"I always come back to this idea of chaotic femininity or chaotic femme. It’s a discourse I have with some of my nerdier friends, like a standard for representations of women that we gravitate to and are driven crazy by. What Assayas does in this film, with the layers of fiction and reality, and representation of representations of representations, is similar to Mulholland Dr.: he interrogates this idea of the actress and the very idea of a character, and leaves you with a queasy feeling about what it all adds up to. What I love about this, particularly as embodied in Juliette Binoche’s performance, is the idea of a woman who is resigned to a downfall and is just fascinated to see how it all plays out. What is this thing that leads women with stable socioeconomic circumstances and certain amounts of privilege (in this case, fame and fortune) to self-destruct? It’s an endlessly fascinating question to me, and I love the way this film explores it. I also immensely enjoy seeing American stars like Kristen Stewart and Chloë Grace Moretz in this complicated, dark, serpentine French film. Those are some of my favorite performances by each of the three women. I love films about actresses; they always hit me right where it hurts."

"The television cut of Fanny and Alexander, of course, which is the one and only version Bergman approved of. It is called the television version because that’s how it was financed, but this is meant to be seen on a big screen with one intermission. It is Bergman’s final masterpiece. Well, not exactly, as he kept on making great films for years afterward. But in the master plan, this is the last actual film, the closing of his main body of work—others are supposed to be footnotes (they’re not). Initially, this film was overlooked because, in the shortened so-called theatrical version, it lost some of the richness of its texture. It was only gradually, when it was revisited in its full version, that it imposed itself, at least on me, as the key to his whole body of work. I had to fit Topsy-Turvy into this list. It is also a period piece. This misunderstood, underrated biography of Gilbert and Sullivan must be one of the most touching, funniest—and cruelest—depictions of show business, split between art and commerce. We see both the torments of creation and the anxieties of the box office. To me, it compares only with Jean Renoir’s French Cancan."

"The television cut of Fanny and Alexander, of course, which is the one and only version Bergman approved of. It is called the television version because that’s how it was financed, but this is meant to be seen on a big screen with one intermission. It is Bergman’s final masterpiece. Well, not exactly, as he kept on making great films for years afterward. But in the master plan, this is the last actual film, the closing of his main body of work—others are supposed to be footnotes (they’re not). Initially, this film was overlooked because, in the shortened so-called theatrical version, it lost some of the richness of its texture. It was only gradually, when it was revisited in its full version, that it imposed itself, at least on me, as the key to his whole body of work. I had to fit Topsy-Turvy into this list. It is also a period piece. This misunderstood, underrated biography of Gilbert and Sullivan must be one of the most touching, funniest—and cruelest—depictions of show business, split between art and commerce. We see both the torments of creation and the anxieties of the box office. To me, it compares only with Jean Renoir’s French Cancan."