Welcome to Critical Darlings: a podcast about the movies everyone is talking about, one new release after another. Every week, critics Richard Lawson and Alison Willmore cover the latest film driving the conversation—from big summer blockbusters to festival favorites, buzzy streamers, and major awards contenders. New episodes every Thursday. We’re a Blank Check Production! To catch up on our first miniseries covering the 2026 Oscars season, check out Blank Check on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or wherever you listen. Stick around on this feed for new episodes going forward. Produced by Benjamin Frisch Subscribe to Richard's newsletter, Premiere Party, and read Alis
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Contact path
Verified email
Booking probability
32%
Guest openness
Selective
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Signup to Generate a PitchWelcome to Critical Darlings: a podcast about the movies everyone is talking about, one new release after another. Every week, critics Richard Lawson and Alison Willmore cover the latest film driving the conversation, from big summer blockbusters to festival favorites, buzzy streamers, and major awards contenders. New episodes every Thursday. We’re a Blank Check Production!
Recent episodes include ""You Can See Everything" Bares It All (With Jia Tolentino)" (22 October 2026, 97 minutes), "“The Social Reckoning” Misses The Mark (With George Civeris)" (15 October 2026, 86 minutes), and ""Digger"??? (With Dana Stevens)" (8 October 2026, 86 minutes).
Critical Darlings publishes roughly weekly, with episodes averaging 89 minutes across 45 episodes.
Booking probability for Critical Darlings is 32%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. Critical Darlings requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. Critical Darlings's contact route on record: verified email.
The strongest fits for Critical Darlings are Film & Video. Critical Darlings has a tv audience.
Critical Darlings is a tv show with 45 episodes published.
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Critical Darlings
Critical Darlings is going LIVE at The Savannah Film Festival! In our first live podcast recording, we’re doing an awards season kickoff at 2pm on Tuesday October 29th at The Gutstein Gallery in Savannah Georgia...
Critical Darlings
Critical Darlings is going LIVE at The Savannah Film Festival! In our first live podcast recording, we’re doing an awards season kickoff at 2pm on Tuesday October 29th at The Gutstein Gallery in Savannah Georgia. We’ll...
Critical Darlings
Big News! Critical Darlings is going LIVE at The Savannah Film Festival! In our first live podcast recording, we’re doing an awards season kickoff at 2pm on Tuesday October 29th at The Gutstein Gallery in Savannah...
Critical Darlings
Heads up to listeners, this episode includes sensitive discussions of abuse due to the nature of the film. It's Primetime! The new Robert Pattinson vehicle is a neon-lit, morally murky movie about ratings and...
Critical Darlings
In this bonus episode: After a month of festival hopping, we're back in the studio to discuss the fall festival season, its big premieres, and paint a very rough picture of how award season is shaping up. But first, we...
Critical Darlings
Conflict of interest disclosure: Critical Darlings is a fully owned subsidiary of The Umbrella Corporation. Today we're joined by David Sims of Blank Check and "friend of" one of this film's featured performers...
Critical Darlings
Get your dipping sauces ready, it’s Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma! Starring Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder, this meta horror picture goes to some very strange places that nonetheless...
Critical Darlings
After an absurd and depressing attempt by David Zaslov to bury Coyote Vs. Acme, it’s finally in theaters. What’s more, it’s great, making WB’s attempts to shelve the movie for a tax write-off seem all the feckless...
Critical Darlings
Dinosaurs are back in business this week, with The End of Oak Street, an original blockbuster about shooting dinos in the face while getting chomped by various raptors, dactyls, and giant primordial snakes. We’re...
Critical Darlings
In a technofascist parallel reality, singles are only allowed to have sex one night a year: it’s One Night Only, AKA The Sex Purge! Comedian Josh Gondelman joins us to discuss this deeply strange film which has...
Critical Darlings
Griffin Newman swings back from Spain, Europe, to discuss Spider-Man: Brand New Day! Brand New Day is likely the biggest movie of the year, maybe of all time, depending on how you count. From the seemingly bulletproof...
Critical Darlings
Come for the Les Miz karaoke takes, stay for The Invite. New York Magazine’s Emily Gould joins us to discuss Olivia Wilde’s sexy, awkward comedy of domestic manners starring herself, Seth Rogan, Edward Norton, and...
Critical Darlings
Daddy, tie us to the mast, we’re off to see The Odyssey! Christopher Nolan’s epic about a dad going out for cigarettes has vanquished all foes, critical, commercial, and discourse-able. To unpack it all, we’re...
Critical Darlings
You’re welcome…again! This week we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel of Disney’s “live-action” remakes, with Moana. As noted on last week’s episode, Producer Ben Frisch is out on a Minions-related leave of absence...
Critical Darlings
The Minions are back with a film designed to pander…to us! On this episode, three Minions neophytes try to make sense of Minions And Monsters, where the round yellow ones land in 1920s Hollywood. among Chaplin, Keaton...
Critical Darlings
This week we’re Gunn-ing for Supergirl, with filmmaker and video essayist Patrick Willems! Supergirl is the second feature film in the new DC cinematic universe, now helmed by Guardians of the Galaxy mastermind James...
Critical Darlings
It’s Pride Week on Critical Darlings, and we’re joined by the co-host of the Alright Mary podcast (and Best Supporting Actress expert) Colin Drucker to break down two new wide-release gay movies: RuPaul’s spoofy Stop...
Critical Darlings
It’s Disclosure Week on Critical Darlings, with writer, podcaster, and E.T. super fan Starlee Kine! Almost five decades after Steven Spielberg reimagined aliens on screen with E.T. and Close Encounters, he’s delivered...
Critical Darlings
By the power of Grayskull, we have cartoonist and co-host of the No Gods No Mayors podcast, Mattie Lubchansky, in studio to discuss Masters of the Universe! The movie is a test for Mattel, who are going all-in on IP...
Critical Darlings
<p>This week we’re joined by the very liminal Ryan Broderick, proprietor of the great Garbage Day newsletter and host of the podcast Panic World, to discuss A24’s hit, Backrooms! Based on a 4-Chan thread, creepypasta...
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