Criterion Collection Vol 2, Ranked

EPISODE 194: Elegant, epic, existential, and electric. Volume 2 goes to 11 (ft. Megan Kearns)

Episode Description: Jason returns to the closet of cinema history to crack open another stack from the Criterion Collection! From enchanted castles and sinking ships to philosophical chess matches, outback odysseys, and the loudest band in England, this lineup is as diverse as it is iconic.

Films Ranked:

• Beauty and the Beast (1946) – Cocteau’s poetic dreamscape of love and transformation.

• A Night to Remember (1958) – The definitive Titanic film, long before Leo and Kate.

• Walkabout (1971) – A haunting vision of isolation, survival, and cultural collision.

• The Seventh Seal (1957) – Bergman’s meditation on mortality, meaning, and the black plague.

• This Is Spinal Tap (1984) – The rockumentary that turned it up to eleven... and never came back down.

Jason and Megan wrestle with the big questions: Could anyone make the Seventh Seal today? Does Spinal Tap still hit as hard in the age of memes? Is A Night to Remember secretly the most profound film of the bunch? And where does Walkabout fit into the pantheon of coming-of-age stories?

ALSO:

• Cocteau’s magic mirrors and movie sorcery

• The layers beneath the surface of A Night to Remember

• Existential laughs in chain mail

• Why the line between satire and reality might be thinner than we think