BP325 Christmas Films
The Best Pick movie podcast
Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 325: Christmas Films Released 17 November 2025 For this episode we nominated some favourite (and not-so-favourite) Christmas films, in the categories of Best Classic, Best Modern, Best Oddball and Least Anything. But first – have Tom and John seen Home Alone yet? Tom’s new podcast: Jess’s storytelling theatre show: BEST PICK – the book is available now from all the usual places. From the publisher UK Amazon US Amazon UK bookstore US bookstore Audio book To send in your questions, comments, thoughts and...
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BP324 Singin' in the Rain
The Best Pick movie podcast
Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 324: Singin’ in the Rain Released 26 November 2025 For this episode, we watched the 1952 MGM musical Singin’ in the Rain, directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly who also starred alongside Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds and Jean Hagen. Arthur Freed produced and wrote most of the songs alongside composer Nacio Herb Brown. Slightly overshadowed at the time by the enormous commercial and critical success of An American in Paris the year before, this movie is now widely regarded as the absolute pinnacle of the golden age...
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BP323 2001 A Space Odyssey
The Best Pick movie podcast
Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 323: 2001 A Space Odyssey Released 29 October 2025 For this episode, we watched Stanley Kubrick’s iconic science fiction masterpiece 2001 A Space Odyssey, written by Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke and starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester and the voice of Douglas Rain. It was nominated for four Oscars and won one for its special effects, the only Academy Award which Kubrick ever won. It ranks sixth on the 2022 Sight & Sound critics list and it tops the directors list. Tom’s new podcast: Jess’s amazing...
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BP018 Redux - Annie Hall
The Best Pick movie podcast
Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 18: Annie Hall (1977) recorded live at the London Podcast Festival. Released 26 September 2018. Rereleased 12 October 2025. For this episode – which we are re-running in honour of Diane Keaton – we watched Annie Hall, written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman and directed by Allen, who also starred alongside Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane and Paul Simon. The film won four Academy Awards including Best Actress for Diane Keaton and Best Screenplay for Allen and Brickman. Star Wars Despecialized Kathy...
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BP322 Beau Travail
The Best Pick movie podcast
Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 322: Beau Travail Released 24 September 2025 For this episode, we watched Claire Denis’s 1999 story of three men in the French Foreign Legion, drawn in part from Herman Melville’s unfinished novella Billy Budd. The film stars Denis Lavant, Michel Subor and Grégoire Colin and Denis also wrote the script along with Jean-Pol Fargeau. It has an 87% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and it’s at number seven in the 2022 Sight & Sound poll. We also feature an exclusive clip from Tom’s new podcast All British Comedy Explained....
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BP321 In the Mood for Love
The Best Pick movie podcast
Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 321: In the Mood for Love Released 27 August 2025 For this episode, we watched the Wong Kar-wai’s modern classic In the Mood for Love, starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000. It sits at a hugely impressive fifth place on the 2022 Sight and Sound list and has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It has also run at the Prince Charles Cinema in London for a record-breaking 75 consecutive weeks, so we take a look at the history of that UK institution as well. Tom Cruise breaks his...
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BP320 Man with a Movie Camera
The Best Pick movie podcast
Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 320: Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek’s kinoapparatom) Released 30 July 2025 For this episode, we watched the 1929 experimental Soviet documentary Man with a Movie Camera, written and directed by Dziga Vertov. Our version had a soundtrack composed by Michael Nyman. For its age, it’s a relatively recent entry to the Sight and Sound list, making its first entry in 1992, making it to the top ten in 2012 and settling in ninth place in 2022. It has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Next time we will be discussing In the Mood for...
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BP319 Vertigo
The Best Pick movie podcast
Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 319: Vertigo Released 25 June 2025 For this episode, we watched the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo starring James Stewart and Kim Novak, based on the French novel The Living and the Dead by Boileau and Narcejac and with a screenplay credited to Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor. It’s a favourite of countless subsequent movie makers and topped the 2012 Sight and Sound poll before being pushed down into second place by Jeanne Dielman in 2022. So-called “Foreign Censorship Ending” Kim Novak at the Academy Awards 16...
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BP318 Tokyo Story
The Best Pick movie podcast
Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 318: Tokyo Story Released 28 May 2025 For this episode, we watched the 1953 Japanese classic Tokyo Story, directed by Yasujirō Ozu from a screenplay by Ozu and his frequent collaborator Kogo Noda. This film came in at number 4 on the most recent Sight & Sound critics poll and has often featured in the poll’s upper reaches as well as making strong showings in many other greatest-films-of-all-time lists. It has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 100/100 on Metacritic. Influential Storytelling thesis 16 Postcodes ...
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BP317 Star Trek Deep Space Nine
The Best Pick movie podcast
Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 317. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Released 30 April 2025 Today we watched two contrasting episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. We kicked off with an episode from the fifth season, the celebratory romp Trials and Tribble-ations in which the 24th century crew revisits the action of the classic original series episode The Trouble with Tribbles. Pretty much all the senior writing staff had a go at this one. The story is credited to Ira Steven Behr, Hans Beimler and Robert Hewitt Wolfe and the teleplay to Ronald D Moore and René...
info_outlineBest Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky
Episode 320: Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek’s kinoapparatom)
Released 30 July 2025
For this episode, we watched the 1929 experimental Soviet documentary Man with a Movie Camera, written and directed by Dziga Vertov. Our version had a soundtrack composed by Michael Nyman. For its age, it’s a relatively recent entry to the Sight and Sound list, making its first entry in 1992, making it to the top ten in 2012 and settling in ninth place in 2022. It has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Next time we will be discussing In the Mood for Love. If you want to watch it before listening to the next episode, you can buy the DVD or Blu-Ray on Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com, or you can download it via iTunes (UK) or iTunes (USA).
BEST PICK the book is available now from all the usual places, and the paperback is out now.
- From the publisher https://tinyurl.com/best-pick-book-rowman
- UK Amazon https://amzn.to/3zFNATI
- US Amazon https://www.amzn.com/1538163101
- UK bookstore https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781538163108
- US bookstore https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/best-pick-john-dorney/1139956434
- Audio book https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Best-Pick-Audiobook/B09SBMX1V4
To send in your questions, comments, thoughts and ideas, you can join our Facebook group, email us on bestpickpod@gmail.com, or find us on Bluesky.
You can also visit our website at https://bestpickpod.com and sign up to our mailing list to get notified as soon as a new episode is released. Just follow this link: http://eepurl.com/dbHO3n.
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