School of Movies

By Alex & Sharon Shaw

What's School of Movies about?

Super in-depth analysis of movies (and occasionally TV, and video games). Hosted by veteran podcasters Alex & Sharon Shaw with different guests for round-table chats every week.

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School of Movies episodes:

04.19.2024
One Piece [Netflix Season 1]
[School of Everything Else 2024] When the Roman Empire looted the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, the amount of gold they found inside dropped the price of gold by 50% throughout the Empire. If something like that happened today, it would...
04.12.2024
Justice League Unlimited
[School of Everything Else 2024] Our years-long journey through the DC Animated Universe comes to a close, and it is both melancholy as we say goodbye to Kevin Conroy and at the same time wildly enthusiastic for some of the very...
04.05.2024
Justice League: The Animated Series
[School of Everything Else 2024] The DC Animated Universe marathon reaches its Avengers phase, as the established animated Batman and Superman from their own Animated Series' which had already crossed over, team up with Wally West's Flash (who had guested on...
03.29.2024
Guest Lecturer: Guillermo del Toro
[School of Movies 2024] This is an idea for a new kind of show that I've been developing. It just so happens to coincide with a period where my voice has been wrecked from illness and I'm trying to limit talking...
03.22.2024
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 2)
[School of Everything Else 2024] The conclusion (for now) to this series of shows on the triumphant return of Star Trek. Season 2 slaloms between unsettling and dark episodes which would feel more at home in Discovery if they weren't so personal...
03.15.2024
The Mask of Zorro
[School of Movies 2024] Is this the last true swashbuckler of the 20th Century? It's certainly the Zorro movie so great, and so wildly successful in all of its aims that there hasn't really been a landmark big screen appearance since...
03.08.2024
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 1)
[School of Everything Else 2024] This is one of two commissioned podcasts on the first two seasons of the best Star Trek shows in decades. Refreshingly lacking in cynicism and tapping into the Kennedy-era energy of exploration and endeavour with a...
03.01.2024
Rise of Skywalker Revisited
[School of Movies 2024] The late 2010s. It is a period of civil war. The vast Empire of Disney has released four of its five first Star Wars movies, to mixed reception. Critically and financially, The Force Awakens and The Last...
02.23.2024
X-Men: Evolution
[School of Everything Else 2024] This was originally going to be an After School Club episode, but a combination of the community discourse regarding the X-Men, and an extremely well-timed trailer drop for the '97 reboot, AND a horrendous cold that...
02.17.2024
X-Men '92
[School of Everything Else 2024] The infamous animated series with a theme tune you can hear just by looking at stills of it, finally gets a well-deserved podcast. We actually recorded this several years back, to coincide with the launch of...
02.09.2024
Star Trek: Discovery
[School of Everything Else 2024] We initially started watching this 2017 Paramount TV series just for some back-story context on a pair of commissioned podcasts we have upcoming on the first two seasons of the sister show about the crew of...
02.02.2024
Strange Days
[School of Movies 2024] It's always a risk, setting a sci-fi dystopian movie only a few years from filming. You're going to make predictions about how the world might look and operate, with new technology or sociological and political upheaval within...
01.26.2024
Prey (2022)
[School of Movies 2024] After decades of very patchy sequels and spinoffs to the 1987 sci-fi classic, Predator, we finally get one that is not only worthy of, but in many ways surpasses its stealthy action-beefcake-slasher source. So far we've had Predator...
01.19.2024
Undertale
[School of Everything Else 2024] This is one we have been planning and looking forward to for a long, long, LONG time. One of the most significant indie video games of all time, and for our child, maybe their favourite forever...
01.12.2024
Gravity Falls (Show 6: Episodes 37-40)
[School of Everything Else 2024] Part 6 of 6 We come to it at last. The final episodes of one of the greatest animated shows ever gifted to TV. And we pulled out all the stops this time, because it's bittersweet to...
01.05.2024
Gravity Falls (Show 4: Episodes 21-36)
[School of Everything Else 2024] Part 4 of 6 Back in early 2020 (pre-pandemic even) just as Disney+ had launched, making this show super-accessible to everyone at last, we recorded three podcasts on the first season. Now we are finally back to...
12.29.2023
Wakanda Forever
[School of Movies 2023] This is one of the hardest episodes we have ever had to record. I'm not dealing in hyperbole when I describe the shockwave that rippled through our house when we found out that without the slightest warning Chadwick...
12.22.2023
Tokyo Godfathers
[School of Movies 2023] One of only FOUR movies directed by the all-too-soon-departed anime darling Satoshi Kon (along with Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and Paprika), this is by far and away his most heartfelt, funny, camp and soulful tale, and it...
12.21.2023
Gravity Falls (Show 3: Episodes 13-20)
[School of Everything Else 2020] Part 3 of 6 The third of three shows on Season 1 of Gravity Falls. Season 2 will be covered in 2021. We round off the first batch of episodes with a showcase of villainy, as a crazed...
12.20.2023
Gravity Falls (Show 2: Episodes 7-12)
[School of Everything Else 2020] Part 2 of 6 The second of three shows on Season 1 of Gravity Falls. Season 2 will be covered in 2021. We return to one of the best animated series' to grace the TV screen. A rich,...
12.19.2023
Gravity Falls (Show 1: Episodes 1-6)
[School of Everything Else 2020] Part 1 of 6 Throughout the year we will be releasing episodes covering one of our very favourite animated shows, now available worldwide on Disney+ which is why we waited until now. Most people haven't seen this,...
12.15.2023
Love Actually
[School of Movies 2023] If you love Love Actually this show is for you. If you hate Love Actually this show is for you. If you consider Love Actually to be kind of a mixed bag and there's actors and/or scenarios in there...
12.08.2023
Final Fantasy VII
[School of Everything Else 2023] The first global blockbuster hit in this long-running series from Squaresoft. As we noted before, the excellent Final Fantasies IV, V and VI were not released in Europe (neither were I, II or III) until long...
12.01.2023
The Studio Ghibli Series Part 6: Spirited Away
[School of Movies 2023] Arguably director Hayao Miyazaki's finest hour, and by extension the peak of composer Joe Hisaishi and for Studio Ghibli in general. This one is almost too easy to either sing the praises of, or to dismiss because...
11.24.2023
Green Lantern: The Animated Series
[School of Everything Else 2023] This is the good stuff. Look no further than the 2012-2013 one-season 3D animated show for the absolute best Green Lantern experience. Co-Created Giancarlo Volpe of Avatar and Bruce Timm, one of the key figures in...
11.17.2023
Green Lantern (Revisited)
[Digital Gonzo 2013] This is a special, re-edited, re-release of a classic episode of Digital Gonzo. Back in 2013 we talked all about Green Lantern, under the impression that Warner Bros. & DC had big plans for superheroes over the next...
11.10.2023
The Studio Ghibli Series Part 9: When Marnie Was There
[School of Movies 2023] A strange period for Ghibli brings us to the end of our current run, still with the closing triumph of Spirited Away (2000) to cap this body of work off, as well as this year's The Boy...
11.03.2023
Rings of Power (Season One)
[School of Everything Else 2023] We all knew this would happen eventually. No Intellectual property that has been known to rake in a billion dollars for a single movie will ever be left alone to stand in glorious completion. Whomsoever holds...
10.27.2023
The Nightmare Before Christmas
[School of Movies 2023] An absolute landmark in terms of stop-motion animation within cinema. Conceived in the early 80s by Disney animator Tim Burton and manifesting first in an 11-minute poem after the style of both A Visit from St. Nicholas...
10.20.2023
The Howling ”Trilogy”
[School of Movies 2023] For our Halloween Spooktacular episodes we begin with a compilation of three After School Club shows, covering the first three of the eight instalments in the Howling franchise. However, despite two of them being from the same...
10.13.2023
The Studio Ghibli Series Part 8: Arrietty
[School of Movies 2023] With the grandfather of the studio, Hayao Miyazaki retired and his son Goro not warmly welcomed by the fans, there was now an enormous question mark over the future of Ghibli that persists to this day. Luckily, there...
10.06.2023
Final Fantasy VI
[School of Everything Else 2023] There are many reasons why this 1994 instalment in the long-running Square franchise winds up high on lists of the very best RPGs of all time. It is an ensemble piece with an immediately engrossing story...
09.29.2023
The Studio Ghibli Series Part 7: Howl’s Moving Castle
[School of Movies 2023] Having now won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature Ghibli was facing the retirement of one of their absolute linchpins. Hayao Miyazaki wanted to go out with a bang, so adapted another favourite book of his. Howl...
09.22.2023
Matilda: The Musical
[School of Movies 2023] This, folks, is arguably the greatest adaptation of one of Roald Dahl's books made to date. Taking everything that was great about the 1988 book (one of his last, only followed by Esio Trot, The Vicar of...
09.15.2023
The Studio Ghibli Series Part 5: Princess Mononoke
[School of Movies 2023] Many would call this period the crowning glory of Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki in particular. The maturity and refusal to pull his punches that came with the rich, dark and complex Princess Mononoke illustrated that when it...
09.08.2023
Streets of Rage
[School of Everything Else 2023] The greatest brawler series in the history of video games. If you haven't yet had the pleasure of playing one of the four Streets of Rage, even if beat-'em-ups aren't your thing you owe it to...
09.01.2023
Brigsby Bear
[School of Movies 2023] This is one you almost certainly won't have heard of, but will be happy you found it through School of Movies. It's the tale of a young man named James who has grown up in a post-apocalyptic...
08.25.2023
The First Hour and Seven Minutes of Oppenheimer
[School of Movies 2023] I think this will be the only piece I create about Oppenheimer (2023). You definitely do not have to have seen it and I won't be saying anything that could be considered a plot spoiler. This is dark,...
08.18.2023
Devil’s Advocate
[School of Movies 2023] Impressive, silly or impressively silly? Those are just three of the possible responses to this 1997 theological legal thriller with overtones of several flavours of horror, including paranoia, demonic and financial. It's the forked tale of a hotshot...
08.11.2023
V for Vendetta
[School of Movies 2023] The Wachowskis are back! This time in producer capacity with their friend James McTeigue who wend on to direct The Raven, five episodes of Sense8 and (our personal favourite, the critically panned but hugely enjoyable, blood-spattered throwback)...
08.04.2023
Ghost in the Shell
[School of Movies 2023] One of the most significant and influential anime movies of all time. Absolutely instrumental in inspiring a big chunk of The Matrix in terms of aesthetic and pondering, metaphysical philosophy. This began as a single-volume cyberpunk manga series...
07.28.2023
Masters of the Universe: Revelation
[School of Everything Else 2023] This is quite an extraordinary case. A Netflix show released in two chunks of five episodes apiece, six months apart, back in 2021. 93% fresh with professional critics. And if you sit down and watch it,...
07.26.2023
Gonzo Adventures: The Tower of the Sorcerer
[Digital Gonzo 2013] The 150th episode of Digital Gonzo. This was a one-off show inspired by the episode of Community 'Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'. It's a sit-down gaming session conducted over Skype with myself as Dungeon Master and my guests as a...
07.21.2023
No Country for Old Men / True Grit
[School of Movies 2023] The final main feed instalment of our Coen Brothers series goes out with a double-bang of exceptionally gripping Westerns. No Country for Old Men (2007, written by the recently departed Cormac McCarthy) is a tense game of cat...
07.14.2023
The Studio Ghibli Series Part 4: Porco Rosso
[School of Movies 2023] This was a whimsical period for Ghibli, they tried a few new things, and established one or two absolute mainstays. 1991: Only Yesterday (1m 50s) 1992: Porco Rosso (11m 50s) 1993: Ocean Waves (25m 10s) 1994: Pom Poko (41m 10s) 1995: Whisper...
07.07.2023
In the Heights
[School of Movies 2023] Lin Manuel Miranda's first big break into the off-Broadway musical scene. This 2021 movie adaptation, directed by Crazy Rich Asians-helmer Jon M. Chu is a squeaky-clean but heartfelt tale of the upper east side of Manhattan and...
06.30.2023
John Wick: Chapters 2/3/4
[School of Movies 2023] We covered the first film in May 2019 just before the third hit theaters, and since then they have shaped up to be four of the finest action films ever made. They boast laser-focused attention to choreography,...
06.23.2023
The Flash
[School of Movies 2023] This one was a long time coming. There's a solid argument to be made that to set the tone for the planned DC Cinematic Universe all the way back in 2012, around the time Avengers was doing...
06.16.2023
Batman Beyond
[School of Everything Else 2023] The DC Animated Universe marathon watch, which began all the way back in 2020 as Lockdown started continues! And this is a show Sharon and I had never sat down to watch before, so it was...
06.09.2023
The Big Mermaid
[School of Movies 2023] For many years we have been planning a show or a series of shows on the Disney live action + CG remakes. The plan was to start with the 2015 Cinderella (or even the 1994 Jason Scott...

What's School of Movies about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

School of Movies episodes:

One Piece [Netflix Season 1]

Justice League Unlimited

Justice League: The Animated Series

Guest Lecturer: Guillermo del Toro

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 2)

The Mask of Zorro

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 1)

Rise of Skywalker Revisited

X-Men: Evolution

X-Men '92

Star Trek: Discovery

Strange Days

Prey (2022)

Undertale

Gravity Falls (Show 6: Episodes 37-40)

Gravity Falls (Show 4: Episodes 21-36)

Wakanda Forever

Tokyo Godfathers

Gravity Falls (Show 3: Episodes 13-20)

Gravity Falls (Show 2: Episodes 7-12)

Gravity Falls (Show 1: Episodes 1-6)

Love Actually

Final Fantasy VII

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 6: Spirited Away

Green Lantern: The Animated Series

Green Lantern (Revisited)

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 9: When Marnie Was There

Rings of Power (Season One)

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Howling ”Trilogy”

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 8: Arrietty

Final Fantasy VI

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 7: Howl’s Moving Castle

Matilda: The Musical

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 5: Princess Mononoke

Streets of Rage

Brigsby Bear

The First Hour and Seven Minutes of Oppenheimer

Devil’s Advocate

V for Vendetta

Ghost in the Shell

Masters of the Universe: Revelation

Gonzo Adventures: The Tower of the Sorcerer

No Country for Old Men / True Grit

The Studio Ghibli Series Part 4: Porco Rosso

In the Heights

John Wick: Chapters 2/3/4

The Flash

Batman Beyond

The Big Mermaid