"I’ve seen this picture a zillion times but always find something new to wonder about. Graham Greene, Carol Reed, Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Nazis, gangsters, Hitchcockian surrealism, innovative cinematography, a moody babe, Vienna, a zither for ear candy: it’s all here."

"Although looked at by Jung as too commercial and simplified, I learned to look at the world through this book, with its symbols and its religions, in a new way. My mind opened up to the dynamic relationship between surrealism and psychology. "

"This is Terry Gilliam’s classic—his best film. The music, the visuals, the fantasy, the dark surrealism. It all works to make a haunting masterpiece. A bit of trivia: the hero’s boss, H. Kurtzman, is named after Harvey Kurtzman, the originator of Mad magazine, and Terry’s boss at Help magazine."

"Charles Laughton’s brilliant introduction (and also swan song) as a film director, which is a terrible loss for all of us. He fearlessly plunges us into impressionism and surrealism, where few in Hollywood have ever ventured. One can only imagine where he would have gone if he’d continued to direct. With a never-better Robert Mitchum, and a drowned Shelley Winters, yet again."

"If David Lynch is the American take on surrealism, this is the Soviet take. Iranians share a lot of cultural references with people from Armenia, and seeing this, I almost saw a path through Iranian culture. The movie juxtaposes surreal elements from my culture without going through a Western gaze. It has some of the most amazing imagery I’ve ever seen."

"A lurid mad-scientist drama—scripted by Boileau and Narcejac, also of Diabolique and Vertigo, and filmed by Georges Franju as a mix of surgical surrealism, hyper-graphic horror, raincoated French policier and Cocteau-ish magical romance. Edith Scob drifts through corridors in a blank white mask and a nightgown, and Alida Valli stalks her prey in a Citroën 2CV, accompanied by Maurice Jarre’s shuddery score."

"L’Atalante from Jean Vigo. I discovered this film when I started to have growing interest in movies. That movie is from the 1930s. It was shot with very little money, and the director was sick. I mean, it’s pure poetry. This movie, it’s a very simple story, and you have Michel Simon, who plays an amazing character. It’s just a great combination of a vision that’s close to surrealism and a Grecian film look. It’s extremely touching."