Episode 25: 1946 with Stephanie Zacharek
A podcast about the great movie years.
I initially got to know Stephanie Zacharek through her then-husband Charley Taylor, one of my professors at NYU and one of my critical heroes, as was Stephanie. She’s always been kind and encouraging and also inspirational, because she really is, for my money, one of the very best old-school weekly-review critics doing it now, or who’s ever done it. And the Pulitzer committee apparently agreed; they made her a finalist for the Prize in criticism in 2015.
Stephanie loves old movies, particularly the 1940s, and as she mentions in the show, she settled on 1946 mostly to talk about one film in particular: The Best Years of Our Lives, which she teaches and revisits often. I watched the movie for the first time for this week’s episode, and concur: it’s powerful, and moving, and wonderful.
Here’s where you can see the movies on Stephanie’s top five:
The Best Years of Our Lives is streaming on Amazon Prime, Kanopy, and Pluto TV. You can also rent or buy it on Amazon.
Let There Be Light is streaming on Paramount+, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy, and Tubi.
A Matter of Life and Death is streaming on Classix, but really, you should just buy the gorgeous Criterion Blu-ray.
La Belle et la Bete is streaming on HBO Max, The Criterion Channel, and Kanopy. You can also rent or buy it on Amazon and Apple TV.
Gilda is available to rent or buy via the usual suspects. But this also is kind of a must-own Criterion disc.
If you’d like to log and review these yourself, head on over to our list page on Letterboxd.
Thanks for listening!
-jb