"Then, Cinema Paradiso, because it’s about a director and his dreams. Very close to my heart. It deals with just a kid who kind of falls in love with somebody in film, and film is also the relationship with a projectionist. Another one of my favorites is La nuit americaine by Truffaut. I kind of enjoy movies about movies. I’d never really wanted to become a director. I wanted to become a production designer. You know, certain movies had better production design than others, and that was driving me for the longest time."

"That’s a film that, for me, that’s one that, even more than Annie Hall, is like an I-know-every-word kind of movie, you know, that I just can’t get over. It’s very comforting to me. It’s one of those comfort films. And it’s also really funny. And it’s one of those movies like… All the things about these romantic comedies and relationship movies or whatever, they don’t even make them like that any more, you know? Except for independent film. Independent film sometimes does, but you don’t really see them."

"This is the other book I live by. It's fiction—a guy travels to find a secret book that has a series of principles. The story is a metaphor for life: I could go left or right, I could be stuck, or I could keep advancing. Some people are happy where they are. I tried to hire a guy once, and I said, "Don't you have ambition to be bigger?" And he said, "No, I'm good." I had to respect that, but for me that was the wrong relationship."

"The fifth, because it is the film of my childhood, and I still think the skeleton sequence is one of the scariest effects sequences ever, is Jason and the Argonauts. That is the film that, within the first six months of a relationship of any girl that I’m with, I have to make her watch that film — and if she doesn’t react the way I’d like, then that’s kind of a deal-breaker. If you don’t like Harryhausen’s stop-motion then you are not going to be in my life. [Laughs]"

"The story is about the author’s relationship with artist Harry Dodge, who is fluidly gendered. It’s about their romance, the birth of their son, the death of Harry’s mother and their changing bodies, as Maggie becomes pregnant and Harry undergoes surgery, but it’s also about inclusion and the powers and shortfalls of language. It might require a bit of work but The Argonauts rewards us with an expansive way of considering identity, caretaking, and freedom—along with a liberation from, what Maggie calls, ‘the demand that anyone live a life that’s all one thing.'"

"Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales — one of my favorite, favorite films. I don’t know what it is about The Outlaw Josey Wales that sticks… Oh, I do know what it is: it’s the relationship with Chief Dan George. The narration, as it were, of Chief Dan George in that movie, you know. He’s so dry, and it’s humorous, but true. [As Josey Wales/Lone Watie] “You’re not supposed to be able to sneak up on an Indian… But white men have been sneaking up on us for years now.” [laughs] He’s just great."