Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley Television

The Sundae TV Awards 2025

We watched probably as little new TV this year as we have since we started doing these awards, and just like last year, that’s mostly because we’re just busy. Ciara finished her PhD and is now officially Dr. Ciara Moloney, expert in the screen and stage works of Martin McDonagh. Dean broke more news stories, including one a government spokesperson had to respond to on the radio. In many ways, the TV landscape is no less disillusioning than last year, but as the world slides further into nightmare, the beautiful illusions still left to find are all the more precious. Some of them even feel like hope.

And no, we didn’t watch Andor, so stop asking.

These, as far as we’re concerned, are the best shows of the most recent TV season (June 2024 – May 2025). As well as the classic drama and comedy awards, we also have two awards for reality, variety and documentary television, including game shows, professional wrestling and whatever Eric Andre is doing at any given minute. We picked our winners by consensus, so only shows we both watched were eligible to win, but we each picked a runner-up, regardless of whether the other has seen it.

You can find each of our full slates of nominees at the bottom of the post. We recommend checking them out if you’re looking for recommendations.

Continue reading “The Sundae TV Awards 2025” →
Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley Film

The Sundae Film Awards 2025

You don’t need us to tell you that 2024 was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year, but did you know that films came out during it also? We won’t hold it against if you forgot now that we’re two months that felt like years into a year that’s going to feel like decades. In fact, it’s the perfect reason to join us as we heap praise on the films that shone brightest through the dark. It was a great year for primates, body horror and homoeroticism, not to mention staring into the yawning abyss at the heart of American celebrity culture.

As with every year, we gave one award for each of the eight major Oscars: we care about most of the others (except for the fake awards like Best Original Song) but this post would be absurdly long if we picked those too. We each did out our personal nominees and then selected the winner by consensus, so the winners only come from films that both of us have seen and nominated, but we’ve each picked a personal runner-up regardless of whether the other has seen or nominated it. We also each gave a Special Achievement Award for something that doesn’t fit our other categories.

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Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley Film

2024 in Film(s That Didn’t Come Out in 2024)

Check out previous instalments here.

Thus spoke the prophet: “Well, the years start comin’ and they don’t stop comin’.” There were elections and wars, genocides that proceed unabated and natural disasters that we can hardly call natural when we’ve created conditions that make them inevitable. So many celebrities died that there would have been a whole “fuck you, 2016!”-style outcry if we didn’t have other things to worry about: those who lived long lives, like Maggie Smith, James Earl Jones or Donald Sutherland, and those whose lives were cut tragically short, from Shannen Doherty to Liam Payne. (Reports of Noam Chomsky’s death were greatly exaggerated.) But there were bright spots, too – Mickey Mouse finally entered the public domain, all that Mikey Madison stock we bought early is paying dividends, and Terrifier 3 made people throw up. (If that one doesn’t sound like good news, please factor in some 2000s kid nostalgia.)

It was a year of endings and beginnings, as are, admittedly, all years. Ciara finished her thesis after years of toiling in the PhD mines. Dean suddenly became an investigative journalist, and he rocks at it. Ciara’s extended family found out that she’s a writer or something when she wrote about her epilepsy journey for the Irish Independent, and Dean helped found a network of community groups to promote integration in Tipperary. Ciara watched all of Seinfeld for the first time, and Dean finally finished Fez, a video game he first purchased in 2012. We both launched new podcasts: Ciara’s is about films, as is her wont, and Dean’s is about Tipperary, as is his wont, these days. Both of them are excellent, if we do say so ourselves. 

As ever, we’ll be singing the praises of our favourite films released in 2024 in March, for the ninth (ninth!) annual Sundae Film Awards. Right now, we’re going to look back at the best films from the rest of the medium’s history that we watched for the first time this year, from North Korean kaiju adventures to camp classics about child abuse.

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Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley Podcast

Adult Swim Yule Log: The Sundae Presents Episode 39

Ciara and Dean co-host The Sundae Presents, a podcast in which they each make the other watch films they haven’t seen. In our Christmas special, Dean made Ciara watch a recent film he hopes will become a new seasonal classic: Adult Swim Yule Log. They talk about traumatic guilt, Americana and the death of television.

Adult Swim Yule Log – The Sundae Presents

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Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley Podcast

One Scene Wonders: Dinah Manoff in Ordinary People

A minosode. With the body of a man from Crete and the head of an episode.

The Sundae Presents returns to our primordial ooze to talk about great performances that are only one scene long. First up: Dinah Manoff as Karen in one scene in Ordinary People (1980).

One Scene Wonders: Dinah Manoff in Ordinary People – The Sundae Presents

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Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley Television

The Sundae TV Awards 2024

We didn’t watch as much new TV this year as we usually do. Partly that’s because we are both increasingly busy killing it at other things, but mostly it’s because, frankly, the TV landscape is increasingly disillusioning. We are so far gone from the days when it seemed like streaming might crack the possibilities of the medium wide open and change them forever. It did, to be clear, but then the vast, rapacious conglomerates that control all TV decided that, actually, ambition and vision are for losers who don’t have a Scrooge McDuck money vault. It’s hard to want to watch a lot of new shows these days when more and more of it seems like little more than an indistinguishable slurry of “content”.

What do you do when you’re a TV critic getting jaded with modern TV? If you’re Ciara, you sail the seven seas of classic television and answer the siren call of the new only when it earns your interest. If you’re Dean, you just start shooting as much animation and stand-up directly into your veins as possible, because there, if nowhere else, are ambition and vision still alive and well. But you never give up on television, because when it’s good it still melts your face off.

We’re two days late this year, but considering we were months ahead of the Emmys last year, we’re sure you’ll forgive us. These, as far as we’re concerned, are the best shows of the most recent TV season (June 2023 – May 2024). As well as the classic drama and comedy awards, we also have two awards for reality, variety and documentary television, including game shows, professional wrestling and whatever Eric Andre is doing at any given minute. We picked our winners by consensus, so only shows we both watched were eligible to win, but we each picked a runner-up, regardless of whether the other has seen it.

You can find each of our full slates of nominees at the bottom of the post. We recommend checking them out if you’re looking for recommendations.

Continue reading “The Sundae TV Awards 2024” →
Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley Podcast

Killer vs Killer: Best Served Cold: The Sundae Presents Episode 38

Ciara and Dean co-host The Sundae Presents, a podcast in which they each make the other watch films they haven’t seen. For the season three finale, it’s assassin versus assassin as Ciara brings John Woo’s The Killer and Dean brings David Fincher’s The Killer. They talk about the homoeroticism of The Killer, the bleak emptiness of The Killer and, of course, the music of The Killer.

Killer vs Killer: Best Served Cold – The Sundae Presents

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Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley Podcast

Summer of Sam: The Sundae Presents Episode 37

Ciara and Dean co-host The Sundae Presents, a podcast in which they each make the other watch films they haven’t seen. Dean closes out this season’s regular episodes by showing Ciara his favourite Spike Lee film, Summer of Sam. They talk about punk vs disco, the madonna-whore complex and its relationship with Do the Right Thing.

Summer of Sam – The Sundae Presents

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Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley Podcast

Winter Brothers: The Sundae Presents Episode 36

Ciara and Dean co-host The Sundae Presents, a podcast in which they each make the other watch films they haven’t seen. This episode, Ciara makes Dean finally watch Winter Brothers, the debut film of their favourite Icelandic director, Hlynur Pálmason. They talk about its desolate landscapes, haunting ambiguities and floppy dicks.

Winter Brothers – The Sundae Presents

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Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley Podcast

Excalibur: The Sundae Presents Episode 35

Ciara and Dean co-host The Sundae Presents, a podcast in which they each make the other watch films they haven’t seen. This episode, Dean makes Ciara watch a fourth film shot in his hometown, an Arthurian epic by Exorcist II director John Boorman: Excalibur, which features zero locust POV and tons of before-they-were-famous casting. They talk about Cahir Castle, Gabriel Byrne’s soap opera career, and what are movies even supposed to be like, anyway?

Heart and Souls – The Sundae Presents

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