"This movie has been a touchstone for me through my entire adult life. I first saw The Apu Trilogy when I was in art school, and I think I was confused or overwhelmed by it at the time—it was my first encounter with that kind of cinema. But it stuck with me, and I return to it over and over again because it’s endlessly beautiful. I love the economy of Ray’s shooting style; he always does these simple pans, or he’ll just have people walk toward and away from the camera. There are no complicated bilateral moves, and he really just goes with what’s in the frame. And his sound design is so powerful. These films manage to fit big political elements into tiny, familiar stories that follow the course of the life of a family. I got to see Pather Panchali in Portland on the big screen right before I started shooting First Cow, and it definitely had an impact on that film."

"This one is on the list for nostalgic reasons, plain and simple. I saw it on TV as a child (on my mom’s recommendation, if memory serves) and knew I was watching something completely different than the rest of the brainless fare to which most kids are exposed. One vivid memory I have is of being scared by the film, but in that really great way kids are scared by things like the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz or the Pleasure Island sequence in Pinocchio. Though I’m sure I saw it in a pan-and-scan version, I was struck by the vivid colors of the film, and the scenes with little to no dialogue must have been as foreign to me as the beginning of Wall-E was for most kids this past summer. I’ve seen it a couple of times as an adult, and thankfully it stands up very nicely."

"Louis Malle is one of the great, underrated French directors. That’s the best film I’ve ever seen about children. It’s a very, very adult film so of course you have to take the kids very seriously. What is it they say? ‘Kids are father to the man,’ or something like that. What you are is what you were, really. It’s one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen; one of the saddest, most moving, genuine films ever. As a director I’ve done kids films — Slumdog has kids, and, I made a film called Millions — and it’s not easy to get kids to be good. You work hard at it. What is really difficult is to get every kid to be in the same film at the same time and I watch that film and every kid — and there’s a lot of kids in it, it takes place at a school — they’re all in the same film at the same time."