MUBI Podcast
The MUBI Podcast is an audio documentary series about great cinema–how it happens and how it brings people together. Each season, host Rico Gagliano deep dives into a different facet of the film world, from history making cinemas to legendary needle drops.
It has been twice named Best Arts or Entertainment Podcast in the L.A. Press Club’s 2022 and 2023 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards. It was nominated for a 2022 Webby Award for Best Individual Podcast Episode - TV or Film, and for Best New Podcast at the 2022 British Podcast Awards. Most recently, the series was nominated for Best Entertainment Show and Best Scriptwriting (Non-fiction) at the 2023 Ambie Awards.
Episodes
61 episodes
SPEED RACER — The Wachowskis go full throttle
After THE MATRIX and V FOR VENDETTA, the Wachowskis were ready to turn from darkness, into the bright, bright candy-colored light. The result was SPEED RACER, an eyepopping postmodern explosion that honored the gravity-defying spi...
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Season 7
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Episode 6
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30:46
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK — Charlie Kaufman’s movie of a lifetime
When screenwriter Charlie Kaufman started making his epic, heartbreaking directorial debut SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, he was the toast of Hollywood. Then it flopped, put a pause on his career, and arguably marked the end of the heady “...
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Season 7
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Episode 5
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35:37
THE HUDSUCKER PROXY — The Coen Brothers fall from a great height
In 1994, indie darlings the Coen Brothers went for the big time with a playful pastiche of classic Hollywood movies that pulled out every visual and comedic stop… and still crashed and burned at the box office. Host Rico Gagliano tells t...
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Season 7
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Episode 4
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34:29
SYLVIA SCARLETT — Katharine Hepburn pays for her transgressions
It’s hard to imagine Katharine Hepburn as anything but a Hollywood icon. But in 1935, director George Cukor’s dreamy, gender-fluid comedy SYLVIA SCARLETT derailed her career for years. Host Rico Gagliano tells the story of ...
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Season 7
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Episode 3
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37:30
BABE: PIG IN THE CITY — George Miller makes one for the grownups
The first BABE was a family-friendly megahit. So for the sequel, why did director George Miller thrust his sweet porcine hero into a family-unfriendly nightmare? Host Rico Gagliano takes a trot down the mean streets of BABE: PIG IN THE CI...
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Season 7
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Episode 2
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35:05
SORCERER — William Friedkin’s heart of darkness
In the mid-’70s, legendary director William Friedkin — fresh off THE EXORCIST — helicoptered into South America with tens of millions of dollars… and emerged with malaria and a bleak, thrilling masterpiece called SORCERER. The only problem was ...
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Season 7
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Episode 1
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41:39
SKINAMARINK — The Internet’s own haunted house
Director Kyle Edward Ball had a nightmare as a child: "I was in my parents’ house, my parents were missing, and there was a monster." Turns out, this is a nightmare a lot of people have had. After honing this craft on his YouTube channel...
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Season 6
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Episode 5
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40:50
HOUSE — The Japanese psychedelic masterpiece
Few films have garnered the rabid, cult following over the years is a sight to behold. Giant cats. Talking houses. Heads coming out of wells. The images might be familiar, but the story behind the film is less so. The debut feature from experim...
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Season 6
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Episode 4
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27:16
THE AMITYVILLE HORROR — America’s most haunted home
The most famous haunted house in America is a large Dutch Colonial family home that became a bestseller, super-successful horror movie and a franchise that has spawned over 60 movies (and counting). And it’s all based…on a con. Together with ho...
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Season 6
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Episode 3
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32:44
THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE — Guillermo del Toro’s creative resurrection
After a bad experience in Hollywood, Guillermo del Toro had lost his spark. He got it back with a story of a haunted orphanage during the Spanish Civil War, a script he wrote when he was still a student. Together with the film’s pro...
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Season 6
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Episode 2
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27:45
POLTERGEIST — The first suburban haunted house
Before POLTERGEIST, haunted house movies took place in old, creepy mansions. Regular host Rico Gagliano visits the original suburban house in California to check for ghosts and hands over to guest host Anna Bogutskaya to explore how POLTERGEIST...
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Season 6
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Episode 1
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47:55
THE SUBSTANCE — Coralie Fargeat rips beauty standards to gory shreds
Writer/Director Coralie Fargeat's Cannes-winning body-horror blitz THE SUBSTANCE features Demi Moore as an aging star who turns to a mystery drug in hopes of becoming a better, younger version of herself. Fargeat tells host Rico Gagliano about ...
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23:52
Riz Ahmed channels Yann Mounir Demange in DAMMI
Oscar-winning actor/producer Riz Ahmed (SOUND OF METAL) and acclaimed UK director Yann Mounir Demange (’71, TOP BOY) tell host Rico Gagliano about treading the line between truth and fiction in DAMMI—Demange’s semi-autobiographical short about ...
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20:03
The Flipsides of Cannes — Featuring Wim Wenders and more
With Cannes 2024 underway, host Rico Gagliano takes a tour of the less-known corners of the legendary film festival—avoiding red-carpet glamour to bring you tales of spiritual seekers, aspiring filmmakers on the street, and the ongoing drama of...
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25:41
PERFECT DAYS — Wim Wenders cures his post-pandemic blues
Legendary filmmaker Wim Wenders returns to the show to tell host Rico Gagliano about his Cannes-winning, Oscar-nominated PERFECT DAYS—the story of a Tokyo toilet cleaner who finds joy in routine. They also get into a few of Wenders’s favorite t...
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25:13
HIGH & LOW - JOHN GALLIANO — Kevin Macdonald tackles fashion and forgiveness
Superstar fashion designer John Galliano wrecked his career when he was caught on video in a drunken, antisemitic rant circa 2011. Now, in a new documentary, Oscar-winning documentarian Kevin Macdonald (WHITNEY, ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER) asks audie...
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26:49
Sofia Coppola — PRISCILLA, from source to soundtrack
In a wide-ranging interview, Sofia Coppola tells host Rico Gagliano all about the making of her new Priscilla Presley biopic—from the Kubrick flick that inspired her opening sequence...to picking the soundtrack full of pop tunes by just about e...
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Season 5
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Episode 5
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22:03
Sofia Coppola — from VIRGIN SUICIDES to PRISCILLA
There’s maybe no working filmmaker more associated with film fashion than Sofia Coppola. But in this brief history of her super-stylish body of work, we figure out the thematic stitching inside those perfect fits.Host Rico Gagliano talk...
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Season 5
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Episode 4
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29:13
DO THE RIGHT THING — Spike Lee and Ruth E. Carter find color in the dark
Spike Lee’s masterwork DO THE RIGHT THING is an incendiary look at racial tension, an empathetic portrait of a community...and one of the flyest-ever distillations of street style as the ’80s gave way to the ’90s.Host Rico Gagliano lear...
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Season 5
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Episode 3
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33:42
QUADROPHENIA — The mod, mod world of ’64, ’79 and beyond
In 1979, at the tail end of the punk era, Franc Roddam’s QUADROPHENIA helped convince a certain crew of UK kids to favor sharp suits over bondage gear. Host Rico Gagliano tells the twisty story of the movie, the ‘60s mod subculture it c...
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Season 5
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Episode 2
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45:56
BREATHLESS — Jean Seberg & Jean-Luc Godard dress down film and fashion
In 1959, a brash critic-turned-filmmaker named Jean-Luc Godard cast movie star Jean Seberg in his first film, BREATHLESS. You probably know it revolutionized movies, but it also had a big impact on fashion, onscreen and off—by seeming like it w...
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Season 5
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Episode 1
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32:52
HOW TO HAVE SEX — Molly Manning Walker just wants to talk
The Cannes-winning HOW TO HAVE SEX tracks a trio of UK women on a non-stop clubbing holiday...that goes disturbingly off the rails. In this special episode, writer/director Molly Manning Walker tells host Rico Gagliano about the highs and lows ...
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19:09
Ken Loach Calls for Solidarity in THE OLD OAK
As the “Hot Labor Summer” of union strikes rolls into autumn, legendary British director Ken Loach sits down with host Rico Gagliano to look back on a long career spent telling the stories of working people…and why it might end with THE OLD OAK...
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22:27
Sebastián Silva on ROTTING IN THE SUN — "Everyone and everything in it *will* get trashed"
Sundance favorite Sebastián Silva tells host Rico Gagliano about his self-described "misanthropic comedy" ROTTING IN THE SUN—the satirical story of a happy hedonist and a not-so-happy filmmaker who end up in the middle of a Hitchcockian mystery...
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22:46
PASSAGES — Ira Sachs's "endless circle of desire"
"Let's just say I wanted to make a liberated film. I felt like...am I allowed to say 'f*** it?' Like, 'f*** it.'" So says legendary indie filmmaker Ira Sachs about PASSAGES, his seriously sexy Sundance hit about an insatiable artist in a messy ...
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22:28