"Bergman must always be at the top for me. This particular list choice was picked by dart while blindfolded. Feel free to substitute. It is a work of art to service an entire lifespan. Mystery endures. A human life can’t. Yet somehow through the mystical forces of memory and film, it does."

"A masterpiece of art direction and set design. No other film in history has ever quite captured the essential dry rot of the 1970s’ fourth-rate Mediterranean beach world. Having spent sixteen summers in areas near, but not quite in, low-rent Med tourist towns, it was a thrill ride straight back to childhood."

"Steven Soderbergh’s film inspired by the UK miniseries. One of my favorite filmmakers, and this is one of many of his that I just love. From his big-budget studio films to the smaller art films, he always finds such a unique way to tell a story. And he knows how to hold a camera!"

"What a gutsy, fully realized piece of art this is. Sure, a bit of patience is required to get into the groove, but what a truly gratifying experience once you surrender to it. I dig this film so much that my brother and I made a tribute for a Criterion contest several years back."

"A riveting art film that chronicles the dramatic life and death of the great twentieth-century Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, and also brings to life three of his fictional works. The real-life story is as dark and surprising as any of the novels. Philip Glass’s original score works perfectly with the striking imagery."

"This is art concealing art. On the face of it, the film is a gentle satire of French bourgeois life on holiday. There is no story, just Hulot (Jacques Tati himself) drifting innocently through a holiday resort, leaving a trail of confusion behind him. The gags are wonderful, apparently effortless, the situations natural. In reality, the film is the extraordinary creation of a man obsessed with perfection. Each move, each image was planned in detail by Tati until the gags were immaculate; the tennis ball that bounces off the head of the serious little girl curtsying to her elders, the paint pot that floats out to sea, then back on the opposite side of the beached fishing boat; everything apparently natural, everything the product of intense creativity."

"I kind of think Fitzcarraldo. Cinephiles know it, but the new generation don’t really know that picture. It’s a flawed film but if you watch that and the companion making-of [Burden of Dreams]… there’s a great Criterion of it; it’s the one with Mick Jagger in it, when he started the film and had to pull out. What I love about this film is that it represents what I love about film making: The film is about a person who has an insane passion for art, to the extent that they drag a boat over a small isthmus to make money, but he’s making money to bring Caruso, the great Italian Opera singer, to build an opera house. But the backstory, with Klaus [Kinski], and the relationship between Klaus and [director] Werner [Herzog], is so fantastic a backstory. I mean, they try and kill each other. And I think the intense passion between actor and director is in the film. To me it’s kind of a package deal, this film. You have to involve yourself in the movie, but it’s really worth going beneath the film, up the jungle and into the psyche of the drama itself. Its companion film is one of my favorites of all-time, Apocalypse Now — and you can go on the same journey with that film."

"This is a heart-wrenching film. It’s one of about three films that exist that truly still make me cry. I saw this at our local art-house cinema in Texas when it came out, and it was one of the first films that I saw that made me want to be a filmmaker in a real way."