"In my humble opinion this movie is perfection. It’s a summer blockbuster for kids where the authority figure, played flawlessly by Walter Matthau, drinks beer with bourbon as he drives, like, 10 kids in his five seat car."

"My favorite movie of all time is a film by Elia Kazan called A Face in the Crowd. I just love that movie. It’s one of those films that, any time it’s on, I’m stuck. I’m literally stuck in front of the TV, watching it until it’s over. I just think it’s just a brilliant commentary. It stars Patricia Neal, Andy Griffith, Walter Matthau, and it’s this amazing look at the impact and power of television. He made this film at the end of the ’50s, and even today, it’s as relevant and as powerful and as impactful as it was fifty years ago."

"I love Hopscotch and dream of making a movie like it. It’s just full of fun and double crosses. Ronald Neame is very unsung as a director, but he made the coolest movies. He worked a lot with David Lean, so I think it’s interesting to look at Lean, who did these giant epics, and Neame, who was way more experimental and wild in choosing the kinds of movies he was going to make. Hopscotch is basically a perfect film, and Walter Matthau is unreal in it. You watch him and you think, that’s what American actors should have been and should always be. Hopscotch has that heist-noir and cat-and-mouse thing going on, but it’s also bright and goofy and funny and hits a tone that’s so unique and clear."

"It’s just a nearly perfect film. It has everything. It has humor and suspense. It has danger and emotion. An incredible ensemble cast of the people you’ve heard of and know their name — like Walter Matthau and Jerry Stiller — to the amazing actors who played the characters on the subway train. I think it captures my New York — what I love about New York, what I think New York is — so beautifully. It’s this place of cranky individuals with big personalities who make our city run. And you’d think it wouldn’t work, but actually, it does, and New York comes through. And all the ways the transit cops, and cops, and mayor, and the citizens, and the people in charge of making the trains go — all of these people amazingly work together. And you know, when the lights go off and the old man who keeps saying, “There’s going to be red lights and it’s going to stop the train,” he’s right. Actually the system works. It lumbers along but actually it works."

"And the final film, since you limited me to a mere five… that’s always the biggest battle, not what will be number one, but what will be the last film on a short list, because, you know, I would want to throw Pan’s Labyrinth on there, or City of God, or Annie Hall, or Crimes and Misdemeanors. What I’m gonna put on is The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three. You want to throw on your list something that is perhaps would be contrarian, or would be unusual. But to me, it’s the most entertaining crime film that I have ever seen. In a movie like that, involvement is the most significant aspect in determining whether or not it’s successful. And you’re simply involved in this movie. It doesn’t have one movie star. There’s nobody particularly handsome or heroic in the film. You’re dealing with Walter Matthau and Marty Balsam and Robert Shaw. To me, it’s a delight. It’s interesting because a remake of it is gonna be coming out, I believe next year. I don’t begrudge them. I think it’s an absolutely appropriate film to remake. As good as it was, it can be given a modern sensibility that can appeal to modern audiences."