Every episode of Why This Film? is a conversation with a critic, historian, scholar, filmmaker, and more. Here's everyone who's joined the show so far.
Sid Gottlieb has taught at Sacred Heart University since 1976 and co-edits The Hitchcock Annual. He has spent decades inside Hitchcock's own words through books like Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Framing Hitchcock, and Hitchcock: Interviews.
#14 The 39 Steps →Carlos Aguilar is a film critic and journalist whose work appears in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and Variety. He writes extensively about world cinema and Latin American film.
#13 Birth →A film critic and scholar whose writing engages deeply with world cinema, Girish Shambu brings particular expertise to French film and Chabrol's ongoing examination of the bourgeoisie — their rituals, their pretensions, and their blind spots.
#12 La cérémonie →A multi-award winning editor and longtime del Toro fan, Caleb's work spans editorial storytelling and animation. His YouTube channel Super Ammo has garnered over 10 million views.
#11 Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio →A film distributor with 200+ titles to his name, Mike brings a unique lens to Kagemusha — one shaped by the question of how films find their audiences and endure.
#10 Kagemusha →Chris Cook joins us to dig into Wes Anderson's most personal and melancholy film — a meditation on genius, failure, and what it means to belong to a family.
#9 The Royal Tenenbaums →Jared Frederick brings his expertise in military history to bear on Terrence Malick's haunting meditation on war, nature, and the interior lives of soldiers under fire.
#8 The Thin Red Line →Jesse Thorn is the founder of Maximum Fun and host of Bullseye, distributed by NPR. He has spent two decades championing the earnest, the offbeat, and the deeply sincere in American pop culture.
#7 Pee-wee's Big Adventure →An assistant director whose path into the industry led to Tony Scott's Unstoppable and numerous HBO productions. A lifelong cinephile with a soft spot for cult and genre filmmaking.
#6 Repo Man →A historian specializing in American frontier history and the culture of the West, Brady Crytzer brings the era of Winchester '73 to vivid life.
#5 Winchester '73 →A staff critic at RogerEbert.com and one of the most insightful voices writing about cinema today, Sheila O'Malley brings deep knowledge of Scorsese's career and a sharp eye for performance.
#4 After Hours →A film critic and writer specializing in American cinema of the 1980s, Ciara Moloney brings a sharp analytical lens to Hughes's teen classic and its place in the Criterion canon.
#3 The Breakfast Club →One of the foremost authorities on French cinema, Ginette Vincendeau has written extensively on the French New Wave, film noir, and stardom in French film.
#2 Touchez pas au grisbi →A philosopher whose work sits at the intersection of technology, media, and human experience, Dr. Weiss brings a unique analytical lens to Marker's meditation on memory and time. Read his writing on Triangulations, his Substack.
#1 La Jetée →Why This Film? is always looking for critics, historians, filmmakers, and scholars with a strong point of view on a Criterion title.
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