The Big Picture

Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight is one of the heavyweights in this year’s Academy Awards race, racking up eight nominations. The film was the first movie for Jenkins in eight years, and provided particular challenges due to limited funding and time. One way he overcame those obstacles and made his movie unique was by casting non-actors alongside actors, something he discussed with Ringer editor-in-chief Sean Fennessey.

Ringer editor-in-chief Sean Fennessey sits down with filmmaker Ezra Edelman to discuss the making of O.J.: Made in America, his epic eight-hour Oscar-nominated documentary examining O.J. Simpson’s rise and fall through the lens of race, place, celebrity, and time.

Mike Mills’s past two films — Beginners and 20th Century Women — have both been semi-autobiographical. Beginners focuses on Mills’s father, who came out at age 75 shortly before his death, while 20th Century Women is based on Mills’s mother as a way to look at the 1970s. On Channel 33, Sean Fennessey talked to Mills about his experience making the films, and how he blends his own childhood with his art.

The Ringer's Sean Fennessey sits down with Ted Melfi to discuss the success of his latest film, Hidden Figures (1:10), and how it came about (3:19), as well as the difficulties of making an entertaining movie about math (8:00). Melfi also shares what it's like working with Taraji P. Henson (18:27) and Kevin Costner (21:15), getting Pharrell to score his movie (29:20), and how he feels about the "Hidden Fences" mishap (38:45).