"For me, Criterion was an entry point for Asian cinema, which was really awesome. I started picking out films like Good Morning. Ozu is so beautiful. You look at the colors he’s working with, the stillness, the beauty. I tried not to put another Ozu on this list, but I had to include Tokyo Story also. I remember watching it for the first time and was like, man, so little happened but so much happened, and there’s such a wise grace. I hope we can see more films like this again."

"For me, Criterion was an entry point for Asian cinema, which was really awesome. I started picking out films like Good Morning. Ozu is so beautiful. You look at the colors he’s working with, the stillness, the beauty. I tried not to put another Ozu on this list, but I had to include Tokyo Story also. I remember watching it for the first time and was like, man, so little happened but so much happened, and there’s such a wise grace. I hope we can see more films like this again."

"I think I’ll probably have to go to from Seventh Seal to Seven Samurai. With Kurosawa using the tracking shots, the way he… the energy, just the kinetic energy on screen was amazing, especially with Japanese-style acting, which is very structured and very formalized, which then breaks out, and you’re slashing somebody in half. That is pure filmmaking. I just thought, “It’s just beautiful.” Again, another movie that’s about texture, and it’s a very different texture than you get growing up in America. That began my love affair with things Japanese."

"It’s Christmas and Jane Wyman is sad and lonely. She and Rock Hudson are on the outs, and she hasn’t come to her senses and realized that she should love him no matter what anyone else says. Her kids give her a television, to keep her company. As it’s presented to her, the delivery man says it contains “life’s parade at your fingertips.” Sirk’s camera dollies in and holds on Jane’s distraught reflection in the golden television screen. It’s the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened in a movie.#"

"There are lots of amazing Muppet Christmas movies, but none come to close to touching the heart of this scrappy little story of a young otter who just wants his mom to have what she wants for the holidays. Henson presents poverty without pandering, no small feat for a made-for-TV puppet show. In its own way, it’s a beautiful retelling of O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi. The talent show at the end has some of Henson’s funniest gags ever. And what exactly are those squirrels doing?"

"The Lives of Others would go in there. It’s just an amazing movie. And then he went and did The Tourist, which, I think, got a 20 percent rating on your site. We look at your website quite a lot. But, [The Lives of Others] was just a beautiful film. So many great movies coming out of Germany, like… Well, The Reader was a Stephen Daldry film, but it was all about coming to terms with their past. And also, Downfall was as well. God, I could continue forever because I love movies."

"Having always felt deeply impatient and limited by having to express myself in perfect grammar and punctuation (this was pre-apostrophe gate!), I am quietly reveling in the profundity of Mailhot’s deliberate transgression in Heart Berries and its perfect results. I love her suspicion of words. I have always been terrified and in awe of the power of words – but Mailhot does not let them silence her in Heart Berries. She finds the purest way to say what she needs to say. She refines… How beautiful are these sentences?"

"This is one of my favorite films. The way that Louis Malle shoots Jeanne Moreau—those are some of the most beautiful walking scenes I’ve seen. She’s walking in the rain with her head held high, lost in herself, mumbling, and with that amazing score being played by Miles Davis. There is something so modern about the film, and it feels like it opens so many doors. When I was making A Fantastic Woman, I was trying to get a little bit closer to the elegant approach that Malle used to capture Moreau’s presence."

"The second one is that incredibly brilliant movie Betty Blue, which I love because it opens with that incredible lovemaking scene with Béatrice Dalle. There’s just something so vivid and luscious about it. It’s just so beautiful and sensual in every regard and I absolutely love the film. I saw it recently and it’s just as brilliant. And the incredible soundtrack, you know. It’s just as brilliant as when I first saw it. Withnail and I and Betty Blue were both in the same period; they were both seminal cinematic experiences for me."