Best Film Ever

“As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in.”

Join Ian, Liam & Megs for our 346th episode as we head into the bleak, terrifyingly plausible Britain of 2027 for Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men (2006). Humanity hasn’t produced a child in eighteen years, society is collapsing, Britain has become an authoritarian state, and Clive Owen would really just like everyone to leave him alone. Kev isn’t with us this week — he attempted to enter the country without the correct paperwork and is currently enjoying the hospitality of the British government's immigration system.

And stick around for the Endgame, where we're joined by BFF of the BFE Synthia to help decide whether Children of Men deserves a place among the Best Films Ever.

This week we discuss:

How many screenwriters does it take to make Children of Men? Five credited writers had a hand in adapting P.D. James' novel. Does the finished film feel like the product of that many voices, or is Cuarón's vision strong enough to make it feel completely unified?

Clive Owen as Theo — an excellent actor giving a wonderfully understated performance, but was he a big enough movie star to carry a film this ambitious at the box office?

Michael Caine's Jasper becomes our most debated performance of the week — warm, funny and providing some desperately needed humanity... or playing in a completely different film from everybody around him?

How much world-building should the audience have to do? Children of Men famously refuses to stop and explain its dystopia, instead burying information in news reports, advertisements, background details and production design. Is that masterful "show, don't tell" filmmaking, or does the movie occasionally expect us to construct too much of its world on its behalf?

Ian digs into the screenplay — for a film with an enormous premise, why is the actual story remarkably simple, and does that simplicity allow the themes to become much bigger?

Liam explores hope in a hopeless world — when civilisation has effectively accepted its own extinction, what does the existence of one child actually represent?

Megs examines Kee's place within the story — is she given enough agency of her own, or does her importance as a symbol sometimes overwhelm her importance as a character?

Alfonso Cuarón's direction — those extraordinary long takes aren't simply technical flexes. How does keeping us trapped alongside Theo change the way we experience the violence around him?

The car sequence. We discuss how one seemingly impossible shot transforms from casual conversation to absolute nightmare without giving the audience a moment to escape.

The politics of Children of Men — refugees, nationalism, terrorism, state violence and fear of outsiders. Nearly twenty years after its release, has the film become even more uncomfortable to watch?

The production design — perhaps the film's greatest world-building weapon. From advertisements and graffiti to cages and buses, how much storytelling is happening in the corners of the frame?

The ceasefire — one of the most powerful sequences in the entire film. Does that brief moment of silence earn its enormous emotional impact?

And finally, with BFF of the BFE Synthia joining us for the Endgame, whether Children of Men is the Best Film Ever — or an extraordinary piece of filmmaking whose technical brilliance sometimes asks the audience to fill in more blanks than we'd like.

Become a Patron of this podcast and support the BFE at

We are very thankful to the following Patreon backers for their generous support:

Buy some BFE merch at https://my-store-b4e4d4.creator-spring.com/.

Massive thanks to Lex Van Den Berghe for the use of Mistake by Luckydog. Catch more from Lex's new band, The Maids of Honor, at https://soundcloud.com/themaidsofhonor

Also, massive thanks to Moonlight Social for our age game theme song. You can catch more from them at https://www.moonlightsocialmusic.com/

“This is Africa. We do things differently here.”

Join Ian & Liam for our 345th episode as we head to 1970s Uganda for Kevin Macdonald’s The Last King of Scotland (2006), a film that puts us terrifyingly close to Idi Amin through the eyes of a fictional young Scottish doctor who discovers that getting into the dictator’s inner circle is considerably easier than getting back out. Megs isn’t with us this week — Amin has appointed her Minister of Something He Just Invented and she's sensibly keeping her head down. Kev? He mentioned that he disagreed with the President once and, well... nobody seems entirely sure where Kev is now.

This week we discuss:

Become a Patron of this podcast and support the BFE at

We are very thankful to the following Patreon backers for their generous support:

Buy some BFE merch at https://my-store-b4e4d4.creator-spring.com/.

Massive thanks to Lex Van Den Berghe for the use of Mistake by Luckydog. Catch more from Lex's new band, The Maids of Honor, at https://soundcloud.com/themaidsofhonor

Also, massive thanks to Moonlight Social for our age game theme song. You can catch more from them at https://www.moonlightsocialmusic.com/

Angels & Demons or Thor? Interview with the Vampire or The Rock? What happens when some of our favourite films fall just short of the standards required to qualify for a regular Best Film Ever review? To be eligible for the BFE, a film needs to score either 85% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes OR 8.0 or higher on IMDb — which leaves an awful lot of beloved, ridiculous, divisive and occasionally brilliant movies stranded on the outside looking in.

So this week, we're giving the rejects their moment.

Joined by some of our Friends of the Podcast — Synthia, Paul Komoroski, Ariannah, Shai Bergerfroind and Hermes Auslander — we've assembled a field of the best films officially ineligible for review by the BFE and thrown them into a winner-takes-all knockout tournament. Expect films we can't believe aren't eligible, films whose scores suddenly make perfect sense, brutal head-to-head choices, questionable taste, furious campaigning and at least one result that will have somebody demanding an immediate change to the BFE constitution.

They may never qualify for a proper episode — but one of them is about to be crowned The Best Film Ineligible for Review by the BFE.

“Call me Snake.”

Join Ian, Liam & Kev for our 344th episode as we cross the wall, try not to get killed by the locals, and discover that in the distant dystopian future of 1997, the entire island of Manhattan has become America's maximum-security prison. It's John Carpenter's Escape from New York (1981), where Kurt Russell has one eye, Donald Pleasence is somehow the President of the United States, and absolutely nobody seems particularly concerned that they've sent one bloke in to rescue him.

Megs isn't with us this week — she landed on Manhattan while attempting to evacuate Air Force One and has informed us that she'd actually rather take her chances with the inmates than record with us.

This week we discuss:

Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken — one of cinema's coolest antiheroes, but how much of Snake is actually a character and how much is simply Kurt Russell walking around being impossibly cool?

John Carpenter's vision of 1997 — crime has exploded, America has become a police state, and Manhattan is a prison. It didn't quite work out that way... but how much of Carpenter's dystopia still feels surprisingly relevant?

The extraordinary world-building — Carpenter gives us remarkably little information about how any of this works. Is that restraint part of the film's brilliance, or are there questions we'd really quite like answered?

Ian gets into the film's narrative construction — because Escape from New York might have one of the cleanest movie premises imaginable. You've got a man, you've got a mission, you've got a ticking clock. What more do you actually need?

Snake Plissken's reputation precedes him everywhere — everybody has heard of him, everybody thought he was dead, and we're left wondering exactly what this man did before the opening credits to become such a legend.

Lee Van Cleef's Hauk — pragmatic authority figure or complete bastard? And is putting explosives inside the neck of the only man capable of completing your mission really the motivational strategy you'd go with?

Donald Pleasence as the President — accent notwithstanding, does the film deliberately make the most powerful man in America one of its least impressive?

Isaac Hayes as the Duke of New York — he's A-Number-One, but does the Duke live up to the incredible introduction the film gives him?

The supporting cast is ridiculous — Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau and more. Who makes the most of surprisingly limited screen time?

The film looks considerably bigger than it actually was — miniatures, matte paintings, abandoned locations and some ingenious low-budget filmmaking. How does Carpenter create an entire ruined Manhattan without actually having one?

The pacing — at barely 100 minutes, Escape from New York gets in, establishes its world, completes its mission and gets out. Have modern action films forgotten how to do this?

That ending. Snake has one final opportunity to do something heroic for the United States of America... and makes perhaps the most Snake Plissken decision imaginable instead.

And finally, whether Escape from New York is the Best Film Ever — or simply one of the coolest B-movies ever elevated into cult-classic immortality.

Become a Patron of this podcast and support the BFE at

We are very thankful to the following Patreon backers for their generous support:

Buy some BFE merch at https://my-store-b4e4d4.creator-spring.com/.

Massive thanks to Lex Van Den Berghe for the use of Mistake by Luckydog. Catch more from Lex's new band, The Maids of Honor, at https://soundcloud.com/themaidsofhonor

Also, massive thanks to Moonlight Social for our age game theme song. You can catch more from them at https://www.moonlightsocialmusic.com/

“I’m not a one-man woman.”

Join Ian & Megs for our 343rd episode as we head to Brooklyn for Spike Lee’s audacious, provocative, micro-budget debut She’s Gotta Have It (1986). It’s sex, independence, competing egos, and three men absolutely convinced they should be the answer to a question Nola Darling never asked. Liam isn’t with us this week — Nola told him she wasn’t interested in exclusivity and he’s been drafting a rebuttal ever since. Kev? He heard Mars Blackmon say “Please, baby, please” and has disappeared to practise his technique.

This week we discuss:

Become a Patron of this podcast and support the BFE at

We are very thankful to the following Patreon backers for their generous support:

Buy some BFE merch at https://my-store-b4e4d4.creator-spring.com/.

Massive thanks to Lex Van Den Berghe for the use of Mistake by Luckydog. Catch more from Lex's new band, The Maids of Honor, at https://soundcloud.com/themaidsofhonor

Also, massive thanks to Moonlight Social for our age game theme song. You can catch more from them at https://www.moonlightsocialmusic.com/

FIRST 54:00: Spoiler-Free Review with our See It/Skip It Verdict

It’s another edition of See It or Skip It and this time Ian is joined by JDG, Juleen and Hermes as they swing headfirst into Spider-Man: Brand New Day — Tom Holland’s latest outing as Peter Parker and the beginning of a very different chapter for the MCU’s resident wall-crawler.

But can Spider-Man really have a brand new day after No Way Home changed everything? Ian, JDG, Juleen and Hermes suit up to explore whether this fresh start finally gives us the more grounded, street-level Peter Parker fans have been asking for — or if the wider MCU once again proves impossible to escape.

Does Brand New Day make good on the emotional consequences of Peter being forgotten by everyone he loves? Is Tom Holland finally being allowed to stand on his own as Spider-Man, or does a supporting cast featuring Hulk and Punisher threaten to turn his movie into another Marvel crossover?

The gang dig into Holland’s performance, the new status quo, the villains, the action, and whether the film remembers that the best Spider-Man stories aren’t really about saving the world — they’re about Peter Parker desperately trying to hold his own life together.

What should a Spider-Man film look like after multiverses, returning villains and three generations of Spider-Men? Can Marvel genuinely go smaller again, or has the franchise become too big to ever truly return to the neighbourhood?

All this and more in this week’s See It or Skip It review of Spider-Man: Brand New Day — and of course, Ian, JDG, Juleen and Hermes will let you know if you should SEE IT or SKIP IT.

You know we love our wrestling here at the BFE—or, at least, some of us do.

Join Ian from Best Film Ever and JDG as we once again break the traditional BFE format to review all two nights of WWE SummerSlam 2026.

Did CM Punk and Cody Rhodes deliver in their battle for the Undisputed WWE Championship? Was Roman Reigns versus Seth Rollins a worthy main event—or have we seen these two fight one time too many? Did Oba Femi finally cement himself as WWE’s next great monster by stepping inside Hell in a Cell with Brock Lesnar, and was this really the end of the road for The Beast?

Ian and JDG also discuss whether Liv Morgan and IYO SKY lived up to expectations, the chaotic Interim Women’s Championship ladder match, Kevin Owens’ big return, and the increasingly bizarre world in which Danhausen is competing in a “Human Monies on a Pole” match at one of WWE’s biggest shows of the year.

Which matches stole the weekend? Which results left us scratching our heads? Did SummerSlam justify being stretched across two nights—and, most importantly, was it actually the biggest party of the summer?

All this and more as BFE swaps cinema for suplexes and breaks down WWE SummerSlam 2026.

“Kmart sucks.”

Join Ian, Liam & Megs for our 342nd episode as we hit the road for Ian's Patreon pick, Barry Levinson's Oscar-winning classic Rain Man (1988). It's a journey across America filled with family wounds, unexpected connection, and one of the most celebrated performances in cinema history. Kev isn't with us this week—he insisted Raymond was right about Kmart underwear and is currently somewhere in the American Midwest refusing to buy a different brand.

This week we discuss:

Become a Patron of this podcast and support the BFE at

It’s another edition of See It or Skip It, and this time Ian is joined by JDG as they set sail, face monsters, tempt fate, and begin the long journey home with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.

But does The Odyssey turn one of the oldest stories ever told into a genuinely thrilling cinematic epic, or does the weight of history, mythology, and expectation prove too much to carry? Ian and JDG unpack whether Nolan delivers a voyage worthy of Homer’s legendary poem — or gets lost somewhere between spectacle and self-importance.

Is the humanity still there beneath the gods, monsters, and enormous set pieces? Does Odysseus feel like a compelling hero, a deeply flawed survivor, or simply another emotionally distant Nolan protagonist? The pair dig into the performances, the film’s visual ambition, and whether its themes of loyalty, pride, temptation, identity, and homecoming still resonate thousands of years later.

Can a story this ancient still surprise a modern audience? Does Nolan find something new within the myth, or is The Odyssey more impressive as a technical achievement than an emotional experience?

All this and more in this week’s See It or Skip It review of The Odyssey — and, of course, Ian and JDG will let you know whether you should SEE IT or SKIP IT.

“Either they don't know, don't show... or don't care about what's going on in the hood.”

Join Ian, Liam, Kev & Megs for our 341st episode as we head to South Central Los Angeles for John Singleton's astonishing directorial debut, Boyz n the Hood (1991). Hailed as one of the defining films of the 1990s, we explore a coming-of-age story that remains as powerful, relevant, and heartbreaking today as it was over thirty years ago.

This week we discuss:

Become a Patron of this podcast and support the BFE at

We are very thankful to the following Patreon backers for their generous support:

Buy some BFE merch at https://my-store-b4e4d4.creator-spring.com/.

Massive thanks to Lex Van Den Berghe for the use of Mistake by Luckydog. Catch more from Lex's new band, The Maids of Honor, at https://soundcloud.com/themaidsofhonor

Also, massive thanks to Moonlight Social for our age game theme song. You can catch more from them at https://www.moonlightsocialmusic.com/