The Frame

A powerful documentary about the aftermath of the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; Rihanna's new album had a surprise (or maybe not?) release this week; the L.A. Art Fair aims to be the nexus for art from the Pacific Rim.

Nate Parker spent seven years making "The Birth of a Nation," and his efforts paid off as the breakout hit at the Sundance Film Festival; prominent comedians take to the stage to benefit Bernie Sanders' campaign; Larry Klein's work with Joni Mitchell made him a go-to producer for a wide variety of singers.

The legendary R&B singer has a new album and an HBO documentary coming up, but don't expect this to be her swan song; a film about Nat Turner's slave rebellion has set a sales record at the Sundance Film Festival; actresses Alysia Reiner and Sarah Megan Thomas launched Broad Street to counter gender inequity in Hollywood.

With the top award from the Producers Guild, "The Big Short" is now frontrunner for the best picture Oscar. We chat with producers Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner; a Motion Picture Academy officer admits that the organization has been too slow to change; the band Foals has gone from playing house parties to arenas.

Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale has re-imagined an album from his long solo career, "Music For a New Society"; as the "X-Files" returns, we get the story behind its iconic theme music; even at the Sundance Film Festival, the talk of the town is #OscarsSoWhite.

Actor Matthew Spencer, who plays the lead in a new adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian novel, says the story has new resonance today; TV networks are casting doubt about the popularity of original programming on streaming services; Andrew Ahn passed up med school for a film career, and now his directing debut is at Sundance.

Carrie Brownstein, "Portlandia" co-creator and Sleater-Kinney co-founder, pulls back the curtain on her creative process; members of the U.K. punk band Savages reveal how they remain unpredictable on stage and in the recording studio; what's in store at this year's Sundance Film Festival?

In the two years since Lupita Nyong'o won an Oscar for "12 Years a Slave," no actor of color has been nominated for an Academy Award. Academy member Stephanie Allain says the Oscars reflect bigger problems in the industry; James Lecesne continues his advocacy for LGBTQ youth with "The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey."

Alicia Vikander's breakout year now includes an Oscar nomination for "The Danish Girl"; singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett deconstructs her song, "Depreston"; and we find out which new TV shows are on the must-watch list for the new year.

John Horn and Kyle Buchanan of Vulture.com dig into the snubs and surprises in the Oscar nominations, and the return of #OscarsSoWhite. And we hear from the directors nominated for "Room" and "The Revenant."

Writer/director David O. Russell has completed a trifecta with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in his latest film, "Joy"; the Producers Guild and the Writers Guild have announced their award nominees, one week before the Motion Picture Academy does the same; there really is a company called Central Casting that's been casting extras for 90 years.

Sarah Silverman's career took a serious turn when she took on the lead role in "I Smile Back," and now she's getting award buzz; Phyllis Nagy worked for 18 years to adapt a Patricia Highsmith novel for the movie, "Carol"; composer and conductor Pierre Boulez had a long connection to the Ojai Music Festival.

Diane Warren's latest success is “Til It Happens to You,” which Lady Gaga performed for the documentary, “The Hunting Ground”; Coachella's headliners include Guns N' Roses and LCD Soundsystem; The Discovery Channel is scaling back on reality shows to get back to its original mission.

HBO chief Michael Lombardo joins us for an intimate chat about what he learned from "True Detective" and more; Then, 2015 was a record year at the box office, but most of the ticket sales came from just a handful of movies. Ben Fritz of the Wall Street Journal helps shed light on this trend.

We put together a special episode of The Frame, featuring interviews with George Clooney, "Empire" creator Lee Daniels, musician Jenny Lewis, actress Julianne Moore, "Transparent" creator Jill Soloway and the R&B singer Miguel.

Don Randi's memoir, "You've Heard These Hands," details his years with the L.A. studio band that played on hundreds of hits in the 1960s and '70s; Kelly Sue DeConnick revamped the "Captain Marvel" series, but her "Bitch Planet" titles are with a smaller publisher that allows her to control her work.

Comic strip artist Lalo Alcaráz draws on his own border upbringing as a writer/producer on Fox's typically irreverent animated comedy, "Bordertown"; writer/director László Nemes breaks away from the usual Hollywood treatment of Holocaust movies with his debut, "Son of Saul"

The screenwriter Charlie Kaufman wrote a play that ended up being turned into the stop-motion animated film, "Anomalisa"; filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky relied heavily on footage shot by Ukrainian protestors for the documentary, "Winter on Fire"

Carter Burwell had a busy 2015, scoring five films including Todd Haynes' "Carol" and Charlie Kaufman's "Anomalisa"; Haskell Wexler had a long and illustrious career as a cinematographer and documentary filmmaker; musician Blair Tindall's memoir is the basis for the Amazon series, "Mozart In the Jungle."

We put together a show with some of our favorite conversations of 2015. Hear interviews with Meryl Streep, composer Philip Glass, "Orange is the New Black" actors Uzo Aduba and Lea DeLaria, "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner.

After more than 40 years as a recording artist, James Taylor had an album debut atop the Billboard charts for the first time this year; Tom Hooper is getting praise for directing “The Danish Girl," the true story of one of the first gender confirmation surgeries in the world, which took place in the 1920s.

Stacey Sher worked with Quentin Tarantino on “Pulp Fiction” and “Django Unchained,” so she's familiar with his methods and madness; "The Hateful Eight" was mostly filmed on a scenic ranch in Telluride, Colorado; holiday music to enjoy and avoid.