Two friends, one impossible list, 463 episodes deep.
Darren Mooney and Andrew Quinn take the IMDb Top 250 as a to-do list and slowly chip away at it. The films get real analysis; the sports updates, keto reports and misfiring intros get equal airtime.
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The premise is simple and slightly ridiculous: Darren Mooney and Andrew Quinn are working through the IMDb's Top 250 films of all time. The list will not stay still. New entries keep appearing, old ones drop off, and the hosts openly treat finishing as a distant goal they may or may not reach. Four hundred and sixty-three episodes in, the project has taken on its own logic. Recent instalments have gone to Dhurandhar, Maharaja and Walter Sillis' Ainda Estou Aqui, with Laapataa Ladies and a run of international titles besides. That drift toward world cinema has changed what the show talks about. Politics, social commentary and cultural framing come up not as a lecture but as a lens the hosts admit they now reach for by habit, and they say so on air. They also break the rules they set themselves. A bottom-100 pick, a Star Trek entry that has never charted, a Kill Bill discussion with a guest. Structure is loose by design. Episodes usually open somewhere other than the film: an Arsenal update, an NBA scoreline, a keto report with actual numbers attached, an intro bit that gets restarted mid-take because the backing music is drowning it out. From there the conversation slides into the movie without any obvious seam. What follows is genuine criticism delivered at speed. They interrupt, qualify, backtrack, land on a film analogy to make something concrete, then go around the same point once more from a slightly different side. Disagreement is common and never precious. When a film is well made but not for them, they say both things and mean both. Guests appear frequently and are treated as conversation partners rather than interview subjects: Ingrid Machado, Darcy Faccio of the IFI Horrorathon, Graham Day. A re-released episode on The Sting, put out to mark Robert Redford's death, features Darren's father Jerry Mooney and turns into a tangent about crooks in 1970s Ireland. Technical problems get flagged with a shrug and a joke about the price of admission. The tone is dry more often than not, but it warms up fast when something is genuinely good, and it can go quiet and serious when a film's subject demands it. Nothing about it sounds produced. Two people who watch an enormous amount, know their history, and would clearly be having this conversation anyway. The list is just the excuse.
Made for: Film obsessives who like their criticism informed but unbuttoned, and who enjoy hearing two people argue their way to a position rather than deliver one. Especially good for listeners curious about recent international entries on the Top 250 and happy to sit through a sports tangent to get there.
What sets it apart: Most Top 250 podcasts treat the list as a checklist; this one treats it as a long-running joke it is losing to, and cheerfully covers films that have never been near the list. The chemistry between the two hosts, digressions and all, carries as much weight as the analysis.
Andrew and Darren host a fortnightly exploration of the Internet Movie Database's Top 250 Movies of All Time.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
The 250 uses a famous movie ranking to test reputation, craft, context, and cultural staying power through lively critical argument.
The 250 turns ranked movies into arguments about how films earn, keep, or outlive their reputations. Darren Mooney and Andrew Quinn use the IMDb Top 250 as a recurring frame, then range through classic-film review, new international entries, franchise seasons, re-releases, and…
The IMDb Top 250 meets a Predator handshake; you've found company for an opinionated movie night.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A lively Dhurandhar discussion about spectacle, cultural context, and the limits of the IMDb 250.
The 250 treats Dhurandhar as a useful pressure test for what an IMDb Top 250 slot can mean when a film's reputation is still taking shape. Darren Mooney and Andrew Quinn weigh its social awareness, genre pleasures, and the challenge of reading it from outside full cultural…
A Redford re-release finds the warmth inside The Sting's merry band of crooks.
TwoFifty marks Robert Redford's passing by returning to its episode on The Sting, as Darren, Andrew, and guest Jerry Mooney revisit George Roy Hill's 1973 con-artist comedy-drama.
A loose, companionable film discussion where the ordeal of watching becomes part of the criticism.
This instalment of The 250 folds a difficult viewing into the conversation rather than treating it as a hurdle to clear. Darren Mooney and Andrew Quinn start with a keto report, a buttered rum detour, and an NBA prediction, then work back toward the odd obligation of covering…
A lively Predator rewatch finds a taut star vehicle shadowed by colonial and imperial ideas.
The 250 opens its Alien and Predator season with a close, lively return to Predator, treating it as both a precision-built Schwarzenegger vehicle and a film whose jungle-action surface carries stranger political weather.
A sharp discussion of Dhurandhar's IMDb ranking, cinematic craft, and troubling politics.
The 250 looks at Dhurandhar as an IMDb Top 250 entry, setting its polished scale against the politics surrounding mainstream Bollywood. The hosts and guest critic weigh the film's thrills, performances, soundtrack, and production value, while the discussion keeps returning to…
A Spaceballs watch-along turns a missing Luke and a helmet coffee gag into lively talk about parody.
The 250 steps away from its weekly tour through the IMP's top 250 movies for a live commentary on Mel Brooks' Spaceballs, sparked by Andrew Quinn after a Zoom routine of playing Streets of Rogue turned into a way to watch a movie and keep the feed moving.
A linked Game Boy match gives this time-crunched Ballistic discussion its sharpest running joke.
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever turns into a lively argument about a movie whose Game Boy Advance tie-ins were built before the film was done. Darren Mooney and Andrew Quinn are short on time, Dean Buckley joins in, and two linked Game Boy Advances become the episode's best comic…
Rivalry panic with tactical receipts.
Hosts Darren Mooney and Andrew Quinn are joined by guest Dean Buckley to discuss the 2002 film Ballistic: Ecks vs.
Andrew and Darren host a special live audio commentary on Mel Brooks' 1987 sci-fi parody Spaceballs.
Hosts Darren Mooney and Andrew Quinn discuss Andrew's keto diet progress and briefly mention NBA Finals before introducing the movie Maharaja.
A podcast episode discussing the film 'I'm Still Here' by Walter Sillis, a Best Picture nominee, with guest Ingrid Machado, despite initial audio issues.
Hosts Darren Mooney and Andrew Quinn of The 250 kick off a three-month Alien and Predator franchise season by covering John McTiernan's Predator (1987) with guests Jess Dunn and Joe Griffin, the latter billed as the 'unofficial 250 Schwarzeneggerologist.' The episode covers the film's chaotic production history, including Jean-Claude Van Damme's short-lived role as the Predator in a red onesie with an ant head before being replaced by seven-foot-two Kevin Peter Hall, and the subsequent attempt to use a trained monkey that climbed a tree and refused to cooperate.
Hosts Darren Mooney and Andrew Quinn of The 250 podcast are joined by film critic Siddharth Adlaka — known from Joy Sauce and IGN, fresh off the Berlin Film Festival — to discuss Dhurandhar, the highest-grossing Indian film of 2025 and second-highest-grossing Hindi film of all time, which entered the IMDb Top 250 after its Netflix release.
["The 250 frames Duran-Dar as a 2025 Hindi blockbuster that is the year's highest-grossing Indian film and a top-10 international performer across North America, Canada, Australia, and the UK.", "Darren Mooney, Andrew Quinn, and guest critic Sedant Adlaka use the film to talk about Aditya Dhar, Uri: The Surgical Strike, and the shift in Hindi cinema toward more overt right-wing politics.", "Adlaka argues that hero worship and violence are longstanding features of Indian mainstream cinema, but the Modi era has made the political alignment more visible, especially through celebrity photo ops and pressure on Muslim stars.", "The discussion also covers the Pakistani talent ban, the shelved Ratbaki project with a Pakistani lead actor and Katrina Kaif, and how Netflix and Amazon have helped Indian populist films travel globally."]
TwoFifty re-releases its discussion of George Roy Hill's 1973 con artist film The Sting after Robert Redford's death, with Darren saying the show might otherwise have covered Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Three Days of the Condor, or All the President's Men.
The 250 covers Maharaja, the 2024 Tamil film by Nithilan Saminathan, and Darren Mooney places it at number 218 on IMDb's top 250.
A podcast episode discussing the film 'I'm Still Here' by Walter Sillis, a Best Picture nominee, with guest Ingrid Machado, despite initial technical audio issues.
Darren and Andrew discuss their podcast schedule and the upcoming review of the movie Laapataa Ladies.
The hosts introduce a podcast episode reviewing the Star Trek movie Insurrection, which is not on the IMDb top 250 list.
The hosts discuss the film Ballistic: Ecks vs.
The hosts introduce a podcast episode reviewing the film Alien: Resurrection as part of a series on the Alien and Predator franchises.