Tales from Two Critics: A.S. Hamrah and Melissa Anderson on the Year in Film

Film critics and authors A.S Hamrah and Melissa Anderson join the podcast to talk about 2025 in film, the Warner Bros. sale, AI use, and more.

By LARB Radio HourDecember 19, 2025

• LARB Radio Hour

Kate Wolf is joined by two of today's finest film critics to discuss the current state of Hollywood—including the sale of Warner Bros. Discovery—the art of writing about movies, and some of the year's best films.

Up first is critic A.S. Hamrah, author of two new books: "Last Week In End Times Cinema," which compiles the relentless follies of the film industry from March of 2024 to 2025 in an annals of ever-winnowing corporate conglomeration and AI speculation, and "Algorithm of the Night: Film Writing 2019-2025." (And PSA: A.S. Hamrah will be teaching a workshop with LARB next fall!)

Next, Melissa Anderson discusses her latest book, "The Hunger: Film Writing 2012-2024." A self-proclaimed "acteurist" whose attention often centers on a film’s star rather than its plot, Anderson’s criticism engages with movies on an affective level, charting her own pleasure, desire, and occasional disgust. Here she talks about grounding her writing in queer and feminist politics and how her ardent cinephilia is born of a sense of open-minded curiosity, hopefulness, and the willingness to be transported.