Stay Through the Credits

Vulture just dropped its ranking of the 100 most powerful directors in Hollywood — and the results might surprise you. Nolan on top, no shock there, but who's really jockeying for the No. 2 and 3 spots? We break down the tiers (IP Guys, A24 Boys on the Rise, the Old Guard), argue about the snubs, and debate whether "power" and "talent" are even the same thing anymore.

The Toronto International Film Festival just unveiled its Gala and Special Presentations slate, and it's loaded. We break down the buzziest titles heading to TIFF 51 — from Cristian Mungiu's Palme d'Or winner "Fjord" to Danny Boyle's "Ink," plus new work from Almodóvar, Kore-eda, Chris Rock, and a wave of Cannes and Sundance carryovers. We also talk through the biopics (Stallone's "Rocky," racing legend Gilles Villeneuve), the ensemble comedies, and what this lineup signals for fall festival season heading into Venice and NYFF.

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is the most spectacular film of the summer and leaves you slightly, inexplicably unmoved, which is the exact and only problem with it. Matt Damon as a crushed, grizzled Odysseus is inspired. Samantha Morton's Circe is extraordinary. The cyclops sequence is one of the year's best setpieces. We talk about why Nolan's structural genius and the emotional demands of Homer's homecoming don't quite meet, and whether any of that matters when you're watching it in IMAX.

Sony's plan to pull hundreds of titles from PlayStation libraries is the latest reminder that "buying" digital movies and shows was never really ownership. We dig into why physical media has shifted from nostalgic hobby to consumer self-defense — from Zaslav-era streaming purges to the "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" DVD rescue — and what it means when preserving pop culture becomes the audience's job, not the studios'.

"The Pitt" leads with 25 nods, "Hacks" sets a comedy record with 24, and "Widow's Bay" surprises with 19. We break down the biggest snubs (Stranger Things, Sydney Sweeney, The Bear's cast) and surprises from Emmy nomination morning, plus what's new for the Sept. 14 ceremony hosted by Mariska Hargitay.

Twenty shows, two critics' lists, one impossible ranking argument. From the Soviet space race thriller Star City to the return to Gilead in The Testaments, plus The Pitt's Emmy-sweeping second season and a vampire rock opera with The Vampire Lestat — we run down the best television of the year's first half, unranked and completely unfiltered.

We're halfway through the year, and the multiplex actually has a pulse. From Baz Luhrmann's electrifying Elvis concert doc to the criminally under-seen Is God Is, plus Toy Story 5's victory lap and the $200M horror sleeper Obsession — we run down the ten films defining 2026 so far, and argue over which ones deserve way more attention before awards season locks in.

Moshe Rosenthal's Tell Me Everything is one of the best Israeli films we have seen in years. A boy witnesses the edges of his father's secret in a pool bathroom in 1980s Tel Aviv, and the film follows what that costs both of them across nine years. It is a film about fear, shame, and the silence they enforce on everyone they touch, queer or not. We talk about the structural diptych, the extraordinary final conversation, and why this film stayed with us long after the screen went dark.

Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day is a whistleblower alien chase thriller that is really about a 79-year-old filmmaker fighting back against cynicism with the only weapon he has ever had. Emily Blunt is extraordinary, the freight train setpiece is the best Hollywood action sequence of the year, and the script can't always earn the optimism the direction insists on. We talk about where this sits in Spielberg's alien filmography, what Blunt does that makes the whole thing cohere, and whether any of us were truly resistant to being moved by it. We were not.

Kane Parsons is twenty years old, came from YouTube, and has made the best horror film of the year. Backrooms takes the liminal space internet meme and turns it into an Ejiofor-anchored psychological freakout about a divorced furniture store owner who walks through a wall and keeps walking. We talk about what makes the film so effectively unsettling, why the monsters are its least frightening element, and why Parsons is the most exciting debut director we have encountered in years.