"This is the movie, above all others, that I can watch time and time again and have the same fun as the first time. It’s the sense of wonder and heightened stakes that make this work so well. Michael J. Fox, of course, makes this work: I as a viewer can see the struggle, fun, joy, and pain Marty experiences without doing anything; [Fox] fully embraces and embodies the journey. I like movies that save the day…go figure, and this one delivers. Also, my parents didn’t let me see this in the theaters when it first came out. My older sister got to go see it with my older brother and I was forced to watch Cocoon with my parents. I had nightmares for months of the the cocoons opening and the old people crawling out of them."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"It’s a very, very intense movie. Isabelle Huppert, I think, is the greatest living actress. She goes on such a crazy journey in this movie. It’s an incredible performance, and it’s just an impeccably made movie. It’s a perfect movie. You haven’t seen it? Oh, you need to watch it. It’s so intense and so disturbing. Nobody does that kind of glowing sense of dread like Michael Haneke, where you just feel it coming and you’re like, “Oh god, oh my god, what’s going to happen?” I think he’s such a master. I was at a party one time with a friend of mine and I said, “Oh my God, it’s Michael Haneke!” And she was like, “How do you know?” I was really starstruck to see him — like, “How do you know what he looks like?”"