"The seemingly precious whimsy of Wes Anderson’s style masks a sensibility that is at once delicate and magnificently imaginative. The Royal Tenenbaums has been described as an adaptation of a great novel that doesn’t exist, and it is set in an upper Upper West Side that also doesn’t exist. Anderson literally creates a world of his own to explore the most primal emotions and family dynamics. There is so much to savor—the sweat suits, the enchanting music, Gene Hackman on a tricycle—and the DVD is also a world of its own, as beautifully packaged as, well, a Wes Anderson film, with Kent Jones’s lucid manifesto defining Anderson’s particular brand of genius, and a great gallery of production design drawings."

"Last one. I’m going to go with The French Connection, because it’s one of the most incredible cop movies and pulp movies there is. The camera work, Gene Hackman, the shots from up on the rooftop looking down. That chase scene alone puts it on this list. You hear how they made that movie, and you really feel the bare hands that went into that thing, and it just reset how you make a movie like that. You know, totally changed the game on that level. Just seeing that car barrel through the streets, you feel the danger and you feel the pressure of all of these things. It’s doing pulp in a whole new way and in a visceral way. Then, on top of that, you have these people with real stakes and real things happening to them, and [director William] Friedkin, he’s a king."

"Well the next one is less action oriented. This is where I began to struggle. Because I had my first four and was like, “Okay, that’s perfect,” and then I had to pick another one. This decision is a bit tough; there’s a three way tie for this, I should say. I’m going to pick The Conversation with Gene Hackman and John Cazale. And the reason I’m thinking this is, I did a movie with Anthony Hopkins called The Rite, and the director of photography — we talked a bit. And he really wanted to have that ’70s feel and stuff — it’s when they just started to use the zoom lens for the first time, and how innovative it was. And then in the 1980s, it became overused and used for the wrong reasons and all that kind of stuff. The Conversation is one that, if you watch The Conversation for the opening sequence where you hear a conversation taking place as the master — this zoom from way up is zooming in over a park. And I was just absolutely blown away by it because you can hear exactly what’s happening, but you don’t see. You’ve got no idea who’s talking. You don’t know where they are or what’s happening. I was blown away. And Gene Hackman is one of my favorite actors. I just think he’s incredible; I could watch him read the phone book. I could watch him pretty much not do anything [laughing]. You just wonder what’s going on in his mind. He’s one of those actors who is saying one thing, but you know there’s so many different things going on inside of his head. You just never know exactly what it is and stuff. I love that. I love being kept guessing. Francis Ford Coppola is one of the greatest directors of all time, and what I thought was great was that it sort of embodies that period of time. Even though it was made in the ’70s and it’s a very specific ’70s movie, I think it’s very, very particular to today. You know, with surveillance and all that kind of stuff. And I just think the whole idea of it is incredible, and it’s just so well made."

"With my friend Morgan [Freeman]. It’s so funny, these movies, the ones that I’m pulling out, they all have the same element. They feel perfect. I can’t find a false note, I can’t find a scene or a moment that you could lose and the movie would still be as good. There’s not a wasted breath. I think that Unforgiven is some of Clint Eastwood’s best work. I love westerns — I grew up on them — watching them and playing them around the barn in Buffalo. This is a different western, again, this is a broken guy who’s hanging on by his fingernails. He’s been a dirt farmer, he’s lost his wife, this is his last shot. That’s funny, it’s a little like The Verdict in that respect. None of it is pretty. It’s not slick, it’s not the balletic gunfighting that you see in some movies. It’s ugly and awkward and it’s not easy to kill a man. That was one of the themes that just stuck out like a sore thumb. This is not an easy thing to do, kill a man. For all the glamour and all the romance of the old west and the gunfights and so on, this is awful work, guns. They brought that to life. Gene Hackman can do no wrong. He’s sort of an acting god."