We asked actor/writer/ director Richard Ayoade to recommend five of his favourite films.
Richard, please explain yourself.
“I wasn’t one of those people who got into neo-realism at six or anything. For me it was quite a ‘thing’ going to the cinema. Where I lived you had to get dropped off there or get money for the bus: it was quite tricky. I ended up watching lots of French new wave films, partly because it was a way of learning to speak French without reading textbooks. I liked Louis Malle’s films a lot: his Zazie dans le Metro and Claude Chabrol’s Les Cousins were the first films I can remember watching more than ten times.
“And when you get interested in those directors, you start to find out about who they liked. So, you’d look at Howard Hawks or Ernst Lubitsch. And through liking Woody Allen you’d find out about Ingmar Bergman or Fellini or Kurosawa or the Marx Brothers. If you like Scorsese, then following things he liked just means you end up watching everything.”
Zazie dans le Metro (1960)
“The first film I would watch over and over again. It’s so full of joy and made with such seeming confidence and love. Louis Malle is one of my favorite directors. There’s a great print of this film that’s just been released by the Criterion Collection. They’ve also released…”
Magnolia (1999)
“Paul Thomas Anderson is perhaps my favourite director at the moment. But even if he had never directed, his writing is so impressive. He writes brilliant dialogue for people, these great speeches, but he’s also brilliant on behaviour. All of his film are terrific – I hope he makes at least twenty more.”
Contempt (Le mépris) (1963)
“Just peerless. Georges Delerue’s score is my favorite of any film. Raoul Coutard’s photography is dazzling. The film seems to be, among another things, a brilliant analysis of the difficulty of translation. It’s hard to choose one Godard film, but Contempt seems to encapsulate so much of his genius. It’s deeply serious and funny at the same time. Jack Palance reading aphorisms from his tiny book is brilliant.”
Metropolitan (1990)
“I just love this film. The script is so good. And I think it’s been so influential, not just in terms of its writing, but the acting style which feels like it takes the kind of deadpan that Mike Nichols did so well in The Graduate and Catch 22 and pushes it even further. But never, I feel, in way that feels merely mannered. It feels completely earned and appropriate. I love Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco just as much. I’m really looking forward to [Whit Stillman’s] new one.”
Persona (1966)
“I first watched Bergman films because of Woody Allen. The only real reason for not including a Woody Allen film here is because there are so many it would be impossible to pick, and I sort of feel the same about Bergman. Cries & Whispers, The Silence, Wild Strawberries, Fanny and Alexander, Summer with Monika – there are so many great ones. But Persona is, in many ways, the most exciting and the most distilled. Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson are incredible, and the light is so magical. Sven Nykvist was the best. It’s a film that I can remember so vividly – the composition, cutting and camera movement are perfect. And the hats – sunlight through wide brimmed, straw hats – make them look at times like they’re in a Sergio Leone western.”
