Celebrating Cinema

This week, Laura and Hugo dive into films chosen by you. Drawing from our LAB Suggestions programme, where audiences select their favourite films to be shown on the big screen in Amsterdam, they share their standout picks. From the chilling plausibility of Children of Men to a friendly (but pointed) debate over whether Christopher Nolan’s Inception owes more than a little to Satoshi Kon’s Paprika.Along the way, they share tidbits from conversations with Colin Farrell and Alfonso Cuarón, plus a voice note from one of our listeners whose pick, The NeverEnding Story, is heading to the big screen.Get tickets to LAB Suggestions @ LAB111Get tickets to Hamnet @ LAB111Get tickets to The Actor’s Archive: Jane Fonda @ LAB111Get tickets to Fight The Power: Goodbye Julia @ LAB111

As the year comes to a close, hosts Laura Gommans and Elliot Bloom look back on the films that defined 2025. They revisit their standout favourites, unexpected discoveries, and the releases that missed the mark. They also explore why so many films from major directors felt surprisingly average this year and spotlight a handful of remarkable titles that never reached Dutch cinemas but deserve far more attention. Share your own favourite films of 2025 and join the conversation.

In this final review roundup before the festive season, hosts Laura Gommans and Elliot Bloom take a look at some new releases that should be on your radar this winter. Joachim Trier returns with Sentimental Value, a film about filmmaking and a tender companion to his celebrated feature The Worst Person in the World. Harris Dickerson steps behind the camera for the first time with Urchin, a striking debut anchored by a magnetic performance from Frank Dillane. Rose Byrne offers one of the most moving turns of her career as she navigates the weight of single parenthood in Mary Bronstein's If I Had Legs I Would Kick You. Finally, Left Handed Girl from Shih Ching Tsou offers a quietly affecting study of intimacy as it traces the intertwined lives of a mother and her two daughters, shaped through Tsou’s long standing creative partnership with Sean Baker.Get tickets to Sentimental Value @ LAB111Get tickets to Urchin @ LAB111Get tickets to If I Had Legs I'd Kick You @ LAB111Get tickets to Left-Handed Girl @ LAB111

Host Laura Gommans, an unabashed devotee of festive films, teams up with Kiriko, who prefers her Christmas viewing a little more Eyes Wide Shut than Love Actually. Together they unpack what truly makes a film “festive,” trade beloved classics and oddball alternatives, and dream up which directors should (or absolutely shouldn’t) make a holiday movie. As they share how cinema shapes their own festive traditions.Get tickets to Holiday Classics @ LAB111Get tickets to LAB111 9th Aniversary PartyGet tickets to Girly Pop: The Holiday @ LAB111

Sex and the City may not be canonical cinema, but as a cultural artefact it charts America’s imperial confidence, and its slow, chaotic unravelling, with uncanny precision. After finally submitting to the franchise this year, host Hugo Emmerzael became obsessed, culminating in his Little White Lies piece “Sex and the City 2 and the End of America.”In this episode, Hugo and Kiriko Mechanicus revisit the original series, the two films, and And Just Like That…, tracing how a once-aspirational guide to modern living morphed into something more deranged, unhinged and somehow more American than ever. What emerges is a sharp, fast-moving portrait of how over three decades of shifting national fantasies found their reflection in one of pop culture’s most unlikely mirrors.Read Hugo's Article