"This is definitely on my list of the greatest movies ever. I saw it in the theater and it was the first time I actually experienced hypnosis in cinema—a conscious hypnosis. It’s one of the mysteries of filmmaking for me—why does it work, and how does it work?—but to be honest I don’t want to look into it because I want it to stay a mystery. If I were running the Library of Congress I would make a 70 mm copy of this and put it in a nuclear shelter, just in case."

"I remember the impact Lucrecia Martel’s debut feature had on film students, critics, and fellow filmmakers. It was released on one single 35 mm print in Brazil, and that was shredded over a period of a year after playing in just about all noncommercial movie theaters around the country. I love everything about this film: the obliqueness of it, the fresh and bold take on sexuality, the use of sound, the faces and bodies. It was also quite a reference for a filmmaker like me, who like Martel believed films could be about people interacting with a certain feeling of space and time, mediated by cinema itself."

"Again, limiting myself to only one film per director, I went with Mon oncle to stand for Tati’s body of work. It was hard not to pick Playtime, but now that I’ve seen it a few times in 70 mm, I’m not sure I can ever bring myself to watch it on television (and I own the Criterion version). I had the opportunity to see M. Hulot’s Holiday a number of times as a teen and in college, but it never did much for me. Mon oncle was different. It was a revelation, so charming and brilliantly inventive, yet understated. It is a film I can watch again and again (and I have)."