"I’m gonna say Chinatown. That’s just great storytelling, acting, directing. I think Polanski’s an amazing director. It’s opera, you know. It’s the biggest issues. You can’t tell an epic without a big problem, and Chinatown is brilliant in the sense of Los Angeles history — the whole creation of the Valley, and the diversion of water to make the Valley. [Screenwriter] Robert Towne was able to take a very interesting historical fact — what’d he call it, Mulwray instead of Mulholland? — and tell this amazing personal story about it. I like that very much. I guess The Godfather is similar to that in many ways; obviously based on certain facts. I like that historical aspect to Chinatown as well."

"Then I gotta go Godfather II. I think it was my first, “Wow, I feel like I just watched an epic.” Because you get both sides of the story, because you’re able to see where De Niro’s coming from, just seeing those guys in the movie. Again, I think there’s something that, when a sequel can hit it right, to keep pushing, instead of, “Let’s capitalize on what we did the first time.” And for me, maybe one the first movies where I felt like, “Ooh, we’re getting a backstory.” That, to me, was really thrilling. And just to see those guys, that young and hungry. I mean, that’s it. That’s it, right there."

"What else would I go for? 2001. That’s gotta be up there. Just the trippiest, most beautiful epic. Again, I’m just sort of floored, really. I went to see the New York Philharmonic play the score live to a screening with my wife not that long ago, and it was awesome. There was an interval built in — it was obviously part of the film. We were shuffling back in after the interval, and I heard an elderly couple who were maybe not loving the experience. This guy is shuffling in and said to his wife, “Well, if you thought nothing happened in the first half…” [laughs] Yeah. She was not really loving that."

"Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence strike me as two of the most psychological films ever made. The former dramatizes madness, and it doesn’t shy away from the despair and horror of the subject. It is equally fascinated by the way that lives are halted, turned, and redirected by tragedy. The Silence is possibly the most Freudian film ever made, a fever dream about the short journey from sexual ecstasy to absolute despair. Fanny and Alexander was Bergman’s Amarcord, a melancholy epic punctuated by moments of unexpected joy. It’s an incredibly rich film, a culmination of a life spent mastering film and theater. All three of these movies were shot by the great Sven Nykvist."

"Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence strike me as two of the most psychological films ever made. The former dramatizes madness, and it doesn’t shy away from the despair and horror of the subject. It is equally fascinated by the way that lives are halted, turned, and redirected by tragedy. The Silence is possibly the most Freudian film ever made, a fever dream about the short journey from sexual ecstasy to absolute despair. Fanny and Alexander was Bergman’s Amarcord, a melancholy epic punctuated by moments of unexpected joy. It’s an incredibly rich film, a culmination of a life spent mastering film and theater. All three of these movies were shot by the great Sven Nykvist."

"Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence strike me as two of the most psychological films ever made. The former dramatizes madness, and it doesn’t shy away from the despair and horror of the subject. It is equally fascinated by the way that lives are halted, turned, and redirected by tragedy. The Silence is possibly the most Freudian film ever made, a fever dream about the short journey from sexual ecstasy to absolute despair. Fanny and Alexander was Bergman’s Amarcord, a melancholy epic punctuated by moments of unexpected joy. It’s an incredibly rich film, a culmination of a life spent mastering film and theater. All three of these movies were shot by the great Sven Nykvist."