"Mean Streets — Robert De Niro is so gorgeous. Again, the beginning of all these people’s careers. What a full, well-rounded movie. Then you go to Goodfellas, it’s hard. [Picking five] really is hard. I also loved Wolf of Wall Street, I have to say. That was a fun movie. Matthew McConaughey, so good. I think [what I love about Mean Streets is] just seeing the world, seeing the costumes, the relationships these guys have with each other. I think also just the stories behind — knowing that these actors, this was so many of their first movie breakout performances; it’s unbelievable watching it and the performances are so great."

"One of the reasons this movie is important to me is that I’m a big fan of personal storytelling; people who tell their own stories and tell them vividly and honestly, and without sentimentality. It’s such a beautiful, naturalistic film, but unlike a lot of movies about children, it is devoid of sentimentality, but it’s also incredibly rich with emotion, which are two different things. It’s a painful movie in a lot of ways, but it’s just never cheap. There’s nothing cheap about the depiction of that young man’s life. It’s also one of the best child performances I’ve ever seen in a movie, because he’s a very specific character, but there’s nothing about him that feels forced, or that the filmmakers are trying to make you like him or pity him in a phony way. Jean-Pierre Leaud clearly had something special that is fascinating to watch; he’s really funny and charming, but also it’s strange to see a child character depicted so richly — he’s got flaws, there are sh***y things about him, but he captures all of it."

"Also, the very first Airplane! movie, with that zany comedy, slapstick-y, sight gag thing going on. I’d never seen a movie like that before. Of course, after that came more Airplanes and Hot Shots, Top Secret, and the Naked Gun movies. But Airplane took me so by surprise, and Leslie Nielsen was brilliant."

"To Kill a Mockingbird is way up there, but that’s also like an On the Waterfront kind of classic movie, also with a personal journey set against a bigger social issue — racism — but I’m going to go instead with Ordinary People, directed by Robert Redford with Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton who won an Oscar — one of the youngest Oscar winners I think — Donald Sutherland, and Judd Hirsch playing the psychiatrist."