"This is the first film I purchased on DVD, and it’s the film I recommend most often. Though I consider Todd Haynes a feminist filmmaker, he has a tendency to leave his female protagonists much worse off than they were before as the end credits roll. His character arcs are vicious downward spirals, and they’re utterly compelling. When I teach this film in my class at the University of Illinois, I pair it with “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that is also about a wife and mother slowly unraveling under the pressure of her own femininity. At the end of a hard day, I often find comfort knowing that at least I am not Carol White."

"Lynne Ramsay is the best. Ratcatcher is by far the most influential film in my life. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched it. The Criterion DVD is great because three of her shorts are on it, and they’re just mind-blowing. What first knocked me out about her was not only the way she dealt with naturalism and nonactors but also the way she made me aware of the film frame. In her short Gasman, she cut people’s faces out of the frame so that you would see them slowly emerge as characters—she created human beings out of pieces and fragments. It completely changed the way I thought about framing. I gave Ratcatcher to every single close collaborator on We the Animals."

"This film and the Criterion label are synonymous for me. Its beautiful cover art and immaculate menus seem to fit perfectly with its lead character; it’s almost as if Max Fischer himself were unsatisfied with the original vanilla DVD release from Disney and produced a handcrafted one instead. The actual film is a brilliant gem by Wes Anderson, and one that still shines brightly today. Just in the past year, we’ve seen a number of films that walk in the shadow of this one. Of course, it wouldn’t have inspired so many movies, music videos, commercials, and TV shows if it wasn’t such a distinctive effort. This is an undeniable cult classic, one that every Max Fischer on the planet has on their shelf."

"It’s this old Hollywood musical variety show type of thing. Really epic Technicolor. There’s an Esther Williams thing in there where she’s just swimming and being beautiful. It’s a beauty-based film. All the money wasn’t popped into special effects, obviously. It was popped into building really grand sets, really great costumes, really, really good makeup. Like, whatever. I saw that in college. One of my friends showed it to me in his apartment. I was like, “What the f— is this?” And then I bought the DVD and [now] I toss it in once a month, at least in the background. I don’t really actually follow the movie straight through. I just kinda fast-forward to the parts that look cool."