This Had Oscar Buzz

In the bygone moviegoing trend of “interconnected stories of Angelenos,” this week’s episode is a forgotten entry with a loaded cast. Playing By Heart from writer/director Willard Carroll follows mult...

It’s our 400th episode this week, so we had to go big. What could be more fitting than a notorious bomb with major star pedigree?! No stranger to misfires, Warren Beatty nevertheless was one of the bi...

Emmy winner Jeff Hiller joins us this week to talk about one of our beloved Nicole Holofcener’s earliest films. Lovely and Amazing follows a Los Angeles family of women burdened by insecurities, from ...

With Spider-Man: Brand New Day arriving in theatres this week, we’re looking back at director Destin Daniel Cretton’s 2013 debut, Short Term 12. Launched at SXSW and distributed in late summer by micr...

We welcome back Oscar-nominated My Year of Dicks filmmaker Pamela Ribon this week for [gasp] our very first documentary episode! In 1988, Errol Morris made a documentary hit out of The Thin Blue Line....

We’re back talking about Nicole Kidman’s post-Oscar years this week and Griffin in Summer filmmaker Nicholas Colia is here to join us! After winning her Oscar for The Hours, each of the many projects ...

After becoming a critical and arthouse sensation with Memento, Christopher Nolan leaped to studio filmmaking with American remake Insomnia. The film (based on the 1997 Norwegian film) stars Al Pacino ...

Letterboxd head of editorial Mitchell Beaupre returns to us this week to close out Pride month with one of Luca Guadagnino’s most divisive films. In 2024, with audiences still under the spell of Chall...

On deck this week is a sentimental recent fav, Mike Mills’ beautiful black-and-white tribute to modern day youngsters and the state of mind that is “uncle.” C’Mon C’Mon casts Joaquin Phoenix as a radi...

We’re back to discussing the filmography of director Ridley Scott this week, though this episode was recorded… before the news of his Honorary Oscar. Nope, there is also a new riff on a Robin Hood thi...

With Steven Spielberg returning to theatres with this week’s Disclosure Day, we’re taking the rare opportunity to discuss one of his films! Kyle Amato returns to talk about Spielberg’s take on Roald D...

We’re back after our May Miniseries and it’s Tonys week! Rather than a musical, we’re talking about a movie that disappointed in part because it wasn’t a big screen version of the Broadway smash… In 1...

CATEGORY IS… comes to a close this week and we’re ending this May Miniseries by looking to the future. Next year’s 100th Academy Awards will bring the Academy’s first award to Stunts! This episode, we...

The May miniseries CATEGORY IS… chugs along this week with Choreography! You know we love talking about dance on film, so this was a category we couldn’t pass up discussing. We’re talking about the th...

Our 2026 May Miniseries CATEGORY IS… continues this week with a discussion about a dreamed-for category that stirred a lot of conversation, particularly in the 2000s. We’re talking about Voice Acting!...

It’s May Miniseries time!! Presenting CATEGORY IS…! We’re in a moment of the Academy Awards introducing new categories for the first time in many years, and we’ll be spending the whole month discussin...

If you make a remake to a cinema classic (and Oscar nominee), chances are the buzz starts there. But in revamping The Manchurian Candidate to the post-9/11 culture, Oscar winning director also added t...

We’re talking about one of our favorite films of the 2020’s this week with Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera. Told with magical realism and an earthy bespoke quality, the 2023 film follows Josh O’Connor a...

As maverick director David Lowery returns to theatres this week with Mother Mary, we’re looking back at his 2013 film Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. The film follows two Texas lovers played by Casey Afflec...

With The Christophers finally arriving in theatres, we are returning to the ever-evolving filmography of director Steven Soderbergh. In the period of his one-for-you-one-for-me jostling between micro ...

We’re journeying back to the early 1990s this week to discuss the forgotten failure Billy Bathgate. Adapted from E.L. Doctorow’s Pulitzer finalist, the film cast Dustin Hoffman as real-life mobster Du...

We’re tackling Sam Mendes’ third feature this week, 2005’s war adaptation Jarhead. The film followed Jake Gyllenhaal as Gulf War marine Anthony Swofford trapped in an existential wartime malaise. With...

Continuing our Oscar hangover tradition, we’re cracking the seal on the previous Oscar season’s lineup and have we got a doozy of a Class of 2024 title for you! After Joker walked away from the 2019 s...

We keep losing movie legends, but this week we wanted to memorialize the great Robert Duvall. In 2010, the actor entered the race with Get Low, a tale (based on regional legend) of a town outcast who ...

After the edgy sexual comedy The Opposite of Sex made Don Roos a hot indie name and the drowsy romance of Bouncedampened the vibe, Roos returned in 2005 with ensemble dramedy Happy Endings. With a cas...

After the tremendous success and Oscar comeback for Robert Altman with 2001’s Gosford Park, the idiosyncratic director delivered a more understated work for what would become his second-to-last film, ...

2022’s Amsterdam was a high profile box office dud from disgraced director David O. Russell with timely themes, a big budget, and a ton of stars. The film tells a (partly true) story about fascist man...

Is the “buzzy literary adaptation to Oscar bonafide” pipeline kaput? This week, we’ve got a forgotten, pre-production-buzzy title on deck: 2012’s Being Flynn! Based on Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bull...

After our Class of 2025 episode last week, we’re doing one of the most requested from the Class of 2023! After his COVID-stunted release (and beloved THOB title) The Nest, Sean Durkin’s next film woul...

It’s the biggest This Had Oscar Buzz episode every year! Now that we have this year’s crop of Oscar nominations, that means it’s time to welcome a whole year’s worth of films to the THOB fold. We unpa...

As Rachel McAdams returns to movie screens with Sam Raimy’s horror film Send Help, we thought it a good time to look back at one of her most beloved performances to date. In 2023, Kelly Freeman Craig ...

We’re finally pulling one of our most passionate entries to our 100 Snubs series, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho. Adapted loosely from multiple Shakespeare plays (particularly both Henry IVs), th...

Happy New Year, Garys! We’re kicking off 2026 with something more bubbly and light-hearted, 2019’s Booksmart. Sold as an ultra-modern and female take on boy-led high school raunch comedies, the film s...

With Marty Supreme in theatres, we thought it was perfect timing to talk about the Safdies and the gems. And we’ve finally brought in The Ankler’s Chris Rosen to join us! In 2019, the ascendant Josh a...

Happy Holidays, Garys! This week, we have some unfinished business with Keira Knightley and who better than our pal, actress Natalie Walker to join us for the holiday season. In 2018, Oscar pedigreed ...

This week, we got one of the most requested episodes finally on the feed. In 2016, Michael Keaton had already had two comeback seasons on the Oscar trail with both Birdman and Spotlight. Neither earne...

With a new Benoit Blanc out for you to devour, we decided it was a great time to talk about the great Rian Johnson. In 2012, Johnson delivered his genre hybrid Looper, set in a dystopic future where, ...

This week, we are talking about Charlie Kaufman in the director’s chair and how our thoughts have settled on what’s probably his most divisive film. In 2020, Kaufman returned to directing by adapting ...

Our annual Thanksgiving tradition means The Ankler’s Katey Rich is back! And this year, we’re got a stone cold bummer to go with the turkey! In 2020, while we were all stuck in our homes, Netflix deli...

Outside of his place in the Star Wars canon, Lawrence Kasdan has a quick rise in the 1980s after his debut Body Heat. With multiple Best Picture nominees to his name like The Big Chill and The Acciden...

One of 2023’s most quickly forgotten buzzed titles just so happened to star some of the most heralded actors of their generation. Based on the hyped Iain Reid novel, Foe cast Saoirse Ronan and Paul Me...

We were heartbroken at the news of Diane Keaton’s passing, so we decided to quickly get another of her films in the THOB books. Keaton’s final directorial effort was Hanging Up, based on Delia Ephron’...

With Halloween this week and Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt now in theatres, what better time to discuss the BONES! The 2022 fall festival season felt like the first real movie moment post-COVID and...

In the 2011 summer movie season overcrowded with sequels and IP, J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 stood out as an original event film. Arriving with a mysterious marketing campaign that was the Abrams signature, ...

We love talking forgotten awardsy films here on This Had Oscar Buzz and this week’s episode is a doozy. In 1992, Todd Graff’s off-Broadway play The Grandma Plays was adapted into the film Used People ...

One of the defining stories of the 2000 Oscar year was the one-two punch of Steven Soderbergh delivering both Traffic and Erin Brockovich, making good on the past decade’s worth of promise kicked off ...

We’ve got Daniel Day-Lewis back in theaters this week with Anemone, so we’re looking back at one of his few failed Oscar bids. In 1997, Day-Lewis paired up with director Jim Sheridan for the third tim...

Pair the rising star director Dee Rees with a Joan Didion adaptation and the Oscar-winning Anne Hathaway and you have the kind of on-paper buzz we love talking about here on THOB. But The Last Thing H...

Joe and Chris are back from the Toronto International Film Festival and it’s time to unpack everything we saw. Though we recorded prior to the announcement of this year’s People’s Choice Award winner,...

Listeners who remember our The Place Beyond the Pines episode will remember that this is a highly pro-Derek Cianfrance podcast. As his latest Roofman makes its TIFF world premiere, we’re looking back ...