Steve’s Required Viewing pick, the heartbreaking father-son crime drama Sovereign, puts the guys in a morbid mood, so maybe the rage zombies and psychopathic cults of director Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple will perk things up! Also: other things!

Ron, Steve, and John indulge in a little obsessive list-making in order to share their respective top ten favorite films from last year. What a night for the movies!

In this episode Ron, Steve, and John dance to the music of Sly and the Family Stone by digging into the star-studded, Questlove-directed documentary about the band (and the tumultuous arc of the genius behind it), Sly Lives! Then they chat about some other non-fiction films and series they’ve been watching.

The guys get the new year started off with a heavy dose of dark fantasy/sci-fi, tackling 1985’s creepy and magical Return to Oz, the first season of Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus, and the epic conclusion of Stranger Things.

Steve’s Required Viewing pick is the small-town horror/comedy Ick, which concerns a bunch of people whose quaint, sheltered world is infested with malevolent forces that have slowly grown in power over countless years (gee I wonder what that’s like), and the guys discuss that before moving on to Wake Up Dead Man, the latest Benoit Blanc murder mystery from Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig, with another all-star cast and a lot to say about the nature of belief, centered on a small, hyper-religious cult of personality that threatens to corrupt everyone it touches (gee I wonder what that’s like). The guys also take a moment to admire the amazing career of the irreplaceable Rob Reiner.

Ron, Steve, and John gracefully dive in slow motion with their guns blazing in the direction of John Woo’s 1992 bullet festival, Hard Boiled. Do the Schmovie guys have what it takes… to be a cop? Then they kick around a couple recent news items and dig in to other stuff they’ve seen. Kind of the usual format.

Ron, Steve, and John put on their tennis shoes and tiptoe around to live up to the title of this week’s Required Viewing pick, the cozy tech heist caper Sneakers. Then Ron and Steve make a quick trip to OZ for their thoughts on the hotly-anticipated (and oddly divisive) Wicked: For Good.

Ron, Steve, and John got to see an advance screening of Edgar Wright’s re-adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 novella, The Running Man! And in this special .5 episode, they meet up in John’s car for a post-movie conversation that touches on the strengths and weaknesses of the film, Glenn Powell’s star power, and how this take differs from the 1987 Schwarzenegger-led version.