All The Right Movies, the film podcast known for its meticulously researched behind-the-scenes storytelling, has been accepted into the Spotify Partner Program.
This milestone that recognises the show’s growing influence in the podcasting landscape comes following it achieving two million downloads.
Founded in 2019 by John Barker with Luke Cardy, All The Right Movies has carved out a distinctive niche in the crowded film podcast market.
While many shows in the space rely on casual conversation and off-the-cuff opinions, ATRM takes a different approach: each 2.5-hour episode represents approximately 100 hours of combined team effort.
This includes extensive research drawing on books, documentaries, interviews, and behind-the-scenes materials to tell the complete story of how classic and hit films were made.
“We’ve always believed that podcasting deserves the same creative standards we celebrate in filmmaking,” says John Barker, Creative Managing Director. “The Spotify Partner Program acceptance validates what we’ve been building for six years – that there’s a genuine audience for content that goes deeper, takes longer, and treats listeners as intelligent people who want more than surface-level chat.”
The podcast’s methodology takes episodes from initial film selection through community voting, multiple rewatches, comprehensive research, scripted production, recording, editing, and post-release analysis. John says this is an approach that stands in stark contrast to the typical podcast production cycle.
The commitment to research depth has opened unexpected doors. In 2024, a New York literary agent discovered the show through one of their signature social media threads – extensive, meticulously sourced posts telling behind-the-scenes film stories – and reached out about book representation.
The result: All The Right Movies: The Stories and Secrets Behind 25 of Hollywood’s Greatest Films, due for publication with Quarto Publishing in September 2026.
The show has also built a substantial community, with over 1,400 paying patrons across Patreon, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube who subscribe for access to the complete episode archive and exclusive bonus content.
Social media presence has grown to over 900,000 followers on X alone, driven largely by those research-heavy threads that caught the literary agent’s attention.
Central to All The Right Movies’ success is its engaged community of patrons. Rather than treating subscribers as passive consumers, the team actively involves them in the show’s direction.
Patrons vote on which films get covered, submit questions to feature in episodes, and contribute reviews that are read out during recordings.
Each month, a “Patron of the Month” is selected and interviewed for the newsletter, celebrating the community members who make the podcast possible.
“We’re not just building an audience – we’re building a community,” says Barker. “These are people who’ve been with us for years, who shape what we create, and who genuinely care about the show’s success. That relationship matters more than any download number.”
Acceptance into the Spotify Partner Program unlocks advertising revenue through dynamically inserted ads – a significant new income stream for the independent production. For All The Right Movies, it represents both financial opportunity and industry recognition.
“We’ve built this entirely independently, without external funding or media company backing,” Barker explains. “Every milestone like this proves that you can build a sustainable creative business by focusing on quality rather than chasing algorithms or cutting corners.”
The four-person team – Barker and Cardy alongside core podcast hosts Ian ‘Westy’ West and Matthew Bartley, all friends for over 20 years, remains committed to the approach that got them here: telling “the story of Hollywood one film at a time” with a depth and entertainment value they believe is unmatched in the space.
You can find All The Right Movies on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and its website.
