"For me, Blade Runner is the best science-fiction film ever made. Although I did just speak to StarWars.com the other day, and Star Wars was the best science-fiction film ever made. Blade Runner, for me, was the most fully realised world. Sometimes you see films, not just science fiction films, where you get the sense that if the camera were to pan just to the left or the right all of a sudden you’d be seeing light stands and crew standing around. But with Blade Runner, the beauty of it is that it felt like a real, breathing city. Science-fiction cities in general, I think, are so hard to get right, because it’s so easy to just play some cheesy music or do something that takes you right out of it, but Blade Runner got it right, and I love that about the film. It’s a great film as well, the performances are all amazing, Rutger Hauer is incredible in it. He’s never been as cool and sexy in anything since. Harrison Ford is grim and just a great protagonist. It’s just a brilliant sexy film. The sense that there is a real world beyond the frame of the camera is something that I want to do with my next film Mute, that’s going to be very much my love letter to Blade Runner. It’s a future Berlin thriller, and it’s exactly that element of Blade Runner that I want to capture in my film."

"This is a movie about showbiz, musicals, death, Bob Fosse, his love life: it’s all over the map. I can’t tell you what it’s about, but I love it. It’s so sexy. The first ten minutes are a feat of editing and music. One of the great openings of a musical. “It’s showtime,” says Roy Scheider as Joe Gideon, a thinly veiled portrait of Fosse himself. Little echoes of Joel Grey singing “Willkommen” in Cabaret. Gideon is our master of ceremonies, warning us to get ready to see some blood, sweat, and tears. I love movie musicals about showbiz—The Band Wagon, A Star Is Born, Singin’ in the Rain—and this really fits in that genre, with the dark edge of The Bad and the Beautiful. That should have been a musical directed by Fosse! Fosse as a choreographer turned director reminds me of another director I love, Stanley Donen. Aside from dance and music, their movies have another thing in common: incredible editing. All That Jazz and Lenny both play around with time in a way the Donen film Two for the Road does. A lot has been written about Fosse and his love of Fellini films. All That Jazz does borrow from 8½, but this is not an homage. Fosse, inspired by Fellini, created something new. It’s a tragedy that Fosse didn’t live longer, because in his five films—Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Lenny, All That Jazz, and Star 80—I see what could have been one of the great filmmakers of all time. Imagine Bob Fosse directing Chicago! All That Jazz is the beginning of that journey. It’s as if all his gifts—the love of dance and the inspiration from Jerome Robbins and Jack Cole; the personal and profound collaboration with his partner, Gwen Verdon; and the man himself—were coming into focus."