The Last Thing I Saw

Ep. 321: Alissa Wilkinson on Cannes 2025: Un Simple Accident, Pillion, Eleanor the Great, The Plague, Spike Lee Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I’m back at the Cannes Film Festival to talk about the highlights with another all-star cast of guests. This episode I sat down with Alissa Wilkinson, a New York Times movie critic who also has a new book out, We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine. We spoke about the return of Jafar Panahi, in person, to Cannes, with his latest, Un Simple Accident (aka It Was Just an Accident), and three debut features: Eleanor the Great (Scarlett Johansson), Pillion (Harry Lighton), and The Plague (Charlie Polinger). Plus a few words on Spike Lee’s latest, Highest 2 Lowest. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 320: Guy Lodge on Romeria, The History of Sound, Un Poeta, La Ola (The Wave) Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I’m back at the Cannes Film Festival to talk about the highlights with another all-star cast of guests. This episode we sat down again with Guy Lodge of Variety, discussing a number of films including: Romería (directed by Carla Simón), The History of Sound (Oliver Hermanus, starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor), Un Poeta (Simon Mesa Soto), and La Ola (The Wave) (Sebastián Lelio). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 319: Eric Hynes on Die My Love, The Love That Remains, The Chronology of Water, Imago Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I’m back at the Cannes Film Festival to talk about the highlights with another all-star cast of guests. This episode we sat down again with intrepid regular Eric Hynes of the Jacob Burns Film Center to catch up with a few richly realized movies: Die My Love (directed by Lynne Ramsay, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Sissy Spacek), The Love That Remains (Hlynur Palmason), The Chronology of Water (Kristen Stewart), and the documentary Imago (Déni Oumar Pitsaev). After we recorded, Imago won the Jury Prize in its section, Critics’ Week. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 318: Mark Asch on The Phoenician Scheme, Drunken Noodles, Lucky Lu, a dab of The Secret Agent Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I’m back at the Cannes Film Festival to talk about the highlights with another all-star cast of guests. This episode we’ll hear from critic Mark Asch about a few movies from across three different sections: The Phoenician Scheme (directed by Wes Anderson, in competition), Lucky Lu (Lloyd Lee Choi, in Directors’ Fortnight), and Drunken Noodles (Lucio Castro, in ACID). Asch, who has a track record for talking about prize-winning films on The Last Thing I Saw, also slips in some words about The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonca Filho). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 317: Jonathan Romney on The Secret Agent, New Wave, Exit 8, Once Upon a Time in Gaza Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I’m back at the Cannes Film Festival to talk about the highlights with another all-star cast of guests. This episode we’ll hear from Jonathan Romney, a critic for Screen Daily and the Observer, about a few movies around the midpoint of the festival. Films discussed include: The Secret Agent (directed by Kleber Mendonca Filho), New Wave (Richard Linklater), Exit 8 (Genki Kawamura), and Once Upon a Time in Gaza (Arab Nasser and Tarzan Nasser). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 316: Robert Daniels on Eddington, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Raoul Peck’s Orwell Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I’m back at the Cannes Film Festival to talk about the highlights with another all-star cast of guests. This time I'm very pleased to sit down with Robert Daniels, associate editor at RogerEbert.com and a columnist and reviewer at The New York Times, among other writing. We focus on a few films spanning a wide variety of form and genre: Eddington (Ari Aster), Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning (Christopher McQuarrie), and the documentary Orwell: 2+5=5 (Raoul Peck). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 315: Jordan Cronk on Cannes 2025: Sirat, Urchin, Her Will Be Done, Directors’ Fortnight Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I’m back at the Cannes Film Festival to talk about the highlights with another all-star cast of guests! For this episode I sit down with Jordan Cronk, critic and programmer, who this year is also on the Directors’ Fortnight committee. Films discussed include: Sirat (directed by Oliver Laxe), Urchin (Harris Dickinson), Her Will Be Done (Julia Kowalski), and The President’s Cake (Hasan Hadi). Cronk also previews a few other Directors’ Fortnight titles including Lucky Lu, Kokoho, Dangerous Animals, and Peak Everything. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 314: Eric Hynes on Cannes 2025: Two Prosecutors, Case 137, Two Critics Week Highlights Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2025 Cannes Film Festival has begun and I’m back to talk about movies with another all-star cast of guests. For this episode I sit down with Eric Hynes of the Jacob Burns Film Center to talk about movies in the early part of the festival, including Two Prosecutors (Sergei Loznitsa), Case 137 (Dominik Moll), and two highlights from Critics’ Week, Reedland (Sven Bresser) and Left-Handed Girl (Shih-Ching Tsou). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 313: Alison Willmore on Cannes 2025: Sound of Falling, Enzo, and a look at the lineup Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2025 Cannes Film Festival has begun and I’m back to talk about movies with another all-star cast of guests. To kick off this year’s series, I’m delighted to welcome Alison Willmore of Vulture and New York Magazine for her debut on the podcast, starting with a bang: the first great movie at the festival, Sound of Falling, directed by Mascha Schilinski. We also rattle off a few probable attention-getters in this year’s edition, and discuss another, intriguing early premiere, Enzo, a film by the late Laurent Cantet, directed by Robin Campillo. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 312: R. Emmet Sweeney on Tomonari Nishikawa, Minecraft, Long Gone, Crac!, plus Sinners and The Sniper Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This week I’m pleased to welcome back a friend of the podcast, R. Emmet Sweeney, who produces physical media for Kino Lorber and writes about movies as well as music. He runs a thriving substack newsletter called Old New, where he recently assembled remembrances of the filmmaker Tomonari Nishikawa, who recently passed away. We talked a bit about Nishikawa’s movies, as well as baseball picture Long Gone, Minecraft, the Canadian animated short Crac! (a selection from Light Industry’s recent Children’s Cinema), with a few words from me on Ryan Coogler’s Sinners and The Sniper, an Edward Dmytryk joint featured in the Columbia Pictures series at the Museum of Modern Art. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass