"Another film with Alain Delon. It’s interesting — probably he was my favorite actor when I was 16, and then I was a bit disappointed of how he changed when he became older. I guess also politically, but that doesn’t matter. As a young man, he played some very enigmatic and wonderful roles. Another favorite film of mine … It’s a genre film, Le Samourai, by Melville. It’s an incredibly cool gangster film. Just the opening, I think, is 20 minutes where not a word is spoken and you always see Alain Delon with his hat and his trench coat. It is just an incredibly stylish and aesthetically wonderfully shot genre gangster film. In German, it’s the Ice Cold Angel, but the Germans always have these funny titles."

"My favorite — my number one favorite, actually — is A Woman Under the Influence. [Gena Rowlands] is just… I respect and admire her so much as an actress. I just think that performance is so brave and extraordinary. It was one of those things that, as a woman, as an actress, I kind of appreciate, you know. And also, that film is kind of a really, truly independent film. I think Cassavetes financed it, I think Peter Falk put money into it; kind of no one really believed in it. I was in a film a couple of years ago that a studio would never touch, a movie called Trucker, which was a great opportunity for me; but those sort of movies need to be independently financed."

"Salvatore Giuliano was my first introduction to Rosi’s work and today remains my absolute favorite of his films. It is the film that taught me that historical and political films don’t necessarily need to be didactic and lacking in tension and narrative energy. It is a film that explores the many shades of an incredibly important moment in Italian history, without judgment and without an overt agenda, and that is something I have always valued in cinema. Among the writers on the film is Suso Cecchi D’Amico, who coauthored some of my favorite films, including The Leopard, Bicycle Thieves, and Rocco and His Brothers. She is also credited on a film I hope Criterion will release in the future, Scorsese’s My Voyage to Italy."

"Breakfast Club. I was actually having trouble because I would say Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club, but that would be three. Of all three, Breakfast Club is my favorite. But those John Hughes films, with Molly Ringwald and the Brat Pack, those are my favorite grouped films. They’re just so… they’re timeless. I feel like, even when you’re watching them now, they’re so modern, and the characters are so real. They’re just so appealing to me. I watched them with my mom when I was really young. I always would watch things with my mom that maybe other moms wouldn’t allow their kids to watch. I associated with them right away. I just really, really love John Hughes."

"My second favorite film, I would probably say my most favorite documentary of all time, is a film called Brother’s Keeper by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky. Those are the same guys who did Paradise Lost and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. Brother’s Keeper is this amazing film about a brother who was murdered, and it’s this omniscient journey as the murder gets uncovered and the investigation is happening. You know, they take one of the brothers to court, and the story just unfolds in front of you in a way that’s so twisted and bizarre and weird. This, for me, represents what a great documentary does. It just kind of unfolds in front of you in a way you can’t expect."