"Mark Sandrich was the superlative director of Fred Astaire musicals, strikingly more successful at this demanding (though charming) form than the better known George Stevens. It’s very funny, chock-a-block with great character actors, and with wonderful music (Cole Porter) and choreography (Astaire with Hermes Pan). There’s something about works at the beginning of a form or style of cinema, even if rough and lacking couth, that I find more lovable and compelling than that form perfected (which in this case would be the gorgeous Top Hat made by Sandrich the next year)."

"I would say Unforgiven is probably top of that list. What about it, is simply the way that Clint Eastwood demystified and destroyed our notion of a Western. I mean, demolished the genre; he turned it upside down. It was marvelous acting, and at times, his use of monologue and dialogue — that doesn’t ever take place in Westerns. He just took a baseball bat to the genre, and it was just incredibly profound to me. Wildly entertaining. He did things in the storytelling that hadn’t been done in the way that they were done. Incredible."

"Homecoming tells the story behind Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella show, which makes a huge statement about the importance of African American education and the college experience. It cuts through the idea of pop stars just arriving into culture, being presented to the world as if they’re just naturally talented and what they do is absolutely no effort. Beyoncé works so hard! She’s on top of every detail – the choreography, the costumes, the lighting, the staging – and it’s so great seeing a woman so much in charge of her ideas. It makes you want to work harder."

"That hits home for my sci-fi nerd self side of myself. I love the first one, A New Hope — that’s where it all started. But, Empire was just so awesome. I always remember watching Empire and being like, “Man, this movie is awesome from top to bottom.” So many good battles between Luke and Vader. Luke getting his arm chopped off — it’s a cold blooded movie. Return of the Jedi is awesome too. But, without Empire Strikes Back, I don’t know if Jedi would’ve even been a thing. So much Billy Dee Williams, too."

"Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece proves he is the only true heir to Fellini (and Salvador Dalì as well). Brazil is over-the-top, terrifying, funny, and moving. A hilarious and violent dystopian tale of the future using elements of the past, it strangely seems more and more like our present. Terrorism, surveillance, cosmetic surgery, hacking, and authoritarian control: Gilliam’s prescience is astounding. Ian Holm turns in one of cinema’s great supporting roles as Mr. Kurtzman, Jonathan Pryce’s sniveling and cowardly boss. And it has one of the most crushing and haunting endings in movie history."

"For one, I remember seeing it on the TNT marathon for a weird American holiday — a random birthday of a president or something — and they were doing this marathon, and I watched it and I watched it again and again and again on this marathon, and I couldn’t stop watching it. From that point on, I remember I went out and got the AFI top 100 list — back before you could look it up online — and I decided I was going to watch every single movie on that list."

"The remaining three are films that I just feel are nearly perfect. The Graduate, from top to bottom, visually, sonically, performance-wise, the energy, and the time when it came out, and what it represented – that whole Holden Caufield sort of aspect to it. I think the music, obviously; there are very few films where the music has been so married to the actual film itself, and I love that about The Graduate. It seems like that’s the way it always should have been. It’s just amazing to me how perfectly it complements the film."

"I can only thank the irresponsible video store worker who rented this film out to my little cousin and me when we were about thirteen (it was issued an 18 certificate in the UK). The uncut, brutal attack on Murphy and his unfolding semiconscious robot revenge stick with you for life. The ultraviolence is almost funny in parts, because Verhoeven manages these over-the-top scenes so expertly. And if you haven’t tried to down a whole can of Coke and burp “twenty seconds to comply!” then you haven’t been to my high school, pal. "