By Michael Schwartz 

We've taken a look at Best Comedy Series and Best Limited Series. Now, it's time to take a look at the shows which will be competing this year at the Emmys for a nomination in Best Drama Series.

Before "Game of Thrones" even returned to HBO to air its final season, the blockbuster series already had another Emmy win for Drama Series locked down and ready to go....or it seemed. While the final season was met with a divisive reaction, we still think it holds the top place at the moment based on the hype alone. However, with its momentum fading and the uncertainty surrounding whether the complaints from the fandom reached the ears of the Academy, we are starting to wonder if there is another show out there that can beat the HBO goliath.

​Let’s dive into the eight non-"Game of Thrones" series that will be competing for a nomination slot.​

By Matt Neglia 

Our second podcast review for this week is the A24 critically acclaimed drama "The Last Black Man In San Francisco" which won two awards at this year's Sundance Film Festival for Best Directing and a Special Jury Prize for Creative Collaboration. Starring newcomer Jimmie Fails, along with Jonathan Majors, Danny Glover, Rob Morgan and more, the film introduces us to a new and distinct voice from filmmaker Joe Talbot. But what did the Next Best Picture team ultimately think? Tune in below as Josh Parham, Cody Dericks and myself break it all down for you.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Matt Neglia 

The NBP Community is a strong one that we are very proud to have seen grown over the years. We love and appreciate your voice so much that we thought it would be a fun idea to go back in time before the creation of the site in 2016 and provide you with some retrospective podcast reviews, culminating in fan voted NBP Film Community Awards for 2015.

That time is now, for below we have the official 2015 nomination ballot, completely blank and waiting to be filled out with movies, performances and techs from a stellar year of film. Ballots must be submitted before July 1st so please don't hesitate to let us know what were your own personal lineups for 2015.

Click below to fill out your form and help create the nominations for the 2015 NBP Film Community Awards.

By Matt Neglia 

For Episode 147, ​Josh Parham, Dan Bayer & myself talk about the recent financial disappointments of the 2019 summer blockbuster season and what does it all mean, our favorite movie dads of 2019 so far for Father's Day, the trailer for "Doctor Sleep," the polls and we answer your submitted questions! 

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Matt Neglia 

For this week's main podcast review, Kt Schaefer and I discuss the reboot to the "Men In Black" franchise with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson re-teaming from "Thor: Ragnarok" for "Men In Black: International." With a new cast and setting, does the "Men In Black" formula still work for a 2019 audience? Listen down below to find out.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

​By Ryan C. Showers ​​

​Despite my intense studying, following, and analyzing the Emmy awards for the past six years, I have never held the limited series/TV movie categories to the same standard which I do the Drama and Comedy races. When I really began to become invested in the Emmys to a similar degree as my investment in the Oscars and film awards, many called it the “golden age” of television, when “Mad Men,” “Game of Thrones,” “Homeland,” “The Good Wife,” “House of Cards,” “Downton Abbey,” and “Breaking Bad” were all fighting for the golden trophies from the Television Academy at full throttle. Heck, during this time, when Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson’s first season of “True Detective” set the world on fire, HBO made the strategic decision of entering the seven-episode narrative in the Drama series categories, rather than Limited/Miniseries. “True Detective” would have had a guaranteed sweep of every category that year had it proceeded as limited series, instead of only winning the directing achievement in the drama series category. Due to this decision, McConaughey lost to Bryan Cranston in a stunning upset. In my view, HBO made this decision because they didn’t want their prized possession winning the second fiddle, small potatoes, less prestigious categories at the Emmys.

My, how times have changed.

By Matt Neglia 

For this year's Oscar off-season, we are taking a look back on the 2015 film year which was right before Next Best Picture launched. We asked the NBP Film Community to vote on 5 films nominated for Best Picture and 5 films nominated for Oscars other than Best Picture from that year to be reviewed on the podcast, exclusively for our Patreon subscribers. We already reviewed "Brooklyn," "Sicario," "Ex Machina," "Room," and now, we are reviewing the Best Picture winner of 2015: "Spotlight."

We have now come to the point in our 2015 retrospective review series where we are talking about the Best Picture winner "Spotlight," which also went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. With a celebrated ensemble cast which includes Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and more, "Spotlight" follows the Boston Globe's investigative reporter division as they uncovered the Catholic Church priest sex scandal of the early 2000s. Joining me for this 2015 retrospective review I have Josh Parham, Daniel Bayer, and Patreon supporters Jeffrey Kare and Charles Bright.
​
This is a preview of the podcast, the full version of which is only available to those who subscribe to us on Patreon. For the small price of $1 a month, you can receive this review along with other exclusive podcast content, so be sure to subscribe here.
​
Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. ​​

By Matt Neglia 

Our second podcast review for this week is the Sundance hit comedy "Late Night" starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling which she also wrote the screenplay for. Set in the frantic and wild world of late night talk tv, this female led comedy tackles many issues about the workplace, the current state of television, gender politics and more! Here to help me break it all down is Tom O'Brien and guest Rosa Parra from rosasreviews.net.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Michael Schwartz 

The 2019 Tony Awards are in the books now and the big winner was "Hadestown" taking 8 awards including Best Musical. But what did we think of the show? The other winners? Host James Corden? Here to break down the show, the presentation, the musical numbers, the winners, the speeches and everything in-between from Sunday's celebration of theatre arts I have Nicole Ackman, Dan Bayer, Cody Dericks and Casey Lee Clark. Just like with our previous two episodes, there is no Patreon exclusive for this recording but we will be returning to shortened preview episodes after this one in the off-season, so if you like what you are hearing from us and want to hear more, be sure to subscribe on our Patreon for more Next Best Theatre content over the coming months.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Theatre Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Nicole Ackman 

​​The Tonys sometimes feel like the purest of the televised award shows. They’re a celebration of the Broadway community and everyone seems legitimately thrilled to be attending. Their most important feature is that they provide a glimpse into a very hard-to-access art form by showing off the Broadway season’s offerings to people across the country who might not be able to afford a trip to New York and the steep and ever-rising Broadway ticket prices. 

This year’s Tony Awards certainly exuded that warm and friendly feel that the Tonys are known and loved for. James Corden returned to host and delivered some very funny sketches while never making the award show feel like an extension of “The Late Late Show” (not a carpool karaoke session in sight!). His genuine love for Broadway was very clear and he managed to walk that tricky line of being a presence without making the show seem all about him. ​

​By Edward Douglas 

While everyone else is busy writing about whatever movie is being released into thousands of theaters across the nation this weekend, one of Canada’s national treasures, Denys Arcand, has released his first movie in many years. It’s called “The Fall of the American Empire,” and if that name sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because in 1985, he made a movie called “The Decline of the American Empire.” “Fall” isn’t a sequel to that movie, as that was the 2004 Oscar-nominated film “The Barbarian Invasions.”

Arcand’s latest film stars Alexandre Landry as Pierre-Paul, a philosophy student working as a courier to make ends meet, who comes upon a robbery gone wrong and suddenly finds himself with two bags full of unmarked cash. The only thing is that others are looking for that money from the person responsible for laundering it to the corrupt police who take a cut of any found cash. 

As might any young single guy, Pierre-Paul decides to use some of the money to hire a classy escort, but when “Aspasie” (Maripier Morin) finds out about the money, instead of robbing Pierre-Paul, she decides to help him, as does an accountant just out of prison for laundering (Arcand regular Rémy Girard).  Things seem to be looking up for Pierre-Paul, although he still has to figure out how he can benefit from his windfall without getting himself killed.

By Matt Neglia 

For Episode 146, ​Michael Schwartz, Nicole Ackman, Dan Bayer, Cody Dericks, Casey Lee Clark & myself go over our first Oscar Predictions of 2019, plus we discuss the trailers for "Ad Astra," "Ford v Ferrari," "Luce" and more!

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

By Matt Neglia 

Our main podcast review for this week is the final "X-Men" film under the Fox banner (Unless "New Mutants" ever comes out) titled "Dark Phoenix." Written and directed by Simon Kinberg and with the 2nd generation cast returning, are they all able to properly tell the Dark Phoenix storyline so classically mishandled in "X-Men: The Last Stand" or is this yet another disappointing installment in the inconsistent mutant franchise before officially being handed over to Disney/Marvel for future movies following these beloved comic book characters? Josh Parham, Dan Bayer and myself do our best to break down what works and what doesn't work down below.

Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to the Next Best Picture Podcast on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,Stitcher, GooglePlay, Tunein, PlayerFM, Acast & Castbox or you can listen down below. Please take a moment to review us on Apple Podcasts here. And if you're feeling generous and you enjoy what you hear and want more, please help to support us on Patreon for as little as $1 a month and you'll receive some exclusive podcast content.

​By Edward Douglas 

​Nisha Ganatra has been directing for some time, first in independent film but more recently in television, and it’s obvious that it’s been hard to get noticed in the competitive world of filmmaking. That is likely to change with Ganatra’s latest film, “Late Night,” which is written, produced and stars Mindy Kaling of “The Office” and “The Mindy Project.” In the movie, Mindy plays Molly Patel, an ambitious young Indian woman who comes to New York with dreams of being a comedy writer. She somehow manages to get a job in the writers’ room for “Late Night with Katherine Newbury,” starring Emma Thompson’s title character, a veteran comic who is one of the first women of late night. Her writers’ room, on the other hand, is made up of all white men, so Molly needs to find her way through the sausage factory to get her voice heard. At the same time, Katherine is about to be replaced on her own show unless she can turn things around.

The movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to raves, and Amazon Studios quickly picked it up for release. It’s not too surprising, since the movie plays so well with audiences of all ages, genders, and races, as well as being very timely to some of the discussions being had in the world today.

Next Best Picture spoke with Ganatra over the phone last week for the following interview...

By Josh Parham 

​Full disclosure: I am not somebody that spends a great deal of time watching television. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the medium. There are many shows that feature great content that I absolutely adore. However, films have always taken the higher artistic priority in my life, and in order to devote as much time as possible to see as many films as I can, that ultimately means that my free time watching television becomes severely limited. That is why, when I do watch tv, I become very selective in what I choose to see. When I’m devoting many hours of my time to a long-form story, I want to know that time will be invested in something that I value.
 
This mindset is especially true now, but it was also the case for me five years ago. The television landscape has changed so drastically in that time, but I still found it important to seek out only the shows I felt worthy of my investment. For me, there was no doubt that one of them was definitely going to be HBO’s "Looking." Premiering in January 2014, the show was an intimate, multi-character study about the lives of a group of gay men living in San Francisco. By no means, the first show on a major network to deal with such subject matter, the amount of content that did traffic in these kinds of stories were few and far between at this point. Obviously, this rallied the attention of many in the LGBTQ community as an important cultural moment to note.