"I really was trying to avoid Citizen Kane, but I would say Kane and the first fourth, the first half of The Magnificent Ambersons, for, you know, reasons that are obvious. I mean, it’s all miserably compromised after the first half — actually after the first third, I think — but I think the first twenty, twenty-five minutes of Ambersons is in many ways richer than anything in Kane, and that really is saying something. It struck a tone in American moviemaking; it was just absolutely new to me as a kid when I first saw that. I had never seen that kind of lightly ironic, very bittersweet, but achingly nostalgic… It’s just great, it’s just great. It’s also got probably one of my single favorite shots in cinema, that silhouette combined with the two couples after the ball. It’s the most incredible moment, and you just can’t believe you’re seeing it, and it lasts only as long as it could humanly last, and then it’s over. It’s great."

"You can’t draw up a list of movies without including Godard, because he is one of the greatest experimenters of the art form. He has always looked for something else, something that goes beyond, and he’s never stopped this quest. Breathless is very important to me because it was the first film I ever saw that actually surprised me and deeply impressed me. I was about fifteen or sixteen, and up until then I’d only seen commercial movies, so this really overwhelmed me and rocked my world. For the first time, my idea of what a film could be was broadened, and in my mind it took on so many different nuances. I was like somebody who had always thought that sweetness could only be found in sugar and then learned that there are thousands of different ways of tasting it. Breathless made me understand that what film allows you to do is explore many different territories and narrative possibilities and that there is an entire world out there."

"Jules Dassin’s gangster film about a robbery and its consequences is a French classic, noir before the word was in use to describe a certain kind of filmmaking. A word is in order here: I was educated in Switzerland, in an era when French-speaking people expected to see French films, so when we were allowed to go to the local cinema at Rolle or Gstaad, we mostly saw French films. British films, except for The Third Man, which is very “European” in tone, seldom played; still less big Hollywood ones. Rififi was a stunner, and an eye-opener, teaching us that French gangsters were a lot more interesting and attractive than our own mobsters, but just as tough, if not tougher. “Julie” Dassin was an American who moved to France, but he captured a whole, pungent slice of French life, and for months everyone at my school (le Rosey) went around trying to sound like Jean Servais, and to talk with a cigarette glued to their lips. Whole scenes from it still play in my fantasies."

"I know it's not cool to go with a soundtrack album but, if I'm honest, this is hugely influential. The film is so wrapped up with my teenage years; when I first saw it I was the same age as the main character and I was somewhat terrified of being somebody like that. To see someone who's so nerdy and yet full of himself is frightening at that age. You wonder, 'Do I do things like this?' You become so self-conscious at high school, you worry about what your peers think, you're terrified of looking weird, or being weird. Somehow the soundtrack represents those feelings. There's lots of British music on there, like the Faces' "Ooh La La" and "Making Time" by the Creation. I grew up in a very small town, so a lot of kids I went to school with mostly listened to rap and rock from the radio. But I did have a group of friends who appreciated films like Rushmore and music like this."

"The second film that I suggest is called The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, also called The Master Killer. This film moved me so much not only from the martial arts action and the philosophy of Buddhism that was instilled in the movie, but also the overcoming of oppression. Growing up, I knew that I was being oppressed; I knew the black man’s struggle was oppressive in America, you know, reading Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. I knew of our struggle. But I didn’t know that that struggle was all around the world. I didn’t know that struggle was in all time periods. And when I saw this movie, it resonated with me in a way that I was like, “Wow, the government is just oppressing them, coming in and taking their homes, destroying their property. How they gonna win?” And from a single word, which was “Shaolin,” our hero was able to go find himself and find the way to help bring the end to that oppression."

"I think my favorite movie ever in the world might be Tootsie. I love that movie. It’s just got everything. I mean, I guess it doesn’t have murder, but you know what I mean. Like, for me, it’s so smart, it’s so dry, it’s so f—ing funny. And the performances — every single role is so good, and so important. And it made me fall in love with the idea of New York City, and it made me fall in love with actors and what they do. I thought it was so funny when I saw it the first time, but you know, now I’m a real live actor. As I was studying acting and stuff, and started to relate to it on that level, I think it’s a great show about actors without being about the business, because it’s about an actor wanting to be an artist, and he learns how to use the business to make art. And then there’s Bill Murray, who could fart and just be the greatest. Everything, everything about that movie just tickles me to no end."

"When I saw Dazed and Confused, it would have been the early ’90s. I remember I was in Seattle at the time, and I went to the $1.50 movie theater we had, the UA 150, which no longer exists. I’ve always been a fan of time travel and I remember going to Dazed and Confused and being transported to that time period. I just lost it. I really felt what it was to be in that time period because, although I’d been a small kid, I definitely remember the ’70s. It’s mostly a feeling, but that movie took me right back there. It was amazing, everything about it. It was only one day, an intense day, but at that age one day can mean everything. The archetypes and the way the high school was filmed, it just felt really grounded. I grew up in Great Falls, Montana, and I related to the setting and the people. Sociologically, it just nails human behavior. There’s nothing absurd about it. And Ben Affleck plays an asshole, which he’s perfect for."