"I know it’s a cheat to select three films as if they were one, but it’s almost impossible to consider Rome Open City, Paisan, and Germany Year Zero as anything other than a linked narrative of the ashes of World War II and of the struggle to rise out of that dustbin of history. They are vital, raw, even primitive in style, full of nonactors who are alternately charismatic and arch; there is an aesthetic in these movies that is stripped to the bone. These films, taken together, are immediate godfather to the French New Wave. When Truffaut saw the cinematic journey of the eleven-year-old Edmund Meschke in Germany Year Zero, the seeds of his Antoine Doinel character were planted. The interviews and documentary extras in this set are one of the great treasures of neorealism research."

"Then I would have to — and it’s hard to pick just one of his — but I would go with Sidney Lumet’s Serpico. Again, a performance-driven film, but there’s a sort of a reality to Sidney Lumet’s movies. I had the great pleasure of working with him, and there’s a reality, a sort of documentary quality to his films, you know? And it’s hard to pick from the lot of his films, whether it be Network or Dog Day Afternoon or Serpico. But there’s something about Serpico that has an emotional depth to it that was very touching. And also, it’s easy to identify with someone who’s trying to fight against the system and rise above it and do well, and the price that he pays for doing that. And Al Pacino’s performance in that movie is quite extraordinary."

"A tough, energetic chase film from Japan in the late
 seventies, based on a true story, with a strong performance by Ken Ogata as an 
outwardly charming con man and serial killer. It differs from the formal style
 of the great Japanese filmmakers like Ozu, to whom Imamura was
 an assistant. When Imamura started directing, he wanted to make films as unlike Ozu’s
 as possible, and Vengeance Is Mine is the best example of that. He leaves all judgment of his characters to the viewer, and the film is both operatic
 and contemporary. Beautifully photographed, it’s at times surreal and at other
 times plays like a documentary, which some viewers have found confusing,
 especially Imamura’s fracturing of the timeline. Those who love film and know 
Imamura’s others, like The Eel and The Battle of Nayarama, will find this one
 essential."

"Number four is the documentary American Movie. The reason I like this movie so much is I’m a big fan of sort of vérité documentaries and, while this is not exactly a vérité documentary, it’s a movie from the late ’90s and it’s sort of the end of the 16mm personal documentary era. I suppose there are some that exist after that, but for the most part, as someone who really likes movies like Grey Gardens and Seventeen and all these great sort of authentic… Filmmakers went and experienced their experiences with their subjects. American Movie is really like the pinnacle of that for me in that it’s a movie that took two years to make and two years to edit. It’s the kind of movie where when you hear Chris Smith, the director, ask a question, you almost get excited because it’s like, “Oh, the guy from behind the camera is a part of the story also?” Or the boom dips in. It’s charming because you know they’ve been there for two years living with these people. The movie’s amazing because it’s an incredible critique on filmmaking that’s both funny and also sort of sentimental and inspiring in that the Murphy’s Law of filmmaking is that anything that can go wrong will go wrong and, you know, in the case of [subject] Mark Borchardt, it really does. But you’ve never seen someone more impassioned and more determined to sort of accomplish… I don’t know if I want to say something as silly as “their dreams,” but he’s dedicated to doing this and that. To me as a filmmaker or as someone who’s trying to do any sort of artistic endeavor, it’s really amazing to watch, and the movie is very sincere and very honest and very charming and very funny. It gives you an idea of, like, what to avoid when making movies, but it also gives you an idea of what movies are going to be very hard — I would say that making movies is very traumatic — and you’ve just sort of got to stick with it, and this movie is a great example of that. And it’s a great example of getting to know the characters personally, or the subjects personally, and it’s the kind of movie that, when it’s over, you feel like you know everybody in that movie. It’s incredibly charming and it’s one of those movies that I think, as a filmmaker or just a film fan in general, it’s a very essential movie to see. I always try to watch it or show it to people right before we make a movie to say, like, hopefully it won’t go like this."