PODCAST · society
The Film Programme
by BBC Radio 4
The latest releases, the hottest stars and the leading directors, plus news and insights from the film world
Episodes
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The Last Picture Show
Francine Stock and Antonia Quirke co-present the final edition of The Film Programme. They discuss the future of cinema in the age of streaming, and hear from David Oyelowo, Matt Damon, Rebecca O'Brien and Sally Potter. They also reveal their favourite last scenes in the history of the movies.
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Chris Menges, Local Hero
With Antonia Quirke Oscar winning cinematographer and director Chris Menges takes us behind the scenes of Local Hero, The Mission and Kes, and reveals how he ended up in a Zanzibar prison with Michael Parkinson. Bait director Mark Jenkin records his last audio diary about the making of his horror...
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Emma Thomas: How Batman Began
With Antonia Quirke Producer Emma Thomas reveals the conversation she had with partner Christopher Nolan that led to the making of Batman Begins, the film the changed the course of the superhero movie. Robert Shaw's son Ian takes us behind some of the scenes in Jaws that form the basis of his new...
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Mark Gatiss: Anthony Hopkins superfan
Mark Gatiss tells Antonia Quirke what it was like to work with his hero Anthony Hopkins on The Father, and how he persuaded him to reprise a famous scene from one of his classic films as a birthday present for fellow League Of Gentleman member Reece Shearsmith. Sean Barton reveals some secrets…
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Maria Djurkovic
With Antonia Quirke You might think that fewer movies would be made during a pandemic, with continual testing and all the restrictions on social distancing. In fact, the British film industry has never been busier, and production designer Maria Djurkovic explains why that's the case. Script...
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Hossein Amini on Heat
In the final edition of Moving Image, Francine Stock talks to Hossein Amini about the film that has obsessed him since the first time he saw it in 1995. Heat was the first film to bring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino together in the same scene and it's had an influence on the writer of Drive, The...
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Jude Law, Ayten Amin and Mark Jenkin
Jude Law talks about his latest release The Nest, a suspenseful family drama set in Surrey in the 1980s, what he really likes about making movies and what acting in Contagion taught him about pandemics. Egyptian director Ayten Amin describes working with non-professional actors in her feature…
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Alvin Rakoff
With Antonia Quirke 94 year old director Alvin Rakoff talks about giving Sean Connery his big break, why his friend Peter Sellers wired his home for sound and what it was like directing Laurence Olivier in A Voyage Around My Father Author Anna Cale and historian Matthew Sweet talk about the...
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Juliet Stevenson on Truly, Madly, Deeply
Juliet Stevenson revisits a moving and tearful scene from Truly, Madly, Deeply which broke new ground in the portrayal of grief. Matt Damon and director Tom McCarthy talk about researching for Damon's role as an oil rig worker in their new film Stillwater. Mark Jenkin continues his movie making...
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Francis Lee on My Beautiful Laundrette
My Beautiful Laundrette, written by Hanif Kureishi and directed by Stephen Frears, was one of the early films produced for Channel 4. First screened in 1985, it tells the story of a young British Pakistani, Omar, played by Gordon Warnecke, who is given a failing laundrette to run by his...
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Bruce Robinson: Withnail and me
With Antonia Quirke Antonia reveals the favourite phone box scenes as chosen by Film Programme listeners and talks to writer/director Bruce Robinson about the phone box in Withnail And I that has now become a shrine for fans of the movie. A phone box in Uist is one of the stars of Limbo, a new...
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Carol Morley on Muriel Box
With Antonia Quirke Director Carol Morley asked Film Programme listeners if any of them knew Muriel Box, Britain's most prolific female director and arguably most neglected. And she heard from Muriel's daughter, grandson and family friend. Carol tells Antonia why she believes Muriel deserves more...
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David Oyelowo
With Antonia Quirke Actor and producer David Oyelowo reveals how he made his directorial debut, The Water Man, almost by accident. And why, thanks to raw data, streaming has lead to greater diversity of content and changed the minds of white film executives. Gosford Park turns 20 this year.…
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Thomas Vinterberg
With Antonia Quirke Festen director Thomas Vinterberg discusses the personal tragedy behind his latest film, Another Round. Friendship's Death is a 1987 movie about a journalist and an alien who meet in a hotel room in Jordan and discuss art, ethics and artificial intelligence. Its producer…
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Iron Curtain Directors
With Francine Stock What was it like working behind the Iron Curtain, when every dot and comma of a script had to be passed by the censor. Francine delves into the archives and hears from Milos Forman, Andrzej Wajda, Agnieszka Holland, Miklos Jancso, Jerzy Skolimowski, Krzysztof Zanussi, Jiri...
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Stanley Tucci
With Antonia Quirke Stanley Tucci reveals how his latest film Supernova is the story of a long-lasting friendship, both on and off screen. He's been friends with his co-star Colin Firth for over twenty years, and Stanley reveals how he asked Colin to be in the film without the director's…
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Ousmane Sembene
With Antonia Quirke. Ousmane Sembene has been called the father of African Film, single-handedly starting a movie industry in Senegal. As his 1968 film Mandabi is re-released, Samba Gadjigo and Jason Silverman, who saved the print from destitution, reveal how a life-threatening injury as a dock...
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Ben Whishaw
With Antonia Quirke Ben Whishaw reveals why he went up to complete strangers on Tottenham High Road for his latest film Surge, and why nobody seemed to recognise him. After Love is the story of a Muslim convert who discovers that her husband was leading a double life. Writer/director Aleem Khan...
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Toby Jones
With Francine Stock Actor and writer Toby Jones discusses the film that still resonates with him almost 30 years after he first saw it, In The Soup. Alexandre Rockwell's comedy beat Reservoir Dogs to the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Festival in 1992, but while Quentin Tarantino's movie went…
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Cinema: open for business
With Antonia Quirke As cinemas opened for the first time in 5 months, have concerns about the so-called Indian variant made people think twice about visiting their local picture palace ? Antonia takes a mini-tour of London cinemas and hears from Kevin Markwick, owner of the Uckfield Picture…
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Cinema: The Comeback
With Antonia Quirke. As cinemas are set to re-open on May 17th, Antonia Quirke visits The Uckfield Picture House that has been run by the same family for over six decades. She talks to its owner Kevin Markwick about a year that has seen his business shut for 70% of the time, and discovers why he…
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How I directed a movie with Parkinson's Disease
With Antonia Quirke Director Brett Harvey reveals how he made a feature film Long Way Back just after he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. And how he managed to direct the movie suffering the effects of the insomnia caused by the illness, and why he made a short film called Hand about...
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Judi, Nicole, Sandra, Kristin, Cate, Fanny, Anna and Francine
With Francine Stock Francine considers the changing role of the actress in Hollywood and European cinema, from muse to producer. She hears from Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Cate Blanchett, Fanny Ardant and Anna Karina.
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Mark Jenkin & The Köttings
With Antonia Quirke The Film Programme has exclusive behind the scenes access to some of the most exciting and innovative film-makers in this country. For the past year, Mark Jenkin has been recording audio diaries for us, as he follows up his award-winning hit Bait with the supernatural tale…
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Chloe Zhao
With Antonia Quirke Nomadland won the BAFTA and Golden Globe for Best Film and is hotly tipped to win the Best Picture Oscar too. Director Chloe Zhao reveals how she cast many of her actors on a road trip across the American West. Zhao's previous film The Rider was The Film Programme's film of…
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The Power
With Antonia Quirke The Power is set in a spooky hospital during the electrical blackouts of the early 70s. Antonia visits the set, itself a spooky old hospital, and meets director Corinna Faith and producer Rob Watson, who reveals that the set itself might be haunted Maria Djurkovic, the...
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Antonia and the stars
Antonia Quirke considers the phenomenon and future of the so called film junket, the movie publicity process whereby film stars are serially interviewed in expensive hotels by a succession of film journalists and presenters. She looks back at the promotional encounters she's had with a cast of…
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Rogue Males
Francine Stock talks to Christopher Plummer, Warren Beatty, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson and Peter O'Toole about their long careers in the movies and how a maverick attitude has helped. They reflect on their approaches to acting, how they adapted over the years and the changes...
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Francis Lee on Ammonite
Antonia Quirke talks to Francis Lee, director of Ammonite, starring Kate Winslet, about the palaeontologist Mary Anning. They discuss his controversial imagining of a lesbian relationship for Anning, the importance of sound in cinema and why he has never seen his own film on the big screen.…
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Location, Location, Location
With Antonia Quirke Mark Jenkin takes us on a scouting trip for his new film, Enys Men, going deep into an abandoned mine in Cornwall. Production designer Suzie Davies explains how she re-created the Cold War in Crouch End Town Hall for the new Benedict Cumberbatch thriller The Courier. The last...
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The World of the Coens
With Antonia Quirke Antonia presents a guide to the universe of The Coen Brothers with help from the siblings themselves. From Film Programme interviews over the last twenty years, Joel and Ethan discuss old Hollywood movies, haircuts and communism.
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Kevin Macdonald on The Battle Of Algiers
With Francine Stock Director Kevin Macdonald reveals the influence of The Battle Of Algiers on his latest drama, The Mauritanian, the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi, who was held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp for 14 years without charge. Photo credit: Tatiana Lund
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Seamus McGarvey's Lockdown Diary
With Antonia Quirke Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey has had an eventful 12 months, from being told to pack his bags overnight and get a flight to America to work on a major Hollywood movie, to catching Covid in Los Angeles, and then working on an entirely different movie in Sicily. He recounts it...
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Christopher Lee on The Lord Of The Rings
With Antonia Quirke This year sees the 20th anniversary of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. To mark the occasion, Antonia revisits her encounter with Christopher Lee in 2001 and hears from London Voices, the choir who sang Elvish on the soundtrack. Bait director Mark Jenkin continues his exclusive...
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Angela Allen
Script supervisor Angela Allen on what it was really like to work with Marilyn Monroe, Orson Welles and John Huston, and why Monroe believed she was having an affair with husband Arthur Miller. With Antonia Quirke.
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Leslie Caron
With Francine Stock Francine reflects on the career of Leslie Caron, who is 90 this year, and hears about her adventures in La La Land with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and Cary Grant.
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The Dig
With Antonia Quirke The Dig production Designer Maria Djurkovic reveals how she re-created the famous burial mounds in Sutton Hoo in a field just outside Guildford. Director Mark Jenkin reveals what it's like to make a film in lockdown. He's currently in pre-production on Enys Men, but has to use...
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Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
With Antonia Quirke Brothers Bill and Turner Ross discuss their film Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, set in the last night of a bar on the outskirts of Los Angeles, that resides somewhere between fiction and documentary Neil Brand reveals how a little known movie called Chappaqua changed the course…
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Ellen Burstyn
With Antonia Quirke. Legendary actress Ellen Burstyn talks about Pieces Of A Woman, the film that might make her the oldest person to be nominated for an Academy Award in the history of the Oscars. Deepa Mehta, the director of the Earth, Fire and Water trilogy discusses her new drama Funny Boy…
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Richard Lester
With Francine Stock Francine rifles through The Film Programme archives to hear from director Richard Lester about working with The Beatles on A Hard Day's Night and Help ! And why he didn't work for several years after the 60s had ended.
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Christopher Nolan & Tom Shone
With Antonia Quirke Director Christopher Nolan and author Tom Shone discuss Tom's book The Nolan Variations, and the influence of artists Escher and Francis Bacon on movies like Inception and The Dark Knight Rises. And Nolan reveals why he has a favourite glacier. Photograph: Oliver Nolan
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Lesley Manville
With Antonia Quirke Lesley Manville reveals how her Oscar nomination for Phantom Thread led to her latest role as a psychotic American matriarch in Let Him Go A tale of two Picturehouses over one year: Kevin Marckwick, the owner of the Uckfield Picture House and Clare Binns, Joint MD of the...
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David Byrne
With Antonia Quirke David Byrne discusses the film version of his Broadway musical American Utopia which was directed by Spike Lee. And he reveals why he's a changed man since his last concert movie Stop Making Sense. Bait director Mark Jenkin is about to return to the film he had to abandon in...
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Tom Burke on Orson Welles
With Antonia Quirke Actor Tom Burke reveals how he perfected the voice of Orson Welles for his new film Mank, about the making of Citizen Kane. Rob Savage explains how he made a horror movie called Host, when every member of the cast and crew were locked down in their homes and he directed them…
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Heaven's Gate
With Francine Stock Heaven's Gate is a symbol of Hollywood excess and financial mismanagement. One of the biggest disasters in film history, Michael Cimino's epic is said to have killed the studio that produced it, United Artists. Francine scours through the archives to hear from two its chief...
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Ron Howard
With Antonia Quirke. Ron Howard talks about the challenges of making films about real people, and what it was like to act opposite John Wayne and discovering the secret of his famously laconic acting style. Film-maker Carol Morley makes the case for Muriel Box, Britain's most prolific female...
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Sarah Gavron
With Francine Stock In this month's edition of Moving Image, director Sarah Gavron talks about the unlikely film that influenced Rocks, her realistic drama about the life of a teenager in East London. The film is After Life, a Japanese fantasy about the recently deceased having to choose a memory...
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Being A Human Person
With Antonia Quirke. When Fred Scott began his documentary on the making of Roy Andersson's About Endlessness, he had no idea about the drama behind the scenes that he was about to uncover. When Marion Stokes died, she left behind 70,000 VHS tapes of American television that she'd been recording…
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A Bout De Souffle
With Antonia Quirke. Steve James, the director of Hoop Dreams, looks back at his ground-breaking documentary about the lives of two African-American teenagers as they try to realise their dreams of becoming professional basketball players. To celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Jean Luc…
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Shirley
With Antonia Quirke Antonia continues her look at women and horror with directors Josephine Decker and Natalie Erika James. Relic was inspired by Natalie's experience of looking after her grandmother who had been diagnosed with dementia. Shirley is the story of Shirley Jackson, the author of The...
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Film Programme have?
The Film Programme currently has 599 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Film Programme about?
The latest releases, the hottest stars and the leading directors, plus news and insights from the film world
How often does The Film Programme release new episodes?
The Film Programme releases new episodes frequently with a large back catalog of 599 episodes. Check the episode list for recent publication dates.
Where can I listen to The Film Programme?
You can listen to The Film Programme on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Film Programme?
The Film Programme is created and hosted by BBC Radio 4.
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