"""When it comes to documentaries, I am not a fan of current trends of reenactments and celebrities reading the words of unavailable subjects. Skip the elaborately constructed interstitial animations and give me old-school talking heads and archival footage with scripted, voice-of-God narration to help move me where you want me to go. The Times of Harvey Milk is what I’m talking about. Winner of the 1985 Oscar for Best Documentary, Rob Epstein and Richard Schmiechen’s powerful account of the assassination of San Francisco’s first openly gay elected official remains one of the most riveting documentaries ever made. It tells the story of San Francisco’s gay community and the fight for gay rights in the late 1970s through dynamic talking-head interviews, gripping archival footage, and devastating narration by Harvey Fierstein. It is also one of the very few gay-themed films to be selected for the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry."

"I choose this not because it’s my favorite but because, alongside the great sixties and seventies documentaries of Ken Russell and Peter Watkins and the films of Nicolas Roeg, this was a big influence on the stylistic choices I made when approaching my film SHOT! It’s so excessive and theatrical, and the choreography is of course stunning, but Fosse’s complete irreverence toward the subject of his own death is what really gets me."

"You can put the Grey Gardens documentary in there. That’s pretty amazing. You know, Mike Sucsy is a friend of ours and I think he did such an extraordinary job in remaking that movie. I thought it was great, and so colorful and fun, you know, to watch Drew Barrymore really stretch herself, and Jessica Lange again. She’s just incredible. But Grey Gardens really is a great documentary. I love watching documentaries. Slice of life, you know?"

"I’m a documentary freak. Two-thirds of the movies I watch are documentaries. Hoop Dreams is a sweeping, stirring, myopic study of two young men on differing paths, both with dreams of becoming NBA players. It is, of course, not so much about basketball as the personal and social struggles of two young men attempting to do what so many young men try to do every year. Uplifting and tragic, it may be the best sports documentary ever."

"For a period of time, I thought I might only make documentaries. Films like Gimme Shelter had a lot to do with this attitude. Why make narrative work when real life was so interesting? I loved the Maysles approach to filming; I loved the Rolling Stones during that period; I loved the controversy surrounding the film. It still kind of seems like the perfect movie. Anytime this is playing in the theater, I try to see it."