Alejandro G. Iñárritu Officially Joins Season 12 of Mubi's Most Slept-On Series

Image via Dave Starbuck/Future Image/Cover Images Published Nov 5, 2026, 8:00 AM EST A cinematic obsessive with the filmic palate of a starving raccoon, Rob London will watch pretty much anything once. With a mind like a steel trap, he's an endless fount of movie and TV trivia, borne from a misspent youth of watching monster movies on TV, perusing the sun-faded goods at the local video rental shop, and staining his fingers with ink from the Video Movie Guide. Areas of interest include science fiction, film noir, horror flicks, '70s disaster pictures, Bond movies, '90s action, giant robots, dinosaurs, super heroes, and the exuberantly schlocky output of Cannon Films. He also enjoys both Star Trek and Star Wars when they're good, and maybe even more when they're bad. As a Canadian, he also has a vested interest in Canadian movies and TV shows, especially the cheesier ones dubbed "Canuxploitation." An expert on Marvel Comics, he has also written for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and is a member of the Marvel Research Team. He can frequently be found pontificating on comic-book continuity or bemoaning the misfortunes of the Toronto Maple Leafs on his Twitter account. Sign in to your Collider account Mubi isn't just a film distributor and streaming service; it also produces Mubi Podcast, an essential behind-the-scenes look into the world of movie making. Collider is proud to exclusively announce that Mubi Podcast will return for season 12 this month, and this time they're covering a spate of films that were made under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. Mubi Podcast began in 2021 with the aim of revealing how great cinema is made, and it's delivered on that promise for eleven seasons and counting. It's hosted by writer and radio broadcaster Rico Gagliano, and has previously explored topics like international cinema, horror movies, famous flops, and the cinema of the late David Lynch. Season 12 of Mubi Podcast is titled Under Pressure: it will look at a series of films that were made under trying circumstances despite intense political opposition and under trying circumstances. Guests on this season include Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the Oscar-winning director who recently graced cinemas with Digger; Fatih Akin, the Turkish writer-director who won the Golden Bear for the drama Head-On; and Ali Abbasi, the director of the controversial Iranian crime thriller Holy Spider and the even-more controversial The Apprentice, which examined the relationship between a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) and his lawyer, Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). Season 12, which will includes five all-new episodes, will premiere on all major podcasting services on November 12. COLLIDERInteractive Ballot sealed Movies/Academy Awards/Best Picture Collider · Best Picture Which Oscar Best PictureIs Your Perfect Movie? Five winners · ten questions · one envelope Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be and what it can do to you. One of them is the film made for the way your mind works, and ten questions will work out which. The nominees 2020Parasite 2023Everything Everywhere All at Once 2024Oppenheimer 2015Birdman 2008No Country for Old Men Open the envelope Question 01 of 10TONE 01 What kind of film experience are you really after? The best movies do not just entertain. They leave something behind. ASomething that pulls the rug out, that makes me think I am watching one kind of film and then reveals I am watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming: funny, sad, absurd and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty, a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I am watching. DSomething formally daring, a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless, pure tension with no wasted frame. ← Back Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance Next Question 02 of 10THEME 02 Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What is yours? AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of holding your life together while everything falls apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you are still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order exists at all or we just tell ourselves it does. ← Back Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance Next Question 03 of 10STRUCTURE 03 How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means. AGenre-twisting. I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending: comedy, action, drama and sci-fi in one ride. CEpic and non-linear, cutting between timelines to build a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow. I want to feel like I am living it in real time with no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise, every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. ← Back Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance Next Question 04 of 10VILLAIN 04 What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you? AA system: invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self, and the ways we sabotage, abandon and fail the people we love most. CHistory, and the unstoppable momentum of events no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry, the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil, a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical. ← Back Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance Next Question 05 of 10ENDING 05 What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like? AShock and inevitability, a conclusion that recontextualizes everything before it. BEarned emotion. I want to cry, laugh and feel hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur, an ending that leaves me sitting in silence for a few minutes. DAmbiguity, something open enough that I am still turning it over days later. EBleakness, an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it is. ← Back Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance Next Question 06 of 10WORLD 06 Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything: mood, stakes, what is even possible. AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside, beauty masking rot and wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite, the multiverse inside one ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point, where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood, fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape, desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason. ← Back Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance Next Question 07 of 10CRAFT 07 What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature, the element that makes it unmistakable. AProduction design and mise-en-scène, every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control, the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design, music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you see. DCinematography as performance, the camera not recording events but taking part in them. ESilence and restraint, what is left unsaid doing more work than any dialogue could. ← Back Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance Next Question 08 of 10PROTAGONIST 08 What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you follow says something about you. ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws cannot be separated from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense. ← Back Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance Next Question 09 of 10PACE 09 How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint. Others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately. AI love a slow build when the payoff is going to be seismic. Patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum. I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime does not scare me. If the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it propulsive even when nothing is technically happening, restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried. I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action. ← Back Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance Next Question 10 of 10AFTERMATH 10 What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want? AUnsettled, like I have just seen something I cannot fully explain and cannot stop thinking about. BMoved and energized, like the film reminded me what matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled, like I have been in the presence of something important and overwhelming. DExhilarated, like I have just watched cinema do something it has never quite done before. EHaunted, like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days. ← Back Keys 1 to 5 or A to E · Enter to advance Reveal my film The envelope, pleaseAnd the Oscar goes to ★ Best Picture, 2020 Parasite Bong Joon-ho, 2019 A film that hides its true intentions until the moment it is ready to reveal them. You are drawn to films that operate on several levels at once, that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image. From the Collider file The first film not in the English language to win Best Picture, in the Academy's 92-year history to that point. It took four Oscars in one night: Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and International Feature. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2019 by a unanimous jury vote, the first Korean film to do so. The Park family's modernist house was not a location. It was built from scratch on an outdoor lot. Reads between the lines Loves a reveal Attention to detail ★ Best Picture, 2023 Everything Everywhere All at Once Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, 2022 A film that refuses to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. You want it all, and this one gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is among the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse science fiction, family drama, existential crisis, and an emotional core that sneaks up on you in the middle of the chaos. You respond to ambition. Being overwhelmed is the design, not the side effect, because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what the film is about. From the Collider file Seven Oscars, including three acting wins for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis. Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win Best Actress. The visual effects were handled by a team of fewer than ten people, most of them self-taught. Ke Huy Quan had all but left acting for two decades before this role brought him back. Wants everything Big swings Soft center ★ Best Picture, 2024 Oppenheimer Christopher Nolan, 2023 A film about the gap between what we can do and what we should do. You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale, films that treat history not as a backdrop but as a force, then place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer sits inside one of the most consequential moments in human history and refuses to look away from it. You want your films to feel important without being self-important, earning their ambition through craft and the gravity of the subject. This one is enormous, complicated, and offers no easy comfort. From the Collider file Seven Oscars, including Nolan's first wins for directing and for Best Picture. Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. both took their first Academy Awards for it. Kodak engineered a black-and-white 65mm stock that did not previously exist so Nolan could shoot those sequences on IMAX. A three-hour, R-rated drama about theoretical physics that passed 950 million dollars worldwide. Thinks in decades Scale and weight No easy comfort ★ Best Picture, 2015 Birdman Alejandro G. Iñárritu, 2014 A film doing something that probably should not be possible. You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction, where the how of the filmmaking becomes part of the what it is about. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Birdman, stitched to appear as one continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera make something unlike anything else: a film about creativity, relevance, self-destruction and never quite knowing whether your work means anything at all. From the Collider file Four Oscars, among them Best Picture and Best Director for Iñárritu. Emmanuel Lubezki's win here was the middle of three consecutive cinematography Oscars, after Gravity and before The Revenant. Antonio Sánchez's improvised drum score was ruled ineligible for the score category, which caused a minor uproar. The long-take illusion was built from a handful of extended shots joined by hidden cuts. Formally daring Camera as character Ego and art ★ Best Picture, 2008 No Country for Old Men Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007 A film that treats dread as a form of meaning. You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, refuses to explain itself, and lets unease do the talking. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is about the arrival of a new kind of evil: implacable, arbitrary, and indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of things. It is one of the most tightly controlled films ever made, and that control is the source of the terror. You want your films to haunt you rather than comfort you, and you have no interest in a resolution that would be a lie. From the Collider file Four Oscars: Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem. Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel, with much of his dialogue carried over intact. Carter Burwell's score runs about sixteen minutes and is nearly inaudible by design. Roger Deakins was nominated twice that year, for this and The Assassination of Jesse James, and won for neither. Trusts silence Dread over answers No tidy endings Ballot tally · your top three 1 2 3 ↻ Retake the quiz Copied to your clipboard Ballot counted byCOLLIDERCollider.com · The Awards Desk What Movies Will Mubi Podcast Discuss This Season? Episode 1 of the season will tell the tale of Yılmaz Güney, a Turkish tough-guy actor turned left-wing film-maker; he made his masterpiece, Yol, despite being sentenced to a 30-year prison term on dubious charges. Iñárritu and Akin will join Gagliano for the episode. Episodes 2 and 3 will cover the stranger-than-fiction story of Pulgasari, a giant-monster movie made in North Korea by director Shin Sang-ok and actor Choi Eun-hee, a married couple who'd been kidnapped to the hermit kingdom by Kim Jong-il. Paul Fischer, who wrote the non-fiction book A Kim Jong-il Production, will guest on the two-parter. Episode 4 deals with Julia Loktev, a film-maker who covers independent journalism in Russia, which is being crushed under the thumb of Vladimir Putin. Loktev will discuss her two-part documentary My Undesirable Friends. The season will then wrap up with episode 5, in which Abbasi will detail the political pressures he's faced making movies in both Iran and the United States. Season 12 of Mubi Podcast will premiere on November 12. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates. Release Date December 1, 1985 Runtime 95 minutes Director Shin Sang-ok, Chong Gon Jo Writers Kim Se-Ryun Producers Kim Jong-il