"Being a military historian, I was really blown away by the depiction that [Stanley] Kubrick had of trench life. But more importantly, I was immersed in the moral quagmire that Col. Dax, played by Kirk Douglass, experienced in the film. There’s a moment when somebody looks down at a cockroach and says, “You see that cockroach?” He says something like, “In an hour, he’ll have more relevance than I do.” And [another character] steps on the cockroach and says, “Not anymore.” Also, it was a very revolutionary shooting style that Kubrick presented, with his long tracking shots and his use of close-up wide lenses that I found very attractive. I first saw that film when I was a cadet at West Point."

"The longer I live and the more movies I know, the more I love Stanley Donen. However, I fell in love with this film as a child. I went to see it because—well, because I saw everything that came to the Paramount Theater (or the Capitol) in Ashland, Kentucky. But I was especially primed for loving this movie because I was enamored of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly—I had seen that movie ten times the previous year. But Charade was a very different movie from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and for a little girl—and for that time—it was very violent, and it scared the hell out of me so much that I thought James Coburn was in my closet at night, and I made my mother go with me to check if he was there before bedtime. Nevertheless, I went back for more every weekend until its run was over. I loved the witty romance between Cary Grant and Audrey, and I loved Paris as much as I had loved New York in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And the mystery works! And I loved that so much I went back again and again, even if it scared the pee outta me. On the DVD, director Stanley Donen and screenwriter Peter Stone banter amusingly from a long friendship together on the long process it took to make this film. Stone makes the great observation that when you write a mystery, you make it for a second viewing. And if the audience says, “That’s a cheat,” then you didn’t do it right. But if they see it a second time and say, “Oh, it was there all the time, and I didn’t see it,” then you have something. This film has all that and more—i.e., the best clothes ever!"

"I’d say Godfather 2 was up there. (And I did a movie for Francis…) After Godfather 1, I wouldn’t know how he would make a Godfather 2, but he did it. Because of the time span and what it covered, it’s an opera. I mean, there are acts, and it just worked, and I hadn’t seen that done really well. I’ll go see a movie because of moments, and I’ll go to see that movie again. I mean, like The Killing, the movie that Kubrick made when he began. Sterling Hayden is in it, where they robbed the racetrack, you know? And Sterling Hayden is in the locker room getting ready, putting the mask on, and realizing they’re not flowers in the box but a machine gun. It’s just before kick-off and he takes a long deep breath, and Stanley Kubrick was there for him."

"The thing that makes The Vanishing so chilling is its unorthodox structure. It starts with a girl being kidnapped at a service station while her boyfriend waits in the car. Then the story picks up three years later with the boyfriend still searching for her while her killer monitors his movements. From very early on we know who the killer is, and we’re fairly sure that the girl is long dead. What makes the film special is that it retains its tension despite giving so much away so early on. There’s an incredible balance of likability and abject coldness in Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu’s performance as the villain; the character is a seemingly respectable family man who, unbeknownst to his wife and children, is in fact a textbook sociopath. Watching him as he patiently plans out the crime makes us feel like we are watching a car crash in slow motion. We know there’s nothing we can do to stop what’s going to happen; in fact it’s already happened. Stanley Kubrick cited this as the most terrifying film he had ever seen. And I can see why."