Stories in Motion

We Are Not Alone

Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day is a whistleblower alien chase thriller that is really about a 79-year-old filmmaker fighting back against cynicism with the only weapon he has ever had. Emily Blunt is extraordinary, the freight train setpiece is the best Hollywood action sequence of the year, and the script can't always earn the optimism the direction insists on. We talk about where this sits in Spielberg's alien filmography, what Blunt does that makes the whole thing cohere, and whether any of us were truly resistant to being moved by it. We were not.

The Next Room

Kane Parsons is twenty years old, came from YouTube, and has made the best horror film of the year. Backrooms takes the liminal space internet meme and turns it into an Ejiofor-anchored psychological freakout about a divorced furniture store owner who walks through a wall and keeps walking. We talk about what makes the film so effectively unsettling, why the monsters are its least frightening element, and why Parsons is the most exciting debut director we have encountered in years.

Emmy Watch: End of May — The Race Takes Shape

Eligibility ends May 31st, nominations voting opens June 11th, and the Emmy picture is finally coming into focus. This week's update: "Pluribus" is the drama front-runner nobody saw coming, Rhea Seehorn is long overdue and the predictions agree, and "Beef" is eating the limited series category alive. We run through every category — who's surging, who's fading, and whether Harrison Ford can possibly win this thing again.

Cannes 2026 - We Went Home Quieter Than We Arrived

Fifty-two films in ten days. We break down everything that mattered at this year's festival, from Cristian Mungiu's devastating Palme d'Or winner Fjord to the quieter miracles nobody saw coming. What Cannes 2026 said about grief, complicity, and the stubborn case for cinema.

Cannes Day Eleven: The Party No One Should Have Attended

Film fifty-two of the festival and Léa Mysius' The Birthday Party is the competition disappointment of the final days. A home invasion thriller with Herzi, Magimel and Bellucci that explains itself into irrelevance. We talk about what the Bellucci subplot promises and doesn't deliver, why Herzi deserved a better film, and what happened to the renegade filmmaker who made The Five Devils.