Voiceover: Movies that Move Us

Dads on Film

Heather reflects on how films have shaped her understanding of fatherhood, using five informal categories of movie dads: noble single fathers, absent dads, dead dads, and unprepared dads. Heather explores the tensions between fathers’ responsibilities to their children, their communities, and their own identities. These cinematic fathers, though exaggerated like modern fairy tales, tap into deep longings for love, safety, moral guidance, and emotional presence.

Knives Out: Searching for Truth

Adam Jortner joins Heather to discuss Knives Out and the search for truth in the movie mystery genre and our lives today. Adam Jortner is a history professor by day and in his off hours a film instructor with Great Courses, where he explains the importance and history of the horror genre.

Rom Coms Ruined Me

Shane Seggar joins Heather to talk about feeling shut out from the rom com experience in the 1990s. Today they tackle Sleepless in Seattle, While You Were Sleeping, and Notting Hill, some of the biggest romcoms of the decade. They also compare to the 2025 films Eternity and Materialists. Shane Seggar once worked in the film industry as an assistant director and location manager. Now he works with the State of Hawaii in wildfire recovery, with a focus on housing, infrastructure, workforce, and long-term community stability.

Bonus — Testament of Ann Lee

The Testament of Ann Lee is up for discussion on our first episode of season 2. Directed by Mona Fastvold (The World to Come, The Brutalist), the movie tells the story of Ann Lee, the leader of a Shaker group that journeyed to the American colonies in the 18th century. Heather talks to Caroline Johnson, whose research on the Shakers reveals what's historically accurate and what's not. More importantly, they discuss what this film has to say about female religious experience and the body. Caroline Johnson is the author of the scholarly article “The Reinterpretation of the Round Shaker Barn How Patriarchal Values Changed the Doctrine, History, and Architecture of a Religion," published by the journal AWE. She teaches in the Comparative Arts & Letters department at BYU and is also the co-director of JKR Gallery in Provo.

Extra — 2026 Movies

Here is what has caught Heather's eye, coming to a theater near you in 2026. Plus, movies turning 25 this year.