The Cineskinny

Exit 8, Miroirs No. 3 and video games' influence on movies

We try not to confuse Christian Petzold with his fellow prolific European auteurs François Ozon and Olivier Assayas ahead of our discussion of Miroirs No. 3, Petzold's intriguing new drama about a Berlin pianist (Paula Beer) who gets 'adopted' by a lonely woman after a car crash. 

We then take a look at Exit 8, a nifty little thriller based on the simple walking video game of the title, in which you must escape the Tokyo metro tunnels using the power of spot the difference. 

And talking of video games, the team look back at the highs and many lows of video game adaptations over the years and asks what makes for a successful one. 

TIMESTAMPS:

What We’ve Been Watching: Akira, The Pitt, and the Peaky Blinders movie (01:55)
Miroirs No. 3 review (10:04)
Exit 8 review (22:58)
The storied history of video game adaptations (39:57)

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Follow us on Instagram @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk

Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod  (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-

Mark Jenkin on Rose of Nevada

During this year's Glasgow Film Festival, we caught up with Cornish filmmaking don Mark Jenkin to discuss his excellent new feature Rose of Nevada, an intriguing time-loop puzzle starring George Mackay and Callum Turner as two young men who find themselves in a time warp when they volunteer to help crew the eponymous fishing boat. 

Rose of Nevada is released 24 April by the BFI and Jenkin is currently on a Q&A tour with the film, which includes a stop in Edinburgh at the Cameo on 21 April. Full tour details at roseofnevada.co.uk

Interview recorded at Glasgow Film Festival 2026. If you like The Cineskinny, tell your pals! Leave us a five-star review! Share the episode on socials!

Follow us on Instagram @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk

Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod  (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

James McAvoy interview, plus reviews of Fuze and Orwell: 2+2=5

We’ve an actual, bona fide Hollywood movie star on the podcast this week: Professor X himself, James McAvoy. At this year's Glasgow Film Festival, the PR gods granted us ten meagre minutes with McAvoy to discuss his directorial debut, the boisterous stranger-than-fiction tale California Schemin’, about two lads from Dundee who convinced the London music industry they were a rapping duo from LA. McAvoy is joined by one of his film’s stars, Lucy Halliday, and they discuss the Scottish accent, McAvoy's filmmaking influences and how he goes about directing his fellow actors. 

On the review front, meanwhile, we discuss two very different new features. One is Orwell: 2+2=5, Raoul Peck’s serious-minded essay film on George Orwell and how his writing predicted the double-speak of the modern world. The other is Fuze, David Mackenzie’s fat-free thriller set in contemporary London starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Theo James trying out a rather silly accent. Don’t say we don’t have range on this pod!

TIMESTAMPS:

What We’ve Been Watching: Project Hail Mary, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and Netflix documentary The Dinosaurs (02:24)
Fuze review (21:08)
The Good Boy review (32:34)
Interview with James McAvoy and Lucy Halliday (45:57)

If you like The Cineskinny, tell your pals! Leave us a five-star review! Share the episode on socials!

Follow us on Instagram @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk

Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod  (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-

Arco, The Good Boy, Glasgow Short Film Festival and an Oscars debrief

On this week’s show, we pick over the ashes of the 2026 Academy Awards and ask, why are they so boring? Also Oscar-related, we review the new French animation Arco, which was competing in those awards, but left empty-handed, losing to Netflix sensation KPop Demon Hunters. Did voters make the right call?

We also review the curious Polish-British confinement thriller The Good Boy, starring Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough. And finally, we take a look at three films screening in Glasgow Short Film Festival’s Scottish Competition – an experimental animation (Existential Greg), a poetic documentary (Community Theatre) and an intimate drama (Monogamy) – to get a flavour of the work being made on Scotland’s lively short film scene. 

TIMESTAMPS:

Oscar debrief (1:22)
Arco review (14:28)
The Good Boy review (26:41)
Glasgow Short Film Festival taster: three Scottish shorts (39:29)

If you like The Cineskinny, tell your pals! Leave us a five-star review! Share the episode on socials!

Follow us on Instagram @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk

Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod  (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-

Felipe Bustos Sierra on Everybody To Kenmure Street

Everybody To Kenmure Street tells the true story of a community coming together to resist a Home Office immigration raid in Glasgow's Southside in 2021. For this episode, Jamie caught up with its director, Felipe Bustos Sierra, earlier this year to discuss the making of the film, and to talk about the power of solidarity and protest.

Everybody To Kenmure Street is out in UK cinemas on Fri 13 March, and Felipe is taking the film on tour for a series of Q+A screenings – details at conic.film/kenmurestreet

Interview recorded in Jan 2026. If you like The Cineskinny, tell your pals! Leave us a five-star review! Share the episode on socials!

Follow us on Instagram @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk

Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod  (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Glasgow Film Festival: Rose of Nevada, Dead Man's Wire, Father Mother Sister Brother and Nino

With the return of Glasgow Film Festival, we review a quartet of films from the programme. Listen in for our thoughts on Gus van Sant’s 70s crime thriller, Mark Jenkin’s existential fishing boat time-hopper, Pauline Loquès’ small but well-formed debut drama, and Jim Jarmusch’s award-winning ‘parents eh what are they like’ anthology.

As a little treat, Anahit slags off "Wuthering Heights", also we get interrupted by some building work in the office and we all become very cold to the point that Peter gets the sniffles at one stage. We’re talking the full Slavoj Žižek, but we think we caught them all in the edit… 

TIMESTAMPS:

"Wuthering Heights" review (1:50)
Dead Man’s Wire review (10:00)
Rose of Nevada review (21:00) 
Nino review (32:20)
Father Mother Sister Brother review (45:00)

If you like The Cineskinny, tell your pals! Leave us a five-star review! Share the episode on socials!

Follow us on Instagram @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk

Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod  (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-

The Secret Agent, If I Had Legs..., plus CCA Glasgow reaction and a Catherine O'Hara tribute

A packed ep of the pod this time – we look at the recent sudden closure of the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) in Glasgow, and what it means for Scottish arts in general, and Scottish cinema in specific.

Then, we review! The Secret Agent is a knotty, complex sun-drenched conspiracy thriller from Brazil; If I Had Legs I'd Kick You sees Rose Byrne go full power no brakes 100% as a mother at the end of various tethers. Both very good.

Finally, we look back on the career of the one and only Catherine O'Hara, and some of her best roles and funniest deliberate mispronunciations. Enjoy your Cineskinny, bebés.

CHAPTERS:

The CCA has closed: how did this happen and what's next? (01:50)
The Secret Agent review (13:45)
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You review (29:10)
Catherine O'Hara tribute (44:25)

CCA news: https://www.theskinny.co.uk/art/news/glasgow-cca-centre-for-contemporary-arts-to-close

Jamie's GFF top ten/11: https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/opinion/glasgow-film-festival-2026-11-unmissable-films 

If you like The Cineskinny, tell your pals! Leave us a five-star review! Share the episode on socials!

Follow us on Instagram @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk

Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod  (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

No Other Choice, The History of Sound and our first look at Glasgow Film Festival 2026

We've a bumper show for you this week.

The soul-destroying crush of capitalism is laid bare in Park Chan-wook's sharp and deliriously funny black comedy No Other Choice. Two of our favourite pretty white boys, Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor, find a deep connection over folk music in 1910s America in The History of Sound. And fresh from the Glasgow Film Festival press launch, the team pick out some of the titles that jump out to us ahead of our full GFF preview in a few weeks' time. 

CHAPTERS:

What We've Been Watching: Marty Supreme (again), Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (5:05)
The History of Sound review (14:32)
No Other Choice review (32:21)
GFF 2026: First Look at the Programme (44:23)

If you like The Cineskinny, tell your pals! Leave us a five-star review! Share the episode on socials!

Follow us on Instagram @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk

Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod  (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Marty Supreme, Hamnet, Rob Reiner and the not-very-good Stranger Things finale

The Cineskinny rides again, kicking off 2026 with Josh Safdie's excellent Marty Supreme, Chloe Zhao's slightly-less-excellent Hamnet, and the oh-my-no-that-ain't-right finale of Stranger Things.

All that, plus Peter Hujar's Day, Blue Moon, a tribute to the late great Rob Reiner and an introduction to the perils of recording in front of a big window. Put the word out there, The Cineskinny is back up.

CHAPTERS:

What We've Been Watching: Oh. What Fun., Gosford Park, Bring Her Back and more (2:30)
Ellie Robertson vs Stranger Things, TKO rd. 1 (12:30)
Marty Supreme: a very good film starring a very bad boy (19:30)
Hamnet, Peter Hujar's Day, and Blue Moon reviews (29:05)
A tribute to Rob Reiner (38:30) 

If you like The Cineskinny, tell your pals! Leave us a five-star review! Share the episode on socials!

Follow us on Instagram @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk

Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod  (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Our Films of 2025: Sinners, One Battle After Another and more

It's the final episode of The Cineskinny for 2025! And it's the top ten films of the year! 

Peter Jamie and Anahit talk through a list with some surprising thematic links, some personal favourites, and a whole bunch of those Good Films we love to talk about. Then, once the dust has settled on the 'proper' part of the podcast, a coda in which we relitigate the whole thing by talking about Some More Good Films.

Feliz navidad to all Cineskinny listeners, we will be back in 2026.

Part 1: How The Top Ten sausage Gets Made (1:30)
Part 2: Films 10-4 (10:20)
Part 3: Die My Love redux (24:10)
Part 4: Sinners and One Battle After Another (28:55)
Part 5: Our personal faves, performances of the year etc (42:05)
Epilogue: Anahit chatting about sexy vampires (1:05:00)

If you like The Cineskinny, tell your pals! Leave us a five-star review! Share the episode on socials!

Anahit’s chat with Jafar Panahi: https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/16828/jafar-panahi-interview-it-was-just-an-accident

Follow us on Instagram @thecineskinny, email us at cineskinny@theskinny.co.uk

Music: Too Cool by Kevin MacLeod  (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4534-too-cool) License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license