When Titanic pulled into theaters 25 years ago, it quickly became an inescapable cultural

juggernaut. Everything about it was huge, its budget, runtime, box office, and accolades,

and it catapulted Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet into a whole new stratosphere of

fame. The parodies were seemingly endless. Titanic's massive success and ubiquity have

also made it easy to dismiss the movie as a cheesy romance only teenage girls could love.

But now that we've got some distance from Leomania and King of the World jokes, how does James

Cameron's epic hold up all these years later? I'm Linda Holmes and I'm Aisha Harris.

And near, far, wherever you are, we're talking about Titanic on Popculture Half-Hour from NPR.

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Joining us today is Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadadi. Welcome back, Roxana. Thank you.

And also joining us is writer Chris Klemick. Welcome back to you too, Chris.

Thank you. I'm so excited to discuss Jim Cameron's second best seafaring disaster romance

with you all.

Oh, right. Here we go. So in case you haven't seen Titanic, Kate Winslet plays the upper-class

rose. She boards the Titanic with her mother Ruth and her pompous older fiancé, Cal,

played by Frances Fisher and Billy Zane, respectively. Also a board ship is Leonardo DiCaprio's

Jack Dawson, a poor drifter who manages to snag a third class ticket in a poker game.

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