premieres we you know often just go to a screening in advance of a movie but this was the only one that they did was the premiere and um or the big one that they did and yeah and suddenly at one point like Keanu's there being interviewed on the red carpet and we're inside the screen watching it all happen in front of us because they sort of pipe it in so they can get us plebs into our seats and out of the way of the pictures and uh and then suddenly people start screaming further down the carpet and you're like why is everyone screaming when Keanu is already in situ being interviewed this is weird and of course it was Pedro Pascal just randomly turning up because he was in London just hanging um and I enjoyed that sort of that sort of couple of months in the summer where it seemed like Pedro Pascal was around every corner and he occasionally turned up screenings he was at Sinners as well never mind like Fantastic Four um and and just like rocked up to the picture house central one night and saw some films and was just around places.

2:20:29It was a weird thing to be happening, but it was fun. The best time I had at the cinema was Avatar, Fire and Ash. Yeah, that was also good. Yeah. Just in terms of sheer spectacle, like, this is cinema. Alright. Because, I mean, literally, because you cannot have that experience in any other way. You cannot experience that film in that way at home. It's not the same thing. James advocating for big TV there. Big TV and and 3D, which I normally hate, but I make the exception. Well, Cameron knows how to use 3D. Yeah, most filmmakers do not, but Cameron really, really does. Okay, my favorite cinematic experience of the year was probably, yeah, probably that Final Destination Bloodlines screening, which was just tremendous fun.

2:21:20Not that many people in the screening, but we were all on the same wavelength, and we were all giggling and guffawing in all the right places. So I really enjoyed that. And that leads actually neatly into the next question. But I've just remembered, I don't think we have a question about music. I don't know whether it's a track or a needle drop or a piece of score that you guys love this year. But I got my Apple Music, because I don't do Spotify, but I got my Apple Music kind of unwrapped thing the other day. and it told me that I listened to Michael Cicchino's Fantastic Four First Steps theme, particularly in July, an inordinate amount of times.

2:21:58Like Apple said, we can't count how many times you listened to this. That was tremendous. I loved that. The big new addition to my playlist is We Got This, open brackets, Stony Gate 2, close brackets, from highest to lowest. Oh, okay. It's the aforementioned musical that's not a musical. Yep. It's a really epic track for just getting your morning off to a good start. Lovely, lovely stuff. Jimbo, do you have a track that stood out for you this year? I mean, from actually within film, I will say the one that really stood out to me is something I hated was the one that was at the end of Avatar, Fire and Ash, which jarred the hell out of me.

2:22:36Is that Miley Cyrus? It is, yeah. And I know that Cameron has a habit of doing these kind of like... Ballads! Right, at the end of his films. I would have killed to have just had something orchestral that carried on the themes of the film, then I found it really jarring and didn't enjoy it at all. But if it was something I did like, it would be I Lied to You from Sinners, obviously, which is the showpiece of that film. And it's haunting and it's majestic and it's unexpected and it's weird and it's wonderful. And the camera work is great. And loads of the great tunes as well in The Ballad of Wallace Island.

2:23:08But that goes without saying. Here's a question from Lowly Salamander. I've switched to Blue Sky now. How many films did you pay to see in a cinema this year versus industry screenings. I mean, I go to a lot of screenings, so it was a much smaller number, but I don't track things like that. Yeah, I have absolutely no idea, but I almost certainly expensed them. Wow. Last film I paid to see with my own money, I think it was a Blackphone 2 from a Sporter Special. I paid a lot when I saw Fackham Hall, but obviously not in cash. Just in spirit. Yeah. I've seen a number. I mean, again, that Final Destination Bloodlines, paid with my own cash.

2:23:46I went to see that. What was the film you saw most in the cinema this year? In the cinema? Yeah. I don't think I've seen anything more than twice in the cinema this year. Okay. Yes, same, I think. Which maybe says something about this year in cinema. Yeah, I think it does. In fact, if I think the only film I saw twice in the cinema, although I have seen a number of these films that were out this year twice, was Fire and Ash. my paid cinema going definitely dwindled this year. Number of reasons for that. So much good TV. So much good TV. But yeah, it's still great to go to cinema with the scum, the subhuman scum.

2:24:26It's still great to go to cinema, to the pictures. It's so fake. It is still great to go to cinema. Helen, can I refer you to rule number one, which I am perilously in danger of breaking. I am very, very tired. I literally just remembered I wrote two books this year and published two books not the same two but like a lot of things have happened this year so many things have happened it's been very busy yes it's been a very successful year in many many ways just not professionally I don't know that's yeah Dean Bowes asks memorable pod interview of the year or just interview for whatever reason most fun most insightful most interesting having to hold on for dear life etc I interviewed Gareth Edwards in a toilet in Thailand.

2:25:17And that was definitely, but not the toilet specifically. It was a lovely toilet, though. It was at the White Lotus. Were either of you having a poo? No. No. All right, okay. We just wanted somewhere quiet. Okay. And you went to the toilet. Yeah. All right. When you say toilet, do you actually mean bathroom? I mean, you could describe it that way, yes. There was a lot of porcelain and fluffy towels. Right. Okay. And it was, did I mention it? At the White Lotus in Thailand. Yes. Very much. I think you've mentioned once or twice.

2:25:45I enjoyed all the Wicked for Good interviews a lot because they were all slightly eccentric and odd and fun and that was really good. So literally, Cynthia Erivo had her tattoo artist sitting in the background waiting to tattoo her as soon as we finished. Wow. Ariana Grande was sitting in front of the New York skyline because she was in the middle of doing Fockers-in-Law. Jonathan Bailey was trying to pack his bags for a wedding. he was going to in Italy somewhere but also a bike holiday and was trying to get everything into panniers for his bike Michelle Yeoh was on a freaking yacht in the south of fucking France what yes so that was all very fun and of course I really enjoyed beating Chris to the punch and talking about Jay Kelly with not only beating Chris to the punch drunk love hey not only George Clooney and Adam Sandler but also Noah Baumbach and David Heyman and Amy Pascal as well I did no interesting interviews this year sure Chris sure sure sure sure sure sure I did I did loads I did genuinely loads but you probably heard them all or if you haven't what are you doing with your lives Macquarie amazing fascinating frank candid very honest about the final reckoning that was amazing I love doing sports especially interviews Ryan Johnson was was terrific on Wake Up Dead Man.

2:27:08James Gunn was great on Superman. I loved doing Matt Shackman because he did it a couple months after the Fantastic Four came out and I think he was a little bit more honest about the movie than he might have been had I done it in the week of release. You know, I openly admitted to like cutting some things out and rearranging some things and changing things fairly late in the day which was interesting. Loads of really, really great stuff. Taron Egerton at his flat, his lovely flat, his lovely smelling flat. just a couple weeks ago. There's loads, you know. Yeah, it's been a banner year. Although without any banners, I haven't interviewed Ruffalo once.

2:27:48Not this year. I've interviewed him before, but not this year. What are you doing? Mickey 17 was right there. You know what he was really good in this year? Task on TV. Oh, boy. Shall we go through the top 20 real quick and then we can bring this bad boy to a conclusion? Would you like me to read them out? Yes, but I want you to do it in association with Cristal Cerveza. Or surface of crystal, whatever it is. Surface of crystal!

2:28:16All right, Jimbo, you got the 20? I do. At number 20, we're going backwards. Alex Garland's Warfare. Alex Garland's Warfare? Yes. Wouldn't be in my personal top 20, but it's a fine film. Yeah. Also, he did co-direct it with Ray Mendoza. Yeah. So, Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza's Warfare, I think you'll find. Okay. But even then, it is quite literally half the film that number 19 is. It is The Brutalist, which I started in January. Apparently, it's still going. It's a good movie. It's beautifully shot. It's one of the best looking movies of the year. It won Adrian Brody his second Oscar, the one cruelly denied to him for Predators.

2:28:58Yeah. Right. Sure. Yeah. At number 18, Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. No, Jacob Lordi's Frankenstein. I've seen the film. hey actually no no actually hey I think you're fine I think you're fine it's actually Oscar Isaac I am the true monster for correcting me on this fine point of grammar actually there's loads of Frankensteins in that there's Charles Dance is a Frankenstein Oscar Isaac is a Frankenstein Mia Goth is a Frankenstein no yes she is no she gets off before the marriage no no no no oh she's also a Frankenstein yeah Felix Camera yeah is a Frankenstein and I believed every word he said in that movie and you know why?

2:29:37Because the camera never lies. There it is. At number 17. Are we going on already? Yes. Cinematic edging. It's a house of dynamite. I'm not sure that's the tagline they went with in the end nor the kind of way I want people to think about this movie. I mean I think it's accurate. Oh no I don't think it is. I don't think it's even slightly accurate. Takes you to the brink three times never lets you finish. Anyway anything you want to say? no okay what I'm just so disturbed by that okay let's move on hastily to number 16 Black Bag Black Bag Black Bag love it great film love it should be higher should be higher at number 15 The Naked Gun at number 40 sorry what really for comedy yeah I know really I should say we should move on I didn't put a list together so I didn't vote for any of these yeah I mean I didn't vote for this one did you put a list together I did put a list together and I chatted twice no I wasn't asked you weren't asked because they just did it in house just to do it as quick as possible true story and number 14 Bugonia great movie we didn't talk about it enough but like it's got a twist in the tail it's got a sting in the tail and it's it's smart and funny and a little bit scary and cool and weird deeply weird it's the 14th best movie of the year though and number 13 F1 oh come on oh yeah much much better than Bugonia yes please thank you that's a bit where the man drives off the track and everyone goes and number 12 Hard Truths huh okay a film we have not yet mentioned yeah but we skipped the awards films from last year and that was one of those it's a very good Marianne Jean-Baptiste performance but as the worst woman in the world who you just never want to meet and don't want to spend any time hey Helen don't be so cruel on yourself and I hated watching every second of it even though I think it's you know wonderfully well acted and performed and all and an interesting change of pace for famous comedy director might be now uh number 11 we have nickel boys good yeah i can but this is a list of the best movies of 2025 and did they did that movie technically come out here yes in the uk in the year 2025 yes but what if you're an american listening to this list you're like hey gee willikers that film came out like where in america are you from 18 i'm from Wisconsin probably that came out like 18 months ago dude and you're like I discount that I'm discounting that right now okay you'd be like that you would and I am discounting anything I'm sorry but then that makes no sense because then something like Ballad of Wallace Island might not have come out in many countries where people are listening to this but it came out here in May but like those films came out here in this year at number 10 they shouldn't have at number 10 we have Pillion yay it should be higher vroom vroom vroom vroom indeed alright so I'm guessing he's going to win the battle of the Skarsgård sausages I would say so you don't think Nosferatu is higher I don't think Nosferatu is higher on this list although it should be of course let's see if there's any vampire movies up there at number 9 number 9 I swear by the moon and the star I'm so sorry it's a great movie and an incredible performance but also a genuinely good movie it's not just the performance it's a movie it's a movie movie okay at number 8 28 years later huh you thought that would be higher didn't you no no I didn't oh Chris isn't surprised I thought it would yeah I don't know why because I think everyone really liked it but yeah I just thought that it wouldn't get a lot of traction well It is canonically not as good as our number seven, which is Predator!

2:33:35Predator! Badlands! Predator Badlands! It's that high and I didn't vote for it? Right. That's a good sign. It's a good sign. Who doesn't love Predator Badlands? You could have pushed it over the top. I could have pushed it up. Oh my God. What's number six? Number six is Bring Her Back. I mean... Bring her back. Sing her back to me. Fucking Final Destinations are going to be on this list, isn't it? And I'm going to be really annoyed. I'm going to be annoyed with the people. I'm glad you said that because at number five, it's Flo. Oh. Oh, beautiful movie. Flo is the one awards movie I will allow because it came out in March over here and I will allow that.

2:34:10But if you came out in January or February, you're dead to me. Fair enough. This is so weird. Some people say that's arbitrary and weird. Yes. Hey, Chris. Hey, Chris, that's arbitrary and weird. And number four. Yes. Ballad of Wallace Island. Too low. Too low. Too slow. Rubbish. The placement, not the film. The placement, not the film. And number three, put your arms out by your sides. Why? It's Weapons.

2:34:41That's a good movie. It's a good movie. I was like, I just, I missed it. And then, you know, the twist got ruined for me because everyone's banging on about a certain character from that film. And you can't avoid that certain character from that film. So, Now I don't need to see it. Okay. And number two, coming over the hill, coming over an undulating hill. Is that a monster? Is it a monster? No, it's one battle after another. Oh, okay. Good, good, good. Good choice. A solid choice. This means, Helen, this means that a Warner Brothers movie is almost certainly going to be number one for the year and it's almost certainly going to be a horror and it's almost certainly going to be Final Destination, Bloodlines.

2:35:26Yes. Jimbo, hit me with it. It is indeed Sinners. What? I didn't see that coming that is our film of the year you couldn't sound more excited in my defense I'm very very tired I'm thinking about TV have we mentioned James is thinking about all the TV spin-offs it could be from Sinners it could be one following Delroy Lindo's character it could be a Hailee Steinfeld spin-off yeah all of those great film happy with it no notes Now, bearing in mind, this list does not have Avatar, Fire and Ash on it. I suspect this list will be amended to reflect that on the website before we break for Christmas.

2:36:06But I do not know where it will appear. Or if it will appear. Or if it will appear. Will it be amended, Jimbo, to count all the other films that have yet to come out in December? Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value, which is an Oscar contender. It is possible. It is possible. And of course, oh, I've just remembered the best interview I did this year, Anaconda. The interview with Jack Black and Paul Rudd, you can read some of it in the magazine that's on sale. It's just gone off sale, so you can't read it. But it was really good. And it was one of the funniest interviews I've ever been privileged to be a part of.

2:36:36Until you did not feel the same way. They did. They did. They loved it. Sure. I'm not going to say who, but one of them texted me afterwards to say they'd had a good time. Sure, Chris. Sure, sure. I'll show you on my phone. Okay. Can we call in the man with the coats? No, I'm going to show you. They're on their way. Don't worry. We're going to get you the help you need. I'm gonna look at I'm gonna show you look at that name Helen look at that name I see that name I don't believe it it's a true name Helen it's just James' number why are you sending me why are you sending me burner texts James I hope the film was as funny as the interview it was maybe too late for them to to reach that possibly yeah it was tremendous but anyway alright I think we're done hooray I think we're done here oh my god I'm very tired and now and now we rest the eternal rest of the Nosferatu

2:37:36who has the prosthetic penis from that was it Nick Holt Nick Holt Nick Holt I think was was gifted one of the prosthetic penises from that film okay or a prosthetic penis maybe it was this prosthetic penis from juror number two I can't remember but but an interview that he did with Hayley Campbell for our magazine, he talked about being given that. I'm pretty sure it was from Nosferatu. Right. As a wrap gift. Okay. I don't know that it would be my first choice if I were in Nosferatu. What would be your first choice for a wrap gift from Nosferatu? The coat. I want the coat. Yeah. The sort of bohemian Sergeant Pepper style.

2:38:17Big old, big old coat. Yeah. Yeah. Like Something a bit more, you know, pretty would be nice. Pretty than a giant dismembered cock. Okay. Well, on that bombshell. Oh, boy. That is it for... Oh, dear Lord. That is it for our review of the year, folks. In summary, plastic dicks and a lot of them. Join us next year for more film-related fun. We'll be back. The first show of the year is going to be the live show, episode 700 from King's Place. check tickets at kingsplace.co.uk if you want to come along and sample the mayhem on the night that is going to be out as a podcast on Sunday January 11th and then we resume normal service every Friday from then on if you don't already subscribe to our supported specials do subscribe because there are many many more coming your way Avatar, Fire and Ash The Bone Temple all sorts of amazing things coming your way in 2021 26.

2:39:18But right now, all that remains for me is to say a Merry New Year to my two colleagues of such lethal cunning. Merry New Year, James Dyer. Merry New Year, Chris. What are you hoping for in 2026? I'm hoping for everyone who listens to this podcast to listen to the Pilot TV review of the year special, which is available from the 29th of December. Oh, boy. You shouldn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. What I would like is for everyone who listens to this podcast to give me a million pounds. That's what I would like. I wanted to go for something more achievable. I think mine might be more achievable.

2:39:53Merry New Year, Helen O 'Hara. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. And Happy New Year, Merry New Year, Happy Holidays, however you celebrate the New Year. To our wonderful listeners, thank you so much for tuning in every single week and supporting the show, whether you subscribe to the supporter specials or whether you're cheap. We don't really mind. We love you all equally. I mean... We like the ones who pay a little bit more. I prefer the ones who pay a million pounds. But anyway, we'll get the Patreon up and running. We'll put that as a special tier, the million pound tier, and see what happens.

2:40:34Ah, dear. Anyway, no, we do. We do. We love you all. And genuinely, the show, doing it is a delight every single week, even though I have to deal with these two dickheads. and thank you so much for making it possible through listening to this every single week. And we hope you have an amazing 2026. And right now there's only one thing for me to say. Thank you for listening. See you next time. Bye.