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Critic Alistair Alger-Ryder joins Lucien for a rundown of the biggest and best films at BFI London Film Festival 2026. Films discussed include The Debut, Tender Loving Care, Behemoth!, Wild Horse Nine, Club Kid, La Bola Negra, The Liberation, Julián, Fjord, The Unknown, A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra, Ink, Artificial, Possible Love, Ray Gunn, Paper Tiger, Elsinore, The Man I Love, Chronovisor, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, Josephine and The Idiot(s). Read Alistair's writing on several LFF films on The Film Stage and follow him on Letterboxd

Special guest Brendan joins us from Madrid to discuss another great Spanish city, Woody Allen's Oscar-winning Vicky Cristina Barcelona , and its Spanish stars Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, plus Scarlett Johansson and the movie's secret lead, Rebecca Hall!

Hey, it's me, it's Boy Party, ask us anything! This week we're discussing Michael Showalter's new thriller Verity, a pretty terrible Colleen Hoover adaptation starring Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett. We talk about this movie's failures relative to something like The Housemaid or Gone Girl, dig into Dakota Johnson's career from Fifty Shades to Materialists and analyse Josh Hartnett's early 2000s breakout and recent comeback in Oppenheimer and Trap.

Boy Party's Tom Cruise Month comes to a close, as Shane and Lucien discuss the brand new Alejandro González Iñárritu film Digger, which has just had one of the most disastrous openings in box office history and - in our opinion - is significantly flawed. We're also joined via voice message by friend of the pod Dave Hanratty who mounts a solid defence of the film, which is dividing audiences around the world. We round off the episode with a ranking of every Tom Cruise film we've seen, and play the Box Office Game for this past weekend.

Tom Cruise Months continues, taking us into the early 2010s and Cruise's two-hander action comedy(?) with Cameron Diaz, his former Vanilla Sky co-star. This James Mangold-directed caper takes the pair from Wichita to Sevilla, and sets the template for the sort of mediocre streaming blockbuster Diaz is likely to star in today. But, it has a pretty good Black Eyes Peas end credits song! Tune in next week for Digger!

Tom Cruise Month continues as we discuss Rob Reiner and Aaron Sorkin's classic courtroom drama A Few Good Men, pitting Cruise against Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore. We dig into Sorkin's mixed bag filmography, casting Cruise as a tough lawyer, this film's influence on US network TV trends and Demi's long run as a leading woman and recent near-Oscar success.

Introducing a new limited series on the Boy Party feed... TWENTYTEENS!The 2010s Young Adult craze saw Hollywood focus on producing big-budget genre films aimed at young woman more than ever before, or since. Join Lucien and Christina for a journey through the attempted YA franchises of their youth, from Twilight and The Hunger Games to their various imitators. For our first episode, we're discussing the hit film that arguably started YA Fever: Catherine Hardwicke's 2008 adaptation of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, which catapulted Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson into the spotlight and spawned numerous vampiric copycat projects. It's a film we both adore, and we celebrate its legacy.

We're kicking off Tom Cruise Month, a four-part celebration of the greatest living American movie star, with a focus on Cruise's 80s and the crucial moment he co-starred with Paul Newman in Scorsese's The Color of Money, a sequel to classic sports drama The Hustler. The movie represented a baton-passing from Newman to Cruise, and we discuss how this impacted Cruise's career, what the equivalent project in 2026 would look like, and the other films in the 1980s that defined Cruise's persona going forward. Tune in next week for A Few Good Men!

Shane and Lucien celebrate the recently late Dolly Parton and her surprisingly strong film career, discussing 1989's female-centred melodrama Steel Magnolias starring Parton, Shirley Maclaine and Sally Field.

It's special episode this week, as Shane and Lucien draft the best actors with singing careers, and singers with acting careers! From Ariana Grande to Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand to Lady Gaga, Donald Glover to Hailee Steinfeld, we're digging into the intersection of film and music and establishing what stars have done the best job of balancing both.

Award-winning actor, filmmaker and photographer Hugh O'Conor joins us to discuss Alexander Mckendrick's iconic 1957 Sweet Smell of Success starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. Hugh is the director of feature film Metal Heart and RTE's Showkids, and has starred in films including My Left Foot, Lamb, Chocolat, The Stag and Werner Herzog's upcoming Bucking Fastard which premieres at Venice Film Festival next month. His photography has been exhibited at National Gallery of Ireland and internationally. Find out more about his work at hughoconor.com

Anyone for tennis? This week, we're discussing Luca Guadagnino's 2024 sexy tennis drama Challengers starring trendy stars-of-the-moment Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist. We debate the film's frustrating lack of compelling characters, the narrative challenges faced by tennis films, the brilliant Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross score, and much more.

Shane and Lucien discuss Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 moody coming-of-age drama starring two bad boy heartthrobs of the era, Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke.

Lucien and Shane discuss Michael Bay's 2013 body building-themed caper starring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson! We debate this movie's compelling pre-Trump Era depiction of Miami white trash, phenomenal Tony Shalhoub and Ed Harris supporting performances and the disappointing arc of Wahlberg's leading man career.

Niamh Mary returns to the show to discuss Alfred Hitchcock's seminal 1960 Psycho - the foundation of slasher cinema - starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh as the iconic Norman Bates and Marian Crane.