"Again, everybody dies. That is such the best, most-great formula for a true masterpiece film. A classic film should leave you thinking, “How in the hell did this idea ever get financing?” The director, Brad Anderson, does more with his small budget than most movies do with huge, fat mountains of cash. The moment the credits start to roll, I want to watch the whole story over again."

"Grand Budapest Hotel is probably my favorite movie ever. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel so safe, and anytime I’m even remotely stressed, I’ll put on that movie and I feel like it transports me to another universe. It was the first Wes Anderson movie that I ever saw. The thing that sticks out to me the most is the humor. I find the movie really, really, really funny. And then of course the set design and the way that it’s shot – everything is so gorgeous. But for me it’s just one of those movies that keeps you on your toes. You never really know [what’s going to happen]. It’s a simple, classic, good story that’s just told so beautifully, that it feels so artful and considered, and I just really appreciate that. This list makes me realize that I really appreciate a director with real perspective, and the films are very stylized. That’s my vibe, and I think the Grand Budapest is an impeccable example of that."

"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."

"All right, Stanley Kubrick was a genius, the master of the big, ambitious film that stuns the senses, like 2001: A Space Odyssey. But Paths of Glory is one of the last great triumphs of black-and-white filmmaking. It is also a tribute to the talent of Kirk Douglas, who here takes on the role of a French colonel in the trenches of the First World War with such explosive energy that one realizes how many films (and directors) were unworthy of Kirk’s genius as an actor—his first acting role, by the way, was onstage as the servant in Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, with Catherine Cornell, Judith Anderson, and my mother as the sisters and Ruth Gordon as the dreadful sister-in-law. Nobody has ever captured the First World War better on film (except perhaps for Jean Renoir in Grand Illusion, which is in a class by itself). A heartbreaking giant of a film, not a bad shot or a wasted frame in it; perfect filmmaking."