"Platoon, I think I was 15 or 16 when I saw that movie in the theater. I was so riveted by it, and the experience around it. I remember when I saw that movie, this is when there was still lines to get in the next one. The movie hadn’t come out yet, and we’re all standing in a line, 400 people to go in, and when the door opened, it was all these Vietnam Vets in their gear, grown men, crying and holding hands and arms around each other. When I sat down, I had no idea what I was about to see. Again, it was a deconstruction of the war film, the antithesis of John Wayne’s The Green Berets."

"Firstly I’m going to go for The Virgin Spring. It’s a film that may surprise people but it really had an impact on me and I was just amazed by it. I saw it in a relatively short period of my life when I was teaching at college. When I was younger I hadn’t been allowed to watch any because I went to a Baptist College, but by this time I had put the religion behind me and that was one of the first art films I saw and I was very impressed by it. I mean, I could list you a dozen movies from that era by European by European film directors by Godard, Truffaut – Breathless, 400 Blows, all those wonderful European movies.”"

"Thinking about my upbringing, this was actually one of the first movies I saw. I was about 15. I was always told that films were evil and such, but I started to realise what a load of crap it was that something this good should be forbidden. I had been allowed to read as much as I wanted when I was younger, so I recognised great art when I saw it, I just didn’t realise it would be at the cinema as well. And so I walked away from that. To Kill a Mockingbird was so important because it was such adult film-making – to see something that dealt with such an important issue and had such an enlightened outlook on the world.”"

"The Deer Hunter’s something I saw when I was very young. I saw a lot of disturbing movies when I was young. Alien, American Werewolf in London. There were a lot of movies that probably kids shouldn’t go to. And it just blew the top of my hair off, you know? The Russian roulette scene. Kind of like the chainsaw scene in Scarface was just really dynamic cinema, you know? Raiders of the Lost Ark is another one. Jaws. You get me going, I can’t stop. But those scenes, they stick in your mind and, yeah, it changed you. I think they kind of change you. Maybe Deer Hunter changed me. It was about friendship. It was about war, but it was also about friendship."

"I love It Happened One Night, which was… I’m trying to remember what year that was; was it 1929? But it was just this great, fantastic kind of screwball comedy, like one of the first real romantic comedies, and I think it was also like the first film to win all of the major academy awards. I’m a big Capra fan; I ove Frank Capra’s movies. That film really resonated with me when I saw it. Any chance I ever have to see that is great. I actually saw it in a movie theater once, and it was such a great experience. To see classic movies like that in a movie theater, it’s an opportunity that you rarely have. I really love that."

"Sirk is actually a new filmmaker for me. I’ve been waiting to see one of his movies again in a theater—I sometimes do that when I feel like a filmmaker is going to be really important for me. I saw Imitation of Life for the first time two years ago, and it really blew my mind. Then I saw a print of All That Heaven Allows last year in Berlin. I’m very curious how Sirk’s films played when he was alive and what was talked about when they premiered, because they seem so revolutionary to me in many ways–the social issues, especially. And obviously the colors in his movies are huge. I don’t know enough about Sirk, but I want to."