"You really can’t beat The Apartment for finding laughs and heartache and triumph in the life of a morally compromised schnook of an insurance salesman. The great Billy Wilder was at one of his many career peaks here, finding unforgettable depth in Shirley MacLaine as elevator operator Fran Kubelik, and pulling a delicious Mitt Romneyesque-bad-guy performance out of an unlikely casting choice, the Disney leading man from Flubber, Fred MacMurray. The high-water mark in romantic comedy, this movie is so assured of its tone that even an attempted suicide is never far from a big laugh. It’s all wrapped up in giddy melancholy and — in a rare move — the Academy gave this comedy a whole bunch of Oscars too. Viva Wilder!"

"I love that the Criterion release of this includes all the times this film was talked about on Siskel & Ebert. That show was where I first heard about this film, and seeing how pissed off they were about it being snubbed by the Oscars made me seek it out. It resonated with me so deeply, and still does, the way it presents these two kids and their families, and their struggle to pursue their dreams while dealing with all the practical hardships of working-class life. It’s become kind of a foundational piece of work for me, because it was one of the first films I saw that demonstrated that if you look closely, great stories and great characters are all around us."

"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."

"When I was in college, first year, I saw it and I really hadn’t been exposed to a lot of European filmmakers. It’s such a ‘film’ film. It wasn’t required viewing, it was just a film playing on campus and I hadn’t been interested in film before then. Nowadays people are deciding to get into film at age five when they’re sitting, watching the Oscars. I really didn’t come out of that culture — I was pretty much a John Wayne fan and that was it. Zabriskie Point was a time when I was in a lot of change and flux and these incredible visuals hit me like they had rearranged the organs in my body. The ending and the free-floating debris and everything is an image that burned itself in my consciousness."

"When Wes Anderson asked me to provide incidental narration to his film about the Tenenbaum tribe, I honestly could not make out what the film was about. It turned out to be a Wes Anderson film, which, in my mind, is the New Yorker magazine’s cartoon staff meets Jules Feiffer meets Preston Sturges. Or, perhaps, none of that. The Royal Tenenbaums, at the time of its release, was arguably one of the most original movies, in tone and style, since Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H. The cast is pitch-perfect, and the film features Gene Hackman’s greatest work. (I know. That’s saying a lot. But it’s true.) Anderson and Owen Wilson were nominated for best original screenplay at the Oscars in 2002. With cinematography by the remarkable Robert Yeoman (Drugstore Cowboy, The Squid and the Whale)."

"That movie is the coolest Elmore Leonard adaptation that there is. It made me read a book. I went and read Get Shorty after I saw that. That never happens. Soderbergh to me in that movie is at his … I mean, because everything he does is … He may be my most favorite filmmaker, but he’s at his most commercial and Soderberghian. He had just shot The Limey, and he got that out of his system, and he was dabbling; there was that weird Jackie Brown connection. It was just awesome. It’s just so good. He’s got my favorite line in any movie, when Dennis Farina leans over to Michael Keaton, who’s wearing a tee shirt that says, “FBI” on it, and he goes, “You got one of those that says ‘undercover?'” He’s on in Out Of Sight. He should have won a million Oscars."