"This is just one of those movies that leaves you feeling queasy all over. Eating Raoul plays on all the stereotypical shock/schlock clichés typical of so-called B culture, which at the time (the early 1980s) was also being probed by Paul Bartel’s fellow Angelenos Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw (and perhaps further up the coast by the Kuchar brothers), who were also fascinated with and inspired by the prudish 1950s. Is there a moral here? Does there need to be? Why, exactly, is this film in the Criterion Collection? All questions better to put out of your mind when you pop it in."

"Wait—before we begin . . . Obviously, we can mention ten films from the Criterion Collection that have been deeply meaningful to us in one way or another, but once we have a list of films that we’ve loved or been affected by, do you actually feel capable of saying which films on the list you prefer or think are better? Because I don’t. I think we should just mention ten films, but we should announce at the beginning that the order of the ten is arbitrary. And as a matter of fact, the list of the ten itself—well, it isn’t arbitrary, but speaking for myself, on a different day I could easily have mentioned other films . . ."

"I loved when Criterion started making these massive box sets, like this and the Rohmer Six Moral Tales. The idea of including a second edition of a film you already love (in this case, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie; see also: Brazil) is genius and shows a complete mastery of the importance of supplements. I guess this is a fairly obvious and oft-cited pick, but oh, well. It’s incredible, and learning that the five films are included because they are the ones Cassavetes produced independently and that Gena Rowlands ended up owning the rights to was fascinating. Tricky rights issues can unfortunately cause masterworks to languish in undeserved obscurity, so the partnership that brought us this collection feels particularly monumental."

"One of the best of the past decade. I love that Criterion has already championed this, as it truly deserves to be among many of the classics in the collection. This is one of those rare movies that have the power to make you forget you’re even watching a movie in the first place, instead making you feel you’re witnessing someone’s life unfold. The main character (played by an actress who is so underrated for this sole role of hers) reminds me a lot of a cousin of mine when she was at that age, enough so that for me, watching it almost seems like personal insight into where her head was at in those years. Fish Tank also contains one of the most real, unique, and effective uses of classic hip-hop in a film that I’ve ever seen."

"When people have asked me suddenly, “What is your favorite film?” I have sometimes said “Contempt by Godard,” also in the Criterion Collection, and sometimes I’ve said “The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu) by Jean Renoir.” There are a couple of more recent films that seem to sometimes be my answer to that question, but those two have stayed on my “perhaps my very favorite” list for a long time. I first saw The Rules of the Game around fifty years ago, and I saw it again quite recently. Apparently I’m the same person I used to be, because I still felt that everything in the world is in that film, and I’m inside of it myself somehow. By the way, another French film that made an enormous impression on me was À nos amours by Maurice Pialat."

"My favorite Tarkovksy film is Stalker, and it would have been number two on my list if it were part of the Criterion Collection. But Solaris is great, too. Its main characters have no qualities that interest me, and some elements in the film seem purposely absurd. The clumsy pseudo-scientific dialogue, for example, or Kelvin’s ridiculous “futuristic” outfit with its unflattering yellow mesh shirt. And yet somehow I find myself absorbed into the world of these people I don’t want to care about. The images and pacing have a hypnotic effect that causes me to be like, “Oh no, Kelvin feels bad!” even though I don’t like Kelvin. You know that old saying about how a good actor can read the phone book and make it sound interesting? I feel like Tarkovsky could make a compelling film out of the phone book."

"When I’m not making my own movies, I’m usually working on a trailer for someone else’s. Since I was twenty-two years old, I’ve been a professional trailer editor. I began editing trailers for big Hollywood films (I was one of the editors on the trailer campaigns for the Scream movies, The Matrix movies, and a zillion others), but I eventually left that world and turned all my attention to art-house films. In recent years, I’ve had the unbelievable fortune to have created the trailers for several modern masterpieces now enshrined in the Criterion Collection, including Heart of a Dog, The Great Beauty, Yi Yi, Cameraperson, and Like Someone in Love. Another highlight in my trailer career was editing the rerelease trailer for The Battle of Algiers. Not only was there so much incredible material to use, but Pontecorvo’s masterpiece had always been one of my all-time favorites. It’s a huge influence on how I think about filmmaking, from the handheld camera work to its daring and quick editing to its strong use of music (Morricone!) to how Pontecorvo just throws a viewer right into the deep end from the get-go. Also, like the best documentaries (see The Thin Blue Line up the page a bit), it puts the responsibility on the audience to draw its own conclusions. The Criterion disc also includes some amazing extras, including a not bad rerelease trailer. ;)"

"I just have great fondness for that film. Zazie on the Metro is sort of interesting in that, in a way, you know there are other Louis Malle films that are probably better and/or more constructed or profound, or whatever you might say, but Zazie on the Metro‘s probably the first film I watched a lot, and may watch 20 times. I don’t know why; there’s just something very interesting about the way it was — the color of it; and the opening credits, it’s just got this train with this sort of sad, melancholic music, but the rest of the film is very anarchic. And the plot doesn’t really go anywhere particularly — it’s almost like, “And then this and then this and then this…” I don’t know. I just have a very fond feeling for it. It’s coming up on the Criterion Collection, which I’m really excited about."