"A masterwork codirected by Emeric Pressburger and the sui generis Michael Powell, whose twisted imagination I revere. As usual, Powell and company go to extremes—nuns in love, isolated high up in the Himalayas. Interestingly, Powell felt this was his most erotic movie. It is worth watching for the seductive color scheme alone."

"I remember being thrilled by the way this film begins. Actually, the whole movie is charming. Michael Powell is one of the best."

"My wife worked with Michael Powell, and treasures this as her favorite movie. Although I am genuinely fond of the film, it did not make my first cut. Upon reflection, however, its inclusion seems prudent."

"See above about Michael Powell. This was the first picture of his I ever saw, and it is possibly the creepiest. He and Susan Sontag have similar ideas about photography as memento mori. It takes a certain amount of hubris for a filmmaker to liken his own profession metaphorically to a particularly perverse form of serial killing."

"This is a film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger that was called Stairway to Heaven when it was released in America. I saw it as a child and it really fascinated me, the idea that death was debatable, and it also drilled into my mind how life was so precious and flimsy. I also love how all the famous characters from history are seen in Heaven taking part in the debate. Powell/Pressburger are amazing filmmakers, and I wish we had more like them these days. “Magical realism” is a rather trite phrase, but their films are both magical and real."

"This was the first Powell film I ever saw. I saw it when it first came to New York, where it played for only a few days in its initial run, or so I figured when I tried to go back and see it again. I fell in love with that film, partly because of where it took place, partly because of who was in it, partly because of the way the music slipped in and out of it, and mostly because I could see that Michael Powell, whoever he was, was my leader. Years later, when I finally met him (I was trying to make The Riddle of the Sands with him, but couldn’t raise the money), I spent an entire lunch recalling all his lines from I Know Where I’m Going! In the face of my slavish foolishness, I remember he was most gracious."

"Well, England is to my taste a great, great film country. I don’t think any filmmakers have been greater than Hitchcock, fabulously represented in the Criterion Collection by The Lady Vanishes and a great box set, Wrong Men & Notorious Women; Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, represented by many films, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (one of their very best, also made during World War II); and of course Mike Leigh. Topsy-Turvy is so fascinating, because Mike Leigh celebrates precisely the approach to acting that he has driven his own actors farther and farther away from in his own films."

"A film that is the cinematic antipode of The Battle of Algiers. Photographed by the great Jack Cardiff, designed by Alfred Junge (both of whom received Oscars for their work here), this film was considered by Michael Powell to be the “most erotic” of all his films. That it takes place within a community of nuns gives his claim a deliciously profane edginess. It is the film that made me first realize how much cinematography can and should contribute to the emotional, dramatic thrust of a movie. It was also a great influence on my own film, the never released Mariette in Ecstasy, a bittersweet experience that made me realize how much more freedom I would always have as a cinematographer than as just another struggling director trapped in the Hollywood system."

"The beautiful music by Miklós Rózsa (the first film score ever released as a recording), the photography by Georges Périnal, the production design by Vincent Korda, and the performances by the Indian child star Sabu, Conrad Veidt, and the entire cast make it the most beautiful fantasy film I’ve ever seen. Like Snow White and The Wizard of Oz from the same period, this type of fairy tale depends on an innocence that has long since vanished, but I think it still works its magic today and is better than all the computer-generated children’s films of the last twenty years combined. Michael Powell, who was only one of many directors who made different sections of the film, attributes its true authorship to the genius of Sabu and the vision of its great producer, Alexander Korda."

"Quintessential Englishness and the quivering heart that beats beneath the stiff upper lip. This is a most wonderful story about love and friendship, and how duty can get in the way of both. Perfect performances by Anton Walbrook and Deborah Kerr, and Roger Livesey as the colonel. When Theo, played by Walbrook, the colonel’s adversary in wartime but now his friend, announces to him that Edith (Kerr) and he are to be married, both the colonel and Edith realize that his stiff upper lip has gotten in the way of their chance at real love. The directors capture this moment so tenderly and beautifully it is impossible not to cry. Set against the backdrop of forty years of twentieth-century war, it is a very sad film that is also both exciting and hilarious. Churchill decided it was negative propaganda and banned it. Michael Powell proposed marriage to Miss Kerr in Hyde Park, opposite the entrance to the Dorchester hotel. She declined. A movie about broken hearts."