"This is probably my favorite film in the whole collection. It’s a solid kick in the seat. Stellar staging, camera, choreography. Every inch of this film has a pulse. It’s the story of a director (Roy Scheider) who, at the end of his life, is editing a film and mounting a production. He knows he’s dying, but he doesn’t engage with that fact. That’s exactly how I would like to go: deep in my work. There were at least two periods in my twenties when I listened to Ben Vereen’s closing number, “Bye Bye Life,” multiple times a day for months on end. Looking back I don’t think I was having the best time in my head, but the song was very danceable."

"That’s probably my favorite film right now. Drinking Buddies was very inspired by this movie. I just love how it managed to be a real successful mainstream Hollywood comedy but it’s really complicated. The characters in this film are married, they have children, they’re still talking about open sexual relationships, and doing drugs, it just… it feels real to me, is how it feels. I’m very impressed by it, not only for its sense of humor which I think is spot on, but also for its sort of willingness to dip into dramatic elements and to have central characters who are not necessarily likeable all the time, who are, you know, sort of confused and behaving in very human realistic ways."

"My last one probably seems… it’s really true though: Friday Night Lights [laughs] is one of my favorite movies. And I only say it like that because I… look, I love it. Maybe it’s my love of football playing into it as well. I read the book before I saw the movie. The book is great. I was really into it and I thought, there’s no way the movie is gonna be as good as the book and, I don’t know — [director] Pete Berg did it for me. I’m a huge fan. Maybe it’s all those boys. I don’t really know what it is. Any time that movie’s on TV, I gotta watch it. It’s weird, I know; but you know, that’s me."

"When I was a kid it was shown each year around Christmas on Polish state television. No idea why—maybe the communist authorities hoped Marilyn Monroe would undermine the solemn spirit of Christian Christmas. It was a favorite of my father’s and I remember watching it with him as a kid and not getting any of the subtleties but just being gripped by that world, the cool characters, the beautiful images and places, St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, the car chase with booze coming out of punctured caskets, the party on the train, the music, the jokes. The charm hasn’t worn off over the decades, and Billy Wilder’s irony and generosity, and his wisdom about life, will forever remind me of my father."

"You know d’ast well this is my favorite film! Adapted from my super-violent memoirs, Marvel Studios brought to Earth the formerly little-known story of how a one-of-a-kind hero, YOURS TRULY, united a group of Kyln prison rookies and saved the whole krutackin’ galaxy! Bradley Cooper, an acclaimed cinematic thespian, starred as ME, while TV’s Chris Pratt turned in a surprising performance in what was SUPPOSED to be a supporting role (Don’t worry, Rocket fans, I got a “call” into his agent!). Still, this biopic was mostly factualistic. Only thing is, they messed up the title — the more accurate nomenclature is Rocket and Some D’ast Useless Flargs. I’ve offered it up free of charge for the sequel."

"My favorite Fellini movie changes as I age. At various times in my life, I might have cited 8½, The White Sheik, Amarcord, even Casanova or City of Women. The movies don’t change, of course. The viewer changes. And now La dolce vita speaks to me in its sweep and totality. As a younger man, I probably only responded to the higher-energy scenes, the orgy, the press corps, Ekberg. But now, at fifty-two, I’m flooded with sadness by the visit from Marcello’s father, and the Steiner storyline and the final moments provoke existential dread. The title used to seem like a winking joke to me. Now it feels more like a punch in the stomach. La dolce vita is forever."

"One of my favorites. It’s my two-year-old daughter’s favorite movie. She’s the green gargantua and my other son is the brown one, and she loves being the bad green gargantua. She’s obsessed with it, as I was. I grew up watching Japanese science fiction movies and I particularly, unlike most hard core film people, like dubbed movies — there’s something about that language and the translation that somehow fits into the movie; it’s like a weird poetry. There’s a beauty to these films, the Japanese character designs — there’s a human kind of quality to these things, which I love. Monsters were always the most soulful characters. I don’t know if it’s because the actors were so bad, but the monsters were always the emotional focal point"

"Probably my favorite book of all time because of the truthful, raw language—it sounds so modern. To think that it was written almost seventy-five years ago at the end of World War II seems both astounding and inevitable. Plain, honest communication and wild, spontaneous beauty were all that was left after they’d cleared away the rubble. Enter Holden Caulfield, an off-kilter personality balancing an unlikely mix of cruelty, kindness, truth, acceptance and rebellion in one rather average noggin. Holden represents a new type of heartthrob, presaging the bored, hyper-vigilant James Dean types of later cinema—the romantic nihilists, capable of loving fiercely in the moment but standing equally aloof from and critiquing their own emotions. The dawning of the age of emo."

"My current favorite Fassbinder film. A love story against all odds—the age difference is quite outrageous. Who would make a film like this now, about an older, somewhat stolid woman who finds unexpected happiness, for a time, with a handsome, younger Moroccan immigrant? Fassbinder walks a tightrope—it feels real and unsentimental, and he doesn’t shy away from cruelty, but he truly earns Emmi’s words to Ali: “Together we’re strong.” I admire the economy of the storytelling. The repetition of scenes (even camera angles)—when Emmi walks into the bar or sits on the stairwell eating her lunch—gives the film a fated quality. And I love the many strange moments when time stands still and everyone just stands there looking!"

"I’ll never forget when I saw Jaws in the theater, the impact it had on me — so much that I wouldn’t swim in a swimming pool for the rest of the summer. [Laughs] And I enjoyed so much hearing later how Spielberg had had a hard time working with the shark, so they had decided to not show the shark, and instead use the music, you know. The way they did that was just incredible; the way they would shoot so that you’d see just the shark’s point of view instead of seeing the shark itself. It taught me, as a feature filmmaker, how important music is and involving all your senses and all that. So that’s my all-time favorite movie — Jaws."