"A book I read at least once a year. I took American studies as part of my degree, and found Hemingway a little late, but “The Sun Also Rises” is the ultimate of the modernist school. I’m not sure why I read it so often, but much has to do with the huge love affair at the heart of it—and the setting, between the wars, within the world of this lost generation of expats. It just completely transports me from wherever I am to Paris and Pamplona. And his writing has such hidden depths—every time I read it I find something new. It takes a lost soul to convey so much."

"A compilation from South Africa in the 80s of Soweto sound at the time. My mum's from SA and she had it on double cassette and would play it in the car as she drove me to school. It's full of unashamed joy and has a kind of cheesiness to it that I love. There's an innocence to the songs, which is interesting because you can sense the strange American influence in SA music at the time - which is similarly mirroring some current musical trends from abroad. You can hear Prince, a bit of Michael Jackson and American pop, but retranslated through musicians and equipment that they had access to at the time. It's a killer compilation."

"I just watched, on New Year’s with a bunch of high school friends, The Breakfast Club, which I hadn’t seen in years. I remember being very affected by it but I couldn’t believe how well it held up, and I also couldn’t believe how well I actually knew the movie — like, I remembered every frame of that movie. It’s such good storytelling and it’s such a perfect blend of comedy and pathos. I kind of underestimated the effect that John Hughes had on my consciousness. He really taught, I think, a whole generation of people empathy. It’s kind of a marvel, that movie. So that’s certainly one of them; I have to put that up there."

"I’m going to say My Little Loves by Jean Eustache. It’s not an inspiration, but I thought of it when I shot Microbe and Gasoline. It’s the story of a 12-year-old kid who was raised by his grandmother, and then his mother takes him back, and she really doesn’t like him. His experiences in school – he’s trying to find a girlfriend. It’s shot in a very simple and honest way. And this kid was my age, so when I see him in the film in that location, it really could have been me. Jean Eustache was one of the greatest filmmakers in France, but he made maybe three or four movies."

"I don’t think I’d be in this business if it wasn’t for Naughty Marietta, with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. I was 14 and I was SO in love with Nelson Eddy I thought it was the end of the world, and I didn’t just like Jeanette MacDonald, I was Jeanette MacDonald! You know, at 14. And at 14 I also thought, Nelson Eddy married somebody and I thought he needed a much younger woman. I think I saw Naughty Marietta 48 times. I wasn’t even interested in show business until then; I did school plays and that kind of thing, but I hadn’t thought of it as a career until I got hooked."

"See I’m a Pisces so I get down with love songs. I’m totally into slow jams and old-school R&B, all that. As far as R. Kelly and Usher, all that shit is really cool, but this Best of Keith Sweat is the most flawless album. You can throw it on and every song is legit. The beats are dope. People have sampled a lot of his shit. I just think it’s probably the best album to put on and freaking make love to your woman. ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ is the track for sure. That is such a heavy bass. Celly Cel from the Bay sampled it, ‘It’s Goin Down.’ That one is legit"

"A young John Hurt plays a bitter art school drop-out who forms his own fascist political movement, the Party of Dynamic Erection. It’s very proto-Withnail & I, and it’s not lost on me that George Harrison was involved in producing both Little Malcolm and Withnail. So it’s cool to think that my favorite Beatle helped make the best two movies about crazy assholes in trench coats screaming at each other in shitty apartments. Mike Leigh directed the original production of the play of Little Malcolm and I can also see how the Scrawdyke character may have informed him in creating Johnny from Naked, another misogynistic, visionary crackpot trying to assert his manhood."

"I have to put this one on, if only to celebrate the efforts of a few twenty-four-year-old friends just out of film school, ganging up to turn our college house into a summer camp and haul a Moviecam Super America around the dirt lots of North Carolina, making a movie none of us knew would have any impact on anyone anywhere. I remember how ecstatic we were to find out Criterion was releasing us on video. At such an early time in our careers, that Criterion liked our first film made us feel like we had a place at the table with our heroes. What a way to begin!"