"The next one I’ve given is a given. It’s Star Wars. It’s definitely a part of my childhood. It’s hard for me to pick — I think Empire is probably my favorite of the three. But if I was to pick one, I think the first Star Wars would have to be the one, because that’s the one that I remember most. I was a Star Wars fanatic growing up. I guess I still am. Pretty much for everybody who grew up in the 1980s as well, it’s a symbol of their childhood. And most people — it reminds me back home in Ireland it used to be on every Christmas. It was sort of… You got all the action figures and all that kind of stuff. And it was just an incredible, incredible movie, and then when [the others] came out, they were sort of events when I was a teenager — that you wanted to go see them. Even if they weren’t as good."

"This is my favorite. It’s A Woman Under the Influence by John Cassavetes. What I love about his movies — especially this film too — is just the performances are so brave. The characters are so unpredictable. They’re so full of life. Also, there’s such a social commentary in this movie about how society doesn’t allow people to be who they really are, and I just find that a great metaphor for so many things in one’s life. I thought, “Through this one relationship, I’m moved in such a deep way.” I also love how Cassavetes pushes the performances so far that it finds this kind of amazing poetry at a certain point. I particularly remember this scene where Gena Rowlands is basically just so misunderstood and so cut down and beaten down that she finds this physicality. It was almost like a moment of ballet. I just think there’s something very genius going on in that film and very brave and I love it. It’s a beautiful film."

"This was my grandfather’s first cinematic gift to me. He was a filmmaker who made commercials in Italy in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, and he loved Visconti, who was always his favorite. So he would make me watch films regularly, and this was one of the few that could have felt like homework but didn’t. I love where the film comes from, in terms of the evolution of Visconti’s career. I like that he started off making this pretty dogmatic neorealism and then went on to make this operatic film. The difference between the two approaches is a really beautiful manifestation of his ability to grow as an artist and also to just do multiple things. His cinematic language changed based on the people who populated his frames, and this movie feels grand because it’s got cinema royalty in it, like Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale. The frame feels like it’s the right size and scope and weight for people of that stature."

"Blade Runner goes down as one of my favorite movies and I have to watch it every opportunity that I get to watch it; and it seems to me that every single time I watch it, I discover something that I never knew was there. I mean, the fact that that movie was close to 30 years ago, it’s absolutely astounding. I actually watched it recently again and — you look at it now and it’s just — the set design and the way that thing is shot, it feels… it’s absolutely amazing. You can’t say that of some movies. Like, if you go back and watch Alien — the first Alien — it looks dated now. It really does, because of how much technology is moving forward and the kinds of things that are being done onscreen because of CGI. But if you go back and watch Blade Runner, it’s incredible how well it’s held up over time. It’s amazing."

"To pick one last one, I would say… That’s hard, because I have many in my mind right now. I loved Melancholia, but I also loved Room. They’re very different. I would say those two movies, but for many different reasons. So if I have to keep one, well, let’s keep Melancholia. That was a shock because visually it was so interesting, but also I will always remember that first shot, my entire life. That big limousine was stuck and then it’s like, two persons, and you know it’s never going to work and that was that. Amazing cleverness in that shot. And also, talking about the fears and talking about depression and talking about how do you deal with that big world which is too big for you. But also a movie that’s very free. I’m just realizing I’m keeping movies that are very free. Don’t ask me my five favorite songs, please. [laughs]"

"My favorite film of all time is Jaws, for a number of reasons. I think it’s a perfect film; everything about it works. Obviously, the music — there are not many theme songs that actually elicit an emotion. From the floating barrels, the scene where Sheriff Brody’s on the beach, and stuff keeps blocking his view while he’s trying to see what’s going on and you’re in the audience [cringing]…additionally, my dad took me to see it in the theater when I was seven; he’s from Argentina and I guess he didn’t understand the rating system. The R rating meant nothing to him at the time. He bought me a Jaws movie poster afterwards and I stuck it in my bathroom and shut the door, and I didn’t open the door again for two years. I thought that when I opened the door, water and a shark would come pouring out and eat me. For the longest time, I couldn’t go in swimming pools."

"One of my favorite films is Red Sorghum, by Zhang Yimou, who’s an incredible director — just incredibly visual. The way that he shoots a film and takes a time in history and connects it to somebody; he takes a moment in somebody’s life and also connects it historically to what happened between the Japanese and the Chinese during the war. I just think it’s so elegantly done. It sort of shows not just what’s going on in the family itself, but links that personal story — you get involved in that and then connected to the backdrop of the war, how their family, how their business all kind of connects. It’s incredibly heartbreaking and very real. It was very impactful. I saw it when I was in college, and I was destroyed. [Laughs] Destroyed by that movie. There’s a quality in his movies that really stands out, that I haven’t really seen in a lot of other movies."