"It’s a great movie, Italian, post-Second World War. These are all going to be foreign films. Miracle of Milan, I can’t even remember the plot, but when you asked me my favorite films, it just hit me again. It’s a story out of the wreckage of the Second World War, and the people finding a way and a reason to go forward. And that’s why it’s called a miracle"

"What else comes to my mind? Bicycle Thieves was always one I loved, too. Again, deeply moving, operatic Italian story. Impossible to see the film and not weep. The simple life of people just trying to get through the day in very hard times. High unemployment after the second world war — a bicycle is the ticket out of unemployment and poverty. That’s a film that also still works. I see it every couple years. I look at that again."

"This delicious novel is part war story, part love story. Set in the beginning of World War II, it tells the story of Italian Captain Antonio Corelli of Mussolini’s Army as they invaded Greece. On the island lives Pelagia, the daughter of a Greek doctor with whom Captain Corelli begins an affair, despite her engagement to a fisherman who is headed to join Greek forces. It is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever read."

"I wanted to throw in a film as well and this is a real classic. There’s a lot to say about it but what I really love is the location. It takes place in a vaguely French/Italian/Mediterranean environment. It’s like a fantastical Amalfi coast or Cote d’Azur seen through the eyes of a Japanese genius. Like all Miyazaki, it can be appreciated by people of any age and has deep, moving insights about growing up."

"Perhaps all directors only make films about themselves. If so, this film is the apex, the zenith, of all narcissistic or self-reflexive endeavors. It’s Freud gone Italian: alienation in autos and a screaming ascent into some rarified atmosphere, then, of course, what goes up must come crashing down. And then it peels another layer off to ask: what does a filmmaker do in midlife creative crisis? How does one reinvent authenticity? I think most directors ask themselves that daily."

"In the early 30s, Gabrielle Chanel introduced Jean Renoir to Luchino Visconti, who would become his assistant director for several films. In the early 60s, Visconti connected Chanel with Romy Schneider. This short film, part of an anthology feature on morality and love with segments directed by other Italian masters such as Fellini and De Sica, focuses on a society woman (Schneider dressed in CHANEL) and her unfaithful husband. The production could be seen as an homage to the designer’s world."