Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith discuss the film that launched the French New Wave—François Truffaut's semi-autobiographical tale of a boy navigating parental neglect in post-war France.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith talk family murder in the suburbs and the cost of fetishizing the perfect 50s family.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith discuss the influence of surrogate fathers with competing philosophies of discipline vs. domination in The Karate Kid.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith explore the under-appreciated 1984 portrayal of a single mom and her two sons as their household adapts to the arrival of the mother’s boyfriend.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith talk you fargin bastiges about the 1984 gangster satire–a family picture?–Johnny Dangerously.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith visit the 1970s Pennsylvania gothic crime family of Bruce Whitewood Sr. as he draws his son into the business in the 1986 film At Close Range.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith step into 1940s Northern Indiana to join the Parker family in this timeless 1983 holiday classic, which becomes the blueprint for the modern Christmas movie.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith discuss sibling rivalry at the end of the world in downtown LA, with Night of the Comet.