Advertise on podcast: The Film Comment Podcast

For the last two weeks, we've handed over The Film Comment Podcast to the participants of the 2026 Film at Lincoln Center Critics Academy—an annual program for up-and-coming critics held during the New York Film Festival, led by Film Comment editors.  On this week's episode, four of this year’s critics—Eliel Peterson, Brennan Ryan, Auhjanae McGee, and Brian O’Connell—discuss some of their highlights from NYFF’s Spotlight Shorts and New York Shorts programs, including Kamal Aljafari’s Masao Adachi Takes a Passport Photo, Camilo Restrepo’s A Stolen Movie, and Heather Landsman's ee. Subscribe to Film Comment to explore our brand-new Fall 2026 digital issue, the entirety of our archive dating back to 1962, and much more.

This week and next, we're handing over The Film Comment Podcast to the participants of the 2026 Film at Lincoln Center Critics Academy—an annual program for up-and-coming critics held during the New York Film Festival, led by Film Comment editors.  For this week's episode, four of this year’s critics—Yezen Saadah, Kathy Ou, Samuel Brodsky, and Rebecca Turner—discuss some of their highlights from the shorts screening as part of NYFF’s Currents Program 5: The Material Ghost, including Peggy Ahwesh’s The Wayfinders, Adam Piron’s The Flesh of the Mountain, and Kevin Jerome Everson’s National Seating. Subscribe to Film Comment to explore our brand-new Fall 2026 digital issue, the entirety of our archive dating back to 1962, and much more.

For the past two weeks, Film Comment has been reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido di Venezia, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year. For our final Podcast from this year's edition, which wrapped over the weekend, Film Comment Co-Editor Devika Girish invited critics Mariona Borrull, Leonardo Goi, Luke Hicks, and Öykü Sofuoğlu to discuss three late-festival premieres: Ali Asgari's A Bit of Light (4:30); Casey Affleck's Company (8:42); and Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor's NAZA (15:25). The group closed things out by shouting out their personal highlights from this year's Venice.  Subscribe to Film Comment to explore all of our Venice 2026 coverage.

This week, Film Comment is reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido di Venezia, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year. This year’s edition features new films by many major auteurs, including Werner Herzog, Lee Chang-dong, Tsai Ming-liang, and more. For our fifth Podcast from the fest, Film Comment Co-Editor Devika Girish invited critic and programmer Jordan Cronk and critic Öykü Sofuoğlu to discuss Theo Rollason's Queer Edward II (2:40), Jacqueline Lentzou's A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra (11:45), María Aparicio's Sometimes Sadness, Sometimes Rebellion (18:30), Luke Lorentzen's Boatbuilders (24:55), Ilya Khrzhanovsky's DAU (29:20), and Luca Guadagnino's Joie de vivre (42:00). Subscribe to Film Comment to stay up-to-date with all of our Venice 2026 coverage.

This week and next, Film Comment is reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido di Venezia, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year. This year’s edition features new films by many major auteurs, including Werner Herzog, Lee Chang-dong, Tsai Ming-liang, and more. For our fourth Podcast from the floating city, Film Comment Co-Editor Devika Girish invited two native Italians and longtime festival attendees—Viennale Artistic Director Eva Sangiorgi and critic Paola Casella—to discuss how the festival has grown and changed over the last few decades as well as its broader significance within Italian cinema culture. The group also debated several notable premieres from this year's edition, including Rubaiyat Hossain's The Difficult Bride (11:00), Florian Zeller’s Bunker (17:45), Alex Gibney’s Musk (24:15), Mariano Llinás’s Life of Jorge Luis Borges (32:40), and more. Subscribe to Film Comment to stay up-to-date with all of our Venice 2026 coverage.

This week and next, Film Comment is reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year. This year’s edition features new films by many major auteurs, including Werner Herzog, Lee Chang-dong, Tsai Ming-liang, and more. For our third Podcast from the festival, Film Comment Co-Editor Devika Girish invited critics Jonathan Romney and Tim Grierson to share their reactions to The Pervert's Guide to Utopias (2:38), director Sophie Fiennes’s latest collaboration with philosopher Slavoj Žižek, as well as Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger (14:36), Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s concert documentary following the band's recent reunion tour. Finally, the three discussed one of the major standouts in the fest’s Competition section: May el-Toukhy‘s Woman Unknown (26:25). Subscribe to Film Comment to stay up-to-date with all of our Venice 2026 coverage.

This week and next, Film Comment is reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year. This year’s edition features new films by many major auteurs, including Werner Herzog, Lee Chang-dong, Tsai Ming-liang, and more. For our second Podcast from the city of canals, critics Bilge Ebiri (New York / Vulture) and Guy Lodge (Variety) join Film Comment Co-Editor Devika Girish to discuss two standouts of the festival's Competition section: Danny Boyle's Ink (2:28) and Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love (12:05). Next, they discuss a highlight of the Horizons sidebar: Robert Greene's Too Much Sugar (27:30). Subscribe to Film Comment to stay up-to-date with all of our Venice 2026 coverage.

This week and next, Film Comment is reporting from the picturesque shores of the Lido, where the Venice Film Festival takes place each year. This year’s edition features new films by many major auteurs, including Werner Herzog, Lee Chang-dong, Tsai Ming-liang, and more.   To kick off our coverage, Film Comment Co-Editor Devika Girish invited critics Miriam Bale and Öykü Sofuoğlu to discuss some of the most highly anticipated premieres of the festival's first days, including Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine (2:45), Werner Herzog's Bucking Fastard (10:10), Paul Schrader's The Basics of Philosophy (22:06), and Lance Oppenheim's Primetime (31:52). Subscribe today to Film Comment to stay up-to-date with all of our Venice 2026 coverage.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Jane Schoenbrun’s third narrative feature, opens in theaters tomorrow. Dizzyingly meta-textual and deliciously, well, campy, the film stars Hannah Einbinder as an emerging queer filmmaker tasked with directing a reboot of a fictional ’80s slasher franchise titled Camp Miasma. She decides to visit the final girl of the original movie who is now an eccentric middle-aged recluse, played by Gillian Anderson, who’s living on the campgrounds where the first movie was shot. What unfolds is, in the words of our critic Nathan Lee, a “gore-soaked, titty-bouncing, sexploitation fever dream girded by real conceptual brio.” Meditations on the perverse riddles of desire as well as the queer subtexts of many slasher films and the kind of strange identification they invite from the spectator are rendered with perfectly pitched horror theatrics and laugh-out-loud humor.   Film Comment Editor Devika Girish spoke with Schoenbrun about this very rich text, trying to unpack the film’s layers—but not too hard, because if there’s one thing you can take away from Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, it’s that analysis is a boner-killer and mystery is hot. Subscribe to Film Comment today for full access to new quarterly digital issues as well as our comprehensive archive of every Film Comment issue published since 1962.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, starring Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, and more, is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated films of the year. Last week, FC Contributing Editor Genevieve Yue wrote about Nolan’s latest, calling it a “strangely bloodless” adaptation of Homer’s epic poem. Genevieve writes: “The film is shrouded in Nolan’s characteristic dourness, so that Homer’s lively world of men and gods is purged of lightness and humor. Odysseus’s homecoming brings relief, but not joy. A lot of people cry, but no one laughs except the suitors, whose sport is to insult beggars. Even the Sirens’ song, famed for its irresistibility, causes Odysseus to wail in grief.” For this week’s Podcast, Film Comment Editor Clinton Krute invited Genevieve and fellow FC Contributing Editor Inney Prakash to discuss how the film fits within Nolan’s body of work, how it stacks up against other cinematic adaptations of The Odyssey, and more.

This week, Film Comment Editor Clinton Krute is in the Czech Republic, reporting on the 60th Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Located in a picturesque spa town, the fest has long been the home of hidden gems in its Competition sections, as well as a mid-summer stop for major films making the international circuit. This year’s edition features many of both, as well as an excellent retrospective sidebar highlighting some favorites from the festival's past, stretching back to the days when it was located in Moscow every other year.  For our third and final episode from the fest, Clint welcomed critics and FC Podcast veterans Robert Daniels (RogerEbert.com) and Guy Lodge (Variety) to discuss some of the highlights of the festival, beginning with two Bulgarian films: Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s dark comedy Black Money for White Nights (04:24), and Martina Buchelová’s debut feature Lover, Not a Fighter (13:28), the winner of the festival’s Proxima Competition Grand Prix award. Finally, Robert talks about Shuntaro Uchida’s drama Incinerator (20:49) and Guy and Robert dig into Hijamat (26:30), written and directed by Nader Saeivar​​ and edited by Jafar Panahi.   Subscribe to Film Comment today to stay up-to-date with all of our festival coverage.

This week, Film Comment Editor Clinton Krute is in the Czech Republic, reporting on the 60th Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Located in a picturesque spa town, the fest has long been the home of hidden gems in its Competition sections, as well as a mid-summer stop for major films making the international circuit. This year’s edition features many of both, as well as an excellent retrospective sidebar highlighting some favorites from the festival's past, stretching back to the days when it was located in Moscow every other year.  For our second episode from the fest, Clint welcomed critic and FC Podcast veteran Robert Daniels (RogerEbert.com) to discuss some of the highlights of the festival so far, beginning with Alain Gomis's family epic Dao (3:09) before turning to Joan Bofill Amargós's The Hanging of Stuart Cornfeld (16:50), a documentary portrait of the legendary Hollywood film producer. Next, Clint shouts out Yashasvi Juyal​'s magical realist The Ink-Stained Hand and the Missing Thumb (25:42) and Robert praises Miroslav Terzić's tense portrait of childhood bullying, 3 Weeks After (31:40). Subscribe to Film Comment today to stay up-to-date with all of our festival coverage.

This week, Film Comment Editor Clinton Krute is in the Czech Republic, reporting on the 60th Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Located in a picturesque spa town, the fest has long been the home of hidden gems in its Competition sections, as well as a mid-summer stop for major films making the international circuit. This year’s edition features many of both, as well as an excellent retrospective sidebar highlighting some favorites from the festival's past, stretching back to the days when it was located in Moscow every other year.  To kick off our coverage, Clint welcomed critic Pavel Sladký and programmer Irena Kovarova to discuss the festival’s history and present, and to hear about some highlights from this year’s selection. The group began by discussing two Czech highlights from the festival's retrospective section: Věra Chytilová's Tainted Horseplay (8:16) from 1988, and Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos's The Defendant (14:40) from 1964. Next, they dig into standouts among the new films, including Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov's Black Money for White Nights (17:50); Maryam Ataei and Hossein Keshavarz's The Friend's House is Here (22:00); Mads Mengel's The Guest (27:02); and more.Subscribe today to Film Comment to stay up-to-date with all of our festival coverage.

Listeners might know John Early as a very funny comedian and actor—but last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, John debuted a new role: an auteur. His first feature, Maddie’s Secret, takes cues from TV movies, PSAs, erotic thrillers, internet videos, Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, and more to craft a movie that, despite all these influences and parodic touches, feels wonderfully original and earnest. Early plays the titular Maddie, a food influencer who struggles with bulimia, with sincere commitment, somehow walking the tightrope between campy, laugh-out-loud wit and a profound empathy. Maddie’s Secret opens in cinemas on June 19. Keep your ears open for Part 2 of this conversation, which will be dropping soon as an exclusive for Film Comment subscribers.

On May 15, Film Comment Editor Devika Girish moderated a panel at Cannes Docs, an industry sidebar dedicated to nonfiction filmmaking. Titled "Breaking Borders," the conversation examined how, even as the film market has become increasingly globalized, traditional professional networks and production infrastructure are still structured around exclusionary ideas about countries and continents. Devika gathered three panelists who lead groundbreaking networks that are nourishing connections across borders, changing not just the terrain of cinema but also of our notions of power, place, and belonging. The speakers included Jason Ryle, the Chief Executive Officer of the Arctic Indigenous Film Fund; Mark Mushiva, a creative technologist and Research Fellow with Forensic Architecture; and Lisa Smith, a founder of the Romani Filmmakers Network. Subscribe today to Film Comment to catch up with all of our Cannes 2026 coverage. Image courtesy of the Arctic Indigenous Film Fund.