Someone wise once said that podcasts are like modern campfire stories. Folks gathered around, listening intently to an animated storyteller. While most podcasts don’t actually involve scary tale-spinning with crackling fire sounds, there is that element of cozy, one-on-one banter between hosts and guests, along with an engaged audience of viewers or listeners.
“The Podcumentary” is a truly addictive comedy documentary podcast with cozy vibes, that’s a great listen for doc lovers – thanks to the two funny and animated hosts and “storytellers,” who create a unique experience for their listeners. Check it out and you’ll find that it’s a refreshing mix of witty, edgy banter, spiked with a hefty dose of humor.
The podcast was conjured up by talented, Queens-bred documentary filmmakers, comedians and longtime friends Jeff Cerulli (a hip Long Island City dude) and Barry Rothbart (formerly, a cool Forest Hills kid, who found greener pastures in LA).
The Podcumentary hosts Jeff Cerulli (left) and Barry Rothbart (right) in their early days working together. Photo credit: Jeff Cerulli
Indeed, doc filmmakers are storytellers at heart, using different modes and approaches of storytelling, based on the styles and genres they choose.
If you’re hungry for all things documentaries, get your fix here! Taking a deep dive into the documentary world, with intriguing weekly episodes, the hosts offer their creative, insider perspectives and eye-opening observations about today’s most-watched docs, spanning a diverse range of genres, from true crime to mysteries to compelling stories exploring events as they happen in real life and everything in between.
Enjoy enlightening, exclusive interviews with movers and shakers – celebrated filmmakers, directors, producers -about the ins and outs of crafting doc films, AI’s role in shaping docs and other interesting topics, as well as chats with doc fans about their favorite watches and getting their take on which ones are worth your while.
“We’ve had so many directors and filmmakers on, from Director Charlotte Kaufman of HBO’s ‘The Alabama Solution’ (Oscar-nominated doc exposing systemic abuse and corruption in Alabama’s prison system) to Madison Hamburg, the director and star of HBO’s ‘Murder on Middle Beach’ (about the unsolved murder of his mother) to the director of Netflix’s ‘Titan’ (about the submersible disaster) and so many others,” Rothbart told QNS, adding, “We also chatted with legendary doc filmmakers Andrew Jenks and Jeremy Workman, who directed the 2024 film ‘Secret Mall Apartment.’”
This stranger-than-fiction story had been an urban legend for many years. It followed a group of artists, who lived, undetected, for four years (since 2003) in a shopping mall in Providence, Rhode Island – until getting caught and charged with trespassing in 2007. By January 2026, it had become one of the top five most viewed programs on Netflix.
Workman also made a doc film in 2018, about Matt Green, who decided to walk every single street in New York City – a journey of over 8,000 miles – called “The World Before Your Feet.”
As the youngest person in history to sell a completed feature-length film to a mainstream distributor, Andrew Jenks gained fame for his film about residents’ lives at an assisted living facility. At 19, he moved into the facility and starred, directed and produced the feature film “Andrew Jenks, Room 335.” HBO bought the rights to the doc and released the film in 2008, after Jenks edited the 200 hours of footage in his parents’ basement.
“We like to mix it up with a balance of also having some of our comedian friends on to discuss docs, and we also have special segments for each episode that make the show unique,” Cerulli told QNS, adding, “We’ve been doing this for about two years and are so happy with the growth it has shown!”
You can enjoy The Podcumentary on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and catch up on the docs you crave.
Free new episodes every Tuesday. Barry and Jeff also invite their guests to share their three favorite doc picks of all time with listeners every week.
Visit podcasts.apple.com › us › podcast › the-podcumentary to watch the trailer.
Follow them at instagram.com/thepodcumentary.
‘The Best Summer’ with director Tamra Davis
A recent episode: Jeff Cerulli and Barry Rothbart are back, and they can’t believe the Knicks actually did it! They talk about seeing the Knicks win the first championship in their lifetime and what it meant to them. Afterwards, the hosts invite Davis to the show to take a deep dive into her new documentary “The Best Summer,” which is a found footage-style doc from a concert tour in 1995 that featured amazing bands, like The Beastie Boys, Beck and Foo Fighters. Tamra has an impressive resume that includes directing classic films, such as “Half Baked,” “Billy Madison” and “CB4,” along with some of the most iconic music videos from Sonic Youth, Tone Loc and Young MC. For more information, go to thebestsummer1995.com.
The Podcumentary x Tribeca Film Festival
In 2025, hosts Barry and Jeff attended the Tribeca Film Festival to cover the famous event for The Podcumentary, snagging coveted director interviews and first looks at the world premieres of highly anticipated documentaries. Through a series of mini episodes, Rothbart and Cerulli gave listeners an exclusive look at the best documentaries to come out of Tribeca 2025.
Meet Barry Rothbart
Barry Rothbart. Photo credit: Barry Rothbart
They say that you can take the boy out of Queens, but you can’t take Queens out of this bi-coastal, multi-talented creative and doting dad, whose work spans documentary filmmaking, television, acting and writing. As a filmmaker, he created the gripping and darkly funny, 2025 ten-part Audible Original docuseries “Searching for Allan Rothbart” — an intimate, unflinching investigation into the mystery of his father’s sordid past. Listen here.
In 2014, he co-directed a feature documentary with Jeff Cerulli called “Hungry,” which followed competitive eating legend Takeru Kobayashi over the course of one year. The film was streamed on Amazon, Hulu and Sports Illustrated TV.
And most recently, Rothbart produced, co-wrote and shot the 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival Jury Award winner “Summer 2000: The X-Cetra Story” (directed by Ayden Mayeri). Described as a “pure, unfiltered blast of joy” on Rotten Tomatoes, this heartwarming doc follows four creative pre-teen girls from California, who were close childhood friends. In 2000, they had fun recording a homemade album, with the help of a musician mom…but eventually drifted apart. Fast forward 20 years, when their forgotten music becomes a cult Internet hit and goes viral. Now, as adults, they reunite to find out if they can recapture their youthful magic.
Rothbart was named one of Variety magazine’s “10 Comics to Watch” in 2013. That year, he played Peter DeBlasio in Martin Scorcese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.” He also appeared on ABC’s “Downward Dog,” Showtime’s “Kidding,” ABC’s “The Conners” and comedies like “Vacation Friends” and “The Lovebirds.” His background in stand-up includes his own Comedy Central special and appearances on The Tonight Show, Conan and The Late Late Show.
He told QNS that “a balanced life means spending time with my wife and six-year-old daughter and my pet, while carving out time to play basketball with friends, as well as having the ability to work on the career things that I care about.”
He added: “Spend your time and energy doing what you want, not chasing what you think will work.”
Meet Jeff Cerulli
The Podcumentary co-host Jeff Cerulli, filmmaker, comedian and longtime LIC resident. Photo credit: Jeff Cerulli
A highly creative filmmaker, editor and comedian, who’s passionate about his work, Cerulli has performed all over the world as a stand-up comic—from Los Angeles to London—and appeared at the Laughing Skull Comedy Festival and New York Comedy Festival. He recently released his first one-hour comedy special, “Live at the Bomb Shelter,” which is currently available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.
It was filmed at The Bomb Shelter, which is home to the stand-up comedy show that he’s been producing for 10-plus years at the Gaf West in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. Cerulli told QNS about another project he is most excited about, other than The Podcumentary: a screenplay that he just finished writing, about taking care of his father, who suffered from dementia. “It is deeply personal and I’m hoping to film that in 2027,” he said.
As a filmmaker, Cerulli has released two feature-length documentaries. His web series “The Feed,” satirized the world of online journalism and was featured on Decider (a guide to the best movies and TV shows streaming online, updated daily).
QNS caught up with The Podcumentary fellas to schmooze about their popular podcast.
QNS: Talk about the spark that ignited your idea for this unique podcast.
Barry Rothbart: Jeff and I have always chatted about docs (we’ve been best friends for 25 years!), plus we’re documentary filmmakers and comedians, as well. We made a feature doc together 10 years ago, called ‘Hungry.’ We honestly, at first, just wanted an excuse to get together every week and chat about something we love, then it gradually became something more. We invited filmmakers, started leaning more into larger subjects, using documentaries as a way in and just nerded out, laughing and having a fun time.
Something we’ve always wanted to emphasize is that this podcast isn’t ‘homework,’ which is how some people see documentaries; we want it to be accessible, at a time where docs are more ubiquitous than ever, and not just for film nerds.
QNS: Describe your process for collaborating on this project.
BR: We live across the country from each other, so we record on a video call podcasting service called Riverside. It works great. We try to prep at least two to three subjects per episode, unless we’re covering only one film or one director. Then we deep dive on them. Usually, this has involved me taking nearly incoherent notes now, every time I watch a documentary, which is often.
QNS: What’s it like working together?
BR: Jeff and I love to argue, especially about AI (which we’ve done several times on the podcast; I’m more of an optimist). We also can get into a deep-dive groove with each other because we’re such good friends.
Jeff Cerulli: We work well together because we have been friends for so long. Maybe too long!
QNS: Can you reveal your “secret sauce” for successfully combining comedy with documentary analysis?
BR: I wish there was a formula. I think the secret sauce is that we’re annoyed by bad media pretty easily, and we’re just honest – almost to a fault – about our feelings on things. Also, we’ve been comedian friends for a quarter century. There’s a shorthand now between us.
JC: Discussing true crime docs, you never want to make fun of victims because it takes courage to tell your story. But the genre of true crime itself is oversaturated and does so many things that lend itself to criticism. You are allowed to make fun of the tropes that you often see on so many paint my numbers true crime docs, like someone sitting in a chair to begin an interview.
QNS: Talk about how you guys first met.
BR: If you listen to my recent docuseries podcast ‘Searching for Allan Rothbart’ (about my dad’s crimes and deathbed tapes), I did nearly an entire episode about how Jeff and I met (it becomes important to the story). It was at the New York Comedy Club in 2001. My very first show (and one of his firsts, I think).
We were both nervous and spoke in the “green room” (which was more of a dinghy hallway), then connected over our love of the HBO sketch series ‘Mr. Show with Bob and David.’ Then we took off from there. Soon, we would hang out several nights a week at his apartment in Murray Hill (first going to a diner nearby called Morningstar, where I would get a real meal and Jeff would get a fruit salad) and we’d watch esoteric films, like ‘Gummo.’ God, that movie was insane!
QNS: Why should true crime fans flock to your podcast?
BR: Please. Come over! We even have a resident true crime expert, Nikki Vargas (Jeff’s wife), who’s an author and comes on all the time to nerd out about true crime.
JC (joking): Because we are legally forced to cover true crime.
QNS: Tell readers about some of the filmmakers you’ve invited on the podcast.
JC: Madison Hamburg did an amazingly personal documentary about his mother for HBO, called ‘Murder on Middle Beach.’ It was incredible to talk to him about the film because we were such huge fans of it. I also loved chatting with Elizabeth Lo, who made ‘Mistress Dispeller’ and another film called ‘Stray,’ that I also loved. And Jeremy Workman. We go way back with Jeremy and actually met him while we were making ‘Hungry,’ and formed a relationship with him back then.
QNS: What do you like about living and working in Long Island City?
JC: I am a lifelong New Yorker, and unlike Barry, I will never leave the Tri-State area. Barry, come back home!
QNS: What’s your favorite true crime doc and why?
JC: ‘The Imposter.’ I was completely blown away by it. It was operating on a level that was so far ahead of most true crime documentaries.
BR: ‘Murder on Middle Beach’ and ‘The Jinx.’ Love them both for being so suspenseful and so intimate. That’s my wheelhouse.
QNS: Is there a special moment that you consider the turning point in your career?
BR and JC: ‘Hungry,’ premiering at the IFC Center in New York, was so cool!
QNS: What makes The Podcumentary stand out from the rest?
JC: We learned so much in making ‘Hungry,’ and I think because we are filmmakers, it’s why we have such good rapport with the directors we have on the show. We aren’t random film critics, who have a podcast; we want to get deep into the process of making documentaries.
BR: Well, I think it’s our accessible comedy-forward take on docs, but also, there’s not really a lot of other podcasts about documentaries as a way to explore culture and the world. So, I think that stands out to begin with. But maybe your readers can just listen already and find out!