The Best Scripts & Hidden Gem Movies of 2025 | Kinolime Podcast Ep 31

Show Notes

🎬 Episode Highlights & Kinolime Updates The 2.0 Feature Competition: John and Danny reflect on the massive leap in writing quality seen in this year's feature competition, which crowned Eric Landau's brilliant comedy Mob Mentality as the winner. The hosts discuss the immense patience required to properly develop a screenplay and why they refuse to rush a script into production before it's truly ready.

The Rise of Short Films: The hosts celebrate the explosive success of Kinolime's inaugural short film competition, praising the digestible format and the incredible passion of independent directors. (Shoutout to Edward, whose winning short Pushing Daisy is already in the can!)

Inside the Kinolime Development Slate: For the first time ever, John and Danny pull back the curtain on the projects they are actively developing. Hear updates on The Waif (directed by Stephen Fingleton and heading into spring production), the search for a comedy director for Mob Mentality, their South African feature Something Like Molasses (helmed by Adze Ugah), and the Canadian 9/11 drama Falling Man.

📜 Introducing The Inaugural "Limelist" To honor the incredible scripts that didn't win the competition but still blew the development team away, Kinolime introduces the "Limelist." The hosts highlight three must-read screenplays from 2025:

The Seahorse: A beautiful, Holdovers-esque drama about a neglectful father diagnosed with dementia and the estranged daughter tasked with caring for him.

The Muellers: A hilarious, throwback college comedy set over Parents' Weekend, featuring a clash between a young sorority girl and her overly philosophical, Nietzsche-quoting father.

Dork Whore: A wildly funny, coming-of-age road trip script following a young female veteran trying to "find herself" (and get laid) across South Asia.

🍿 Danny's Top 10 Hidden Gems of 2025 Danny closes out the year with a rapid-fire list of 10 incredible indie films that you probably missed in theaters, but absolutely need to watch:

The Surfer: A psychological nightmare starring Nicolas Cage as a man whose life unravels on a beautiful beach.

Eephus: The purest, most grounded baseball movie of the year.

Universal Language: A visually stunning, dry comedy set in a mythical Iranian-Canada.

Left-Handed Girl: A masterful, Sean Baker-edited Taiwanese family drama with the best child performance of the year.

Baltimore-ons: A low-budget, heartwarming holiday comedy from Jay Duplass.

Blue Moon: Richard Linklater's dialogue-heavy masterpiece featuring Ethan Hawke's most rambling, poignant performance yet.

Familiar Touch: A deeply empathetic look at dementia, featuring an Oscar-worthy turn by Kathleen Chalfant.

It Ends: A contained horror hangout film about a road trip that physically cannot stop.

Vulcan Isadora: The most bizarre and twisted buddy comedy of the year.

Kukuho: A multi-decade Japanese epic tracking the complex relationship between two ambitious Kabuki performers.

Full Transcript

[00:00]

Like there's so much going on.

[00:01]

Like just to show you like how busy we are

[00:03]

outside of the competitions,

[00:04]

we're actively always trying to develop and make movies.

[00:07]

[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

[00:17]

Hello everybody, welcome to the keynote line.

[00:20]

End of the Year podcast.

[00:22]

It's sad, Danny.

[00:23]

Like this is end of the year, bro.

[00:26]

This is it.

[00:27]

This is our holiday.

[00:28]

End of the year.

[00:28]

I'm so ready for this year to be over.

[00:32]

It was a dude's in a t-shirt.

[00:34]

I'm in a t-shirt.

[00:35]

Well it's 25 degrees here in New York.

[00:36]

Yeah, I'm selling bad.

[00:38]

And I'm selling bad.

[00:38]

I'm selling bad.

[00:39]

I'm selling bad.

[00:39]

You know, I've closed there.

[00:41]

I'm coming like this.

[00:42]

No bag.

[00:43]

He literally has a shopping bag.

[00:46]

Yeah.

[00:46]

That I'm not bringing.

[00:47]

Like, King Cullen that he's not bringing.

[00:49]

Yeah.

[00:49]

That he's going through your poor security.

[00:50]

But anyway, welcome.

[00:52]

We're here today to, first of all, we just

[00:54]

want to say like from the bottom of our hearts.

[00:56]

Like thank you so much to everyone

[00:58]

that watches us and tunes in and supports King Alive.

[01:01]

Without y'all, we wouldn't be where we are.

[01:04]

You truly are the reason why we're doing this.

[01:07]

We say this week and a week out.

[01:08]

But when Oleg, RCEO, and founder wanted to build this company

[01:12]

was truly about merging creative and filmmaking

[01:17]

with the audience.

[01:18]

Because like, again, it's a novel idea.

[01:20]

Like, why don't you ask the people who pay maybe kind

[01:23]

of what they want.

[01:25]

It's been a true blessing and an amazing experience

[01:28]

for this year.

[01:29]

So first of all, to everyone, before we start,

[01:31]

thank you so much.

[01:33]

OK, there you go.

[01:34]

A man of little words.

[01:36]

But today, we're just going to kind of a convo

[01:38]

about all things end of year.

[01:40]

We're going to talk about what we did as a company,

[01:44]

your favorite movies you cannot say in one battle after another.

[01:47]

And we'll talk about our first annual limelist.

[01:50]

Now, these are going to be the best screenplays we

[01:52]

read from our competition this year in the feature film

[01:55]

that did not get picked or even made it to the finals.

[01:58]

These are going to be the films, the screenplays that we think

[02:00]

you should go home and read and maybe willing to exist.

[02:04]

I don't know.

[02:04]

We'll see what happens.

[02:05]

The power of the mind.

[02:08]

Shall we get into it?

[02:09]

Let's get into it.

[02:10]

Let's talk about, let's talk about Keno Line.

[02:12]

We had so much that happened this year.

[02:15]

Let's roll back to January of 2025.

[02:18]

We started our feature film competition 2.0.

[02:22]

We had record number of submissions.

[02:24]

I think somewhere in the league of, I don't know,

[02:27]

3,000 submissions feature film competitions

[02:30]

from all feature film screenplays from all around the world.

[02:32]

Coming in, you may mirror our entire team

[02:36]

right every single one.

[02:38]

Now we're down the list.

[02:41]

That was an amazing experience just

[02:42]

from a company standpoint to see the jump from 1.0 to 2.0.

[02:48]

It was incredible.

[02:48]

What were your thoughts on that whole process?

[02:50]

Because I was working you to the bone.

[02:53]

Yeah, it's great.

[02:54]

At least for me, it's work I like dealing.

[02:59]

It's exciting.

[03:00]

And it's an immense privilege to get to read screenplays

[03:03]

and work on movies and talk about movies as a job.

[03:08]

I could not ask for anything better.

[03:11]

Yeah, I think in terms of the quality

[03:14]

we've seen every competition, the more these we do,

[03:17]

the more our name gets out there.

[03:20]

The better stories we're getting.

[03:22]

And we were already getting really strong screenplays,

[03:24]

but we're getting more and we're getting stronger ones.

[03:28]

That's a great point.

[03:29]

We did see a big leap in the quality of writing.

[03:32]

Again, the first competition had amazing writing.

[03:35]

I mean, we're making potentially three

[03:38]

of those top three films in The Wave, something

[03:41]

like Malacas and Peaking to Paris.

[03:43]

But this competition, we noticed as the readers,

[03:46]

the leap was there.

[03:49]

Something we hear a lot, which is a completely

[03:52]

reasonable claim is like, where is your guys' movie?

[03:57]

Yeah.

[03:58]

And the...

[03:59]

It takes time, folks.

[04:01]

It takes time to make a good movie.

[04:03]

Yeah, we've had so many chances to make something

[04:08]

for 500,000 spit things out and just make something

[04:12]

to make something that I think this year,

[04:15]

especially as our slate starts really moving along

[04:18]

in a lot of ways.

[04:21]

I appreciate it more and more every day.

[04:22]

Like, is the immense patience and time we've taken

[04:29]

to make sure we can make these scripts as strong as possible?

[04:33]

Yeah.

[04:33]

Find amazing directors, not just kind of take what the market

[04:37]

will give us in terms of making something that can just

[04:41]

be made that maybe we don't think is as strong as it can.

[04:44]

Like, kind of watching now at the end of the year,

[04:47]

like a lot of these stories start to really emerge

[04:51]

and like come into themselves.

[04:52]

Like a fine wine.

[04:53]

You just gotta let it breathe a bit.

[04:55]

It's gotta find its way.

[04:56]

I say this all the time in meetings and Danny will back it up.

[04:58]

Like, whenever we're potential producing partners,

[05:01]

whoever, I always say we are story.

[05:03]

We just are.

[05:04]

We're gonna sit and really hone in on the screenplay,

[05:08]

make sure it's the best possible words on the page,

[05:12]

not only for us making the movie,

[05:14]

but for the audience and for the filmmakers.

[05:15]

Like, we want to make sure that if we're gonna take a swing,

[05:18]

if we're gonna make a film, like do it right.

[05:20]

Yeah.

[05:21]

I always found that so odd as a writer,

[05:23]

when I would work with directors or producers,

[05:26]

how quickly were to like just get something to shut,

[05:29]

you know, in production.

[05:30]

And I just was like, wait a second,

[05:31]

if the words are the page or not there,

[05:32]

like we're going into a battle with a battle plan.

[05:35]

It was just kind of odd, but that's something we do differently here.

[05:37]

People have their own methods.

[05:40]

So that took us through the first part of the year.

[05:42]

And then we crowned our winner,

[05:44]

Mob mentality, which was like,

[05:45]

you know, such a great film.

[05:47]

Erick, so great.

[05:48]

Yeah, the writer, Eric Landau, you're the man.

[05:50]

Yeah, it's all frustrating right now.

[05:53]

His rewrite is coming in even funnier than before.

[05:56]

Yeah.

[05:56]

So we have to look forward to that.

[05:57]

So that's something I'm very thankful for is,

[06:00]

you know, we had some great, you know, screenplays at the finals,

[06:03]

but Mob was a personal favorite of both of ours.

[06:06]

One, by you, the audience that voted for it.

[06:09]

So we're excited for Mob.

[06:11]

Then we decided, you know, like, hey, future films,

[06:15]

you know, always get like the sort of front and center.

[06:18]

Why not short films?

[06:19]

You know, and after having a conversation with you

[06:22]

and Mike Gaboroui, who's one of our consultants

[06:24]

and dear friend, producing partner,

[06:27]

he was like, shorts were the way to find

[06:29]

and break directors back in the day.

[06:31]

So we're like, let's hold a short competition.

[06:32]

And like that was insane.

[06:34]

The response we got from the shorts,

[06:36]

like, exceeding my expectation like 10 fold.

[06:39]

Yeah, I mean, thousands of submissions,

[06:41]

thousands upon thousands.

[06:43]

Really strong, you know, writing all over the place.

[06:46]

And it's short.

[06:47]

So like it's, it's a, it's a lot more digestible.

[06:50]

And I feel like even as kind of like a reader

[06:54]

or a judge for a short competition,

[06:57]

it's a lot easier to kind of interpret shorts

[07:01]

than like say the kind of rigid distinctions

[07:05]

you have to make compared to a feature.

[07:07]

Yeah, because like, it's a lot harder

[07:09]

to maintain a feature over 120 pages

[07:11]

than like a great or a wonky eight page short.

[07:16]

So I had a blast and like,

[07:17]

you loved that specifically.

[07:19]

You were like, vowing shorts and then our winner, you know,

[07:23]

in the can already.

[07:24]

In the case, like Edward already filmed the short.

[07:28]

We'd like to announce it three weeks ago.

[07:30]

Pushing Daisy will be coming to you at some point

[07:33]

very soon.

[07:35]

And that's exciting.

[07:36]

So the short was done.

[07:37]

One thing I do want to touch upon is from internally

[07:41]

our company from the social media side,

[07:43]

Cole league, huge shout out to you, bus in your butt.

[07:46]

If you haven't followed Cole, he's screenwriting in LA

[07:50]

on his Instagram, though, but we hired Cole

[07:52]

as well to help with our social media.

[07:54]

And we've crossed the 40,000 follower mark,

[07:56]

which is like in close to nothing.

[07:59]

I think like when he came on board, like zero.

[08:00]

We were starting a new account and that's what we're doing.

[08:02]

And like so if you don't follow us,

[08:04]

a keen online film on Instagram,

[08:06]

Cole does an amazing job.

[08:07]

He busts his butt every day putting out some great content

[08:10]

whether it's poster stories, like really in depth stuff.

[08:13]

Cole, you went a great job.

[08:14]

So that was like really amazing to see 40,000 followers.

[08:16]

I think it works like 43 now, but that's crazy.

[08:18]

Yeah, it's fun.

[08:19]

You know, Cole shares something that we both share

[08:22]

and we all share here, which is like he's a guy

[08:26]

that like jumps up and down and gets really excited

[08:29]

about movies and story.

[08:32]

Yeah, and it's great to see that, you know,

[08:35]

people see that and like want to see what he has to say

[08:39]

and the kind of things we're doing.

[08:41]

Great town.

[08:42]

Talk about things we're doing.

[08:44]

So we don't really share this much,

[08:46]

but we're going to do it today.

[08:47]

We're going to bring you inside the doors of keen online

[08:49]

and tell you a little bit about

[08:50]

besides the winning screenplays,

[08:52]

we call it a slate,

[08:53]

what it is stuff in development.

[08:55]

These are projects we've either optioned

[08:58]

or investing in or teaming up with.

[09:01]

And we just want to share with you.

[09:02]

So you get a little insight to what we're doing

[09:04]

on a day to day basis.

[09:05]

So the first one we know,

[09:06]

we have the way from last year,

[09:08]

Adam Hampton screenplay that has Stephen Fingleton attached.

[09:12]

You know, we have the final draft,

[09:14]

just came in last night.

[09:16]

Actually came in last night.

[09:17]

Going it out to cast top of the,

[09:18]

everyone's on break now,

[09:19]

we're going to out to cast top of the year.

[09:22]

Like we're going to film that in the spring.

[09:23]

Like that's happening so excited.

[09:25]

Unbelievably excited to see what Stephen does with this.

[09:29]

Like insane story that him and Adam have conjured.

[09:33]

Like I cannot wait.

[09:34]

It's going to be amazing.

[09:35]

Yeah.

[09:36]

Then we have Mob mentality or 2.0 winner,

[09:38]

which we've already mentioned.

[09:40]

Eric finishing up his last rewrite.

[09:42]

We're going to cast,

[09:43]

we're going to directors top of the year.

[09:45]

So that's going to be another exciting search.

[09:46]

We did that with the wave.

[09:47]

We found Stephen that can't wait to see the comedy side.

[09:50]

Who do you want?

[09:51]

If you had to pick a comedy director right now

[09:54]

that we're going to get from Mob, who do you want?

[09:55]

Man, that's so tough.

[09:56]

Like we're not going to get him,

[09:59]

but I think there's something because it is

[10:01]

really a cinematic film.

[10:04]

But it's also inherently a dumb, funny,

[10:07]

laugh out loud comedy.

[10:09]

That's premise is just inherently ridiculous.

[10:12]

That kind of screams like Adam McCated me like 10 years ago.

[10:16]

Yeah.

[10:17]

I would love, you know, before he started making

[10:18]

like these political dramas,

[10:20]

like that was like my dream.

[10:22]

Sure, can't wait.

[10:23]

Yeah.

[10:24]

You know what I want?

[10:25]

It's a shot in the dark, Jonah Hill,

[10:26]

because he could play the dad.

[10:28]

Oh, that would great.

[10:29]

You know what I mean?

[10:30]

He could bring that.

[10:30]

He was great in mid 90s.

[10:31]

So I'd love to see him get behind the lens.

[10:32]

But we have a list we put together.

[10:34]

We can't really tell too much, but Mob mentality we have.

[10:38]

Next we have from the first 1.0 competition,

[10:41]

we have something like molasses.

[10:42]

We've attached to this year and have been working

[10:44]

with Adze Uga from the famed Netflix series,

[10:48]

which is the Game of Thrones of South Africa.

[10:50]

Shaka.

[10:51]

Yeah.

[10:51]

So if you haven't seen Shaka, it's incredible.

[10:53]

Adze does a great job directing that.

[10:57]

And he's on board.

[10:58]

We're, you know, we have writers working with Nina,

[11:01]

the winner to sharpen the screenplay.

[11:03]

But like that's we have budgets going

[11:05]

with our South African production partners.

[11:07]

I mean, that movie's going as well.

[11:09]

Yep.

[11:10]

It's going to be exciting.

[11:11]

I know that's one of your personal favorites.

[11:12]

It is.

[11:13]

I love that story.

[11:15]

Again, like the thing that kind of permeates,

[11:18]

because we read more specs here than probably

[11:22]

any other production company in America.

[11:25]

Like I really don't think that's, you know,

[11:27]

like four house smaller development team is like

[11:30]

the specs per Dev exec is off the charts.

[11:35]

And I'll say like the thing that permeates

[11:40]

between the stories we've talked about

[11:42]

is like all of them elicited like real visceral responses

[11:47]

while I was reading.

[11:48]

Like I cried the first time I read something like molasses.

[11:51]

I laughed out loud throughout Bob.

[11:53]

We had our director and our production partner in South Africa

[11:57]

who was nominated, I think, for an Oscar in his career.

[12:02]

Both said this was easily the greatest screenplay

[12:04]

they read in the last 30 years.

[12:06]

So from the feature space in South Africa,

[12:08]

there's a lot of TV, not a lot of feature films.

[12:09]

But this screenplay that through Keenaline we found

[12:12]

said it was one of the best screenplays ever read.

[12:14]

So incredible stuff there.

[12:17]

Another thing we can't mention by name,

[12:18]

but we have a Japanese franchise that we're working on

[12:23]

that's big hit in Japan.

[12:24]

We partnered with a major distributor, KeenAmyt,

[12:28]

but we're working on two movies at simultaneous

[12:31]

series in terms of the script side.

[12:33]

So that's going to be incredible.

[12:34]

We can't wait to share more when that all releases,

[12:36]

but that's something that we're so pumped about.

[12:39]

It's going to like crush, crush, crush here.

[12:41]

And then we're falling, man.

[12:43]

We teamed up with Ney-Fikeman from Blackberry,

[12:46]

the Red Violin, it's done amazing work at a Canada.

[12:50]

Amazing 9-11 story that we got the highest funding

[12:55]

from the Canadian subsidies telefilm ever awarded

[12:59]

to a feature film.

[13:01]

We're teaming up, we're out to cast right now.

[13:02]

We're literally making offers to leads

[13:05]

for the role in that film.

[13:06]

So that's going to be amazing.

[13:08]

I don't know, like there's so much going on.

[13:10]

Like just to show you like how busy we are

[13:12]

outside of the competitions, we're actively always trying

[13:15]

to develop and make movies.

[13:16]

Yeah, the competitions are great,

[13:18]

but inherently like at least the way I perceive them

[13:22]

is like that is a lane for us to acquire screenplays.

[13:28]

Like the overall job is making and converting

[13:31]

and executing the movies.

[13:32]

But I think that's what makes competition so special is,

[13:36]

again, we find great scripts from them.

[13:38]

And you get to vote.

[13:40]

You get to pick out of those great screenplays

[13:42]

what you want to see, which is still mind blowing to me.

[13:44]

And like, you know, the first time we did it truly,

[13:47]

like there was a part of me that I was like, okay, like,

[13:49]

you know, maybe this will, you know, like right when I started

[13:52]

the company, like this is cool, but you know,

[13:54]

this is maybe whatever, like a one off gimmick.

[13:57]

But no, it works.

[13:59]

Like in terms of finding new voices

[14:02]

and like truly original stories, like the model has proven

[14:07]

that like it really does work.

[14:09]

And please keep sending your scripts and participating.

[14:12]

Because the model works, we read everything

[14:17]

and even though you didn't win, we have today,

[14:20]

we're going to bring out the, you know, we have,

[14:22]

there's the black list, you have the limelist.

[14:24]

We're going to tell you three of our favorite screenplays

[14:27]

that were not chosen to win or make it to the finals.

[14:31]

That we thought were amazing and kind of blew away.

[14:32]

Mira, who's in Ireland at the moment,

[14:34]

founded his, thanks, I'll speak on his behalf.

[14:37]

But Danny, I'm going to let you go first.

[14:38]

At the thousands of screenplays you read

[14:40]

from this competition 2.0, what blew you away?

[14:43]

What is the one that stuck out?

[14:45]

Yeah, there was one in our last feature competition.

[14:50]

I remember I was reading in the library.

[14:52]

There's a library near my house with like these

[14:54]

just kind of gorgeous stained glass windows.

[14:58]

Yeah, I'd read maybe like three features that day.

[15:01]

I was not in a mood where whatever I read, I was going to like.

[15:06]

And immediately the story just absolutely engrossed me

[15:11]

and I re-read after I finished it.

[15:13]

Like say the name, they need it.

[15:15]

What's the name?

[15:16]

It's called the Seahorse.

[15:17]

Put up your eye.

[15:18]

Absolutely.

[15:19]

That's a Seahorse.

[15:20]

Adored it.

[15:21]

The story about, I think, Tony, it felt a lot kind of like

[15:25]

the holdovers.

[15:26]

Like it's a film that kind of hugs you

[15:28]

and feels like a really, really personal story

[15:30]

about two people kind of falling in love with each other

[15:34]

in a way that's like not romantic.

[15:37]

The father and daughter.

[15:39]

Yeah, it's a story about a terrible father

[15:42]

who is never a part of his daughter's life.

[15:45]

Who, you know, he gets diagnosed, I believe it's with dementia.

[15:49]

It's a story of them kind of forming a relationship

[15:51]

as he slips away.

[15:54]

Though the daughter's tasked with taking care of him

[15:57]

in this phase of life.

[15:58]

And she's dealing with her own internal struggles.

[16:00]

Yeah, he was never there for her.

[16:01]

She becomes his caretaker and there's resentment.

[16:06]

And again, like they start to really care for each other

[16:10]

and write when they do.

[16:11]

You know, he, again, he starts to really slip away.

[16:15]

It's funny, it's beautiful.

[16:17]

It's like written beautifully.

[16:20]

It's like a really, really confident screenplay.

[16:23]

I love it.

[16:24]

You should read it.

[16:25]

If you want to read it, go to kenalum.com.

[16:26]

Sign into your account.

[16:27]

A great one.

[16:28]

And you can read our back list of screenplay.

[16:31]

This is a really one that you should study.

[16:33]

It's kind of, it's just fantastic

[16:34]

from a structure standpoint to a character arc.

[16:37]

Mira who works for us, who's based in Ireland,

[16:39]

and he's a fondant of his limelist entry.

[16:43]

And it is the mullers.

[16:46]

And the mullers is a throwback comedy

[16:50]

to like the sorority college days.

[16:52]

It's about a daughter who's like at college

[16:55]

and it's parents weekend and incomes for dad

[16:58]

who's like wearing all black, very like Nietzsche

[17:01]

and Nietzsche exks in terms of like philosophy

[17:03]

on Outlook on Life very down in Dower.

[17:05]

It's a little cliche in the journey.

[17:07]

It's super, super, super funny.

[17:09]

And he raves about this constantly.

[17:12]

It's got all the quirks about father and daughter

[17:15]

kind of bonding over like different perceptions of life.

[17:18]

But it's like a comedy that takes place over parents weekend,

[17:21]

which I always love films or stories

[17:23]

that take place over a short period of time.

[17:25]

Whether it's a night, a week and a year.

[17:27]

I like what I'd go.

[17:28]

Yeah, I'm gonna do.

[17:29]

I know I so am a link later guy.

[17:31]

So the mullers is coming in in the limelist.

[17:34]

And the third spot for the limelist

[17:35]

on my favorite street play that I always, always, always,

[17:38]

always think about is called the Dork, Dork, Dior, K,

[17:44]

Hore, yes, Hore.

[17:47]

Written.

[17:47]

How do you spell that one?

[17:49]

Well, I'm gonna, you know, whore.

[17:52]

Dork Hore and a hysterical, hysterical road trip of sorts.

[17:58]

It's like, again, takes place over a period of time

[18:00]

where this young woman who leaves the military

[18:03]

goes on like a European South Asian excursion to find herself.

[18:07]

But it's like written in such a hilarious way

[18:10]

that only just can grip you in by someone

[18:13]

who's probably lived that experience.

[18:14]

I gotta find out if, I don't wanna name the author,

[18:17]

but if she was like doing that,

[18:19]

but it's super funny, excuse my language.

[18:22]

It's about this girl who's trying to like get laid

[18:24]

on her trip across South Asia.

[18:26]

And it's just got all the feels, all the goosebumps,

[18:31]

everything you want in sort of a coming of age film set across a road trip.

[18:35]

We don't make road trip movies anymore.

[18:36]

So that's my entry into the limelist.

[18:38]

So we have the seahorse, the muleurs and Dork Hore.

[18:42]

So, you know, next year we're gonna have maybe 10 on the limelist.

[18:47]

We're gonna grow this thing out.

[18:48]

It's gonna be great.

[18:48]

Yeah, and like all three of those movies are about

[18:51]

young women.

[18:52]

Oh yeah, screenplays are not young.

[18:54]

Yeah, movies will be.

[18:55]

Women like in one way or another.

[18:57]

Oh my gosh, you realize that's amazing.

[18:59]

They're identity.

[18:59]

Look at us.

[19:00]

Yeah, that was something I guess we were.

[19:02]

The matically the universe just I guess we like all gravity.

[19:05]

Three young women trying to find their identities.

[19:08]

Like these stories really.

[19:09]

Wow, I really think about that.

[19:10]

Isn't it interesting?

[19:11]

Yeah, amazing.

[19:13]

But again, thank you to all that voted.

[19:15]

It couldn't have been made possible without your work, your hard work, your dedication,

[19:20]

everything that you give to Kenaline.

[19:22]

We're super, super thankful.

[19:23]

I'm gonna keep saying that through this podcast, how thankful we are.

[19:26]

Because at the end of the year, this is what I want to feel.

[19:28]

But I want to talk about things we're thankful about.

[19:30]

Good cinema.

[19:31]

Yeah.

[19:32]

This year was a little man, but there's some good one.

[19:35]

I know.

[19:36]

It was great.

[19:37]

Yeah, great.

[19:38]

If you cannot talk about one battle after another, I forbid you.

[19:40]

I forgot.

[19:41]

I won't say a single word.

[19:42]

I forbid you.

[19:43]

But let's talk about D.

[19:44]

I want to do that.

[19:45]

This is going to be wrong.

[19:46]

I want to do some grab.

[19:47]

I'm going to do the Danny's recap.

[19:48]

Okay, Danny.

[19:49]

You watch everything.

[19:50]

Now this guy literally watches everything, which is why I love having you around.

[19:54]

What are some movies that maybe worn on people's radar that they should go see this year?

[19:59]

I have a list.

[20:00]

All right.

[20:01]

So I was thinking about this.

[20:02]

I knew we were going to do an end of the year recap.

[20:04]

And it's easy to do a recap where you list, again, the movie that will not be named,

[20:11]

centers.

[20:12]

We had great Hollywood epics all year.

[20:14]

We talked about, let's get to the point.

[20:17]

And I think that I have a list here of like 10 movies that are, you probably didn't see,

[20:23]

didn't get wide release that you really showed.

[20:25]

I think there's a lot of merit to them.

[20:27]

Number one, go them off.

[20:29]

The first one's called the Surfer.

[20:30]

It is this Australian.

[20:32]

Nick Cage.

[20:33]

Nick Cage.

[20:34]

Yeah.

[20:35]

Psychological nightmare on the most beautiful beach you've ever seen.

[20:39]

It kind of plays out in a lot of ways.

[20:41]

Like a movie I talk about all the time, a 60s movie called The Swimmer about a man who's

[20:46]

essentially like his American dream falls apart in the most beautiful kind of landscape

[20:52]

you've ever seen.

[20:53]

So Nick Cage absolutely kills it in this movie.

[20:56]

Okay.

[20:57]

He was like kind of starting to create up and he was like kind of in like that Hollywood

[20:59]

gutter, but that he slowly inch, he's like ice picking his way up back to like pig

[21:06]

gray scenario.

[21:07]

Yeah.

[21:08]

Really.

[21:09]

I mean, I know he's the case.

[21:10]

He's the man.

[21:11]

Yeah.

[21:12]

All right.

[21:13]

Number two.

[21:14]

Second one.

[21:15]

I think I actually may have talked about it on this before.

[21:16]

But you know, it's getting some independence, independence, fear of the word recognition, which is

[21:19]

awesome.

[21:20]

It's Carson Lund's EFIS.

[21:21]

The purest baseball movie I've ever seen.

[21:25]

If you love fielded dreams, if you love stories about, you know, people having to move

[21:31]

on subtly from relationships without knowing how to express it.

[21:36]

If you love just beautiful movies that are really controlled and grounded and like the

[21:42]

human experience, you'll love it.

[21:44]

Great baseball movie.

[21:45]

EFIS.

[21:46]

Number three.

[21:48]

Another one I may have spoken about.

[21:50]

It's universal language.

[21:52]

It's Matt Rankins, newest movie.

[21:54]

It takes place in like mythical Iranian Canada, where again, it's like if Wes Anderson had

[22:03]

a baby with Obis Kira Stamy, who had a baby with like Akikor's Machi.

[22:10]

It's just like really dry humor.

[22:13]

And it's like the most beautifully shot movie of the year, the most creatively shot movie

[22:17]

there.

[22:18]

And it's a movie about how no matter kind of who you are in the world or where you come

[22:24]

from, like we all kind of cross these like cinematic borders to experience life together

[22:31]

in the movies, it's really beautiful.

[22:33]

You'll have a great go watch it.

[22:35]

Yeah, universal language.

[22:37]

Number four.

[22:39]

You know, I have a she's saying so's left handed girl.

[22:44]

I saw it tiff this year.

[22:46]

I should love that movie.

[22:47]

I love that movie.

[22:48]

It was edited by Sean Baker.

[22:49]

She was incredible to me in college.

[22:51]

She did like a Q&A about the Florida project actually that she was a producer on Danny

[22:58]

loves and Baker.

[22:59]

And I'm just so happy that again, it's an amazing cast.

[23:02]

Probably the best like young kid actor performance of the year.

[23:08]

This is really incredible family drama that it's adult and distinct.

[23:14]

Again, just a really great family drama that takes place in Taiwan just absolutely beautiful.

[23:21]

Number five.

[23:22]

Number five.

[23:23]

J Duplosses.

[23:24]

Bolta Morons.

[23:25]

Yeah, yeah, Bolta Morons is awesome.

[23:28]

It is a super low budget like Christmas movie in Baltimore about a man who kind of starts

[23:35]

to fall in love with his dentist.

[23:37]

Yeah, it's great.

[23:38]

His relationship falls apart.

[23:39]

It's a plus.

[23:40]

They got the sauce.

[23:41]

It's got a lot of heart.

[23:42]

It's a great movie.

[23:43]

Again, it's like this year's holdovers.

[23:47]

If you want like a Christmas movie to turn on next to the fireplace, I don't make you feel

[23:51]

good and you'll laugh at Bolta Morons.

[23:54]

Really great.

[23:55]

Six.

[23:56]

Six.

[23:57]

This is going to be like the most kind of prestigious director I speak about, but it's

[24:01]

a movie no one saw.

[24:02]

So I just have to talk about it again.

[24:03]

It's Blue Moon, Richard Linkletter.

[24:05]

He has two great movies this year.

[24:08]

One about the French New Wave, but Blue Moon really is like the best Ethan Hawke performance

[24:12]

I've ever seen.

[24:13]

Oh, that's a hot take.

[24:16]

It is the most outrageously Linkletter Ethan Hawke movie.

[24:20]

The whole movie takes place in a bar.

[24:22]

No one can shut up Ethan Hawke.

[24:24]

No, do you ever want to?

[24:26]

I don't want to.

[24:27]

Let the man speak.

[24:28]

It's a two hour monologue about a man who really is saying nothing because he's so afraid

[24:32]

of who he is.

[24:34]

The minute you start kind of, I don't know, being like, okay, the stick is over.

[24:39]

This movie does something.

[24:41]

Linkletter is just such an amazing.

[24:43]

I know he gets a lot of credit for his directing, but this is behind the screen.

[24:48]

This dude can write.

[24:50]

It's, he really unbelief.

[24:52]

Grads you.

[24:53]

Yeah, always.

[24:54]

He always manages to impress me.

[24:56]

Number seven.

[24:57]

Number seven, I have familiar touch.

[25:00]

Yeah.

[25:01]

Sarah Friedland's her first movie.

[25:03]

It's a film about this old woman getting dementia and moving into an assisted living facility.

[25:10]

Kathleen Shalfon.

[25:11]

It's the best performance of the year unquestionably.

[25:15]

She's not going to get nominated for an Oscar and I'm going to be very angry about it.

[25:19]

But dementia through the perspective of someone fascinating experiencing it.

[25:24]

So empathetic, so thoughtful, really tight screenplay and like just again, everyone is nice

[25:32]

and just another like sad but really heartwarming movie.

[25:37]

Sad because about nice everyone is.

[25:39]

And I was like everyone is trying their best.

[25:41]

It's a really great film.

[25:42]

Eight.

[25:43]

Eight.

[25:44]

Eight.

[25:45]

Again, like I didn't do the long walk because it had a wider release, but this film gave

[25:50]

me that vibe of like while everyone in this movie will probably be someone.

[25:56]

It's Alexander Olim's debut.

[25:59]

He's a young director.

[26:00]

It's called It Ends.

[26:01]

Oh, It Ends, yeah.

[26:02]

From here to South by this year.

[26:04]

It's contained.

[26:05]

It's essentially a horror hangout film in a car that can never stop running.

[26:09]

So these friends go on a, you know, drive to get some food.

[26:13]

The road closes behind them.

[26:15]

And they just keep going.

[26:17]

They have to keep does not end.

[26:19]

People come to attack them from the woods if they stop.

[26:22]

Really great premise.

[26:23]

And it again, it sounds like kind of a regular to be, you know, kind of like you know,

[26:27]

PVOD stick movie.

[26:29]

But it morphs into like this really fascinating story about like meaning and again, it's

[26:36]

a type of movie you could interpret in a lot of ways and talking on road fenders.

[26:39]

And the road fenders.

[26:40]

Yeah.

[26:41]

Yeah.

[26:42]

Another one I've talked about.

[26:43]

We're talking about again.

[26:44]

Joel Petrakias, Volcanizadora.

[26:47]

Yeah.

[26:48]

The most just f***ed up like, you know, crazy, you know, buddy comedy I've ever seen.

[27:00]

Don't even want to talk too much about it.

[27:01]

Go watch it.

[27:02]

Let's go on the last one.

[27:03]

Number 10.

[27:04]

Number 10 is actually a film I saw with the man recording this Tom behind the camera.

[27:10]

We saw this couple weeks ago.

[27:11]

It's a Kukuho.

[27:13]

And it's like this Japanese epic about these two friends who become brothers who both

[27:21]

have the same gold become the greatest Kubuki performer in the world in Japan.

[27:27]

And again, like it's just a multi decade spanning epic about these two brothers relationship

[27:35]

to one another.

[27:37]

And it's like really messy and complicated and beautiful when Tom and I it's the type

[27:42]

of movie that when we got out of the theater, we talked about the movie for maybe 20 minutes

[27:46]

without actually saying a word about the minute.

[27:48]

Love it.

[27:49]

Really, really great film worth seeing.

[27:52]

Check us out.

[27:53]

We're going to have the full list in the comments for you all.

[27:55]

And you know, another thing with I'm thankful for besides you and everyone else.

[27:59]

I'm going to give a shout out to the crew behind.

[28:00]

I'm going to actually get up right now and I know that you camera guys are going to

[28:04]

hate this, but I want to give a shout out to the crew around us.

[28:08]

This guy's team.

[28:09]

Yeah.

[28:10]

I guess Tom right there.

[28:11]

Look at this.

[28:12]

Look at this hand.

[28:13]

Tom, they can't hear you.

[28:14]

What do you think for?

[28:15]

Oh, beautiful.

[28:16]

Thank for me.

[28:17]

That's so sweet.

[28:18]

Oh, there he is.

[28:19]

Many dogs.

[28:20]

What do you think for this year?

[28:21]

I'm also thankful I found people in this.

[28:25]

Oh my gosh.

[28:26]

There.

[28:27]

Again, it raises.

[28:28]

But I always want to give a shout out to the team.

[28:32]

That makes it all happy.

[28:33]

And then Ronald edit this to make it faster.

[28:39]

But again, just want to say from the bottom of our hearts here at Canaline, thank you all.

[28:44]

Again, without y'all, we would not be where we are.

[28:47]

We'd not be growing at the pace we're doing it.

[28:49]

And the movies we're going to make in 2026 is just going to be incredible.

[28:53]

And it's all because of you.

[28:54]

So thank you, thank you, thank you for the bottom of our hearts.

[28:56]

Happy holidays.

[28:57]

Be safe out there.

[28:58]

And we'll see you in 2026.

[29:00]

Let's roll.

[29:01]

See you in 2026.

[29:02]

Yep.

The Best Scripts & Hidden Gem Movies of 2025 | Kinolime Podcast Ep 31

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