About this podcast
The award-winning indie film history podcast celebrating the history and legacy of movies you know, and movies you don't.
Have you ever wondered how your favourite movies were made? Hosted by Em, Verbal Diorama is a movie podcast that takes you behind the scenes to discover the extraordinary stories of cast and crew who bring classic films, blockbuster films, and cult films to life.
Movies are tough to make, and this podcast proves how amazing it is that they actually exist. From Hollywood classics to hidden gems, each episode explores the behind-the-scenes history, legacy, and untold filmmaking stories that make cinema history.
Ear Worthy 2024 Best Movie Podcast Winner | Golden Lobes 2025 Earworm Award Nominee | Ear Worthy 2025 Best Movie Podcast Nominee | Golden Lobes 2026 Earworm Award Nominee
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Episodes
The newest 50 of 360 episodes
- (From the Archive) Mamma Mia! · 46 minBefore Barbenheimer, there was The Dark Mamma. Two polar opposite movies going head-to-head at the box office, and both ending up huge successes in very different ways. The film…
- Twilight (2008) · 56 min · Season 8 Episode 363You better hold on tight spider monkeys. It's the history and legacy of a teen cultural phenomenon of the late 2000s. The movie that made vampires sparkly, and teen heroines even…
- The Exorcist · 1 h 2 min · Season 8 Episode 362Four years before Star Wars, and two before Jaws, came the story of a single mother in Washington, D.C., fighting to save her little girl from the devil, and it created its own…
- Event Horizon · 45 min · Season 8 Episode 361Infinite space. Infinite terror. From the depths of space, and the depths of hell (not sure which is more terrifying, to be honest!) comes a cosmic science fiction Lovecraftian…
- Shaun of the Dead · 53 min · Season 8 Episode 360Shaun of the Dead is remembered now as a genre landmark; the film that made "rom zom com" a real category and launched the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, but its road to the…
- Scary Movie (2000) · 38 min · Season 8 Episode 359Waaassssssuuuuupppppppppppppp!! In July 2000, a $19 million parody film outgrossed most of the slasher movies it was mocking, and in doing so, quietly ended the very genre it fed…
- The Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars: Episode V) · 1 h 0 min · Season 8 Episode 358The Empire Strikes Back is often called the best film in the Star Wars saga, and it started with a decision that seems almost unthinkable in retrospect. George Lucas, creatively…
- Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me · 44 min · Season 8 Episode 357The original Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) wasn't a huge hit at cinemas. It found its real audience on home video and cable, building into a genuine…
- Back to the Future Part II · 53 min · Season 8 Episode 356Back to the Future Part II wasn't really supposed to exist as its own film. The original Back to the Future's "TO BE CONTINUED" tag was actually a post-hoc addition for home…
- Chicago · 48 min · Season 8 Episode 355Long before Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly had names, they had mugshots. In 1924, Chicago tabloids were consumed by Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, two unrelated women tried for…
- Tropic Thunder · 43 min · Season 8 Episode 354In 2008, Ben Stiller made a war movie about people making a war movie, and in doing so, accidentally made one of the more prescient satires of 21st-century Hollywood ego, method…
- Pulp Fiction · 52 min · Season 8 Episode 353In 1994, a former video store clerk turned indie provocateur rearranged the crime film and, in the process, rearranged Hollywood itself. Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino & Roger…
- The Shawshank Redemption · 50 min · Season 8 Episode 352The Shawshank Redemption is now the highest-rated film on IMDb's Top 250, a fixture of cable rotation, and shorthand for cinematic hope itself. But in 1994, it was a box office…
- Empire Records · 42 min · Season 8 Episode 351Empire Records is like that one friend who everyone loves but didn't quite fit in with the popular crowd. It captured the essence of 90s youth culture, from the angst of its…
- Star Wars (Episode IV – A New Hope) (1977) · 1 h 32 min · Season 8 Episode 350Star Wars opened on May 25th, 1977, in 32 American cinemas. The first cut had been a disaster. The director of photography and director were barely speaking. The ILM crew…
- Hamilton (2020) · 1 h 2 min · Season 8 Episode 349Happy 250th birthday to the United States of America! 250 years ago, you became independent from us Brits. We're the King George III in this relationship, and we know it…
- Godzilla (Gojira ゴジラ) (1954) · 53 min · Season 8 Episode 348In the spring of 1954, a Japanese fishing vessel called the Lucky Dragon No. 5 sailed into the fallout zone of an American hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll. Its crew came home…
- King Kong (1933) · 59 min · Season 8 Episode 347King Kong (1933) was the creation of Merian C. Cooper, one of Hollywood's most extraordinary and least remembered figures, and it arrived at a precise and loaded moment: during…
- The Meg · 46 min · Season 8 Episode 346Two decades in the making, The Meg showcases the sheer absurdity of a 75-foot prehistoric shark lurking in the ocean, and this Kaijune we acknowledge that bigger is just always…
- Three Men and a Baby · 39 min · Season 8 Episode 345When Three Men and a Baby opened on 25th November 1987, few could have predicted that a low-budget remake of a French comedy, shot in Toronto, starring two television actors, a…
- Ever After: A Cinderella Story · 44 min · Season 8 Episode 344Few films have done more to reimagine a fairy tale than Ever After: A Cinderella Story, Andy Tennant's 1998 period drama that stripped the magical elements from one of the…
- Deep Impact vs. Armageddon · 1 h 1 min · Season 8 Episode 343In the summer of 1998, Hollywood delivered two versions of the apocalypse within eight weeks of each other, and the story of how that happened is almost as dramatic as either…
- Dante's Peak vs. Volcano · 51 min · Season 8 Episode 342In 1997, two movies decided to erupt onto cinema screens at the same time, literally and figuratively. The chaotic rivalry between Dante's Peak and Volcano is one of the biggest…
- M3GAN · 41 min · Season 8 Episode 341The final episode of AIpril, M3GAN arrived in January 2023 as a modest Blumhouse horror release, and promptly became one of the most talked-about horror comedies of the year. On…
- Her (2013) · 53 min · Season 8 Episode 340This AIpril, what is love, if not AI persevering? Spike Jonze's Her asks that question with such sincerity and precision that it never feels like a provocation; it feels like…
- Minority Report · 51 min · Season 8 Episode 339In 1992, a little-known Philip K. Dick short story was optioned as a sequel to Total Recall, with Arnold Schwarzenegger set to reprise his role. After a decade of Hollywood…
- Short Circuit (1986) · 41 min · Season 8 Episode 338In 1986, a clunky, tank-treaded robot, hungry for input, stole the hearts of cinema audiences worldwide. Short Circuit, the sci-fi comedy that gave us one of cinema's most…
- The Hunger Games · 55 min · Season 8 Episode 337It started with a late-night channel surf. Author Suzanne Collins, flipping between reality TV competitions and news footage from the Iraq War, watched the two blur into…
- Spice World · 54 min · Season 8 Episode 336In 1994, five young women answered an ad in The Stage looking for "streetwise, outgoing, ambitious" singers. What happened next became one of the most explosive cultural…
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish · 52 min · Season 8 Episode 335Puss in Boots: The Last Wish released in December 2022 as an unexpected masterpiece that caught audiences and critics completely off guard. What could have been just another…
- All Dogs Go To Heaven · 43 min · Season 8 Episode 334Even naughty dogs can have a huge impact on animation. In 1989, animator Don Bluth dared to go it alone, without the might of George Lucas and/or Steven Spielberg, and pushed the…
- The Land Before Time · 40 min · Season 8 Episode 333Even baby dinosaurs can have a huge impact on animation. In 1988, three Hollywood titans, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Don Bluth, came together to create what would become…
- An American Tail · 44 min · Season 7 Episode 332Even a little Jewish mouse can have a huge impact on animation. The 1986 Don Bluth animated classic An American Tail, a film that became the highest-grossing non-Disney animated…
- The Princess and the Frog · 54 min · Season 7 Episode 331In 2009, Disney released The Princess and the Frog, introducing Tiana as their first African-American Disney princess, paving the way for more diverse representation in…
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem · 53 min · Season 7 Episode 330From Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman's creation of mutated turtles wielding nunchucks, the history of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles starts with humble, and slightly dark…
- Paprika · 48 min · Season 7 Episode 329Animation is often dismissed as children's entertainment, but Paprika proves it's a sophisticated art form, capable of exploring complex adult themes with stunning visuals. It…
- KPop Demon Hunters · 1 h 0 min · Season 7 Episode 328Verbal Diorama is a podcast all about How It's Done. It being movies, and to be honest, this one is as Golden as they come. I'm Free to Takedown the history and legacy of KPop…
- Monsters, Inc. · 54 min · Season 7 Episode 327They scare, because they care. But do they? Do they really? Animation Season 2026 kicks off with Pixar's fourth feature, turning 25 years old this year, the incomparable…
- Santa Claus: The Movie · 50 min · Season 7 Episode 326Santa Claus: The Movie was an ambitious holiday spectacular that was supposed to save the Salkinds' crumbling film empire. Fresh off the disappointing performances of Superman…
- Scrooged · 47 min · Season 7 Episode 325Scrooged, a modern 80s retelling of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" stars Bill Murray as a cynical, mean-spirited TV executive who finally learns the true meaning of…
- Jingle All the Way · 42 min · Season 7 Episode 324In his chaotic quest for a Turbo Man doll, Howard Langston goes to extremes to find the toy on Christmas Eve. It's the stuff of Christmas slapstick comedy, right? In reality…
- Men in Black · 56 min · Season 7 Episode 323The Men in Black phenomenon started as rumours of a government agency, where strange men wearing black suits would visit witnesses of UFO sightings, and coerce and threaten them…
- (500) Days of Summer · 43 min · Season 7 Episode 322(500) Days of Summer arrived at a pivotal moment for romantic comedies. While the genre had dominated the box office throughout the early 2000s with reliable hits like The…
- I Am Legend (2007) · 47 min · Season 7 Episode 321From a doomed Arnold Schwarzenegger/Ridley Scott collaboration to Will Smith's blockbuster hit, the journey of I Am Legend to the screen is as dramatic as the apocalypse it…
- Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery · 45 min · Season 7 Episode 320Yeah, baby, yeah! We've been cryogenically frozen and thawed out in 1997 to explore the groovy phenomenon that was Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Mike Myers brought…
- Evil Dead II · 39 min · Season 7 Episode 319Happy Halloween! Evil Dead II was not the sequel to The Evil Dead that Sam Raimi intended. With a bigger budget, and more experience, he essentially remade the first film with a…
- The Evil Dead (1981) · 47 min · Season 7 Episode 318Before 20-year-old Sam Raimi could make The Evil Dead, he had to convince investors that three friends from Michigan could pull off a horror masterpiece. Enter "Within the…
- Hocus Pocus · 48 min · Season 7 Episode 317Hocus Pocus represents something special in cinema: proof that a film's legacy isn't written on opening weekend. It's a testament to how the right movie can find its audience…
- Wes Craven's New Nightmare · 45 min · Season 7 Episode 316Before Scream made meta-horror mainstream, Wes Craven created something truly unique: a horror film where the actors played themselves, filmed in the real New Line Cinema…
- Candyman (1992) · 48 min · Season 7 Episode 315How did a British ghost story set in a Liverpool council estate became America's most haunting urban legend? In 1992, director Bernard Rose transformed Clive Barker's British…
