Ford Focus

Writer and producer Eric Haywood (Empire, Law and Order: Organized Crime) joins us to discuss Patriot Games, the first of Harrison Ford's two Jack Ryan films. Does this contain the best finger-pointing work of Ford's career? Maybe, but there's more than one such moment in the competition here. Also discussed: Night Ride Down, the film Ford was supposed to make instead of Patriot Games, satellite warfare, and the film's weird cliffhanger. Like the film, it's kind of a wild ride.

Veteran entertainment journalist Anthony Breznican joins us to talk about the film that earned Harrison Ford his only Oscar nomination to date, Witness. Directed by Peter Weir, the 1985 film begins as an intense, stylish police thriller before transitioning to an unexpected romance between a man and a woman from extremely different cultures. Kelly McGillis co-stars as the Amish woman who falls for Ford's straight-arrow cop. We talk about why this might be Ford's only nomination, Patti LuPone's memorable haircut, and the Die Hard bad guy who plays a good guy farmer here. We also talk about Breznican's encounter's with Ford and his upcoming book Star Wars Icons: Vader and Harrison Ford's high energy voiceover heard on the Empire Strike Back trailer, which you can enjoy here.

In this comedy western, Harrison Ford plays Tommy Lillard, a fairly gentle and polite Old West outlaw whose life takes an unexpected turn when he meets Avram Belinski (Gene Wilder), a rabbi making his way from Poland to San Francisco where a new congregation and a new bride await him. But getting there won't be easy. Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen) directs a film that didn't do all that well at the box office in 1979 but found appreciative fans in later years. Among them, writer and podcaster Jordan Hoffman, who grew up in a house where a VHS copy of the film was a treasured possession. Jordan joins us to talk about the film's representation of Judaism, '70s depictions of Native Americans, and more.Looking for more Jordan Hoffman? You can hear him on Starlog's podcast Lodestar and on Filmspotting SVU, which he co-hosts with friend of the show Matt Singer.

The Wall Street Journal's Esther Zuckerman joins us to talk about Working Girl, the 1988 rom-com classic in which an ambitious woman named Tess (Melanie Griffith) tries to make it in the go-go '80s business world. Sigourney Weaver and Harrison Ford co-star as, respectively, Tess's seemingly helpful boss and a handsome (but kind of dorky) exec who might be Tess's ideal partner in and out of the office. Topics include the awesomeness of Ford's character's name—Jack Trainer—traveling to Staten Island, Carly Simon's divisive (at least on this podcast) theme song, and much more.

Keith and Mike are joined by Katey Rich, Ankler Media's Awards Editor to discuss Age of Adaline, a Lee Tolland Krieger-directed romantic fantasy released in the summer of 2015 in which Blake Lievely plays a woman with more years under her belt than her 29-year-old face would suggest. May more years. Like more than a century. How does Harrison Ford's character, a man named Dr. Jones but not that Dr. Jones fit into this? You should watch the movie to find out (though we sort of spoilt it after a certain point).It's an odd one, and one we all like to varying degrees. Also discussed: The Big, immortality influencers, how Sylvester Stallone lost a sure-thing Oscar, and what it takes to earn a PG-13 rating.

When Harrison Ford and director Peter Weir teamed up for the 1985 film Witness their efforts met with great acclaim and earned Ford his sole Academy Award nomination to date. When they teamed up a second time for this adaptation of a Paul Theroux novel the following year the results were not the same. And yet, as Mike Ryan and Keith Phipps discover, that's not really fair to a strange, provocative film filled that features another complicated performance from Ford and great supporting work from River Phoenix, Helen Mirren, Martha Plimpton, Conrad Roberts, and Andre Gregory. Is Ford's character, "Allie Fox," a "nut," as Ford once described him? Or was he a man ahead of his time? Join us as we explore this question and more.