Your favorite directors' favorite movies, from Coppola to Scorsese to Spielberg
Annual critics' lists are important, sure. But when the world's most successful filmmaker picks a favorite movie, people listen.
At the AFI's annual 50th Life Achievement Award event held April 26 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Steven Spielberg was among friends and collaborators who couldn't refuse offering kudos to honoree Francis Ford Coppola. When Spielberg and fellow helmer George Lucas presented the AFI honor to Coppola, the Schindler's List and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial director said onstage that Coppola's 1972 Oscar-winning classic The Godfather was, to him, 'The greatest American film ever made.'
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Certainly, a solid choice (who wants to get metaphorically whacked like Sonny Corleone at the toll booth for saying otherwise?). And Spielberg did clarify his statement as The Godfather being the best American film, setting it apart from world cinema. While great directors frequently change up their top films, many have stated the ones that hold prime spots. Here are what six giants — including Coppola — have said are special to them.
Martin Scorsese has long noted — despite a resistance to rankings — that his reverence for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 drama The Red Shoes remains unchanged. In 2014, the Goodfellas director said, 'For me it's always been one of the very greatest ever made.' In 2023, Scorsese stated, 'I've tried to make lists over the years of films I personally feel are my favorites, whatever that means. And then you find out that the word 'favorite' has different levels: Films that have impressed you the most, as opposed to films you just like to keep watching, as opposed to those you keep learning from.'
Quentin Tarantino has noted his distinction between the greatest Films (with a capital F); the greatest movie; and his personal faves. In his 2022 memoir/film history combo Cinema Speculation — a delightful book-length bull session featuring QT expounding on countless films mixed with personal reminiscences — the Pulp Fiction and Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood director called Spielberg's Jaws 'One of the greatest movies ever made. ... When Jaws came out in 1975, it might not have been the best film ever made. But it was easily the best movie ever made [italics Tarantino's].'
Coppola said in 2021 that director Andrzej Wajda's 1958 Polish drama Ashes and Diamonds was a favorite — an opinion his friend Scorsese shares — and has said that Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980) is also at the top of his list.
Lucas has often cited the influence of Akira Kurosawa's work on Star Wars, and of those, The Hidden Fortress (1958) looms largest. But Lucas has said Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (1954) is his 'favorite of all time.' Among sci-films, Lucas has put Fritz Lang's 1927 Metropolis at the top of his list.
Paul Thomas Anderson has put Robert Altman's 1975 masterpiece Nashville as a favorite, which meshes with the ensemble feel of the There Will Be Blood filmmaker's early work, including Boogie Nights. But Anderson has listed many others — and has put Akira Kurosawa's 1949 noir drama Stray Dog as leader of the pack as well.
Guillermo del Toro has placed Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975) and Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957) at the top of some lists, but the Pan's Labyrinth and The Shape of Water Oscar winner frequently, and famously, names the combo of James Whale's Frankenstein (1931) and Walt Disney's Pinocchio (1940) as the films that influenced him most. As del Toro told the British Film Institute, in a quote all these filmmakers would agree with, 'Top 10 [lists] are impossible…. ... Ask me again on Friday and I'll give you a different list.'
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