Right on Cue

Film and TV critic Clint Worthington (Consequence, RogerEbert.com, The Spool) talks to a new composer every episode about the origins, challenges, and joys of their latest musical scores.

Episodes

Jay Wadley (Franklin)

April 19, 2024 • 41 mins

When last we spoke to composer Jay Wadley, he'd just finished scoring the mercurial Charlie Kaufman film I'm Thinking of Ending Things. Four years and a million projects later, the Charles Ives Award-winning composer (and co-founder of music production house Found Objects, with previous guest Trevor Gureckis) has been keeping busy, from films like Fire Island, Swan Song and the u...

Mark as Played

Mike Post (Law & Order, Message from the Mountains & Echoes of the Delta)

April 12, 2024 • 39 mins

This week, I talk to legendary TV composer Mike Post about everything from the Law and Order dun-dun to his original album of musical suites.

If you've had a TV turned to a network station anytime in the last forty years, you've heard Mike Post's music. A stalwart in the TV scoring game, he is the voice of so many police and law procedurals, from The Rockf...

Mark as Played

Vince Pope (True Detective: Night Country)

February 24, 2024 • 30 mins

This week's guest is RTS winning and BAFTA-nominated composer Vince Pope, a London-based composer who cut his teeth on scores ranging from Misfits to episodes of Black Mirror. But his most exciting collaborations of late have been those with filmmaker Issa Lopez, starting with her 2017 magical-realist horror film Tigers Are Not Afraid. Now, the pair reteam to put a supernatural s...

Mark as Played

Carlos Rafael Rivera (Griselda, Monsieur Spade)

February 9, 2024 • 41 mins

Grammy- and two-time Emmy-winning composer Carlos Rafael Rivera has spent the last decade building moody, complex musical worlds around complicated characters. His earliest prominent work was with regular collaborator Scott Frank on films like A Walk Among the Tombstones, and the Netflix miniseries Godless. But it was his mercurial work on Frank's miniseries The Queen's Gambit th...

Mark as Played

Anthony Willis (Saltburn)

January 26, 2024 • 34 mins

This week, we're catching up with one of the Oscar-shortlisted Best Score nominees -- Anthony Willis' score to Emerald Fennell's lavish, mysterious thriller Saltburn. Fennell's second directorial feature, after Promising Young Woman, is a kind of Brideshead Revisited by way of Tom Ripley and mid-2000s party culture: A mysterious young bloke named Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) foll...

Mark as Played

Dave Porter (Echo)

January 19, 2024 • 32 mins

For nearly fifteen years, composer Dave Porter has been the musical voice of the Breaking Bad universe -- having scored every season of Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and the film El Camino for good measure. Now, he plies his penchant for atmospheric, guitar-driven thrills to the MCU, with the new Disney+ series, Echo.

A spinoff of Hawkeye, Echo hearkens ...

Mark as Played

Paul Leonard-Morgan (The Pigeon Tunnel)

January 12, 2024 • 35 mins

This podcast has had a long and fruitful relationship with composer Paul Leonard-Morgan, the man behind the scores of films like Dredd and Limitless, among countless others. But two commonalities have permeated the scores he's discussed with me: Errol Morris and Philip Glass. For the former, he teamed up to score Amazon's Tales from the Loop; for the latter, he's scored A Psyched...

Mark as Played

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch (All of Us Strangers)

January 5, 2024 • 26 mins

This week, we're joined by Ivor Novello and BIFA-nominated composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, a Paris-born artist who has made quite the name for herself in the last few years. Getting her start building scores for friends in film school who needed music for their short films, Emilie quickly cut her teeth on films like 2018's Only You and 2019's Rocks, before breaking out big i...

Mark as Played

Mark Sonnenblick, James McAlister (Theater Camp)

December 29, 2023 • 46 mins

As we've seen this year, and my interview with the songwriters behind Dicks: The Musical some weeks back, 2023 has been a surprisingly solid year for original musicals. But as the year draws to a close, I wanted to highlight one of my favorite films I saw this year, all the way back at Sundance: Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman's Theater Camp.

Set in a stru...

Mark as Played

Mac Quayle (Leave the World Behind)

December 22, 2023 • 27 mins

This week, we talk to composer Mac Quayle, who burst onto the scene in 2015 with his Emmy-winning score to Sam Esmail's mysterious, genre-bending series Mr. Robot. Since then, he's enjoyed healthy collaborations with Esmail and fellow showrunner Ryan Murphy, for whom he's scored everything from American Horror Story and Pose to 9-1-1.

For his latest score,...

Mark as Played

Jerskin Fendrix (Poor Things)

December 8, 2023 • 29 mins

This week, I'm thrilled to talk to English musician and nascent film score composer Jerskin Fendrix about his score to the wacky, surreal, oddly poignant new film from Yorgos Lanthimos: Poor Things. Starring Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, the creation of Frankenstein-ian scientist Godwin Baxter (played by Willem Dafoe), the film delves into her ongoing quest to explore her humanity,...

Mark as Played

James Newton Howard (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Night After Night, All the Light We Cannot See)

November 17, 2023 • 32 mins

This week's guest is an Emmy winner, a Grammy winner, and a nine-time Oscar nominee, whose scores have graced the big and small screens since the 1980s. James Newton Howard is the voice of many of your favorite scores, from co-scoring the Dark Knight Trilogy with Hans Zimmer to his Oscar-nominated score for Paul Greengrass' News of the World. Now, he's back with several new proje...

Mark as Played

Marius de Vries, Karl Saint Lucy (Dicks: The Musical)

October 20, 2023 • 31 mins

Sometimes, the dumbest things are the most delightful -- and that's certainly the case with A24's riotous new musical, Dicks: The Musical. A tongue-in-cheek (and other places) song-and-dance comedy, Dicks: The Musical started out as an hourlong show at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City, written by and starring Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson who play two definitely identical twins who find each other and decide to get thei...

Mark as Played

Yair Elazar Glotman (Reptile)

September 30, 2023 • 29 mins

This week, we speak to composer Yair Elazar Glotman about his score for the latest prestige thriller from Netflix, Reptile, a stylish neo-noir starring Benicio Del Toro as a mercurial detective looking into the murder of a real estate agent. Everyone's a suspect, from the victim's boyfriend (Justin Timberlake) to the creepy guy down the street (played by Michael Pitt), even to so...

Mark as Played

Dascha Dauenhauer (Golda)

September 4, 2023 • 21 mins

Historical biopics of famous leaders are a very familiar genre at this point: Great Men (or in this case, Women) of history navigating war or struggle or controversy with the stiff-upper-lip resolve history has granted to them. Guy Nattiv's Golda is certainly no exception, though it innovates not just with its presentation, but with its subject: Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir,...

Mark as Played

John Powell (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie)

August 25, 2023 • 23 mins

Composer John Powell has been composing film scores since 1997; whether it's How to Train Your Dragon, The Bourne Identity, or Solo: A Star Wars Story, you've likely heard and loved at least one of his scores. He earned an Academy Award nomination in 2010 for the epic, uplifting sweep of How to Train Your Dragon, and has three Grammy nominations for his scores to Happy Feet, Ferd...

Mark as Played

Tune-Yards (I'm a Virgo)

August 6, 2023 • 39 mins

Ever since his 2018 feature debut Sorry to Bother You, Oakland-based musician Boots Riley (of The Coup) has built a reputation as one of our most imaginative, socially-minded filmmakers, combining abject surrealism with biting commentary on the complex interweavings of race and capitalism in American life. (With a healthy dose of absurd comedy, of course.)

Mark as Played

Ian Hultquist (The Walking Dead: Dead City)

July 7, 2023 • 40 mins

Much like the zombies that infest its world, the Walking Dead franchise simply refuses to die. With Dead City, the shambling hordes make their way to the island of Manhattan, an urban hellscape now infested with the remnants of a dead civilization. And in the middle, two of the original Walking Dead's main characters, Maggie (Lauren Cohen) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), on a re...

Mark as Played

Jongnic Bontemps (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts)

June 30, 2023 • 41 mins

Veteran composer Jongnic "JB" Bontemps took a long and winding road to film scoring. Despite showing an early passion for scoring (and studying music at Yale), he didn't immediately enter that world. Instead, he sought a tech career, becoming a software developer and entrepreneur. But music came calling again, and JB found himself studying film scoring and building a career as on...

Mark as Played

Daniel Pemberton (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse)

June 26, 2023 • 33 mins

In a relatively grim year for superhero movies, both critically and at the box office, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is blissfully bucking that trend. Building off the dizzying, kaleidoscopic animation style and storytelling of Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse manages to elevate what worked about the previous film and roll it into an even more exciting, heartf...

Mark as Played

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.

24/7 News: The Latest

The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.

Stuff You Should Know

If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

The Bobby Bones Show

Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.

Latino USA

Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S. centering Latino stories, hosted by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Maria Hinojosa Every week, the Peabody winning team brings you revealing, in-depth stories about what’s in the hearts and minds of Latinos and their impact on the world. Want to support our independent journalism? Join Futuro+ for exclusive episodes, sneak peaks and behind-the-scenes chisme on Latino USA and all our podcasts. www.futuromediagroup.org/joinplus

Advertise With Us

Right on Cue

Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jay Wadley (Franklin)

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Mike Post (Law & Order, Message from the Mountains & Echoes of the Delta)

Vince Pope (True Detective: Night Country)

Carlos Rafael Rivera (Griselda, Monsieur Spade)

Anthony Willis (Saltburn)

Dave Porter (Echo)

Paul Leonard-Morgan (The Pigeon Tunnel)

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch (All of Us Strangers)

Mark Sonnenblick, James McAlister (Theater Camp)

Mac Quayle (Leave the World Behind)

Jerskin Fendrix (Poor Things)

James Newton Howard (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Night After Night, All the Light We Cannot See)

Marius de Vries, Karl Saint Lucy (Dicks: The Musical)

Yair Elazar Glotman (Reptile)

Dascha Dauenhauer (Golda)

John Powell (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie)

Tune-Yards (I'm a Virgo)

Ian Hultquist (The Walking Dead: Dead City)

Jongnic Bontemps (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts)

Daniel Pemberton (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse)

Popular Podcasts

Jay Wadley (Franklin)

Mike Post (Law & Order, Message from the Mountains & Echoes of the Delta)