In a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Simon is joined by Oscar-winning production designer Nathan Crowley. He won his Oscar for Wicked, and you can now see his work in Wicked For Good on the big screen.

This chat takes in those films, as well as Christopher Nolan's garage, nine seconds with Ridley Scott, early work with Francis Ford Coppola, and a whole lot more...

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In a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Simon brought Mark Kermode and Jenny Nelson to his home town of Birmingham in the UK. There, Mark and Jenny were on stage to talk about movie music, as they talked about their new book, Mark Kermode's Surround Sound.

You're getting the full, lively conversation here, complete with audience questions at the end. With huge thanks to the team at the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham.

Mark Kermode's Surround Sound is available now, published by Picador. Please buy it from an independent bookshop if you can!

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Director Ruben Fleischer's latest film is the third in the Now You See Me franchise, entitled Now You See Me Now You Don't. A movie stuck in development for a fair amount of time, it's now in cinemas.

In this Film Stories special, Reuben tells the story of how he got involved in the film, in a conversation that also takes in films such as Zombieland, Gangster Squad, Venom, a little bit of Uncharted, and a bit of HTML coding talk as well...

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In the first of a small collection of episodes over the coming weeks to celebrate 500 episodes of Film Stories with Simon Brew, by popular demand it's a return for Mr Kevin Smith.

It's a long conversation covering Dogma, The 4:30 Movie, Martin Scorsese's response to Clerks, Robert Redford, Yoga Hosers, Christopher Nolan, Film Stories, the year 2009 and a whole lot more.

Thanks to everyone who has supported, in any way, this podcast over its 500 episodes. More episode 500s shortly...!

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Nicholas Hytner is a legend of British (and Broadway) theatre, but on the quiet has amassed seven films as a director too. His latest is The Choral, reuniting him with writer Alan Bennett. Ralph Fiennes takes the lead.

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Christopher Nolan, for a brief moment in time, was set to make The Prestige just ahead of directing Batman Begins. But circumstances meant that by the time the window of time was right, the Batman reboot was already a hit. Nolan thus jumped into a movie that was modestly costed, and didn't involve having to travel the world to shoot. The author of the original book The Prestige? Well, he sounds like a guy with notes...!

Then! Ryan Lambie had a long conversation with Predator: Badlands, Predator: Killer Of Killers and Prey writer/director Dan Trachtenberg. He talks about his new film, and bit of Weyland Yutani too...

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Writer/director Nia DaCosta is the guest on this episode of Film Stories, with her latest film - Hedda - now available on Prime Video.

She joins Simon to chat about the movie, and in a far-reaching chat, they also get into videogames, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, her love of genre, a bit of nerding out about Doctor Who, and a touch of The Marvels as well. And lighting! We chat lighting, too.

Hedda is on Prime Video now.

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It's a Martin Scorsese special episode of the Film Stories podcast, kicking off with the tale behind 1980's immense Raging Bull. This is the film the Scorsese for a long time didn't want to make, but Robert De Niro did. It was also the film that involved some trading off with Rocky II to get the money to make in the first place. And it'd involve De Niro going to extreme lengths to get his Oscar-winning performance right.

Martin Scorsese is also the subject of five-part Apple TV documentary series Mr Scorsese, that's been directed by Rebecca Miller. She joins Simon to chat about how the documentary came together, the five year path to getting it made, and nuns...

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Oscar-winner Edward Berger joins us for a very special episode of Film Stories with Simon Brew. The pair meet to chat about Edward's new release, Ballad Of A Small Player, starring Colin Farrell. And the chat also goes back to Edward's early years making films for German television, through to finding himself on the awards circuit with All Quiet On The Western Front and Conclave.

As we'll discuss, not a bad journey for someone who took a huge gamble and turned down a safe job with Ang Lee's company...

Ballad Of A Small Player is on Netflix now.

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There was a bit of a bidding war when an upcoming writer called Kevin Williamson penned an idea called Scary Movie. It'd change its name to Scream a little way down the road, but having been inspired by a creepy night when he was housesitting, Williamson went with a lower offer, and the company most likely to actually make the film.

The problem? Nobody wanted to direct Scream. At first, including the man who did.

The brothers Strause meanwhile had huge successes in visual effects, and made their directorial debut with the, er, 'less successful' Aliens Vs Predator - Requiem. For their next film as directors? They wanted something they had more control over - Skyline - and it turned out it was really useful one of them had just bought a new apartment...

Stories of both are told in this episode...

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