Inside Cinema

Meet the Family, voiced by Kathy Burke (Nil by Mouth, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), puts cinematic families on the analyst's couch for a deep dive into what makes some of the most dysfunctional dynasties in cinema tick. How do film-makers go about dramatising the one thing we all have in life - family? Maybe it's about drawing directly from your own life, like Christina Crawford's account of being raised by a nightmare mother, A-list star Joan Crawford, in the infamous Hollywood scandal magnet, Mommie Dearest. Or maybe dramatising the furthest extremes that families will go to needs to involve fantasy, as in magical Oscar-winning fairy tale, Pan's Labyrinth, where a little girl escapes from her wicked stepfather into a dreamlike but dangerous underworld. Even when film-makers have their familial inspiration sorted out, families on the big screen still pose unique challenges, even to the greatest directors in cinema. How can you possibly make every single family member in a massive cinematic ensemble like Gosford Park memorable, when even people in real life have trouble remembering who their second cousins are? How do you know where to start and finish your story about a family, when every family stretches back through infinite generations? Perhaps, like Lars von Trier, you could start with the end of the world. And what about empathy? How do we know who to root for in a film like American Beauty, which only gives us one side of the story? Through the lens of films as varied as 8 Mile, Do the Right Thing, Tokyo Story, Aliens, Bicycle Thieves, The Hangover III, Dead Ringers, Home Alone, Ratcatcher, Back to the Future and many more, we zoom in on families in film, discovering how film-makers have imagined them on the big screen - and what that tells us about our place in our own families.

Documentary that explores the work of Jordan Peele, an era-defining horror auteur, incisive social critic and influential media mogul. Peele, who started out as a comedian with sketch show Key & Peele, captured the zeitgeist with his Oscar-winning horror Get Out, a film that showcased his deft balance of horror, comedy and social commentary. Peele is also an executive producer on TV shows ranging from a revamped Twilight Zone to Lovecraft Country. In this profile documentary, Inside Cinema traces Peele’s career as a comedian, film-maker and producer, in both film and television, and explores how a lifelong love for the horror genre has informed his inimitable style.

Documentary that explores the work of a film director of groundbreaking firsts. Ava DuVernay is the first black woman to win Best Director at Sundance, for her romantic drama Middle of Nowhere, the first black woman to direct a $100-million budget film, the youth fantasy drama A Wrinkle in Time, and the first black woman to direct a film Oscar-nominated for Best Picture - Selma, the first major feature film about Martin Luther King Jr. In this short documentary profile, Inside Cinema takes a look at the career of an extraordinary woman who, from picking up her first camera at the age of 32 and directing her first feature, hip-hop documentary This Is the Life, has consistently laid the groundwork for what would become her brand of putting black women first.

An exploration of the work of Barry Jenkins, a trailblazing film director whose Best Picture winner Moonlight made Oscar night history in 2017, beating La La Land to Best Picture following a dramatic and unprecedented envelope mix-up. Grace Barber-Plentie, a writer and programmer specialising in depictions of people of colour, particularly black women, in pop culture. explores Jenkins’s body of work, from his charming low-fi breakout, romantic drama Medicine for Melancholy, to his current status as only the second black director to make a film which has won the Oscar for Best Picture.

An exploration of the work of Ryan Coogler, a record-breaking film director, whose Oscar-winning and box office-conquering superhero adventure Black Panther scaled new heights for big-budget black cinema in Hollywood. Written and voiced Kambole Campbell, a writer and film critic for Empire Magazine, Little White Lies and Sight & Sound, this short profile documentary follows Coogler’s career from independent drama Fruitvale Station through Rocky franchise spin-off Creed to comic-book epic Black Panther.

What’s your favourite cinematic guilty pleasure? And why the guilt? Film critic Catherine Bray hosts a celebration of trashy films spanning Showgirls to Love Actually to Cats, with narration from comedian Mae Martin.