Want to become an instant expert in our filmmaker of the month without committing yourself to an entire filmography? Then you need the Hell Is For Hyphenates Cheat Sheet: a double that will bring you totally up-to-speed before our next episode lands…

WALKING AND TALKING (1996) and ENOUGH SAID (2013)

Nicole Holofcener’s only made five films, and frankly, they’re all great and worthy of being singled out. But if you’re only going to watch two, we recommend her first and last. (Well, not her last. Her most recent. But “first and most recent” doesn’t have the same ring to it.) Kick off your evening with 1996’s Walking and Talking, starring Catherine Keener and Anne Heche as lifelong friends dealing with polar opposite relationship issues. Yeah, it doesn’t sound great, and most of that is down to our description, but as with all of Holofcener’s films it’s the execution that elevates it above every other film of similar ilk. Similarly, Enough Said (with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini) takes a tired concept – two divorcees getting a second chance at etc – and turns it into a profound look at how we react to the new vs the familiar. Both are very funny and incredibly complex and make for a superb double feature.

Substitutions: If you can’t get/have already seen Walking and Talking, you can swap it out for the similarly-ampersanded Lovely & Amazing (2001). If can’t get/have already seen Enough Said, grab Please Give (2010) with Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet.

The Hidden Gem: Want to seek out something from off the beaten track? Well, Holofcener doesn’t really have an off-the-beaten track film. But the only one we haven’t mentioned yet is Friends With Money (2006), her incredible ensemble work that takes the “first world problem” meme and turns it on its head three years before it happened.

The next episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Pollyanna McIntosh talking Nicole Holofcener, will be released on the morning of March 31 (AEST).