Katey, Matt, Da7e and David
164 episodes listed below
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Prolific film and culture critics Katey Rich, Matt Patches, Da7e Gonzales and David Ehrlich take on pop culture topics, film and TV reviews and interview very special guests in bi-weekly installments.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · June 2026
A sharp, funny screen culture roundtable where movies, TV, awards, and pop detours get actively argued over.
Fighting In The War Room: A Movies And Pop Culture Podcast lives in the busy end of TV & Film, with a four-host table turning movie reviews, television reactions, awards chatter, and pop culture detours into one long-running argument.
You want Oscar charts, Sphere gossip, and Zootopia cop jokes argued by people with references.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A one-house-movie lightning round opens into loose, enjoyable talk about Presence, Mother, The Bride, and Undertone.
PlayNext starts with a brisk favorite-movies exercise centered on stories that mostly unfold in one house, then eases into a broader film conversation that touches Presence, Mother, The Bride, and Undertone.
A loose, lively TV discussion that lands hardest once the panel starts debating season length and long waits.
The episode turns a fantasy-show discussion into a wider argument about shorter seasons, yearly returns, and the strain of waiting years between episodes.
Franchise fatigue, sequel burnout, and a lively turn toward a film that never quite settles into its own mood.
The episode opens with a fast-moving look at the last movie that made a franchise feel finished, with Scream 7, Now You See Me, and Fast X all coming up.
A playful Disneyland discussion that balances skepticism with wonder.
The episode opens with a cursed-object lightning round before settling into a lively take on Disneyland as engineering, ambition, and memory. It keeps the tone playful, yet it still gives space to the documentary details: world fairs, archival material, Davy Crockett, Zorro, an…
A lively year-end movie roundtable that captures which 2025 films mattered most.
Fighting in the War Room lands as a top 10 episode for 2025, shaped by a lively year-end movie debate that values personality as much as ranking.
A loose, funny panel turns Canadian TV talk into a shaggy, amused take on Train Dreams.
The panel opens on a fast, joking pass at the next great Canadian TV show, with Heated Rivalry as a springboard for fandom, politics, and the joke of keeping a season out of the United States.
A year-end rewatch prompt turns into a skeptical take on Avatar: Fire and Ash.
A year-end rewatch prompt gives the conversation a loose starting point, with Katie Rich landing on Phineas and Ferb and Matt Patches choosing Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas Is You, the animated Christmas movie.
A loose Zootopia 2 discussion that keeps circling back to James Cameron, box office, and personality-driven banter.
Zootopia 2 and a listener question about James Cameron effects give the episode its shape, but the conversation keeps slipping into movie nerdery and quick, loose banter.
Solo-narrated video essays decoding film and TV endings, symbolism, and cultural meaning.
Kim Masters and Puck's Matt Belloni break down Hollywood's dealmaking and executive shake-ups.
Film culture, festival heat, awards nerves.
Story analysis with jokes still attached.
Fighting In The War Room #524.7 opens with the hosts naming their favorite Julia Roberts films, including Duplicity, Ocean’s Eleven, and Closer, before moving into the week’s main topics.
Fighting In The War Room #539 splits between a long discussion of the AI doc and a post-Oscar reaction segment.
Fighting In The War Room episode 524.8 opens with the hosts’ annual spooky-season check-in, where Katie Rich names Coraline and Dave Gonzales names The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr.
Fighting In The War Room 524.6 opens with the hosts comparing childhood toy-store memories before shifting into a spooky-season mailbag about Hooptober 12, Blair Witch Project screenings, and what each of them finds frightening.
The hosts discuss their first encounters with viral videos, reminiscing about early internet phenomena like Yatta and Dancing Baby.
Hosts discuss upcoming episodes, including conversations about writing struggles, the Back Rooms trailer, horror genre popularity, and Super Mario Galaxy.
Fighting in the War Room episode 540 opens with a pre-show question about favorite rideable fictional dinosaurs — prompting discussion of Dinotopia, the Dino Riders animated series, and the original 1993 Super Mario Brothers film's horrifying velociraptor Yoshi — before settling into its usual format of pop culture conversation, movie and TV news, and listener correspondence.
Fighting in the War Room, the film and pop culture podcast, covers three films in Episode 538: The Bride, Maggie Gyllenhaal's ambitious reimagining of the Bride of Frankenstein with Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale; Undertone, a single-location thriller; and Hoppers, an indie film.
The episode opens with a Hoppers-themed animal-possession bit.
The hosts open with a simple question: which movie last made a franchise stop mattering.
I've never had much of an appetite for Elvis and I am so fucking sick of him now
A young man accepts beatings to keep his love from leaving him.
The panel kicks off with a cursed-object lightning round tied to Whistle and somehow makes it even weirder than expected.
Romance plots work when characters can't admit their feelings, not just attraction.
It’s a year-end ranking session.
It opens with Heated Rivalry and a lightning-round prompt about the next great Canadian TV show.
Play it again, Sam, is something maybe only Katie says these days, and the panel kicks off with a last-podcast-of-the-year rewatch question.
Fire and Ash week opens on James Cameron.
Katie Rich opens with a holiday comfort-watch prompt and quickly lands on Titanic, the Christmas-adjacent answer she keeps coming back to every year around December 19, the day it opened in 1997.
Dave opens with a plug for Slow Xmas 5 vinyl and a quick correction after Katie flags the wrong episode number.
PTAs aren't just fundraising—they're community protection that ICE threatens.
Predator: Badlands makes the Predator the protagonist, fundamentally shifting franchise dynamics
A live film festival debate about the art of arguing and movie criticism.
Fighting in the War Room hits another quarter quell, the sort of milestone the show uses to help listeners feel like they know the four hosts a little better.
The panel opens with a lightning round about sports movies that would get better if the hero quit the sport and went to therapy.
It opens with a lightning-round question about favorite car chases after a movie in limited theaters sparks the topic.
Hollow Knight Silksong finally releases after 9 years of meme-worthy anticipation
Why don't our kids watch the classics our parents made us watch?
The show opens with a lightning-round prompt about favorite on-screen elevator moments, sparked by Nobody Too and its elevator fight scene.
The hosts discuss which period of American history they'd most like to be a teenager in, focusing on moviegoing experiences.
The hosts share and discuss their favorite jokes from spoof movies, including The Naked Gun, Airplane!, and Top Secret.
The hosts discuss movie franchises that got it right on the fourth installment, sharing their picks and debating film quality.
The hosts discuss which mid-2000s movies they'd like to see re-released in theaters.
The hosts play a game about terrifying things from their past that could be airdropped, leading into discussion of the film 'Drop'.
The hosts discuss cinema's greatest worm and share film trivia, then introduce the episode with a Google incorporation anniversary.
The hosts discuss Apollo 13, space camp, and Ron Howard's films in a casual roundtable format.
The hosts share their favorite moon moments in cinema, blending film critique with humorous personal anecdotes.