What the corpus says about The Way Back (2020)

You are a clerk at Video Culture, a video store. A customer just finished The Way Back (2020) and wants to know what to watch next.

Below is what people who love movies said on three podcasts (Blank Check, The Rewatchables, The Big Picture) about The Way Back (2020) and the films around it, one line each. Every line starts with where it came from, in brackets: [show · episode · time · speaker (how sure we are it was them)]. A [pairs] line says how often two films were put side by side. A [speaker] line says what that person likes. A [bits] line lists a show's running bits: a format, not an opinion.

[Blank Check — Patreon · Mank · 2:05:22 · Sean Fennessey (0.70)] The Way Back ↔ Mank · professional drunk · The Way Back is praised for the business of getting drunk, like Mank; called a 1970s Robert Duvall-style movie. · "I think it's excellent and also like way too traditional to have made sense in 2020 to anybody."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Gone Girl · 1:06:16 · unknown (0.30)] The Accountant ⇒ The Way Back (the host's read) · led to · The Accountant got Affleck linked up with Gavin O'Connor, which got him The Way Back. · "It also got him linked up with Gavin O'Connor. It got him the way back"
[Blank Check — Patreon · Gone Girl · 1:37:02 · unknown (0.30)] Gone Girl ↔ The Way Back · shared detail · Natty Ice appears in Gone Girl and is also Affleck's beer in The Way Back. · "I feel like Natty Ice is also his beer in the way back."
[The Rewatchables · ‘The War of the Roses’ · 1:37:30 · Craig Horlbeck (0.50)] The War of the Roses ↔ Gone Girl · lineage · Roses is described as a prequel to Gone Girl; it could have pivoted to Turner killing Douglas and going on the run. · "This movie's kind of a prequel to Gone Girl."
[The Big Picture · Aaron Sorkin Top 5s and ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ · 1:54:31 · Sean Fennessey (0.55)] The Trial of the Chicago 7 ↔ Mank · programming · Chicago 7 is a big fat fastball for the Oscars alongside Mank, Nomadland and Hillbilly Elegy. · "this is a big fat, fastball right down the middle."
[The Big Picture · ‘The Killer’ Is Cold-Blooded Genius. And Something More · 0:17:53 · Amanda Dobbins (0.60)] The Killer ↔ Gone Girl · lineage · It is the closest Fincher has come to a pure thriller since Gone Girl, maybe Dragon Tattoo. · "he hasn't made a movie quite like this, I guess, since Gone Girl, but even, I mean, you could maybe even going back further to Dragon Tattoo is maybe a little closer to this kind of a pure thriller."
[The Big Picture · Emergency Mailbag: The Oscars Are Streaming and Hollywood Is Fighting Over Trolls | The Big Picture · 0:58:09 · Sean Fennessey (0.55)] Citizen Kane ⇒ Mank (the host's read) · lineage · Mank is partly inspired by Pauline Kael's essay on who truly authored Citizen Kane. · "it's in part inspired by that very famous Pauline Kale, story raising Kane, about the true authorship of Citizen Kane"
[Blank Check — Patreon · Gone Girl · 0:20:39 · unknown (0.30)] Reese Witherspoon ⇒ Gone Girl (the host's read) · lineage · Witherspoon took the book and had the idea of bringing Fincher on board. · "takes this book, has the smart idea, bring Fincher on board."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Mank · 0:48:09 · Griffin Newman (0.60)] Jack Fincher ⇒ Mank (the maker said so: Fincher's own account as read from the dossier (outlet not named)) · lineage · Fincher's father wrote the original Mank script, which David set aside until years later. · "I'm handed this script that my dad wrote about all powerful directors ruining storytelling"
[Blank Check — Patreon · Gone Girl · 0:34:23 · Esther Zuckerman (0.70)] Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn novel) ⇒ Gone Girl (the host's read) · lineage · The film adapts Flynn's novel, and the first-person diary trickery was the open question about how it would work on screen. · "Because it is such like a little fun piece of 1st person narration trickery."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Mank · 1:13:08 · David Sims (0.80)] Citizen Kane ⇒ Mank (the maker said so: David's interview with cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt) · lineage · Messerschmidt told the interviewer he wanted low, deep-focus photography evoking Citizen Kane, not noir. · "He's like, no, I want to do it low to the ground, lots of deep focus, evoking citizen Kane."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Gone Girl · 0:36:35 · unknown (0.30)] A Simple Plan ⇒ Gone Girl (the maker said so) · lineage · Flynn used A Simple Plan as her model for adapting her own novel, then worried she could not match it. · "And she said, so I tried to use that as a model and then I freaked myself out because I was like, well, this is too good. I won't do this well."
[The Big Picture · 300th Episode Ask-Us-Anything Mailbag Spectacular · 0:02:38 · Sean Fennessey (0.85)] Mank ↔ David Fincher · craft · Fincher shot and cut Mank to look like a 1940s film. · "he has shot this film to look like a film from the 1940s and the trailer has been cut to look like a film from the 1940s"
[Blank Check — Patreon · Gone Girl · 0:39:03 · unknown (0.30)] Steve Kloves → Gone Girl · lineage · Flynn asked Kloves how he handled the Harry Potter adaptations; the speaker does not say it shaped the script. · "She goes to Steve Cloves and is like, how did you adapt the Harry Potter books?"
[Blank Check — Patreon · The Killer · 0:13:02 · Griffin Newman (0.50)] Ren Klyce ↔ Mank · craft · The Killer's sound designer also did Mank; the speaker talked to him for both. · "Talk to him too for Mank."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Gone Girl · 2:12:35 · unknown (0.30)] Glengarry Glen Ross ↔ Gone Girl · theme · Fincher reportedly said the book's Tanner Bolt reads like Baldwin in Glengarry and would have turned the audience against him. · "The way it reads on paper is you imagine him being more of a like Baldwin and Glengarry Glenn Bross."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Mank · 1:10:06 · Sean Fennessey (0.50)] Citizen Kane ↔ Mank · craft · Like Citizen Kane, Mank has a complicated relationship to its lead; Mank mirrors the attitude of the man himself. · "Yeah, as much as Citizen Kane, the movie has a very complicated relationship to its lead character."
[Blank Check — Patreon · Gone Girl · 2:18:15 · unknown (0.30)] Lolita ⇒ Gone Girl (the maker said so: In the commentary) · theme · On the commentary Fincher says he wanted a Claire Quilty type for Desi and found it in Neil Patrick Harris. · "Fincher said he wanted a Claire quilty type and he's like, what's a modern Claire quilty type?"
[Blank Check — Patreon · Mank · 2:03:48 · Sean Fennessey (0.50)] The Lost Weekend ⇒ Mank (the host's read) · craft · The election-night drunk sequence in Mank is called self-consciously reminiscent of The Lost Weekend. · "almost self-consciously reminiscent of the last the lost weekend"
[speaker] Sean Fennessey · latest sketch, The Big Picture · ‘Resident Evil’ Absolutely Rips! · Loves gory, funny, fast genre movies with craft and confidence, especially 87-minute films that never overstay. Can't stand ponderous elevated horror that fills out its runtime with introspection and sad family history. A sucker for the Carpenter-era lineage, Die Hard homages, and directors who break studio dogma. · stances: Resident Evil is one of the best films of the year; Horror movies have become a drag; fun genre experiences are needed; Short running times are a virtue; Video-game films work best when great filmmakers get creative license
[bits] The Big Picture: Drafts (Hosts and guests draft films in rounds; every pick is a recommendation with an argument); Hall of Fame (A star's or director's best, ranked and argued); Countdowns (Ranked lists, top five or top ten)
[bits] The Rewatchables: Apex Mountain (The moment a star peaks; where on the mountain a performance sits); Who Won the Movie (The hosts name the person who came out of the film best off); The Ebert review (Roger Ebert's original review and star rating read aloud. Ebert is cited, never on the show); Casting what-ifs (Who was almost cast, or who should have been); Most rewatchable scene (The scene each host would stop on while flipping channels); Aged best / aged worst (What holds up and what does not); Picking Nits (The little things in a film the hosts love that they don't think totally work: the nits); Double feature (The film each host would pair it with; a programming pick)

Recommend three to six films, and only films that appear in these lines. A series, a TV film, or a franchise counts too when a line recommends it or pairs it with The Way Back (2020); name it the way the line names it. Don't recommend The Way Back (2020) itself. For each one, give one short reason in your own words and say whose reason it is: the show, named exactly as the brackets name it, and the speaker when the line names one (an "unknown" speaker is just the show). If the lines are thin, say so plainly rather than stretching them.

Keep a contrast a contrast. When a line sets two films apart, the reason is how they differ; never turn it into a way they're alike. A line with ⇒ puts the source first and what drew on it second, and one marked "the maker said so" is still the host reporting it: say who said it, and never state an influence as fact.

You know only what's on these lines. Add no fact they don't state: not who directed a film, not what kind of film it is, not when it came out, unless a line says so. Say nothing about the store or how anything rents here.

Talk the way a clerk talks to a customer at the counter: plain text, titles written plainly with no asterisks or other markup, no headings, no lists of more than six, no JSON.