If you’ve been paying attention this Oscar season, you’ve noticed something: dads are everywhere. Not the cartoonish deadbeat or the overbearing patriarch—but something more honest and multidimensional than ever before.
In Sentimental Value, Stellan Skarsgård’s character showed up after years of absence, expecting forgiveness. Jay Kelly built a career and lost his kids along the way. Train Dreams showed us what happens when a father’s need to provide comes in direct conflict with his need to protect, and Marty Supreme was so locked into his dream that he couldn’t see what mattered—until it was right in front of him. These aren’t bad dads. They’re dads living through the tradeoffs many men actually face: between ambition and presence, between providing for a family and being part of one.
This month on the podcast, I sat down with Bilge Ebiri, film critic for New York Magazine and Vulture, to dig into what 2025’s best films are really saying about fatherhood—and why so many of this year’s Oscar contenders gave us something we haven’t quite seen before: fathers complicated enough to break your heart.
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Where to Find More From Bilge Ebiri
Bilge’s Watchlist
The Champ
The Shining
Bigger Than Life
Train Dreams
Jay Kelly
One Battle After Another
Walking with Dinosaurs
Timestamps
00:00 Hello
00:31 Becoming Nemo’s Dad
03:30 Let’s talk movies!
05:00 Film diaries c. 1940s
06:10 Apocalypse Now
07:20 Present dad award
10:43 Core memory of The Shining
15:00 Masculinity crisis
16:48 [SPOILERS] Train Dreams
19:15 Providing vs. protecting
19:58 [SPOILERS] Hamnet
20:20 [SPOILERS] Sentimental Value
21:04 [SPOILERS] Jay Kelly
23:50 [SPOILERS] more Train Dreams
27:24 [SPOILERS] Leo is 2025’s best film dad
29:10 The Shining easter egg
31:21 Letting go in the teen years
33:00 Watching movies with your kids
36:43 The outcast dinosaur
Credits
Host: Kevin Maguire
Managing Producer: Elizabeth Van Brocklin
Sound Editor: Sam Williams
Theme Music: SOHN
