The Film Comment Podcast: Wrapping Up Sundance 2026

On the last night I will probably ever spend in Park City, I hung out with Bilge Ebiri, Maddie Whittle and Devika Girish to discuss some of the films we saw at the tail end of Sundance. Those include The Weight, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, Chasing Summer and more. It was an epic conversation, which you can listen to below.

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: New Films From Chloe Zhao, Rian Johnson and Kleber Mendonca Filho

This week's podcast salutes three auteurs. You can check out our reviews of Hamnet, Wake Up Dead Man and The Secret Agent down below.

'The Last Thing I Saw': Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloe Zhao and Rian Johnson

I'm a fan of Nicolas Rapold's podcast, in which each episode is devoted to him talking to someone about movies they've seen. So I was tickled to be invited on to The Last Thing I Saw to discuss our shared experiences of going to Venice and Toronto. Naturally, we also went through a lot of films, including One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Hedda and The Lost Bus. Check it out down below. 

Toronto 2025: 'Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery' Review

Rian Johnson returns to TIFF with the third installment in his Knives Out series. And he's bringing along Josh O'Connor, who's superb in Wake Up Dead Man. My review is up at Screen International.  

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: Spielberg's Personal Film, 'Glass Onion' and 'Bones and All'

We're deep into awards season, and this week's episode features three movies hoping for Oscar attention. Our thoughts on The Fabelmans, the Knives Out sequel and the latest from Luca Guadagnino can be heard down below.

Venice/Telluride/Toronto 2022: The Wrap-Up and the Rankings

Does it feel like awards season? Like it or not, we've entered fall, when the more serious, prestigious (or, at the very least, the ones that pretend to be prestigious) movies start taking center stage. And I was very happy to back in the thick of it: For the first time in three years, I attended the Toronto Film Festival, which along with Venice and Telluride kick-start the annual Oscar conversation. I had very much missed Toronto, and while it's premature to say that any festival is all the way "back" after the pandemic, TIFF did its best to create a reasonable facsimile of its pre-Covid editions.

But because Toronto doesn't encompass everything that screened at other fall fests, I decided to put together the below rankings by including movies I've seen that premiered at Toronto or Telluride or Venice. (To further complicate things, I opted not to rank any films screened in Toronto that had bowed at Cannes back in May. You can see my rankings for Cannes 2022 right here.)

There were several strong movies near the top of my list, and no clear-cut "best," but for No. 1, I went with a bit of a surprise. Coming out of Venice, the reviews for Joanna Hogg's continuation of The Souvenir were polite but not exactly rapturous. So imagine my shock when I attended a 9am press screening of The Eternal Daughter and was fairly knocked out. The less one knows about this third chapter the better, but suffice it to say Tilda Swinton is remarkable. In a fair world, she and Cate Blanchett would be battling it out for acting prizes this awards season. But in life as in the movies, "fair" rarely factors into the equation.

Links lead to individual reviews. And, yes, The Greatest Beer Run Ever is as awful as you've heard.

31. The Greatest Beer Run Ever
30. Don't Worry Darling
29. Dalíland
28. My Policeman
27. Wendell & Wild
26. Butcher's Crossing
25. Blueback
24. Catherine Called Birdy
23. My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock
22. Athena
21. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
20. Good Night Oppy
19. The Inspection
18. The Wonder
17. Louis Armstrong's Black & Blues
16. A Compassionate Spy
15. The Woman King
14. Pearl
13. Bros
12. Other People's Children
11. Viking
10. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
9. Women Talking
8. Unruly
7. The Banshees of Inisherin
6. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
5. Saint Omer
4. Tár
3. No Bears
2. The Fabelmans
1. The Eternal Daughter

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: Previewing the 2022 Toronto Film Festival

Guess where I am? On this week's episode, I offered a preview of some of the movies I'm curious to see here in Toronto. Hear the conversation down below.

Reconsidering the New 'Star Wars' Trilogy

After reading Kelly Marie Tran's Hollywood Reporter profile, in which she talks about the racism she faced online from being in the new Star Wars movies, I was struck by a thought: I don't think those movies were worth the trouble to make. I explain what I mean over at MEL.

Five Replacements for 'Tenet'

Folks, Tenet is probably not coming out this summer. The Christopher Nolan thriller was set to open yesterday, so for Vulture, we offered five streaming alternatives. Hope you enjoy.

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: Whodunits, Outlaws and 'The Two Popes'

On this week's episode, we review Knives Out, which we both enjoyed. But we differ on two other (very different) films: Queen & Slim and The Two Popes. Hear the whole thing down below.

Some Thoughts on 'Knives Out'

How do Rian Johnson's movies deal with family?

What episode of Breaking Bad is considered the worst by fans?

And why is everybody using "Sundown" in their films?

I answer those questions, and more, while writing about Knives Out for MEL.

My Interview With Ana de Armas

Knives Out is full of big names: Chris Evans, Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Plummer, Micharl Shannon, Lakeith Stanfield, Toni Collette, Don Johnson. But you'll probably leave the theater talking about Ana de Armas. I talked to the rising star for the Los Angeles Times.

Toronto 2019: The Wrap-Up and the Rankings

After two-and-a-half weeks, two countries, four flights and 22 reviews, I'm home. It's been a pretty exhilarating journey from my first Venice to my 11th Toronto, and I'm still processing the whole adventure.

But in terms of discoveries, let me focus on Darius Marder's Sound of Metal, which I've been raving about to anyone who would listen. Starring Riz Ahmed as a rock drummer losing his hearing, this is an addiction-and-recovery drama like no other; its potential conventionality is wiped away by what Marder and his capable cast have come up with. Amazon bought Sound of Metal at Toronto, and I hope it finds its audience. (One thing: I've had people express hesitation about seeing the movie because they don't like metal. That is a very small component of the film, and it's dispensed with pretty early on.)

Below is a ranking of every Toronto film I saw, either at TIFF or before, including at Sundance and Cannes. (Links lead to individual reviews.) For now, the adventures are over, and the passport and foreign currency are back in the drawer. It's very nice to be back with Susan, who has gotten hooked on Queer Eye while I've been gone. She also met Peter Farrelly at a screening. I think she was even busier than I was.

46. The Goldfinch
45. Jojo Rabbit
44. Wasp Network
43. Abominable 
42. My Zoe
41. Blackbird
40. Martin Eden
39. The Traitor
38. Lucy in the Sky
37. Honey Boy 
36. Les Misérables
35. The Climb
34. Bad Education
33. Atlantics
32. Pelican Blood
31. Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band
30. Radioactive
29. The Laundromat
28. Zombi Child
27. Adam
26. Dolemite Is My Name
25. Deerskin 
24. The Truth
23. Hope Gap
22. Ema
21. Bacurau
20. Sorry We Missed You
19. A Hidden Life
18. Pain and Glory
17. Portrait of a Lady on Fire 
16. The Perfect Candidate 
15. Knives Out
14. The Kingmaker 
13. State Funeral 
12. Waves
11. Clemency
10. Parasite
9. Frankie
8. The Wild Goose Lake
7. Synonyms 
6. The Whistlers
5. Sound of Metal
4. Joker
3. Uncut Gems
2. Marriage Story
1. The Lighthouse

Toronto 2019: 'Knives Out' Review

Rian Johnson's fifth feature is a whodunit that pays homage to Agatha Christie. For Screen International, I reviewed Knives Out.

Movies and Time Travel

Put aside Back the the Future for a second: What's the best film about time travel? That's the topic of this week's Debate Club.

Film Geeks Turned Filmmakers

For this week's Debate Club, we spotlighted five filmmakers who are, above all else, film lovers. You can see it in every frame of their movies. The list is here.

Picking the Best Child Performances in Science Fiction

For this week's Debate Club, Will and I picked the five finest performances by children in the worlds of sci-fi and fantasy. (That's right, that means no horror movies. That would have been impossible since there are so many good ones.) If you want a hint of who made the cut, Steven Spielberg movies are well-represented. Check out our list here.

'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' Review

A huge improvement on The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi is a thrilling and more thoughtful sequel. I have a few quibbles, though. You can read my review over at Screen International.

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: Talking 'Suicide Squad,' 'Shallow Grave,' 'Brick'

On this week's episode, Will and I try to explain what happens in Suicide Squad. (It's such a bad movie.) But we have more fun in our Reboot segment, which focuses on two stylish debuts: Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave and Rian Johnson's Brick. You can hear the whole thing here.