"Okay, we’ve gotten to number one for me. I know you’re not going in order. Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner — my favorite movie. I’ve watched it, again, about 15 or 20 times. The final shot, also perfect, maybe even better than Once. The helicopter up in the sky with them throwing the baseball. To me, it’s perfect. It is a perfect movie, and it also contains the single best moment of love on screen of all time — I’m getting emotional talking about it — which is when he says, “Am I crazy to build a baseball field in the backyard? Do you think I’m crazy?” And his wife says, “Yeah, but I also think that if you really, really think that you should do it, then you should do it.” It’s like if you really, really want to do it, you should do it. But then ultimately, the end is the best father-son — “Dad, do you want to have a catch?” I hardly can talk about it. Kind of the reason I became a screenwriter. I love it that much."

"Obviously Chinatown. Seeing Nicholson with his destroyed nose [laughs], as Polanski is slitting his nose by the reservoir and calling him “pussy cat,” and all that stuff; and him and Faye Dunaway, you know, it’s just extraordinary. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s one of the greatest screenplays ever written. I’m a huge Robert Towne fan, and a Polanski fan. And it was great on this movie — on Hitchcock — to work with John Huston’s son, Danny. He had some stories about his dad. [Laughs] That Noah Cross character [played by John Huston], I think is one of the darkest villains in cinematic history. Every little detail of that film, you know — whether it’s Gittes choosing the cheap bourbon at the beginning, rather than the expensive stuff; every single touch, I think, was masterful. It has such brilliance, and poise, and ultimately humanity to it. And again, it’s a story of power, of big city power and corruption and how power and privilege can destroy people and families. That’s a theme in Sweet Smell of Success as well."

"When I was 14 my family took a trip to London, which was the first and only trip we took together outside of the US. For some reason, we had to go to Waterloo station and my dad told me there was a song by the Kinks about people who meet there, then he played it for me when we got home. I associate it with this exotic feeling I had when I was there. At the time London seemed like a totally mystical place and lived up to my expectations of Englishness. I grew up in New Jersey, so mid-60s Kinks albums seemed like a pure fantasy world. The themes of this one are quite grown-up – it's wistful and sentimental. I also like 'Two Sisters', which is about a woman who is jealous of her carefree, single sister but realises that the stability she has in her family life is more valuable. That's such a different kind of song to listen to when you're 14, as opposed to the stuff on pop radio about love and sex."