"A film that absolutely nails the experience of really wanting to perform – that feeling that you’re weird to do so when you’re not being encouraged – and of music being a brilliant form of escape. Even though I’m not working-class, the story described a world and an attitude to women I knew well. It’s also about finding your identity through music, how you can find your own voice through singing other people’s songs. I used to do that myself as a child, trying to become Tina Turner by singing Private Dancer!"

"Okay. I’m going to say a weird one here — but what an amazing performance in that film. When I was a kid I just loved these kind of movies that just took me to another world. I still like watching it today. I watch it with my kids. Gene Wilder. What a performance. It’s just extraordinary. It’s just a film that’s always stayed with me and I still love it today. It’s still fascinating to look at. Gene Wilder is just wild and kind of lonely and mad and so unhinged. It’s a fantastic film."

"I thought this movie was mind-blowing. It’s a western and a morality play. It was everything. And of course [Toshiro] Mifune was so unbelievable. That impressed me for my whole childhood. It’s black and white but I remember it in color, which is weird. There’s another film — the Japanese films had a big effect on me. There’s a movie called Mishima, and this was about a suicide in Tokyo. Some movies are inextricably bound to a kind of era of expression and that’s another one from that same era."

"By contrast, everyone had seen Woodstock: this movie played and played. I saw it late, expecting to just watch this bunch of weird hippies rolling around and Jimi Hendrix popping up at the end. But the performances were great: this turned me on to the Who, Joan Baez, Joe Cocker. The editing was so ahead of its time, so dynamic. Woodstock really made people realise that music isn’t just about hearing it: it’s about seeing it, and getting more of the personalities behind it. About getting more of everything"

"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."