"Tony" is a 2026 American biographical comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Matt Johnson. The plot is based on Anthony Bourdain's early years working in Provincetown, Massachusetts, stories from which were featured in his 2000 memoir "Kitchen Confidential." The film stars Dominic Sessa as Bourdain, alongside Emilia Jones, Dagmara Domińczyk, Rich Sommer, Stavros Halkias, Leo Woodall, and Antonio Banderas. The film was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on August 7th, and it has received positive reviews from critics for its writing, performances, and direction. Sessa was kind enough to spend some time talking with us about his work and experience making the film, which you can watch or listen to below. Please be sure to check out the film, which is now playing in limited release from A24 and will expand nationwide on August 21st. Thank you, and enjoy!

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"The Pitt" is an American medical drama television series created by R. Scott Gemmill and executive-produced by John Wells and Noah Wyle. It stars Wyle, Tracy Ifeachor, Patrick Ball, Katherine LaNasa, Supriya Ganesh, Fiona Dourif, Taylor Dearden, Isa Briones, Gerran Howell, Shabana Azeez, and Sepideh Moafi. Each season of the series follows emergency department staff as they work through the challenges of a single 12-hour shift at the fictional Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, while navigating staff shortages, underfunding, and their own personal crises. Each episode, set in real time, covers approximately one hour of the work shift. The series has received critical acclaim for its performances, writing, direction, format, and realism. The medical community has also praised the series for its accuracy, realistic representation of healthcare workers, and portrayal of the stressors medical staff face in a post-pandemic world. The series has received several accolades, with the first season winning five awards at the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, namely Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Casting, and acting wins for Wyle, LaNasa, and recurring guest star Shawn Hatosy. Now, for its second season, the show has been nominated for a leading 25 Emmy Awards including Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Drama Series for Patrick Ball. Ball was kind enough to spend some time talking with us about his work and experience making the series, which you can watch or listen to below. Please be sure to check out the series, which is up for your consideration for this year's Emmy Awards and is now available to stream on HBO Max. Thank you, and enjoy!

https://youtu.be/-kiRjPewDPI

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"Union County" is an American independent drama film written and directed by Adam Meeks. It tells the story of Cody Parsons (Will Poulter), a young man assigned to a county-mandated drug court program toward recovery amidst the opioid epidemic in rural Ohio. The film also stars Noah Centineo, Elise Kibler, Emily Meade, and Annette Deao. The film premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where it received critical acclaim for its direction, performances, and use of non-professional actors to tell the authentic stories of real-life recovering addicts. Actors Poulter, Centineo, filmmaker and co-editor Meeks, and co-editor Sean Weiner were all kind enough to spend some time talking with us about their work and experiences making the film, which you can watch or listen to below. Please be sure to check out the film, which is now playing in theaters from Oscilloscope Laboratories. Thank you, and enjoy!

https://youtu.be/ve383zBQQzg

https://youtu.be/iFmUSTq1Jy8

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Following our 505th episode of The Next Best Picture Podcast, we're back with a new episode of Mailbag Monday. Lauren LaMagna, Dan Bayer, Larry Fried & Tom O’Brien join me in this new series dedicated entirely to answering your fan-submitted questions from the NBP Film Community. Covering everything from the latest movie news, awards season, and Oscar predictions to filmmaking, industry trends, and whatever else is on your mind, Mailbag Monday allows us to engage more directly with all of you every week. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions for this episode, whether on our X account or on our Discord (Patreon members get a private link to chat with other members of NBP and me). If you'd like to be featured on a future edition of Mailbag Monday, be sure to leave your questions in the comments or submit them through our social media channels every Sunday morning when prompted on our X account. We hope you'll join us every Monday as we continue the conversation beyond our weekly Sunday podcast. Thank you, as always, for listening, subscribing, and supporting Next Best Picture, and helping us build such an incredible film community. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/c0xMRxwgfo4

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For Episode 505 of the Next Best Picture Podcast, I am joined by Lauren LaMagna, Dan Bayer, Larry Fried & Tom O'Brien. This week, we're discussing the Spotlight section of the 64th New York Film Festival (NYFF), the final additions to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) lineup, and the overall schedule. For this week's NBP poll question, we're asking everyone, Which World Premieres Are You Most Looking Forward To From The 2026 Toronto International Film Festival? And we reveal the winner of last week's NBP poll, where we asked everyone, "Which Films Are You Most Looking Forward To From The NYFF64 Main Slate?" We also share our reactions to the trailers for "Paper Tiger," "Verity," "Gentle Monster," and "Josephine." We are still answering your fan-submitted questions, but our answers will now be released separately the day after, in a new show called Mailbag Monday! So stay tuned for that and many other updates from Next Best Picture as this year's awards season continues. Thank you all for listening, subscribing, and supporting us. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/pZy57GDAN9Q

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"DTF St. Louis" is an American dark comedy television miniseries created by Steven Conrad for HBO that follows a love triangle among three adults played by Jason Bateman, Linda Cardellini, and David Harbour, as they experience middle-aged malaise that leads to one of them dying. The limited series premiered earlier this year to great acclaim and has received 13 nominations at the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards, including for Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series, as well as acting nominations for Bateman, Cardellini, Harbour, Richard Jenkins, and Joy Sunday. Harbour was kind enough to spend some time talking with us about his work and experience making the show, among other topics including the differences between working in film and television, his work on "Stranger Things" and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which new filmmakers he wants to work with, who he wants to re-team with, what he has coming out next, and more, which you can watch or listen to below. Please be sure to check out the show, which is available to watch in full on HBO Max and is up for consideration for this year's Emmy Awards in all eligible categories, including Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Limited or Anthology Series for David Harbour. Thank you, and enjoy!

https://youtu.be/QHTZHoXoBpg

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For this week's main podcast review, Katie Johnson, Josh Parham, Nadia Dalimonte, Cody Dericks, and Daniel Howat join me to review and discuss the latest film from David Robert Mitchell, "The End of Oak Street," starring Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella & Christian Convery. Bringing audiences an original sci-fi dinosaur film that harkens back to the Amblin Entertainment films of old, David Robert Mitchell certainly knows how to keep audiences on their toes, as this is only his third feature film following "It Follows" and "Under the Silver Lake," and it's vastly different than those other two films. What did we think of it though? Please tune in, either on video or audio only, as we discuss the story, its performances, action, humor, visual effects, its awards season chances, and more in our SPOILER-FILLED review. Thank you for listening, and enjoy!

https://youtu.be/-W6fYeZabHs

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The Next Best Series Podcast is back as Amy Kim, Giovanni Lago, and Megan Lachinski join me to discuss the latest series we've been watching on television, but more importantly, for this free episode we're advocating for who we believe should win an Emmy at the 78th annual Primetime Emmy Awards (including some from the Creative Arts Emmy Awards). Final-round voting begins on August 17th and runs until August 26th, so now is the time to get loud about your favorites you want to see the Television Academy voters reward. Are we pushing for "Hacks," or "Widow's Bay," "The Pitt," or "Pluribus," or maybe something else entirely? Will it matter how well "DTF St. Louis" does if no one can see it on the main broadcast? Please tune in to find out. We'll return with a final winner predictions episode once voting closes! Until then, thank you, as always, for listening. We hope you enjoy this free full-length episode!

https://youtu.be/P5LGYr_8iiM

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"The Rivals Of Amziah King" is an American neo-Western crime thriller film written and directed by Andrew Patterson ("The Vast Of Night") and produced by Black Bear Pictures and Heyday Films. It stars Angelina LookingGlass as Kateri, whose life takes a tragic turn as she loses her mother and leaves foster care. Reuniting with her former foster parent, Amziah (Matthew McConaughey), changes everything: he becomes her mentor and reveals hidden skills when a devastating situation arises. Kateri relies on her newfound strength to seek justice. The film also stars Scott Shepherd, Rob Morgan, Tony Revolori, and Kurt Russell. It had its world premiere at the 2025 South by Southwest Film & TV Festival and received rave reviews for its story, music, performances, direction, and editing. Patterson was kind enough to spend some time talking with us about his work and experience making the film, which you can watch or listen to below. Please be sure to check out the film, which is now playing in theaters from Black Bear Pictures. Thank you, and enjoy!

https://youtu.be/e-7xArbZRc4

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THIS IS A PREVIEW PODCAST. NOT THE FULL REVIEW. Please check out the full podcast review on our Patreon Page by subscribing over at - https://www.patreon.com/NextBestPicture

Our 2008 retrospective is coming to an end this month, and our second-to-last podcast review is for David Fincher's epic romantic fantasy drama, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson, Julia Ormond, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas, Mahershala Ali, Jared Harris & Tilda Swinton. A more sentimental and whimsical film for Fincher than what we're usually used to seeing from him (mostly in part due to Eric Roth's adaptation of the 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald) it's another wonderful collaboration between Pitt and Fincher (Who we will see reunite later this year in the "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood" standalone sequel, "The Adventures of Cliff Booth") on love, destiny, death and finding an appreciation for life in the brief time we have here. Featuring state-of-the-art visual effects for its time and other dazzling technical elements, the film led the 81st Academy Awards with 13 nominations, winning three for its crafts. How do they hold up? What did we think of the story? Please tune in as Ema Sasic, Josh Parham, Lauren LaMagna, and I talk about the film's screenplay, the performances, the craftsmanship, its awards season run, and more in our SPOILER-FILLED review. Please check out our past reviews for "Frost/Nixon," "Doubt," "Changeling," "Revolutionary Road," "WALL-E, "Milk," "The Dark Knight," and "The Reader." We appreciate your support and hope you enjoy our review!

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