Mate Night: a film podcast of deep-dive movie episodes

Is Back to the Future (1985) a genuinely perfect film, or just the one we're all too fond of to mark down honestly? Welcome back to the booth at Mate Night, where we're re-ranking the IMDb Top 250 A to Z until someone finally invites us to Cannes.

Fred went 9.1 and refused to blink — it's Back to the Future, stick the landing. Jambo came in at 8.4, docked partly because rewatching Parts II and III soured it: Zemeckis never wanted to film the future, made a caricature of it instead, and Part II is irritating for it. Jambo still rates Jaws and Jurassic Park above it, while admitting this one has the better story.

Then the production, which was a mess. Eric Stoltz sacked five weeks into shooting. Michael J. Fox doing a TV show all week and this at weekends, sleep-deprived the whole way through. Crispin Glover picking fights with Zemeckis over an ending he read as "money makes you happy", then suing over his likeness. Forty-six rejections before Spielberg came on as producer.

In this episode:

• 🎬 9.1 vs 8.4 — should the sequels count against the first film?
• 🍳 Everything in focus — how the opening breakfast scene lands the plutonium gag before anyone speaks
• 🛸 Spaceman from Pluto — the retitle memo Spielberg killed with one very polite reply
• 🕰️ 21 October 2015 — what Marty would actually have found: a real Jaws 19 trailer, self-lacing Nikes, and thousands of people already dressed as him
• 📊 The official Mate Night score — 8.8, level with 12 Angry Men, Apocalypse Now and Dune Part Two, and 10th on the Master List

Strap in, strap on, and let's find the one true score.

#BackToTheFuture #MichaelJFox #MateNight #FilmPodcast #IMDbTop250

Is Batman Begins (2005) the best comic book film ever made, or is it just really goofy? Back in the booth, one film into B, on current projections about 25 years from finishing the Top 250.

Fred gave it 7.8 and spent most of it cataloguing goof: the way Batman stabs the switchboard on the train, and an entire Katie Holmes performance delivered by someone who appears not to have read the scene. Jambo gave it 7.7 and argued it's the rare origin story that actually shows its working — Bruce has to earn the kit rather than just be a billionaire. Machine result: 7.75. The 32nd greatest film of all time, until further notice — behind Sinners, The Devil Wears Prada and 2001: A Space Odyssey, just ahead of Superbad and Casablanca.

Then Jambo runs the numbers on nearly 100 scored films to find the worst decade in cinema. Fred guessed the 1940s. Fred was wrong.

In this episode:

• 💧 The Weapon That Vaporises All Water — except, mercifully, the water inside you. Don't drink anything and you'll be fine.
• 🎭 Cillian Murphy Listening — why Nolan keeps the camera on his face while somebody else talks.
• 🎩 "Never." — Michael Caine's delivery, the Stuart Laws bit that ruins it forever, and the man's one-in-ten philosophy.
• 📉 Decade Averages — the 2020s bottom out at 6.7 across 31 films. The 1970s take it at 8.4. Citizen Kane got 7.7 because it's boring and old.
• 🅱️ Listener Question — what do A Beautiful Mind, Bend It Like Beckham and Batman Begins have in common?

Strap in, strap on, and let's find the one true score.

Is Avengers: Infinity War (2018) the peak of the biggest film series ever made, or three hours of highlights with no film underneath? We're in the booth, working through the IMDb Top 250 alphabetically, and we are not close on this one.

Fred came out at 6.6 — six point mix — after watching it a second time and hearing every scripted pause where the cinema audience was meant to laugh. Jambo landed on 7.69, admitted his gut reaction was north of 8, and confessed to full Godfather effect: went in expecting to hate the Avengers, had a lovely time.

Then Fred takes over for a segment on the one thing nobody argues about: the plan. Thanos holds a vehicle of omnipotence and decides the answer is to kill half of everything. We go through what he could have done instead — double the resources, bring back Titan, abolish hunger, or, at the very worst, a universe-wide vasectomy. Fred scored it a 1 for ethical and stands by it.

In this episode:

• 🧤 The Thanos Plan — six years of "morally grey" and it falls apart in ten minutes.
• 🎭 The Peter Dinklage Problem — the accent, the size, and one joke delivered in one take.
• 🪓 Drax Defence Force — "I'll do you one better. Who is Gamora?"
• ⚔️ Helm's Deep vs the Highlight Reel — why the most clippable film ever made struggles to build tension.
• 📊 The Mate Night Machine — the numbers, and where it sits on the Master List. [PLACEMENT]

Strap in, strap on, and let's find the one true score.

Nobody agrees on Christopher Nolan. Fred watched a stack of ranking videos and found less consistency than for any other director — Dunkirk in someone's top three, dead last for the next person. So we're settling it.

No Machine, no scores. Thirteen films, worst to best, and neither of us moves on until we both agree.

The first fight arrives immediately. Fred wants Batman Begins at the bottom — it's goofy, it doesn't feel like a film by the most serious filmmaker alive, and it's the worst Nolan he's actually seen. Jambo won't have it, and puts Following and Insomnia below it: one hour ten, black and white, shot on nothing, and a better-written film than people give it credit for.

The final list: 13 Following, 12 Insomnia, 11 Batman Begins, 10 Tenet, 9 The Odyssey, 8 The Dark Knight Rises, 7 Dunkirk, 6 The Prestige, 5 Oppenheimer, 4 Interstellar, 3 The Dark Knight, 2 Memento, 1 Inception.

In this episode:

• 🎬 The Heath Ledger Question — if you take him out, is The Dark Knight still top three? It's why Memento finishes above it: that film is great because of Nolan, not because of a performance.
• 💔 Somebody's Number One Finishes Fourth — Interstellar gets talked down, on air, by the man who loves it most.
• 🔁 Surviving Tenet — subtitles, rewinding scenes, and stepping outside for a cigarette while the exposition happens.
• 🥱 Beautiful and Boring — the case that Dunkirk and Oppenheimer are the coolest-looking naps in his filmography.
• 🏆 Number One — the film that made us think this guy is the absolute tits.

What's your worst Nolan? Let us know.

Is Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (2026) the event film of the year, or a beautifully built three hours you feel nothing during? On this one, we're 1.3 points apart.

Fred came in at 8.6 on the critical score — top marks for visuals, sound and impact — while admitting his actual enjoyment was mid-sevens, same as Jambo's 7.3. By the end of the episode he'd talked himself down. The Machine settled it at 7.95: the 27th greatest film of all time, just ahead of 2001: A Space Odyssey and just behind One Battle After Another, Oldboy, Conclave and All About Eve.

The fight is over why the emotion doesn't land. Jambo says Interstellar spends the best part of an hour on the drone, the cornfield and the school before it asks you to care — the Odyssey gives Penelope and Odysseus one scene and a poem it plans to bring back later. So it's an editing problem. Fred thinks Nolan's dialogue often needs an exceptional performance to carry it and doesn't always get one. Neither of us blames Matt Damon, who's about as good a casting call as you could make.

In this episode:

• 👁️ The Thing With Slightly Less Than Two Eyes — a hundred-foot practical rig, and the best sequence in the film.
• 🎞️ $500 a Minute — the first film shot entirely on IMAX, plus the shooting ratio that makes it nearly $20k per minute that survived the cut.
• 🚫 No Phones, No Uggs — the on-set rules, and why everyone who works with Nolan seems to love him.
• 🗺️ The "And Then" Problem — one or two stops on the journey we didn't need.
• 📊 The Mate Night Machine — 7.95 and a Master List placement.

Strap in, strap on, and let's find the one true score.

Stephen Spielberg released a not very good film called Disclosure Day (2026). Emily Blunt and what's his name star as magic alien babies. Not good.

Is Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) the definitive war epic — or a bloated, sleep-inducing mess? On this episode of Mate Night, things are getting heated in the booth.

We unpack the chaotic brilliance of this cinematic descent into the jungle and debate the mechanics of its storytelling. Fred is ready to declare war on the film's iconic voiceover, arguing that the constant narration completely derails the experience. Meanwhile, we try to solve a very real, practical mystery: why does a film featuring napalm, helicopters, and Marlon Brando consistently send J's girlfriend to sleep?

We also dive into the visuals to crown the absolute best shot in the entire movie, alongside a brutally honest autopsy of the performances. Is it cinematic heresy to admit that half the actors in this undisputed classic are actually... crap?

As always, we start with our gut scores before feeding Apocalypse Now into the unforgiving Mate Night Machine to see how it ranks against the rest of cinema history on our Master List. Does it conquer the spreadsheet, or sink into the swamp?

In this episode:

• 🚁 The Narration Debate — Does Willard’s voiceover elevate the atmosphere or just annoy Fred?

• 💤 The "Girlfriend" Test — Why does Coppola's masterpiece double as a sedative?

• 📸 Picture Perfect — Breaking down the single best shot in the movie.

• 🎭 The Acting Autopsy — Which legendary performances hold up, and who completely dropped the ball?

• 📊 The Mate Night Machine — Final rankings and Master List placement revealed.

Strap in, strap on, and let’s find the one true score.

Mate Night Reviews

Welcome back to the booth at Mate Night, where we are reviewing films until someone finally invites us to Cannes.

Today, the stakes are personal. We’ve brought in our first-ever guest, Fes, to help us dissect the 2006 classic, The Devil Wears Prada. Is this a core childhood memory of "rags-to-riches" glamour, or a stress-inducing look at an irredeemable workplace?.

In this episode:

• The 8-Year Wait: Jambo finally sits down for his first-ever viewing after nearly a decade of avoidance.

• The Machine Crunches the Numbers: We break down Meryl Streep’s "badass" performance, the "giraffe-style" 2000s fashion, and whether the dialogue still bites in 2026.

• The Master List: Does Andy’s "glow-up" score high enough to beat out Casablanca and Superbad?.

Whether you're here for a Friday night beer or your Sunday morning coffee, grab a seat in the booth and let's see if this survives the Machine.

Follow us on Patreon for the full "Tell-All" bonus episode on the upcoming sequel!.

Welcome back to the booth at Mate Night, where we’re reviewing films until someone finally invites us to Cannes.

Today’s mission: Project Hail Mary (2026). Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Into the Spider-Verse) and shot by Greig Fraser (Dune), this film is currently smashing the box office with over $433 million and an eye-watering 8.4 on IMDb.

But does the hype match the reality? We’re feeding it into the Mate Night Machine to find the one true score.

In this episode, Fred and Jambo discuss:

• The Gosling Factor: Is Ryan Gosling’s hair actually a distraction to scientific immersion?

  
  

• The Humor: Does the "Olaf-style" comedic relief lower the stakes of the mission?

  
  

• The "Long Boy" Runtime: Why the final 20 minutes might have been a "half-baked" addition.

  
  

• The Reveal: A deep dive into that dark, non-linear plot twist that separates this from your average space adventure.

  
  

From the visual sensory experience to the 50 bad ideas Jambo came up with, we find out if this belongs at the top of the Master List or at the bottom of the bin.

Strap in, strap on, and let’s see where the Machine lands this one.