"I've been listening to her for years, but I just watched a documentary about her – so much raw emotion! And free of so many complications that music has sometimes. The music is just very direct, simple and strong, free of filigree. She's direct to the heart. Her intimate collaboration with Portugal's poets is admirable. She definitely stuck by her rifles. And it's good to know that she was part of making the fado style. I first came across it, I would guess, 15 years ago. It has the same rawness as flamenco but it's less flamboyant, and more stern and stark somehow."

"This might be the next best thing to placing I Am Cuba on the list, which totally makes the cut if we’re including Criterion laserdiscs. Gillo Pontecorvo took real people and showed how real guerilla warfare goes down. Even more powerful is how he did it, and modern-day “documentary-style” filmmakers could take a page out of his book on restraint. The camera is not all over the map; it stays where it needs to and still grabs the immediate, important points in a way that feels involved and true. Then Ennio Morricone boxes your ears with flair and bravado."

"I love it. Bernard Edwards is one of my favourite bass players; that bass-line is super funky, there can’t be a better one. And of course this is written and produced by Nile Rodgers. It’s basically a Chic track with Carly Simon on vocals. I think she’s pretty amazing, but I’m not a huge fan. I’d always associated her with being kind of country, and a little soft pop – which is pretty – and had no idea she was capable of making music like this. It’s a totally different vocal style, on a whole new level. This song is incredible."

"I discovered Christopher Isherwood in college. His writing style is so direct, warm, and inclusive. There's one passage in this book, published in 1964, that has really stayed with me — the description of America. The narrator is a British man teaching at a California college. He and a few colleagues are having a conversation, and an American woman is saying how romantic Mexico is. She's critical of America. The protagonist argues with her, talking about the virtues of the United States. He says that its beauty is in its abstraction. I thought that was an amazing insight — possibly true and compelling at least."

"The Royal Tenenbaums. The style of the movie is so brilliant, and it just had so much character and intrigue, and the characters are all so specific, and funny, and heartbreaking, and as heightened as the world is, everybody’s so grounded. There’s just so much going on in that movie, and it just keeps moving. When you sit through it, you’re never bored through any of it, and I just think that [Wes Anderson] is one of the best directors of all time. I love pretty much everything with Bill Murray in it, so yes, that would be the first one."