Cinephile talk from the screening-room edge.
The Last Thing I Saw follows careful, conversational film criticism as Nick and guests compare what they have recently watched. Episodes move between Berlin, Sundance, New York Film Festival conversations, Criterion programming, Screen Slate lists, music films, VHS culture, and new work from directors such as Steven Soderbergh and Christian Petzold.
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The Last Thing I Saw is a film criticism show with the feel of an ongoing notebook. It listens closely to what critics, filmmakers, editors, and festival regulars have actually been watching. The conversations are specific. They move from spring art-film pileups to Berlin dispatches, from Sundance’s final Park City edition to the question of what home video stores meant to cinema culture. Nick’s style keeps the talk open, tentative, and alert to context. A release date, a festival location, a first viewing, or even an old screening button can become part of the critical record. Episodes with Amy Taubin track new releases, festival shifts, and the strange rhythms of the movie calendar. Margaret Barton-Fumo brings music-related cinema into focus through titles such as Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains and Breaking Glass. Clyde Folley’s appearance connects VHS, video stores, Criterion programming, and Video Heaven into a wider history of watching. Christian Petzold’s episode narrows in on Miroir No. 3, Maurice Ravel, and how music shapes the emotional space around production. The festival shows are especially revealing. Berlin and Sundance are not treated as abstract prestige brands; they are working environments full of fatigue, uneven competitions, political noise, sidebars, and sudden discoveries. Guests may argue from taste, memory, programming work, or publication deadlines. That gives the show a lived-in texture. It rarely sounds like a verdict being handed down from above. More often, it captures critics thinking in real time, testing whether a familiar premise has become newly moving, or whether a festival consensus has clouded the day. The show rewards listeners who care about the ecosystem around films as much as the films themselves. It is cinephile talk with weather, travel, venues, lists, media formats, and personal viewing habits left in.
Made for: For listeners who follow film festivals, repertory programs, art-house releases, criticism, and the history of how movies circulate. It especially suits people who enjoy informed conversation that leaves room for uncertainty and memory.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by treating viewing context as part of criticism: festivals, home video, radio shows, year-end polls, programming work, and first encounters all shape the discussion. Its strongest episodes feel like critics comparing notes before the official story hardens.
Critic Nicolas Rapold talks with guests about the movies they've been watching. From home viewing to the latest from festivals and retrospectives. Named one of the 10 Best Film Podcasts by Sight & Sound magazine. Guests include critics, curators, and filmmakers.
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A thoughtful Berlin dispatch on festival politics, teenage grief and making familiar material feel fresh.
Berlin is treated less as a leaderboard than as a place to think aloud. Nicholas Rapold and Vulture's Bilge Ebiri discuss Mouse while taking the festival's political temperature.
A clear Berlin debrief finds Doggerland standing out amid an uneven competition slate.
Berlin comes through here as a festival still finding its shape, with host Nicholas Rapol and Jordan Kronk weighing a mixed first week where a weaker competition slate makes the stronger discoveries stand out.
A clear, lightly curious Locarno conversation on postwar British cinema and its wider film connections.
Locarno's 2025 retrospective on postwar British cinema is given a steady frame through a conversation with its programmer. The episode centers on the golden age of the British studio system, a stretch of national cinema positioned as less familiar than free cinema or the British…
Horror recaps with sharp teeth.
Criterion completism with sharp, messy charm.
Indie filmmakers, festival stories, real movie talk.
Entertainment stories with the polish left off.
Nick and Bruce Bennett discuss recent movie viewings and overlapping interests in an outdoor recording session.
Nick and Amy Taubin discuss recent films and the New York Film Festival, with a brief tangent on early voting.
Nicolas Rapold and David Hudson discuss the start of the Berlinale 2026, the festival's second edition under Tricia Tuttle, and preview some films including Rosebush Pruning and The Red Hangar.
Critic Nicolas Rapold and guest Jordan Cronk discuss films from the Berlin festival, starting with the weak competition.
Host Nicolas Rapold interviews Ehsan Khoshbakht, programmer of Locarno 2025's retrospective on post-war British cinema.
Amy Taubin and host Nick open the 64th New York Film Festival with Jafa's retrospective "I Am Tony," which opened September 24 at the New Museum and includes a remake of Taxi Driver's finale called Ben Gazzara.
Film critic Amy Taubin discusses recent art films including Steven Soderbergh's The Christophers and other festival highlights.
Nick welcomes back Margaret Barton-Fumo to discuss music-themed films she's written about for Fun City Editions, including Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains.
Clyde Folley discusses his Criterion Channel series 'VHS Forever' and the influence of his book 'Videoheaven' on his work.
Director Christian Petzold discusses the significance of Maurice Ravel's Miroirs No.
The Last Thing I Saw brings host John together with Screen Slate contributor Patrick Dahl to discuss selected films from Dahl's 2025 discoveries list, including People's Park, Remember My Name, and Margaret.
Bilge Ebiri joins Nicholas Rapold from the 2026 Berlin Film Festival to discuss Mouse, Moscas (Flies), and Everybody Digs Bill Evans.
Nicholas Rappold and Jonathan Romney review four Berlinale 2026 films: Angela Schadelec's My Wife Cries, Kosara Mitic's 17, Mohammad Hamad's Safe Exit, and Abdallah al-Khatib's Chronicles of the Siege.
Nicholas Rappold and curator Rachel Pronger review Berlinale films including the 1985 German BDSM film Seduction, The Cruel Woman and Ulrike Ottinger's The Blood Countess.
The Last Thing I Saw's Berlinale discussion with Guy Lodge assesses Queen at Sea, Forest High, Nina Rosa, and We Are All Strangers.
Jordan Cronk tells host Nicholas Rapold that the 2026 Berlinale competition has been 'pretty weak', with Dow a rare exception, and that the best films so far came from smaller sections.
David Hudson joins Nicholas Rapold for the first Berlinale 2026 episode of The Last Thing I Saw, covering three films seen in the festival's opening days.
Senior Curator of Film Michael Koresky tells host Nick why he built the Museum of the Moving Image series '2001, The Year, Not the Movie,' which opens with Moulin Rouge on Valentine's Day with Ewan McGregor attending.
Nick and Amy Taubin discuss the final Sundance in Park City, the upcoming move to Boulder, and preview John Wilson's film The History of Concrete.