Kirk Douglas died this week. In this special episode of the British Film Institute's flagship podcast the BFI's Digital editor, Henry Barnes, pays tribute by introducing clips from an archive interview with the star, which was recorded at the National Film Theatre in 1972. Douglas talks about his roles in classics like Spartacus, as well as the fun he had playing the bad guy and playing with his public image.

This episode of the podcast was written, presented and edited by Henry Barnes. Production and mixing by Peter Sale.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 2010s saw huge changes in the way films were watched and talked about. In the final episode of this series of The Bigger Picture (and the final episode of this decade) Anna, Hen and Pete explore the trends in film and telly - including #MeToo, streaming, Marvel and TV's REAL golden age - that developed over 10 extraordinary years in screen culture.

Plus! Anna shares what she's learnt about film, herself and the world during te 2010s and Hen exclusively reveals his pick for the greatest screen experience of the last decade. Clue: it ain't classy.

Thanks to all of The Bigger Picture's listeners for spending time with us this year. We wish you all happy holidays and a peaceful, prosperous 2020.

The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI is ...

BFI Digital editor Henry Barnes

Anna Bogutskaya

and producer Peter Sale.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Greta Gerwig's take on Little Women, Louis May Alcott's classic novel, starts fast and speeds up from there. We talk about how Gerwig's antic adaptation barely pauses for breath, but still makes room in its period setting for a very modern take on women, work, money and freedom.

Starring Saoirse Ronan as aspiring writer Jo Marsh, Little Women tells the story of Jo and her sisters - Meg, Amy and Beth - as they leave adolescence and find their way in the world. It's Gerwig's second film as director after the Oscar-nominated Lady Bird, which also starred Ronan.

Elsewhere in this episode: witch stories, clockwork games and Anna swoons and swoons again over the lovely (for now) Timothée Chalamet, who plays this Little Women's Laurie.

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Heartless, irrational, unstoppable - zombies and the sea are natural soul(less) mates and Mati Diop's debut film pairs them beautifully. Atlantics, which took home the first feature award at this year's London Film Festival, is a love story between a Senegalese woman and her departed lover. It hits the high water mark for stories of supernatural love.

Anna, Hen and Pete talk about what makes a ghoulish love story glimmer, how the sea shines as a metaphor on film and why love stories in which one person is dead are the most beautiful and tragic of all.

!WARNING: Contains spoliers for Atlantics!

The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...

BFI Digital editor Henry Barnes

Anna Bogutskaya

and producer Peter Sale.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A paperwork thriller. A chit-chat drama. The Report, the true story of the US Senate intelligence officer who investigated the CIA's torture of detainees after 9/11, uses dialogue - lots and lots of dialogue - to tell a slow-burning story of an instution reaching far beyond its limits.

In this episode of The Bigger Picture Hen, Anna and Pete describe how watching the film is more akin to listening to long-form narrative podcast than going to the cinema, why the film remains a thrill despite its slow pace and how - bizarrely - scenes of state-sanctioned torture have become a trope unto themselves.

The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...

BFI Digital editor Henry Barnes

Anna Bogutskaya

and producer Peter Sale.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alejandro Landes's Monos has teen soldiers running wild in the mountains of an unspecified south American country. Hen, Anna and Pete take a trek up into the weird world of guerrilla warfare, presided over by a cow called Shakira.

They talk about the film's treatment of Colombia's long-running war, how Landes masterfully creates an atmosphere of tension out of teen tomfoolery and Mica Levi's awesome score. Plus, nonsense chat about what we'd call a cow if one were gifted to us.

The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...

BFI Digital editor Henry Barnes

Anna Bogutskaya, Dice's Head of Arts and Culture

and producer Peter Sale

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dum-de-dum dum. Dum-de-dum de-dum dum-de-dum-de. Singin' in the Rain, the Gene Kelly classic, has been re-released by the BFI as part of a three-month musicals season. To celebrate Hen, Anna and Pete take a tour through the finger-clicking, puddle-stomper and talk about how, as well as being a timeless musical, the film endures as a Hollywood satire.

Plus, Anna recommends her pick of the films she saw at this year's London Film Festival and Hen gets into Fortnite, a mere two years too late.

The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...

BFI Digital editor Henry Barnes

Anna Bogutskaya, Dice's Head of Arts and Culture

and producer Peter Sale

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joker, Todd Phillips's gunky take on DC Comic's supervillain, gives us the origins story of a lonely guy with mental health issues who finds himself through violence. Anna, Hen and Pete talk about the films great debt to Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, examine what the film adds to the character's lore and wonder if asking us to pity the fool was the best strategy.

Plus, Hen recommend a documentary on the civil rights activist and archivist, no ... hoarder ... no, archivist ... no, hoarder Marion Stokes and Anna heads back to her favourite streaming service for Unbelievable, a police procedural centred on the pursuit of a serial rapist.

The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...

BFI Digital editor Henry Barnes

Anna Bogutskaya, Dice's Head of Arts and Culture

and producer Peter Sale

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No Anna this ep, but Hen and Pete are joined by a special guest, filmmaker Shola Amoo. Shola's in to talk about his new film, The Last Tree, which sees a British-Nigerian kid plucked from his rural foster home by his birth mum, who expects him to take root and thrive in London.

Shola talks about the social rules inherent in growing up black in the city, how the expectations on second-generation kids have changed with the arrival of the internet and why grime - "Britain's best black export", according to Shola - offers a template for what black British filmmakers could do with film.

Plus, Shola recommends a under-rated Kanye West album and Hen waves a placard for the Guardian's Anywhere But Westminster video series.

The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...

BFI Digital editor Henry Barnes

Anna Bogutskaya, Dice's Head of Arts and Culture

Producer Peter Sale

and special guest, filmmaker Shola Amoo.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hen, Anna and Pete get a line on a reel-y good film. Bait, BFI-backed and brilliant to boot, is written and directed by Mark Jenkin. Set in Jenkin's native Cornwall, it's a drama about the effects of gentrification on a village fishing community and it says a lot about the state of Britain today.

Bait follows Martin (Edward Rowe), a fisherman without a boat raging against the wealthy Londoners who have bought his childhood home. In the face of tourism and city money, angry, displaced Martin is left floundering. These situations, Jenkin seems to be saying, are where Brexit came from.

Elsewhere in the ep, Anna is hopped up on the Zendaya-starring TV series Euphoria, Hen has been spending time with San Quentin prison's in-house podcast Ear Hustle AND an incredibly awkward bit in which one of the pod earnestly reads out song lyrics about the corrosive effect of captalism on communities. Yay!

The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...

BFI Digital editor Henry Barnes

Anna Bogutskaya, Dice's Head of Arts and Culture

Producer Peter Sale

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pedro Almodóvar returns with Pain and Glory, a deeply personal film about an ageing film director (played by Antonio Banderas) struggling with the physical and psychological ailments that are preventing him from making films.

Hen, Anna and Pete tuck into Pedro's pain, exploring how the director joins the ranks of artists across cultures who have worked out how to make their personal tragedy accessible to a wide audience. This episode also features ... moon-eyed discussions about Kendrick Lamar's genius, PERSONAL INFORMATION on the PERSONAL LIFE of Anna Bogutskaya (kind of) and the first ever Bigger Picture remix, spun by producer Pete out of our chat about Jeremy Deller's brilliant acid house documentary Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992.

The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...

BFI Digital editor Henry Barnes

Anna Bogutskaya, Dice.fm's Head of Arts and Culture

Producer Peter Sale

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.