The Film Programme

With Antonia Quirke.Lambert Wilson, the star of a new bio-pic of Jacques Cousteau, The Odyssey, reveals why he could not lose enough weight to play the scrawny explorer, and why he ended up dreaming of bread.Diving expert and author Tim Ecott explains how, as well as inventing the aqua-lung that allowed divers to plumb the depths, Cousteau developed camera technology to show the world the underwater wonders he was witnessing.As part of the BBC's Gay Britannia season, Radio 4 is running a series on Queer Icons. What's surprising is that so many queer icons were household names and national treasures before male homosexuality was partially decriminalised 50 years ago. The Film Programme takes a peek inside British cinema's own celluloid closet with the help of Briony Hanson, Matthew Sweet, Richard Dyer and Gavia Baker-Whitelaw.

Antonia Quirke talks to Mark Gill, the director of a new bio-pic about Morrissey, England Is Mine, and considers the singer's influence on the movie tastes of a generation, introducing thousands of fans to A Taste Of Honey and many other British realist classics. Andrew Collins turns sleuth and picks out the film quotes in The Smiths' lyrics.Comedian Rosemary Fletcher considers the ways that innocuous-seeming romantic comedies can endorse behaviour that borders on the criminal, in her series Rosemary Versus Rom-ComDirector Luc Besson tells Antonia about Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, his adaptation of a graphic novel he read when he was ten years old and explains why he believes that American science fiction is imperialist.

Antonia Quirke talks to director James Ivory about Howard's End, as it's about to be re-released in cinemas, and his working relationship with producer Ismail Merchant that spawned dozens of movies including A Room With A View, The Remains Of The Day and Maurice.Antonia learns the secret art and craft of ADR (or Automated Dialogue Replacement), as she joins a group of actors as they overdub crowd scenes in a costume drama.Pasquale Iannone discusses the extraordinary personal and professional relationship between Sophia Loren and producer Carlo Ponti that lasted four decades.

With Francine Stock.The director of Inception, Christopher Nolan tells Francine Stock about his first war movie, Dunkirk, and why it's his most experimental film to date.Bryan Fogel explains how his film Icarus helped to expose the truth about Russia's involvement in doping in sports.Comedian Rosemary Fletcher wonders why her gay best friends have never measured up to Rupert Everett in My Best Friend's Wedding, in her series Rosemary Versus The Rom-Com.

With Francine Stock.Warren Beatty tells Francine Stock about the making of Bonnie And Clyde in the year of its 50th anniversary, and why he thought Bob Dylan would make a better Clyde Barrow than him.Hope Dickson Leach explains why she set her family drama The Levelling on the Somerset Levels just after the floods of 2014.How does Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled compare with the 1971 original starring Clint Eastwood ? Larushka Ivan-Zadeh delivers her verdict.Documentary-maker Matthew Heineman discusses City Of Ghosts about a group of journalists who are fighting a war of information against Islamic State in Raqqa, at a personal cost to their families.

With Francine Stock.The president of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, and ex-Sony head, Amy Pascal, tell Francine why three actors have played Spider-Man in the last 13 years, and why this new one, called Homecoming, is different.Amy director Asif Kapadia recalls the making of his debut feature, The Warrior, as it's re-released in cinemas. He tells Francine about what it was like filming in the Himalayas in contrasting weather conditions - from working in six feet snow drifts one week to baking heat that melted the camera equipment the next.Comedian Rosemary Fletcher explains why the obligatory make-over scene in romantic comedies needs its own make-over.The Film Programme's controversial A to Z of film-makers arrives at K this week, as critics Pamela Hutchinson and Joe Stringer slug it out to get their choice of director into the movie alphabet.

Antonia Quirke visits the house that Richard Burton bought for Elizabeth Taylor in a fishing village in Mexico, that's now a deluxe hotel. When the lovers conducted their affair out in the open in Puerto Vallarta, the paparazzi soon followed, and eventually the the small town was transformed into a tourist mecca.Director Ceyda Torun explains how she invented new technology to follow a herd of cats through the streets of Istanbul for her documentary Kedi.Antonia visits St Leonards, where King Harold's consort Edith Swan Neck is memorialised with a delapidated public sculpture. There she meets film-maker Andrew Kotting, who is trying to restore Edith's memory with a new documentary Edith Walks, in which he and five friends hike 108 miles from Waltham Abbey to the South East coast as an act of pilgrimage.

With Francine Stock.As The Graduate celebrates its 50th anniversary, Tim Robey and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh have one word for us. Just one word. Plastics.Korean director Bong Joon Ho explains why he teamed up with Welsh journalist Jon Ronson to make a vegetarian epic about a race of super-pigs that will save the planet.Larushka Ivan-Zadeh returns to slug it out with fellow critic Simran Hans for the honour of getting their director in the A to Z of film-makers.

With Francine Stock.Nick Broomfield reveals why he decided to make a documentary about Whitney Houston and why her family refused to help him.Francine visits the Sheffield Documentary Festival, where she gets intimate with virtual reality, discusses the ethics of deceiving your subjects and learns about the ways to pitch your movie - with the help of film-makers Jane Gauntlett, Mark Grieco, Mette Carla Albrechtsen and Saeed Taji FaroukyHistorian Alex on Tunzelmann has made her name spotting historical inaccuracies with her book Reel Histories. But now she has jumped ships and written her first screenplay, Churchill. So what does Alex Von Tunzelmann the historian make of the work of Alex Von Tunzelmann the writer ?

With Francine StockRoger Michell, the writer/director of My Cousin Rachel, discusses the work of Daphne Du Maurier on film, from Rebecca to The Birds to Don't Look Now.

Antonia Quirke talks to director Patty Jenkins about warrior princess Wonder Woman and why it took her so long to arrive on the big screen.Clive James confesses to his fifty year love affair with actor Steve McQueen.Director John Landis waxes lyrical about Elmer Bernstein, composer of classic themes The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven.

With Francine StockFrancine talks to director David Michod about War Machine, his big budget satire on the U.S. military starring Brad Pitt, which is having its premiere on-line. He tells Francine why he really doesn't mind that it's only playing in a handful of cinemas.The debate about big screen versus small screen raged this year at the Cannes film festival when the logo of an on-line film and TV company was booed at a premiere. Film buyer Clare Binns and critic Tim Robey tell Francine if they joined in the booing.Rungano Nyoni was born in Zambia and raised in Wales. Her debut feature, I Am Not A Witch, premiered at Cannes, and she reveals what it was like to get the red carpet treatment.Heavy drinking, existential malaise and deadpan humour characterise the films of director Aki Kaurismaki. Critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh tells us five things we should know about the Finnish auteur.

With Francine Stock.The Oscar winning composer of La La Land, Justin Hurwitz, reveals why he wrote 1,900 pieces of music for the film and how he narrowed them down to just a handful.Critic Tim Robey and film buyer Clare Binns discuss the movies and the controversies at this year's Cannes film festival.Comedian Rosemary Fletcher reveals the various ways that her love life has not matched up to expectations raised by watching romantic comedies for the last couple of decades. Why, for instance, her "meet cutes" haven't always been so cute. And haven't always included meeting.To mark the 60th anniversary of the foreign language Oscar, Larushka Ivan-Zadeh unpicks the byzantine rules behind the most contentious of Academy Awards.

With Francine Stock.Ridley Scott tells Francine why his new Alien franchise will be as big as Star WarsDirector Francois Ozon explains how Brexit helped to get his latest drama Frantz madeAs the Film Programme's divisive A To Z of film-makers reaches the letter H, Briony Hanson reveals why John "Breakfast Club" Hughes means more to her than Alfred Hitchcock; while Sophie Monks-Kaufman picks an avant-garde animator over the master of suspense.

With Francine Stock.Jessica Chastain, the star of Miss Sloane, tells Francine why it's about time that we saw more women being ambitious, complicated and unlikeable on screen.Matthew Sweet discusses the career of a screen icon who was briefly bigger than James Bond - Norman Wisdom.The A to Z of film-makers continues with the letter G. This week it's French experimentalist Jean-Luc Godard versus English visionary Jonathan Glazer.

With Francine StockWriter/director David Leland revisits Worthing, the setting of his classic drama Wish You Were Here, which immortalised the phrase "up your bum".William Oldroyd discusses his acclaimed low budget drama Lady Macbeth and why it plays with the conventions of how female characters behave in costume dramas.Heal The Living director Kattell Quillevere explains how a change in the medical definition of death has had an emotional impact on bereaved families, which is often overlooked.

With Francine Stock.Warren Beatty talks about his latest directorial outing, Rules Don't Apply, which he made 18 years after he directed his last movie. And reveals what he thinks now about the mix-up at the Oscars.Their Finest producer Stephen Woolley and Fiona Kelly from The Imperial War Museum take us through the little known history of women's roles in World War II pictures, as a season he's curated at the British Film Institute begins.Mohamed Diab reveals why his controversial film about Egyptian politics, Clash, was only shown in his home country thanks to the intervention of Tom Hanks.

Sarah Waters tells Francine Stock what she thinks of the Korean adaptation of her novel FingersmithLarushka Ivan-Zadeh and Tim Robey unlock some of the mysteries of David Lynch's Mulholland DriveWriter Shawn Levy reveals some of the real-life stories about the paparazzi that inspired La Dolce Vita, including an infamous striptease at a high society party that made headlines across the western world.

With Francine Stock.Julia Ducournau discusses her French cannibal movie Raw, which reportedly had audience members passing out in the aisles at a screening in the Toronto Film Festival.The life of Pablo Neruda - communist, womaniser and poet - is explored in a surreal detective story simply called Neruda. The film's director Pablo Larrain explains why there's never been a poet quite like the former Chilean politician, who was possibly murdered in his bed.In a week when two bio-pics about poets are released, Ian McMillan presents Daffodils 2, his poetic response to the more annoying cliches of poets in movies.The Film Programme's A to Z Of Directors arrives at F this week. Critics Catherine Bray and Sophie Monks Kaufman try to persuade Francine to the very different pleasures of David Fincher and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Linguist Jessica Coon advised on last year's Arrival. What conversations did she have with its star Amy Adams?We continue our A to Z of film with the letter E. This week it's Clint Eastwood versus Nora Ephron.Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu tells us why he's critiquing the corruption of his home country in Graduation. And we speak to Jenny Gage and Tom Betterton who spent three years filming a group of teenage girls in New York for their documentary All This Panic.