Film Versus Film

With one week out from the Oscars, we talk through our predictions for the top awards and our favorite films of 2023. We've watched them so you don't have to!

Join us as we draft the 10 Worst "Best Picture Winners" from the Oscars from the past 23 years. Then, join us next week for our predictions for 2024, followed by our 'results card' and finally an episode where we draft the 10 Best from the new millennium. Normal episodes will resume shortly after.

We're taking take on two classics of the Holiday season. Both films have become iconic Christmas classics and both films are about a patriarch, on Christmas Eve dealing with family tensions, work tensions and that annoying wooden staircase railing. It's Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life Versus National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

Listen as we further expand on growing up on Dharug land in Western Sydney. A space that has defined us as people and influenced our cultural and political perspectives for the better. Join us as we create a map of memories that are also strongly linked to our love of film!

After a slew of upsets on our “Worst 10” Draft, the team returns to rank the Ten Best films that we’ve covered over the first year on the Podcast. Join us for Trivia, strategy, betrayal and drama as we fight over the Top 10. With special guest - Poppy McKinnon.

Join us as we rank the 10 Worst Films that we've covered on the podcast so far in an exciting drafting game. Will Borat make the Top 10 Worst? Will the grubby assault storyline in Revenge of the Nerds push it to the bottom? Or will Ron Silver’s over-the-top performance place Blue Steel in last position? Listen as we battle it out!

Two of the most iconic films of all time! Films that reset the mold, caused decades of philosophical discussion and feature a protagonist who ventured into a world that is similar, yet different to our own. Join us for 1939’s The Wizard of Oz versus 1999’s The Matrix.

Two police stories set in the big city! One film stars Jamie Lee Curtis as a rookie cop who is being gas-lit by a psychopath, and the other stars a slew of Hollywood leading men in a movie full of intrigue. This week we’re looking at Kathryn Bigelow's Blue Steel and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed.

Two fish-out-of-water comedies that took the world by storm, both of them broke box office records, both of them expanded the cultural lexicon and both films took their TV star lead actors all the way to the oscars. Today we’re talking about Crocodile Dundee and Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

It's time for some maypoles and sacrifices! One film is about a very British police investigation on a small island, and the other is about American college kids visiting an overly friendly festival in Sweden. Today it’s Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man versus Ari Aster’s Midsommar.

We’re heading to the old west and looking at the portrayal of two very different cowboys. One is a pretty horrible brother-in-law grappling with his sexuality, and the other is an old widow who wants to give it all away. Today we’re discussing Jane Campion's Unforgiven and Clint Eastwood's The Power Of The Dog.

In this episode we look at two conspiratorial masterpieces that feature reluctant heroes who discover that the world around them is manufactured to control them. One film is directed by genre master John Carpenter and the other by a rising star of America's new black vanguard. Today we’re looking at 1988’s They Live versus  2023’s They Cloned Tyrone.

In this episode we are going behind the scenes with two incredible making-of-stories. One film charts the tumultuous production of one of the most famous films of the 1970’s Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, and the other charts the hopes and dreams of a filmmaker who inherited the dream created by Coppola, but not the audience, or privilege. Yes today we’re the Sundance Award winning American Movie to the well-regarded Hearts Of Darkness; A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.

In this episode we’re infiltrating the third reich with two WW2 epics made 40-years apart. One is a 1960’s blockbuster, the other is a knowing homage to genres. Today we’re talking about Brian Hutton’s Where Eagles Dare versus Quentin Tarintino’s Inglourious Basterds. We also talk about watching Goonies in Capetown.

A real tear-jerker, as we compare two of the most romantic films ever made! One is the story of two women who fall in love over the painting of a portrait, and the other a pair of neighboring cuckolds who refuse to commit the same act of love that has harmed them. Today we’re looking at Wong Kar Wai’s In The Mood For Love and Sceline Sciamma’s Portrait Of A Lady In Fire

Today we’re looking at two ground-breaking horror films from the year 1960. Both films ushered in new eras of what was acceptable in the world of cinema, from morals and censorship, to form and the representation of serial killers, to the complicity of the audience. One film destroyed the director’s career, the other cemented the director as the greatest auteur of the 20th century.

Today we compare what many consider to be the best time travel film of all time to the Oscar-winning story of Aliens who teach a linguist how time doesn't work.

We're back for S02 with multiple multi-verses! A superhero 'cartoon', versus a bizarre sci-fi comedy that won 7 Oscars! What do these two films have in common? And what does the “multiverse” actually mean in a post-truth, post-science world?

Today it's high concept horror versus low-rent slasher with Dario Argento’s Opera Versus Lucia Gudagino’s 2018 remake of Argento’s most famous film Suspiria. A  very special episode in honor of the Randwick Ritz Cinema and the Italian Cultural Institute of Sydney’s celebration of filmmaker Dario Argento.

Our special BarbieHeimer episode! One is about an iconic doll brought to life, and the other is about the biggest weapon of mass destruction of all time. Both films are about a huge cultural figure that defined the 20th century. Both films are about a character dealing with a giant ontological shift in their world, and both films are made by extremely well regarded auteurs. Individual discussions for each film begin at Oppenheimer (9:55) and Barbie (38:16).

Two of the most beloved nostalgic franchises of all-time go head to head in this battle of the blockbusters. How will these two films perform at the box office and which film does the best job of carrying the torch into the 2020’s?

We discuss our plans for Series 2, a new format, upcoming blockbuster reviews and reveal a very funny and possibly tragic outtake.

In our Series 1 finale, join us for two intense Sci-Fi Action interrogations of the body & technology as we compare Verhoven’s ultra-violent RoboCop (1987) to Cronenberg’s body horror The Fly(1986).

We take a look at two very different and flawed interrogations of race, the Richard Pryor comedy The Toy (1982) and Oscar Winner for Best Picture Green Book (2018).

Join us as we compare two amazing examples of true-crime storytelling with the granddaddy of murder-documentaries in Errol Morris’ The Thin Blue Line (1988) and Bong Joon Ho’s personal message to a serial killer with Memories of Murder (2003).

We take on the bastion of cinematic super-spydom, James Bond 007, as we compare the outlier 1969 film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service to Daniel Craig’s last outing with as the hero with a license to kill in 2021's No Time To Die.

Join us as we look at two perspectives on American capitalism. One a morality tale by a filmmaker who wears his heart on his sleeve, the other a carnival of excess. Join us as we compare the masculinity, and morality inside of Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987) and Martin Scorsese's The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013)

In our Stephen King episode, we compare two very different horror movies. We look at the myths and conspiracies behind Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) and the nostalgic digital clown fest in It: Chapter One (2017).

Today we look at the same hero and villain facing off in films that exist in different decades and different worlds. One version is camp and expressionistic, the other bleak and engaged with social paranoia.

We look at two films that deal with surveillance and society, from San Francisco in the seventies, to East Germany in the eighties. Pop on your retro headphones, it’s time for The Conversation (1974) Versus The Lives Of Others (2006)

Two very different POV's on being a teenager, popping pimples, heading off to college and finding your place in the world.  It’s  Revenge of The Nerds (1984) versus Booksmart (2019).

Two very different action films with two very similar attitudes towards terror and heroism. In this Episode we look at Die Hard (1988) and The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974).

Today the big question is “who done it?” as we explore a classic celebration of Agatha Christie’s work, with 1974’s Murder on The Orient Express, as well as a contemporary throwback from 2019 with Rian Johnson’s Knives Out. How has the mystery genre evolved, and why do audiences continue to love it?

In this inaugural episode, we discuss two very different films. One, a ground-breaking American horror film born out of the independent film movement of the 1970’s and the other, a sophisticated black comedy from contemporary South Korea. Both films deal with class and feature moments of shocking brutality, yet one is deliberate and designed, and the other raw and unhinged.