Danny McBride

“This is one of my favorite films of all time: Badlands. Young Martin Sheen, young Sissy Spacek, directed by Terrence Malick. The style of this movie was very influential to my friends and I when we were just getting into filmmaking. Loved the naturalistic performances, the simplicity of the script. It’s just awesome. It’s a killer film. Badlands.”

“Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces. This film also very influential on me. I loved that this movie just had such an unlikable protagonist. I think that really influenced a lot of the kind of characters I like to write stories about. And oddly enough, the end of this movie actually inspired the end of the first season of Eastbound & Down. Kenny leaves his girlfriend coldly and something very similar happens at the end of this film, and it’s exactly where we pinched that idea.”

“Here’s one I love: A Face in the Crowd. Andy Griffith gives an insane Performance here. It’s awesome. We were actually inspired by this movie when we were writing the… was it the fourth season of Eastbound? We were watching a lot of A Face in the Crowd. You know, he’s this sort of southern guy who gets put onto the main stage and is, like, milking that sort of down-home vibe. But he’s a fraud. And we kind of took Kenny Powers on that same journey in the fourth season of Eastbound.”

“This is a nightmare-inducing film: Fantastic Planet. When I was a kid, this used to air late at night, I think on, like, the USA Network. I’m not really sure why, but it would always seem to be playing on a Friday or Saturday night, and I would watch it and it’s so odd, so strange. The soundtrack is honestly incredible. I listen to the soundtrack often. Yeah, what a cool movie.”

“Another visually stunning film: I Am Cuba. I used to watch this film all the time when I first moved out to Los Angeles. I had a projector in my House. I didn’t have a TV. And I would literally just project this movie on the walls of my House. The cinematography is nuts. They pull off all these oners that are sort of unbelievable. I don’t really understand how they did it at the time. Cameras flying over alleyways, down elevators, underwater. Yeah, pretty incredible movie.”

“I for sure have to shout out my boy, David Gordon Green’s George Washington. I actually worked on this movie. I was the second-unit director. We shot this movie the day after I graduated from film school. I think we shot it in two weeks. It was so much fun. It was the very first time I worked on a production. It’s what sort of launched David’s career. We shot it in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. George Washington.”

“After Hours. Think this is one of my favorite Scorsese films. Griffin Dunne is amazing. It’s a fever dream. This one’s killer. I did not know that y’all had released this, but killer.”

“All right, let’s just start picking blindly in here. Let’s do it. Let’s go. Right here. What’s this? Rashomon.”

“How about this right here? What’s this? Manila in the Claws of Light. Sure. Let’s do it.”

“What’s this? Come on, big money, big money. Yes! Night of the Living Dead. Yeah, that’s strong. Great.”