Rhett Reese

"Okay. I’m going to Once, which is a little Irish musical made by John Carney. It’s got the best music ever. So many movies look at extraordinary circumstances and it just looks at the most ordinary circumstances. There are no bad guys. There are no dramatic turns. There are no big twists. Nobody dies. Nobody gets sick. It’s just simple. It’s about two people who meet and really start to fall for each other, but it can’t work at that moment, and they pass like ships in the night. It makes me cry."

"Number five, Vertigo. I had to go with one old movie. It’s a movie about obsession. I think it probably captures obsession better than any other movie before or since that I’ve seen. It’s got incredible rewatchability. I think — of all the movie’s I’ve ever watched — it’s the movie that gives me goosebumps most frequently from start to finish. If you could describe a movie as being funny or scary, funny is supposed to provoke laughter and scary is supposed to provoke your heart to race. That movie is just the right amount of goosebumps. It is the movie that produces goosebumps and that’s the reason I love it and I’ve watched it many, many times. It’s gorgeous, too — in San Francisco — and there are other reasons, but it’s just so wonderfully creepy and cool. The score of Vertigo, too, is so phenomenal — Bernard Herrman. It’s very, very memorable, and it gets to the point where, even after I’ve seen the movie, I’m humming the score. Anyway, that’s my number five."

"Shakespeare in Love is my next one. It holds up so great. I’ve seen it about 15 times. All these movies are movies that I watch a bunch, and that’s my ultimate test is can I watch them over and over. Shakespeare in Love totally holds up. It is a phenomenal metaphor for Hollywood. That’s what I love about it. It’s probably the best movie about Hollywood ever made, even though it’s not about Hollywood because it’s about writing and financiers and actors, and it just rings so true. And it’s also a movie that I don’t think… I can’t speak for you [to Wernick], but I could never have written it because it very much feels of its time, and I think that’s a particular voice. Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard did it, and it’s just a particular voice that would be incredibly hard to ape, I think. It has probably my favorite shot of all time about love, where it’s just a push in on Joseph Fiennes as he’s looking at Gwyneth Paltrow. It’s a push in on both of them, and just the look on his face and her as the object of his love; it gets me every time. Then, of course, it’s got all that Shakespeare weaved in — Romeo and Juliet, actual lines from the play. There’s a segment right in the middle of the movie where they just do Romeo and Juliet for a montage for about five minutes straight, and it’s showing all these different things, but the words are all Shakespeare, and I love it. I just love it."

"Number two for me is Manhattan, Woody Allen. It’s so real-life. Again, not about any extraordinary things. It’s really true to life and true to psychology. It’s funny. It takes me to Manhattan, which I love New York City. Woody had to be on the list and, for me, he comes in at number two. Also one of the great endings in history. The score, George Gershwin … It’s amazing."

"Okay, we’ve gotten to number one for me. I know you’re not going in order. Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner — my favorite movie. I’ve watched it, again, about 15 or 20 times. The final shot, also perfect, maybe even better than Once. The helicopter up in the sky with them throwing the baseball. To me, it’s perfect. It is a perfect movie, and it also contains the single best moment of love on screen of all time — I’m getting emotional talking about it — which is when he says, “Am I crazy to build a baseball field in the backyard? Do you think I’m crazy?” And his wife says, “Yeah, but I also think that if you really, really think that you should do it, then you should do it.” It’s like if you really, really want to do it, you should do it. But then ultimately, the end is the best father-son — “Dad, do you want to have a catch?” I hardly can talk about it. Kind of the reason I became a screenwriter. I love it that much."