"Before I read Achebe as a child in Nigeria, I read only foreign children’s books, and so I wrote about the same things I was reading – all my characters were White and the stories were set in England or a generic Westernised country. I had not read books that featured people like me, so I thought that books couldn’t include people like me. Until I discovered Achebe. I didn’t realise it at the time, of course – I was too young to be consciously aware of that sort of thing – but later I would realise that reading Achebe was a turning point. It made me see that it was, in fact, possible for people of colour to exist within literature. Arrow of God has remained one of my favourite novels. Set in 1920s Igboland, it tells the story of a remarkable priest, Ezeulu, and a British administrator, and the ways in which colonialism brought not only political but cultural changes. It is funny and absorbing, moving and beautiful. I love this book."

"I love what he was trying to say in that song, it touched me. He was trying to connect people and give them this earthy feeling - that we're all connected in some way. And the melody is just incredible. “The funny thing about this song is that you can drop it mid-set, maybe mix it into SVW's “Right Here” to keep it moving. You’ve got to find ways! That's the beauty of the whole DJing thing. Why not drop “Nice & Slow” and then the tempo of “Human Nature” is around 60, 63, 64 BPM. If you double it, it's the same speed as a fast dance tune, so you can just put a dance beat underneath and then you're in the mix. So this one I try and play out when I can. “The sample was used everywhere too, and this is one of the things I love about hip hop. The ability to take a classic and flip it. It's what makes DJing so great too."

"Next is a documentary called Night and Fog by Alain Resnais, which is a story of then and now, of concentration camps. That had a major influence on me, again, for the poetry, if you can call it that, of the documentary, but also the way he used time, the way he used two time zones, two sets of material, to make his point, and to give the film, which obviously had some astounding, alarming images in it, but without a lot of babble, of explanation, by contrasting what it once was and what it is now. It was very moving to me, and I think that was inspirational, again, in the [Up] films I did with these children, which I’m still doing. But I could see how you could time travel in documentary, and it makes both sets of material more powerful. Of course, the film is incredibly powerful anyway. But nonetheless, he’d found a style of doing it, a way of doing it… It’s just, the power of those images, without endless babble, was, to me, a very strong lesson."

"I really like documentaries a lot; maybe more than film. I love this documentary called Hands on a Hard Body. It was made in the 1990s, I think. It’s about this annual event that takes place in Texas — it’s kind of like an endurance test of how long you can keep your hand on a truck. And if you are the last man standing, you get the truck. Literally, you just stand, day and night with your hand on a truck, and there’s like 15 or 20 people all standing there. And it’s such a well-done documentary. They feature each person before the program starts; the director comes in and he asks them questions like, “Why do you want to do this? Why do you want your truck?” and it’s just a real, unique look into people’s lives. It’s really powerful and it’s really moving and it’s kind of funny and odd and bizarre. It goes on for, I think, over 72 hours, and it’s really sad as you see this people dropping out. It says a lot about human endurance."

"We’re going to go with number four, Toy Story. Of course, the first computer animated film. Wildly original in concept, in creation, in everything about it. And it is a kids movie that resonated with adults because you cover things like betrayal or jealousy, all set within this small, childlike world. It had me in stitches toward the end as they’re trying to catch the moving van and faces are blowing, and it all goes bad, and they light the rocket with Buzz’s helmet. They worked together to get back to Andy, get back to the box. And there was just something magical about that as a kids movie that felt entirely fresh at the time. And of course Pixar is… Have they ever done anything that’s not exceptional? Not that I know of, but this was the first. and we like to talk about computer animation, which was incredible and groundbreaking at the time, but if you look at the dialogue and the performances… Again, it’s Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, and all of the other characters. It was magical."

"It's a perfect record. Succinct, sad, melodic, definitely its own thing. The simplicity of it was a big thing for me, that music that simple can also be really moving… I think a lot of the simplicity of it might be to do that he was having a hard time and couldn't get it together to do anything particularly complicated, but it is a wonderful record. Just doing enough and never overblowing anything works so well. Has my music taste changed? I've always listened to quite loud and quite quiet music so I don't think getting older has changed it that much, not that I can think of. I think Belong is the only quite new record on this list, which is a bit fogeyish, but I guess you have to take a long time to know if something really is the best ever. Some of these lists you look down and they say 'best album of all time - number three, The Strokes!' No, wait, something has happened here. There is a disturbance in the force."

"I suppose given the tenor of this list, Melville is pretty predictable, being that he’s a genius of crime noir, but this film is neither noir nor gangster; it’s about a thoughtful, intelligent, wise, and committed country priest, played by the young Jean-Paul Belmondo (!). Melville has a strong moral code, standards of honor and loyalty, as seen not just in his crime movies, but in the devastating Army of Shadows, his film drawn from his experience in the French Resistance, but I never could have foreseen him making a movie that is basically an argument of morality between a compassionate young stud of an impeccably behaved priest and a wild and magnetic, cynical woman, the riveting Emmanuelle Riva. Also, it made me get Catholicism in a way I never had before, namely the appeal of having as a confessor and advisor someone whose concern is for one’s soul. What could be more moving and fulfilling (and flattering)? It’s way more seductive than a psychiatrist, and it’s almost free."