This week… Hanna chats with Encounter director Michael Pearce (08:11) and the pod team discuss the film (24:14), which stars Riz Ahmed as an army vet on the run with his sons in fear of an alien parasitic invasion. Joaquin Phoenix is the antithesis of Joker in C’mon C’mon (35:38), and we’ve got two Christmas movies for you: Aml Ameen writes, directs and stars in Boxing Day (47:02), while Keira Knightley takes the lead in Silent Night (01:07:37).

Plus in this week’s Hot Take (01:22:45), we discuss the always controversial “Best Of” movies list: a great way to champion the year’s creme de la creme or do they just reinforce the biases of the outlets who publish them?

If you’d like to join the conversation or suggest a Hot Take for the gang to discuss tweet us with the hashtag #FadeToBlackPod

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