Inside Cinema - Season 4 / Year 2021

Stop-motion puppet animation has an enduring appeal and power, from children's animated classics such as Bagpuss to the big screen productions of Wes Anderson (Fantastic Mr Fox and Isle of Dogs) and Tim Burton (Frankenweenie and Corpse Bride) while also embracing cutting-edge independent filmmaking. The craft holds a particular nostalgia for generations of British children raised on Pingwings, Postman Pat and El Nombre. It's something that British stop-motion talent has excelled at, and that hasn't gone unnoticed by American filmmakers who appreciate the craftsmanship. As a method of production it is delicate and time-consuming and the hand-crafted impact of the puppeteers can often be traced on-screen, creating a unique charm all of its own. It can also be more inexpensive to produce, attracting independent filmmakers with new possibilities in mind and challenging ideas. Though labour intensive, the result harbours rich storytelling for young and old.

Pamela Hutchinson gives a guided tour of the British coast on the big screen, investigating how filmmakers use the beach to examine British life, identity and social taboos.

Ellen E Jones spends a night on the town examining how the big and small screen likes to party, from the steamy housebound scenes of Lovers Rock to the beatific highs of the rave film.

What do you think of when you think of Cher? Singer. Fashion maverick. Queer icon. Meme queen. Punchline. How about Oscar-winning actor? In a special for International Women's Month, Anna Bogutskaya celebrates an all-time talent of stage and screen: Cher, the ultimate multi-hyphenate. Cher is one of the very few people who has made her name into an instantly recognisable brand. And, by the time she decided to act, she had been in the limelight for twenty years.

Hanna Flint teams up with some Strong Female Characters to look at whether kicking ass is always empowering. From Hotel Artemis to Thelma and Louise, via the action heroics of Birds of Prey and Captain Marvel, these action heroines are here to save the day. But are characters like Lara Croft feminist icons or sex objects - or maybe both?

From images where fatness is the butt of a joke, to thin people wearing fat suits, to people using the word "fat" as an insult: Grace Barber-Plentie asks what is cinema telling audiences about fat women - and is that ok?

Pamela Hutchinson sings the praises of film's faithful sisters, from Black Narcissus to Sister Act, reckoning with cinema's habit of using nuns for moral dilemmas and sacred singalongs. Movie nuns may appear to be here to save your soul and keep the sinners of the world on the straight and narrow, but their appeal is more than black and white, inspiring films ranging from the devout dramas of The Bells of St. Mary's, The Nun's Story and Heaven Knows, Mr Allison, to Ken Russell's shockingly subversive and sacrilegious The Devils. On screen, do we want to see another serene and saintly sister? Or a bad mother?

Boo! Mike Muncer examines a filmmaking technique used to jolt viewers out of their seats in everything from the most frightening horror films to family-friendly franchises. Are jump scares cheap ways to elicit a physical response from the audience, or an example of movie-making magic in its purest form? Inside Cinema investigates, drawing on films and filmmakers ranging from Alfred Hitchcock to Stanley Kubrick, from Scream to Star Wars, from classic slasher horrors to the contemporary directors reclaiming the 'jump scare' for a new generation.

Why do so many big-screen villains seem to be pointedly camp? Caspar Salmon decodes a trope seen in films ranging from Psycho, to Skyfall, to several Disney animated classics, in which filmmakers (either intentionally or not) used harmful queer stereotypes as a way of making their characters seem more disturbing, unseemly or unheroic.

Dewi Evans waves lyrical about musicals that breathe new life into songs we know and love from the classic Singin In The Rain to the ultimate jukebox musical Moulin Rouge.

Ali Plumb explores how a movie in-joke has become a key part of the franchise toolkit, from the days of Hitchcock appearing in his own films, to the interconnected Marvel Universe.

Carl Anka assembles a squad of big-screen gems that best capture the power of football, from Gregory's Girl and Bend It Like Beckham to the innovative documentary, Diego Maradona.

Leila Latif explores how the Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène challenged the legacy of colonialism and pioneered a cinema by, for and about the people of Africa.

Tara Judah explores how the appeal of the body-swap comedy is far from skin-deep, offering characters and viewers an entertaining opportunity for understanding and self-reflection

Wendy Ide surveys the strange spaces created when films don't follow the laws of physics.

James King salutes the rise and rise of the one and only Keanu Reeves, from 90s hunk in the likes of Speed and Point Break to the 21st-century icon of The Matrix and John Wick franchises. Once seen as a pretty boy with a limited range, Keanu brought sensitivity to the action genre, survived memes and misfires, and finally ascended to the role of the ultimate movie star - even becoming something of a modern-day guru in the process.

Caitlin Quinlan champions the sports films that give the longshots their time to shine.

Fasten your seatbelts: How iconic Hollywood trailblazer Bette Davis broke the mould.

Championing the big screen fight, what exactly makes boxing films such a knockout?

These objects really tie a film together, but what precisely is a MacGuffin?

Zing Tsjeng asks why does Western cinema's vision of the future look so East Asian?

What does it take to shatter the glass ceiling and rule the boardroom on the big screen? From Working Girl to The Devil Wears Prada, Jan Asante salutes the defiant, complex women of the workplace comedy-drama, and the everyday struggles that make them who they are.

Limiting, outdated, stereotype - or potentially empowering representation? Maybe it's somewhere in-between. James Victoria Luxford looks at the GBF on screen.

How very! Charting the spectacular rise, fall and comeback of Gen-X icon Winona Ryder

Do not try this at home! Charles Bramesco digs into the cultural phenomenon of Jackass.

The B in LGBTQ+ sometimes gets shortchanged in cinema - Catherine Bray asks why.

From Seven Samurai to Rashomon, Jasper Sharp celebrates the films of Akira Kurosawa.

Bon Appetit! How the humble dinner table never fails to serve up delicious movie moments.

Leila Latif on what to expect when you're expecting on the big screen, from the familiar romcom cliches of morning sickness and crazy food cravings, to the films that deal with the more existential side of being pregnant, such as the classic psychological horror Rosemary's Baby, and Alice Lowe's low-budget gem Prevenge, which she wrote, directed and starred in while she herself was heavily pregnant.

How a working class boy from Bristol became one of the brightest stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, the height of silver-screen sophistication in films ranging from His Girl Friday and An Affair to Remember, to Bringing Up Baby and North By Northwest. But while Cary Grant (born Archibald Leach) may have come to symbolise the epitome of Hollywood style and glamour, it was the irresistible tension between his on-screen persona and the real man behind it that fuelled his star appeal.

One franchise to rule them all... Catherine Bray explores how director Peter Jackson used both classic and cutting-edge techniques to craft his big-screen adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's epic fantasy trilogy. Made in the 20th century, and released in the 21st, The Lord of The Rings simultaneously bade farewell to modes of filmmaking that had existed for a century, while heralding the rise of new methods of storytelling that would inform the cinema of the next hundred years.

This is the end... or is it? Michael Leader sits through the credits and celebrates the films that litter their closing credit sequences with outtakes, teasers, and other treats. From the Marvel Cinematic Universe's mastery of the post-credits 'stinger' that introduces new characters and sets up epic franchise crossovers, to the reign of the 'blooper reel' in the comedies of the 1980s and 1990s, to the films that use their credit sequences to break the fourth wall and directly address the audience.

James King celebrates the Christmas film, exploring how cinema has brought yuletide cheer to our screens for over a century, from 1898's pioneering silent film Santa Claus, to the enduring festive classic It's A Wonderful Life, to the modern-day comedy cracker Elf, to the sometimes controversial, 'alternative' Christmas favourite, Die Hard.