"I wanted to mention a Spanish film because I’m Spanish. Criterion just released — I think this week — they just released The Executioner. Not many people know that film but it’s been considered the best Spanish movie ever. It’s black and white, it was made in 1963, and it’s a black comedy about the death penalty. It’s about this guy who falls in love with the daughter of an executioner and how, somehow — we find one thing: that he’s becoming more into the position of the father of his girlfriend, and eventually he becomes an executioner. That was shown during the Franco regime under a cruel, ferocious censorship regime. It’s as funny as depressing. It’s a very unique film, and it’s considered probably one of the more important Spanish films ever."

"The Graduate is always a good one to have on my list. It’s hilarious, but also has that element of treading between comedy and drama and doing it so well, and actually being about something. It’s probably the best version of those films about rich people and their boring problems, you know, that anyone’s ever made. People have tried to do that since — that film has totally inspired generations of filmmakers. For me it’s just fresh. There’s also the energy of the actors: Hoffman, just young and going for it; he hasn’t become jaded. That film could come out today in a fresh print and still be incredible; everyone would think “Oh, Wes Anderson made a new film,” or “Sofia Coppola made a new film.” I’ve always loved that film."

"My number one top love story would be Pretty Woman. This film wins because unlike so many films, this wasn’t a romantic comedy, it was a romantic drama, and yet there’s humor, the performances were unbelievable, the chemistry between Richard Gere and Julia Roberts was palpable onscreen. It hearkens to fantasy, like “I can be struggling but someone’s gonna see my true me inside.” And it captures all of that in a way that, at the time, felt utterly fresh and original, and you throw in the ending, wonderful. Of these movies, truly, this one is really the only happy one. Patrick Swayze was gone, Leo, sorry, he didn’t make it. Rick doesn’t get the girl. And Baby goes home with her parents at the end of the summer."

"I would also put The King of Comedy. Certainly in my top three movies ever. I mean, it’s not underrated any more, because I think it’s certainly thought of as a classic movie, but at the time, it bombed like so many great movies did. I mean, it didn’t even get good reviews, which is insane. Like, I don’t know what its percentage it would have been on Rotten Tomatoes in 1983 when it came out. It’s such a great movie. And I think it’s sort of an endlessly fascinating subject, this sort of quest for celebrity, and the feeling that some have when they have it, which is just discontentment, and showing both sides of that fence really, really harshly. Jerry Lewis is just astounding in that movie."

"This is in no particular order, but Private Benjamin. That, I think, is a perfectly made comedy. I usually stop watching when she gets together with Armand Assante, not that I have anything against it, but for me, the movie’s over. [laughs] I thought Goldie Hawn was great, and the people who play her parents, those secondary characters whose names escape me now, do some incredible work. Albert Brooks – I just saw Private Benjamin again for the first time in four or five years a couple of months ago – he is amazing, he is so good. He’s only in the first couple of scenes, and he plays her husband and he has a heart attack on the night of their wedding reception. But it’s a great comic performance by Goldie Hawn."

"The Crossing Guard. Not a comedy. [laughs] The Sean Penn film, with Jack Nicholson and Anjelica Huston. I just remember that taking my guts out of my stomach and pulling them. I remember being doubled over – I went to see a matinee – and I was doubled over, and I was just… The loss of the innocence of this little girl. And I forget the name of the actor who plays the drunk who hits this little girl, but he wakes up, he comes to in the jail, and he realizes that he’s hit this little girl and he killed her, and he bangs his head into the bars, and he has this indent in his head for the rest of the movie. Probably more background than you wanted!"