"One of the first ones I remember my jaw being on the floor. You know, that idea of who’s running the asylum [laughing]? And who’s really crazy and who isn’t? It was a spectacular film to me. Jack Nicholson — it was my first [time] being introduced to him in such an unbelievable way, and he didn’t seem like he was acting to me. He seemed like a crazy man. And he wasn’t acting, because I’ve subsequently met him and he is a crazy man! All the characters were — you know, I don’t need to say it. One of my favorite films. And I’ve always wanted to play Nurse Ratched."

"This is one of my favorite Ozu movies. On Ozu’s gravestone is the word mu, which in Japanese means “emptiness.” For me, emptiness and silence are very familiar, important family members, and I think the forms come out of emptiness. In the way Ozu makes movies, I feel deeply aware of emptiness. There is something very wise, quiet, and powerful in it. So Ozu for me is like a big brother who helps me remember from time to time the really important things about the form of moviemaking, which have nothing to do with manipulating the audience or being clever. Form can have something to do with truth."

"Another film I love is The Power of One, and that became one of my favorite films because I actually got the chance to work with Armin Mueller-Stahl, who is amazing, and I was also doing a film in South Africa at the time. I turned 14 in South Africa and had learned all about Apartheid and the country and the history of it, so watching that film in South Africa was wild, and I felt a definite connection to it. And it’s one of those films that not everyone knows about; you say The Power of One and a lot of people go, “What? I’ve never seen that.”"

"I’ll throw in my favorite documentary, which is Riding Giants. Any time it’s on, I stop what I’m doing and watch it because I’ve embraced the surfer lifestyle now. I’ve been in a 23 footer on Waimea and I was out there without a board. I had to and my wife thought I was crazy and my children were begging me not to go, but they were 23 feet that day on the North End. The Super Bowl was on and I didn’t care about the Super Bowl. I had to go out there when I got there just to do it. I’m an old frog man, you know?"

"One of the very few westerns, my favorite classical genre, in the Criterion Collection. How to make an almost huis clos in the immensity of Monument Valley? Only Ford had that secret. The apparition of the great John Wayne in the Ford family, as the Ringo Kid, in a beautiful tracking shot, made him a star. Later, Wayne said about Ford: “This made me a star, and I’ll be grateful to him forever. But I don’t think he ever really had any kind of respect for me as an actor until I made Red River for Howard Hawks, ten years later. Even then, I was never quite sure.”"

"“Serpentine!” The funniest movie ever made. A buddy comedy with unparalleled chemistry between the two leads, Peter Falk and Alan Arkin (and Cassavetes’s DNA is at work even beyond the Falk connection, as John would replace the director of the disappointing not-quite-a-sequel, 1986’s Big Trouble). Falk and Arkin are a mismatch made in heaven. Rumor has it this was Brando’s favorite movie and is the reason he signed on to The Freshman, which was written and directed by The In-Laws scribe Andrew Bergman. Richard Libertini almost manages to steal the film in the last act as an eccentric Central American dictator/ventriloquist/art-lover."

"Okay, this might be really cheesy. I can’t stop thinking about The Sandlot. I have a thing for retro movies. I mean, I know it’s not retro for a lot of people, but for me it is because, obviously, my age. The Sandlot is one of my favorite movies because of the storyline and because the characters are so young. It was just so interesting and so cool to see young actors give such big personalities to these characters. It was something that just stuck with me. I remember the lead guy [Tom Guiry] being really cute and just thinking that he was adorable."

"Well, I’m definitely a hopeless romantic and Titanic is one of my favorite movies. It basically came out when I was born, but my mom [showed me] Titanic when I was about — I want to say like eight, nine years old. It’s one of the movies I can never get tired of. I could watch it all the time. Actually, I had a really geeky moment: the make up artist that worked on this last film that I worked on — she had worked on Titanic, and I was like, “No way!” I freaked out and got to see a lot of behind-the-scenes pictures. I was totally fan-girling."

"I first encountered Alex Cox’s sci-fi slamdance when I was a sullen, unworldly, unformed teenager—which is the perfect time to find a movie both as rageful and as hopeful as Repo Man. So much of the film’s DNA has been Brundlefly’d with my own—from its hardcore-punk soundtrack to its corporate-conspiracy mindset—that I rewatch it at least once a year, just to make sure I can still connect with Otto and his legion of goons. And the cover artwork, by the great Jay Shaw, is absolutely my favorite bit of Criterion edition art (I’m still trying to track down a poster on eBay)."

"I really, genuinely don’t like favorite lists because you always leave stuff out. So there are a lot of important films I could put in like The Godfather Part II, perhaps, or The Godfather Part I, but I’m going to go with The Empire Strikes Back for number three only because it’s Empire Strikes Back! I don’t think I need to say why. It’s so good. It takes what arguably could be just a simple science fiction movie and really takes it to this other place that is just so engaging and so believable and dramatic as well. Not overly dramatic, but dramatic. I love that film a great deal."