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As movie megastar Tom Cruise returns to our screens, and the world awaits the revelation of the next James Bond, Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode examine the evolution of the leading man.
Critic and broadcaster Christina Newland talks to Mark about the changing face of the Hollywood heartthrob, from the silent era's 'Latin lover’, Rudolph Valentino, to contemporary stars Timothée Chalamet, Michael B. Jordan and Glen Powell.
Ellen speaks to acclaimed casting director Susan Shopmaker, whose eye for talent has helped shape the careers of some of the hottest actors working today, including Jeremy Allen White, Riz Ahmed and Callum Turner.
And Ellen also talks to a real-life leading man - actor Jason Isaacs. Jason’s many celebrated roles have included Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series, an Emmy-nominated turn in The White Lotus, and playing the archetypal leading man Cary Grant in the biographical ITVX series Archie.
Producer: Jane Long
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode consider the role of natural history film and TV today. 
Ellen speaks to the wildlife cinematographer, Sophie Darlington ASC who has spent decades recording wildlife for primetime documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic, Netflix and beyond.
Meanwhile, Mark talks to Ed Sayers, director of recent feature film Super Nature, a global love letter to the natural world, filmed on Super 8. Mark also speaks to the Oscar-winning director of My Octopus Teacher, James Reed.
Producer: Mae-Li Evans
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4

From Butch and Sundance to Maverick and Goose, Woody and Buzz to Frodo and Sam, male friendships have long been at the heart of many of our favourite screen stories. 
But in recent years, stories about male friendship seem to have taken on new significance. They’ve become a way of exploring emotional vulnerability and what it means to be a man in an era shaped by debates around the manosphere, toxic masculinity and the male loneliness epidemic.
Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode revisit some of film and TV’s most memorable male pairings, and ask how today’s filmmakers are responding to what many describe as a crisis of masculinity. Ellen speaks to critic Matt Schimkowitz, staff writer at US website The AV Club, about how male friendships have featured in Hollywood movies, from classic comedy double acts like Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello, to the chaotic camaraderie of the Jackass movies.
Mark speaks to writer-director Bruce Robinson, who mined his own very personal experiences of male friendship to create the cult 1987 film Withnail & I, about two out-of-work actors living in Camden Town at the end of the 1960s.
And Mark also speaks to Jack Rooke, creator of the Channel 4 comedy-drama Big Boys, which found fresh emotional depth in the familiar male ‘odd-couple’ dynamic. Drawing on Jack’s own time at university in the early 2010s, the series concluded in 2025 with a highly-acclaimed episode sensitively exploring the long shadow cast by suicide.
Producer: Jane Long
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4

Screenshot makes contact with film and TV’s enduring fascination with UFOs and extraterrestrial life, from the Cold War paranoia of Invasion of the Body Snatchers to the quietly unsettling recent TV series Pluribus.
Mark speaks to film critic Kim Newman about the history of aliens onscreen, from their arrival in 50s B Movies to The X-Files.
Ellen then talks to director John Sayles about his 80s film, Brother From Another Planet, and how the idea came to him in a dream. Ellen then talks to musician and alien movie obsessive, Mike Skinner, about his favourite alien films.
Producer: Queenie Qureshi-Wales
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4

On the 40th anniversary of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode look at films that confine their action to a single day (and occasionally, night).
From the high-stakes urban odyssey of Martin Scorsese's After Hours to the quiet contemplation of Agnès Varda's Cléo from 5 to 7, what difference does a day make to cinema?
Ellen talks to screenwriter and novelist David Nicholls, whose international bestseller One Day followed a couple who meet on 15th July 1988, revisiting their lives on the same date every year for the next two decades.
She also talks to creative writing professor and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Kim Krizan, who co-wrote Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, the first two films in director Richard Linklater's time-constrained romantic drama trilogy.
Meanwhile, Mark speaks to writer-director and Ferris Bueller superfan Emma Seligman, whose breakthrough feature Shiva Baby wrought extraordinary tension and comedy from the course of a single afternoon.
And Mark also speaks to Danish-Norwegian director Joachim Trier. Now perhaps best known for Oscar nominees Sentimental Value and The Worst Person In The World, Trier made one of modern cinema's finest single-day films with 2011's Oslo, August 31st, which follows recovering heroin addict Anders over the course of a day and night.
Producer: Jane Long
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4