"All of Hitchcock — I don’t think I can even identify a particular film. After I transitioned out of the art world into film, I was doing a graduate degree at Columbia University and I took a class with Andrew Sarris, who I think is one of the treasures of the film world. We looked at an overview of Hitchcock during the two-year course, starting with his silents. And there are some extraordinary silent movies of his; I’m not sure how readily available they are, but there’s a phenomenal film — I think it’s called Murder! — and it’s silent, but it’s as tense as Psycho or The Birds or Notorious or Rear Window. [Editor’s note: Hitchcock’s 1930 film Murder! was one of his first talkies, but his 1927 silent, The Lodger, is one of his most celebrated. Both were released jointly to home video in 2002.] It’s a silent film, but it’s Hitchcock. All of his signatures, all the signifiers, everything we’ve come to know and love about Hitchcock, they’re all in play."

"Obviously Chinatown. Seeing Nicholson with his destroyed nose [laughs], as Polanski is slitting his nose by the reservoir and calling him “pussy cat,” and all that stuff; and him and Faye Dunaway, you know, it’s just extraordinary. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s one of the greatest screenplays ever written. I’m a huge Robert Towne fan, and a Polanski fan. And it was great on this movie — on Hitchcock — to work with John Huston’s son, Danny. He had some stories about his dad. [Laughs] That Noah Cross character [played by John Huston], I think is one of the darkest villains in cinematic history. Every little detail of that film, you know — whether it’s Gittes choosing the cheap bourbon at the beginning, rather than the expensive stuff; every single touch, I think, was masterful. It has such brilliance, and poise, and ultimately humanity to it. And again, it’s a story of power, of big city power and corruption and how power and privilege can destroy people and families. That’s a theme in Sweet Smell of Success as well."

"I will choose Singin’ in the Rain. To me, that symbolizes everything that can be great about movies. It’s just joyous, it’s just perfectly constructed. It’s just like everything came together; you know, there’s an alchemy that happens with certain films, which, however proficient you are as a filmmaker, however talented you are, and however many hits you’ve had, there has to be a sort of magic dust that happens somewhere. Often when it does, the whole world relates to it or engages with it in some way, and I think that film is such a good example of that. It happened with Casablanca. Just all these elements that could have gone wrong; any one of them could have been too much — too much sugar, too much salt, you know — but somehow the whole recipe’s perfect. And Singin’ in the Rain, to me… It’s like every scene I look forward to, and I can rewatch it endlessly. It’s just quite beautiful. They don’t make them like that anymore, I think."

"One movie that has always resonated with me is The Terminator. [laughs] I just loved it. Maybe it’s the fact that I was five when I saw this movie, so I was very overwhelmed by it. I felt the passion between these two individuals. I saw the strength of a woman. From the music, the robots, the technology… that movie was big because I saw it through the eyes of a five-year-old. I’m not gonna judge Terminator now that I’m 32, because obviously I’m gonna have a different take. I’ve evolved, I’ve seen different things, and life and technology and the way we see films has evolved, so it wouldn’t be fair to what Terminator represented when I was five. But that essence will never die. Terminator was very impacting for me. It really helped me a lot, to understand the kind of actor I wanted to be, and also the kind of movies and genres that I gravitate towards and absolutely love. That movie, seeing it at that age, was amazing."

"Grand Budapest Hotel is probably my favorite movie ever. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel so safe, and anytime I’m even remotely stressed, I’ll put on that movie and I feel like it transports me to another universe. It was the first Wes Anderson movie that I ever saw. The thing that sticks out to me the most is the humor. I find the movie really, really, really funny. And then of course the set design and the way that it’s shot – everything is so gorgeous. But for me it’s just one of those movies that keeps you on your toes. You never really know [what’s going to happen]. It’s a simple, classic, good story that’s just told so beautifully, that it feels so artful and considered, and I just really appreciate that. This list makes me realize that I really appreciate a director with real perspective, and the films are very stylized. That’s my vibe, and I think the Grand Budapest is an impeccable example of that."

"Another movie I’m going to give you is the same thing. I mean, it’s just that the writing is unbelievable, and that’s Sweet Smell of Success. It was a movie I discovered a little bit later, like maybe in my teens. And that was another move that I was just like, “Jesus, the writing on this thing, it’s unbelievable.” The one-liners are so smart, you know? I loved movies like Sunset Boulevard and I loved the kind of Hitchcock films and all of these kind of things and then I saw Sweet Smell of Success and I was like, “Oooh, this is a little bit naughtier,” you know what I mean? There’s something a little bit darker about that movie. The performances in it are so priceless. It was a little bit more of a leap in the cinematography, I think, than maybe those of, like, Sunset Boulevard or something. The lighting, it was very harsh. They were doing things with the cinematography that I was like, “Ooh, this is naughty,” like, “You’re not supposed to do that.” You know?"

"The reason I love it is it’s the ultimate adaptation. You know, memes coming out in your films. This guy makes a film every two, three years, is making, making, making, and all the money goes away and they come to him and they say, “Okay, you can make it for TV. You can make whatever you want,” and he walks up to a building complex and he goes right, The Ten Commandments in that building. How do you do that? He makes 10 movies in a year — three of them I think they released later on as features. And you look at them and they have the balls of a student movie, like a short film about killing. It’s just all about the process. It isn’t about hanging the guy or not hanging the guy, it’s just what it takes to hang a guy. And just stuff like that, that I just think, “How do you do that?” I don’t think it’ll ever happen — at least in my lifetime."