"This is a really obscure one, but there’s a really weird French-Canadian movie called Leolo. Roger Ebert loved it. He gave it a four-star review when it came out. The filmmaker, Jean-Claude Lauzon… He made two movies and then he died. It’s a really tragic story. It’s this surreal, messed-up story about a kid whose family is going insane, and so he comes up with these fantastical stories to escape from his world. I saw that movie when I was in high school, and it just made such an impression on me because of the way it balanced humor and absurdity, and surrealism, and then just tragedy. It’s great. I should probably see it again. I haven’t seen it in a couple of years, so I want to make sure it still stands up. That movie is another very particularly strange coming-of-age movie that will always be a reference for me."

"This movie has been a touchstone for me through my entire adult life. I first saw The Apu Trilogy when I was in art school, and I think I was confused or overwhelmed by it at the time—it was my first encounter with that kind of cinema. But it stuck with me, and I return to it over and over again because it’s endlessly beautiful. I love the economy of Ray’s shooting style; he always does these simple pans, or he’ll just have people walk toward and away from the camera. There are no complicated bilateral moves, and he really just goes with what’s in the frame. And his sound design is so powerful. These films manage to fit big political elements into tiny, familiar stories that follow the course of the life of a family. I got to see Pather Panchali in Portland on the big screen right before I started shooting First Cow, and it definitely had an impact on that film."

"The lack of interest in Fassbinder’s work depresses the hell out of me. For me, he is the birth of the new. His high-concept stories, told in bold dramatic strokes and with vibrant colors, teach us about everything from class and racial politics to family responsibility and true love. His theatricality comes out of the Brecht mold, but it is new, it is melodramatic and involving and funny, often bitter and ironic, always with good humor, but, for me anyway, never cynical. He wears his heart and soul on his sleeve. He traverses the taboo, attacks intolerance, and loves his characters so much, even if at first they appear totally unappealing. Fassbinder is an original, and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is one of his best films, made on the run like so many of his others. The world would be a better place if more people embraced movies like this one."