PODCAST · tv
Verbal Diorama
by Verbal Diorama
The award-winning indie film history podcast celebrating the history and legacy of movies you know, and movies you don't.Have you ever wondered how your favourite movies were made? Hosted by Em, Verbal Diorama is a movie podcast that takes you behind the scenes to discover the extraordinary stories of cast and crew who bring classic films, blockbuster films, and cult films to life.Movies are tough to make, and this podcast proves how amazing it is that they actually exist. From Hollywood classics to hidden gems, each episode explores the behind-the-scenes history, legacy, and untold filmmaking stories that make cinema history.Ear Worthy 2024 Best Movie Podcast Winner | Golden Lobes 2025 Earworm Award Nominee | Ear Worthy 2025 Best Movie Podcast Nominee | Golden Lobes 2026 Earworm Award Nominee New episodes weekly. Subscribe now on your favourite podcast app. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/priva
Episodes
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Event Horizon
Infinite space. Infinite terror. From the depths of space, and the depths of hell (not sure which is more terrifying, to be honest!) comes a cosmic science fiction Lovecraftian horror, all about the existential dread of space, and that your imagination is scarier than anything you could ever see....
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(From the Archive) Hellraiser (1987)
We'll tear your soul apart.... From the depths of hell comes body horror, an exploration of sexual desire, lust and gratification, and the pleasure pain theory, as hedonistic Frank Cotton solves the Lament Configuration and receives a gruesome demise, only to be accidentally resurrected.…
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Shaun of the Dead
Shaun of the Dead is remembered now as a genre landmark; the film that made "rom zom com" a real category and launched the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, but its road to the big screen was anything but assured. Fresh from Spaced; a landmark cult British TV comedy about young people living,...
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Scary Movie (2000)
Waaassssssuuuuupppppppppppppp!! In July 2000, a $19 million parody film outgrossed most of the slasher movies it was mocking, and in doing so, quietly ended the very genre it fed off. The late-90s teen horror boom, which included Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer had built its appeal on...
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The Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars: Episode V)
The Empire Strikes Back is often called the best film in the Star Wars saga, and it started with a decision that seems almost unthinkable in retrospect. George Lucas, creatively burnt out after directing the first film, chose not to direct the sequel at all. Instead he handed the reins to his old...
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Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
The original Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) wasn't a huge hit at cinemas. It found its real audience on home video and cable, building into a genuine phenomenon almost after the fact. That success put New Line in an unusual position for the sequel: expectations had shifted…
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Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part II wasn't really supposed to exist as its own film. The original Back to the Future's "TO BE CONTINUED" tag was actually a post-hoc addition for home video, not a plan, after studio head Sid Sheinberg demanded a sequel. The pitch that eventually became two movies went from...
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(From the Archive) Back to the Future
Great scott! Where we’re going, we don’t need roads, and if my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to get the history and legacy of Back to the Future! It's a story of how Romancing the Stone, Coca-Cola's takeover of Columbia and Double Indemnity came...
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Chicago
Long before Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly had names, they had mugshots. In 1924, Chicago tabloids were consumed by Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, two unrelated women tried for murder and both acquitted; largely because all-male juries of the era were reluctant to convict an attractive woman....
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Tropic Thunder
In 2008, Ben Stiller made a war movie about people making a war movie, and in doing so, accidentally made one of the more prescient satires of 21st-century Hollywood ego, method acting, and the studio system's addiction to spectacle. Tropic Thunder arrived as a big, dumb action-comedy on the...
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Pulp Fiction
In 1994, a former video store clerk turned indie provocateur rearranged the crime film and, in the process, rearranged Hollywood itself. Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary's take on hardboiled detective novels from pulp magazines in the 1920s and 30s, stemmed from the success of his...
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The Shawshank Redemption
The Shawshank Redemption is now the highest-rated film on IMDb's Top 250, a fixture of cable rotation, and shorthand for cinematic hope itself. But in 1994, it was a box office failure; a $25 million adaptation of a Stephen King novella. It opened on just 33 screens, and despite fantastic test...
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Empire Records
Empire Records is like that one friend who everyone loves but didn't quite fit in with the popular crowd. It captured the essence of 90s youth culture, from the angst of its characters to their rebellious spirit against the big bad corporations trying to take over. Casting choices were influenced...
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Star Wars (Episode IV – A New Hope) (1977)
Star Wars opened on May 25th, 1977, in 32 American cinemas. The first cut had been a disaster. The director of photography and director were barely speaking. The ILM crew, working in a Van Nuys warehouse in temperatures of up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, had burned through most of their budget on...
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(From The Archive) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Rogue One was the first anthology movie announced post the Disney takeover of Lucasfilm in 2012; the year after Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens had enticed and delighted audiences across the world. The rogue one, you might say... Rogue One, born of the simple question "how did the Death...
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Hamilton (2020)
Happy 250th birthday to the United States of America! 250 years ago, you became independent from us Brits. We're the King George III in this relationship, and we know it. Alexander Hamilton. You know the name, but you probably didn't before the musical debuted in 2016. On 3rd July 2020, as…
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Godzilla (Gojira ゴジラ) (1954)
In the spring of 1954, a Japanese fishing vessel called the Lucky Dragon No. 5 sailed into the fallout zone of an American hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll. Its crew came home irradiated, and Japan, a nation still raw from Hiroshima and Nagasaki less than a decade earlier, found itself...
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King Kong (1933)
King Kong (1933) was the creation of Merian C. Cooper, one of Hollywood's most extraordinary and least remembered figures, and it arrived at a precise and loaded moment: during the Great Migration, a time of mass unemployment, and racial tensions on American streets. It was, depending on who was...
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The Meg
Two decades in the making, The Meg showcases the sheer absurdity of a 75-foot prehistoric shark lurking in the ocean, and this Kaijune we acknowledge that bigger is just always better when it comes to monster movies. Loosely adapted from the novel by Steve Alten, The Meg knows exactly what it is…
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(From the Archive) Godzilla (1998)
From the depths of Kaijune comes the King of the Monsters.... GODZILLA! But not the Godzilla many fans were expecting when a US remake was announced in the '90s, and not the first attempt to make a US version of the legendary kaiju. Steve Miner had tried to get a 3D version off the ground in…
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Three Men and a Baby
When Three Men and a Baby opened on 25th November 1987, few could have predicted that a low-budget remake of a French comedy, shot in Toronto, starring two television actors, a comedy star and a baby girl, would become the highest-grossing film of the year in the US and a genuine turning point in...
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Ever After: A Cinderella Story
Few films have done more to reimagine a fairy tale than Ever After: A Cinderella Story, Andy Tennant's 1998 period drama that stripped the magical elements from one of the world's oldest stories and replaced it with real historical characters, and a heroine who rescues herself. Set in...
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Deep Impact vs. Armageddon
In the summer of 1998, Hollywood delivered two versions of the apocalypse within eight weeks of each other, and the story of how that happened is almost as dramatic as either film. Deep Impact, directed by Mimi Leder and released on 8th May, had been in development since the late 1970s, tracing…
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Dante's Peak vs. Volcano
In 1997, two movies decided to erupt onto cinema screens at the same time, literally and figuratively. The chaotic rivalry between Dante's Peak and Volcano is one of the biggest examples of Hollywood's twin movies phenomenon, and while both were created organically, their rivalry would lead to...
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Dante’s Peak vs. Volcano
In 1997, two movies decided to erupt onto cinema screens at the same time, literally and figuratively. The chaotic rivalry between Dante's Peak and Volcano is one of the biggest examples of Hollywood's twin movies phenomenon, and while both were created organically, their rivalry would lead to...
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M3GAN
The final episode of AIpril, M3GAN arrived in January 2023 as a modest Blumhouse horror release, and promptly became one of the most talked-about horror comedies of the year. On a budget of $12 million, it grossed over $180 million worldwide, spawned a franchise, and put a ten-second hallway…
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Her (2013)
This AIpril, what is love, if not AI persevering? Spike Jonze's Her asks that question with such sincerity and precision that it never feels like a provocation; it feels like it's holding up a mirror to today's society. Her has become of one of the most quietly radical and prophetic films of the...
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(From the Archive) Ex Machina (ft. Jack from Sequelisers)
As part of Aipril, I'm delving into the back catalogue to include one of the greatest modern AI movies... Ex Machina, and a rare episode I did back in August 2022 with a guest! Impulse. Response. Fluid. Imperfect. Patterned. Chaotic. All words to describe this podcast, but also uttered by Nathan...
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Minority Report
In 1992, a little-known Philip K. Dick short story was optioned as a sequel to Total Recall, with Arnold Schwarzenegger set to reprise his role. After a decade of Hollywood turbulence, involving a studio bankruptcy, a directorial hand-off, and two blockbusters that kept getting in the way, Steven...
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Short Circuit (1986)
In 1986, a clunky, tank-treaded robot, hungry for input, stole the hearts of cinema audiences worldwide. Short Circuit, the sci-fi comedy that gave us one of cinema's most beloved mechanical characters, might not be your first choice when you think of AI in cinema, but it is this podcast's first...
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The Hunger Games
It started with a late-night channel surf. Author Suzanne Collins, flipping between reality TV competitions and news footage from the Iraq War, watched the two blur into something deeply unsettling, and from that collision of entertainment and violence, The Hunger Games volunteered as tribute....
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Spice World
In 1994, five young women answered an ad in The Stage looking for "streetwise, outgoing, ambitious" singers. What happened next became one of the most explosive cultural phenomena of the 1990s. The Spice Girls didn't just dominate the charts, they redefined what a pop group could be, wresting...
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Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish released in December 2022 as an unexpected masterpiece that caught audiences and critics completely off guard. What could have been just another disposable animated sequel instead became a profound meditation on mortality, anxiety, and finding meaning in our finite...
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All Dogs Go To Heaven
Even naughty dogs can have a huge impact on animation. In 1989, animator Don Bluth dared to go it alone, without the might of George Lucas and/or Steven Spielberg, and pushed the boundaries of what animated movies could explore in All Dogs Go To Heaven; the third and final movie to celebrate this...
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The Land Before Time
Even baby dinosaurs can have a huge impact on animation. In 1988, three Hollywood titans, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Don Bluth, came together to create what would become one of the most emotionally devastating animated films ever made, and it is the second movie to celebrate this…
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An American Tail
Even a little Jewish mouse can have a huge impact on animation. The 1986 Don Bluth animated classic An American Tail, a film that became the highest-grossing non-Disney animated feature of its time and helped reshape the animation industry, is the first movie to celebrate this podcast's seventh...
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The Princess and the Frog
In 2009, Disney released The Princess and the Frog, introducing Tiana as their first African-American Disney princess, paving the way for more diverse representation in animation. The CGI animation boom and the disappointing box office returns of the early 2000s had left a scar at Disney, and...
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
From Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman's creation of mutated turtles wielding nunchucks, the history of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles starts with humble, and slightly dark origins, but they would evolve from comic book characters to beloved animated icons and become their own pop culture…
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Paprika
Animation is often dismissed as children's entertainment, but Paprika proves it's a sophisticated art form, capable of exploring complex adult themes with stunning visuals. It represents the culmination of Satoshi Kon's obsession with the boundaries between reality and illusion. Throughout his...
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KPop Demon Hunters
Verbal Diorama is a podcast all about How It's Done. It being movies, and to be honest, this one is as Golden as they come. I'm Free to Takedown the history and legacy of KPop Demon Hunters, with the outcome of me becoming Your Idol. This is What It Sounds Like... my little Soda Pop. When…
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Monsters, Inc.
They scare, because they care. But do they? Do they really? Animation Season 2026 kicks off with Pixar's fourth feature, turning 25 years old this year, the incomparable Monsters, Inc. In the world of Monsters, Inc., fear is a power source, and children's screams fuel the world of Monstropolis,...
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Santa Claus: The Movie
Santa Claus: The Movie was an ambitious holiday spectacular that was supposed to save the Salkinds' crumbling film empire. Fresh off the disappointing performances of Superman III and Supergirl, producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind bet $50 million on creating the definitive cinematic Santa Claus...
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Scrooged
Scrooged, a modern 80s retelling of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" stars Bill Murray as a cynical, mean-spirited TV executive who finally learns the true meaning of Christmas, but its production was marred with difficulties. After a four-year hiatus following the overwhelming success of...
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Jingle All the Way
In his chaotic quest for a Turbo Man doll, Howard Langston goes to extremes to find the toy on Christmas Eve. It's the stuff of Christmas slapstick comedy, right? In reality, society has always been obsessed with 'the must-have' gifts during the holiday season and parents have gone to even more...
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Men in Black
The Men in Black phenomenon started as rumours of a government agency, where strange men wearing black suits would visit witnesses of UFO sightings, and coerce and threaten them into silence. Real-life Men in Black sightings inspired countless conspiracy theories, making them a staple of UFO...
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(500) Days of Summer
(500) Days of Summer arrived at a pivotal moment for romantic comedies. While the genre had dominated the box office throughout the early 2000s with reliable hits like The Proposal and 27 Dresses, audiences were growing weary of predictable formulas. Marc Webb's directorial debut, based on...
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I Am Legend (2007)
From a doomed Arnold Schwarzenegger/Ridley Scott collaboration to Will Smith's blockbuster hit, the journey of I Am Legend to the screen is as dramatic as the apocalypse it depicts. Three wildly different film adaptations, a legendary unmade version; this story of humanity's end keeps haunting...
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Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Yeah, baby, yeah! We've been cryogenically frozen and thawed out in 1997 to explore the groovy phenomenon that was Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Mike Myers brought his vision of a swinging '60s spy to life on a modest budget of just $16.5 million, creating a comedy with a vibrant...
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Evil Dead II
Happy Halloween! Evil Dead II was not the sequel to The Evil Dead that Sam Raimi intended. With a bigger budget, and more experience, he essentially remade the first film with a comedic twist. Released in 1987, Evil Dead II became the perfect bridge between horror and comedy. Ash Williams...
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The Evil Dead (1981)
Before 20-year-old Sam Raimi could make The Evil Dead, he had to convince investors that three friends from Michigan could pull off a horror masterpiece. Enter "Within the Woods," a short film that became the ultimate pitch; screened across Detroit until enough people bought in. The result? An...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
The award-winning indie film history podcast celebrating the history and legacy of movies you know, and movies you don't.Have you ever wondered how your favourite movies were made? Hosted by Em, Verbal Diorama is a movie podcast that takes you behind the scenes to discover the extraordinary stories of cast and crew who bring classic films, blockbuster films, and cult films to life.Movies are tough to make, and this podcast proves how amazing it is that they actually exist. From Hollywood classics to hidden gems, each episode explores the behind-the-scenes history, legacy, and untold filmmaking stories that make cinema history.Ear Worthy 2024 Best Movie Podcast Winner | Golden Lobes 2025 Earworm Award Nominee | Ear Worthy 2025 Best Movie Podcast Nominee | Golden Lobes 2026 Earworm Award Nominee New episodes weekly. Subscribe now on your favourite podcast app.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/priva
HOSTED BY
Verbal Diorama
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Verbal Diorama have?
Verbal Diorama currently has 360 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Verbal Diorama about?
The award-winning indie film history podcast celebrating the history and legacy of movies you know, and movies you don't.Have you ever wondered how your favourite movies were made? Hosted by Em, Verbal Diorama is a movie podcast that takes you behind the scenes to discover the extraordinary stories...
How often does Verbal Diorama release new episodes?
Verbal Diorama publishes regularly with 360 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Verbal Diorama?
You can listen to Verbal Diorama 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 Verbal Diorama?
Verbal Diorama is created and hosted by Verbal Diorama.
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