"One of the best of the past decade. I love that Criterion has already championed this, as it truly deserves to be among many of the classics in the collection. This is one of those rare movies that have the power to make you forget you’re even watching a movie in the first place, instead making you feel you’re witnessing someone’s life unfold. The main character (played by an actress who is so underrated for this sole role of hers) reminds me a lot of a cousin of mine when she was at that age, enough so that for me, watching it almost seems like personal insight into where her head was at in those years. Fish Tank also contains one of the most real, unique, and effective uses of classic hip-hop in a film that I’ve ever seen."

"I’m as influenced by contemporary filmmakers as I am by past filmmakers, so for me it was important to put two of them on here. The two films that my crew, my cinematographer, and I talk about when we’re going out to shoot are The Secret of the Grain and Fish Tank. They’re reference points for us. The lived-in intimacy of The Secret of the Grain and those two dinner sequences! The story is great, it’s fun, it’s engaging, but those dinner scenes are moments that have touched me very much. I felt, for the first time, that I was truly living with people I didn’t know. The film has these ongoing dialogue scenes that just feel so natural, even though they’re constructed, and those kinds of scenes set the bar for what cinema can do. Fish Tank I love because I love Andrea Arnold, and I can relate to this young protagonist who isn’t so goal-oriented. It’s not like she’s got a mission. She’s just trying to grow up, and she’s as confused about her life situation as anyone else. And it leads her to make some bad decisions, but ultimately we really like her because we know what she’s going through. She’s never presented as someone who we need to decide whether or not she’s likable. There’s an ambiguity to her presentation—you’re just letting her be herself. To me, it’s one of the great examples in modern cinema where a director casts someone and lets the person take over the role, as opposed to tailoring the person to the role as written. I think the movie benefits from that, and everyone around her just falls into her world. Michael Fassbender—you’ve never seen him like that, not because he’s better than he’s ever been, but because he’s forced to deal with the energy of this girl who’s just being herself. So this is just one of those movies I have to keep showing to people who haven’t seen it and have to keep watching to remember that representation of that girl, which is as good as anything I’ve seen in modern cinema."

"I’m as influenced by contemporary filmmakers as I am by past filmmakers, so for me it was important to put two of them on here. The two films that my crew, my cinematographer, and I talk about when we’re going out to shoot are The Secret of the Grain and Fish Tank. They’re reference points for us. The lived-in intimacy of The Secret of the Grain and those two dinner sequences! The story is great, it’s fun, it’s engaging, but those dinner scenes are moments that have touched me very much. I felt, for the first time, that I was truly living with people I didn’t know. The film has these ongoing dialogue scenes that just feel so natural, even though they’re constructed, and those kinds of scenes set the bar for what cinema can do. Fish Tank I love because I love Andrea Arnold, and I can relate to this young protagonist who isn’t so goal-oriented. It’s not like she’s got a mission. She’s just trying to grow up, and she’s as confused about her life situation as anyone else. And it leads her to make some bad decisions, but ultimately we really like her because we know what she’s going through. She’s never presented as someone who we need to decide whether or not she’s likable. There’s an ambiguity to her presentation—you’re just letting her be herself. To me, it’s one of the great examples in modern cinema where a director casts someone and lets the person take over the role, as opposed to tailoring the person to the role as written. I think the movie benefits from that, and everyone around her just falls into her world. Michael Fassbender—you’ve never seen him like that, not because he’s better than he’s ever been, but because he’s forced to deal with the energy of this girl who’s just being herself. So this is just one of those movies I have to keep showing to people who haven’t seen it and have to keep watching to remember that representation of that girl, which is as good as anything I’ve seen in modern cinema."