"Next one would be Contempt by Godard. The first time I ever saw it, on a VHS copy 25 years ago, I thought it was the worst movie I’d ever seen. Actually, every Godard film I’ve ever seen I’ve hated the first time. But it got re-released a number of years back and I was in New York and saw it at the Film Forum, and I felt like I was seeing Halley’s Comet, you know — I couldn’t believe how wrong I was; how much I’d despised this film the first time I saw it and how much my second viewing was completely the polar opposite reaction. I think the performances, from Bardot and Piccoli to Jack Palance, to, you know, Cotard’s photography and Delerue’s amazing repetitive score… to me it’s one of those Godard movies where it’s a perfect balance between heart and mind, you know? Oftentimes his films are extremely heavy, but this film was not only heavy — you could forever gaze into it on repeated viewings, as it appeals to your intelligence — but it also appealed to your soul. It was a huge, huge inspiration for Blue Valentine, especially the middle section of Contempt, where it feels like this 45-minute sequence where this couple is in their apartment."

"This is a weird tie. But A Room with a View was my favorite movie when I was nine. And it really screwed with my head. It’s so over-the-top romantic, and I remember it made me dizzy with desire. I really expected nothing less than Julian Sands in a Tuscan poppy field from my adult romantic life. And Criterion is about to release it . . . I’m really excited about this. Honestly, I haven’t seen it since I was like fifteen, so it’s high time to revisit it. But I’m a little scared to revisit it, too, so I’m pairing it with another about-to-released Criterion movie, Agnes Varda’s Documenteur, which I saw recently at Lincoln Center and really, really loved. Documenteur is this gorgeous, weird portrayal of heartbreak and aimless wandering through a strange city trying to find an apartment. Watching it gets you in touch with all the times you’ve felt horribly depressed and also overwhelmed by the beauty and color of everything around you. It’s kind of about what happens after you get together with Julian Sands and have a kid with him and then you separate and suddenly you’re a single mother wandering around Los Angeles crying."

"You know, I really get into… I can just throw it out there, because it was a great… it really was really good, but Shut Up, Little Man. It’s a documentary. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s about these two guys that move into an apartment in San Francisco. And their next-door neighbors are the worst neighbors you can possibly imagine. It’s these two older gay gentlemen that have the worst relationship that anyone could ever have. And they spend all hours of the day just screaming at each other. And so these two guys started recording these arguments. I remember in the 1990s, back before the Internet, if you wanted these odd, like, socially passed-around… Remember like Faces of Death? You could get a VHS copy of it? And so this was… You could go to certain independent record stores and they’d have a small collection of these bootlegged cassette tapes of their arguments. And I remember when we were doing Empire Records was the first time I heard these. And it’s the story of the guys that recorded… They track down the two guys that recorded all these things that were passed around through our generation. It’s a pretty amazing documentary. It’s pretty good."

"When I was first living in Los Angeles. I was in love with a French girl, now my wife, and I became immersed in the way her culture viewed life. There was a different set of priorities at work, a value of simplicity and pure ingredients, both in the food and the filmmaking. This film blew my mind. The cast is all children. It contains one of the great suspense sequences of all time: a toddler climbing out an apartment window trying to reach a kitten while his mother talks on the phone, ignorant to the tragedy at hand. Another vignette follows an older boy teaching a younger boy how to pick up girls. Very French, but so honest and pure. I remember watching the extras on the DVD of A Man and a Woman, another great film. The crew consisted of a handheld Bolex and a sound recordist, mostly natural light. Everything was in the eyes, the body language — just two people learning each other. It informed the way I made Safety Not Guaranteed. Stripped down, but not messy or ugly. Clear and audible sound, like what your ears would capture if you were there. Intimate. Real. The best."

"This is a weird tie. But A Room with a View was my favorite movie when I was nine. And it really screwed with my head. It’s so over-the-top romantic, and I remember it made me dizzy with desire. I really expected nothing less than Julian Sands in a Tuscan poppy field from my adult romantic life. And Criterion is about to release it . . . I’m really excited about this. Honestly, I haven’t seen it since I was like fifteen, so it’s high time to revisit it. But I’m a little scared to revisit it, too, so I’m pairing it with another about-to-released Criterion movie, Agnes Varda’s Documenteur, which I saw recently at Lincoln Center and really, really loved. Documenteur is this gorgeous, weird portrayal of heartbreak and aimless wandering through a strange city trying to find an apartment. Watching it gets you in touch with all the times you’ve felt horribly depressed and also overwhelmed by the beauty and color of everything around you. It’s kind of about what happens after you get together with Julian Sands and have a kid with him and then you separate and suddenly you’re a single mother wandering around Los Angeles crying."