Denis Villeneuve

“Steven Soderbergh, Che, with the great Benicio del Toro. And it’s– for me, it’s one of the, by far, one of the best movies about war, about what it is to be a leader of men. The research behind this movie is astonishing, and I absolutely adore the directing. I think it’s a movie that is underrated. Honestly, it’s a movie, it’s a... It’s a masterful work from Soderbergh. My favorite movie from Soderbergh. Part one, part two. Maybe there’s an influence there, I don’t know.”

“The Wages of Fear from Henri-Georges Clouzot. A masterclass into screenwriting and how to express storytelling through pure images. It’s really one of my favorite films from Henri-Georges Clouzot.”

“Satyricon, Fellini. There’s something that happened in the beginning of the movie... This movie, there’s a specific scene that triggers a lot of horror. That shock, that happened at the beginning, really...”

“If not my best one, by far one of my favorite movies of all time, The Seven Samurai from Akira Kurosawa. The best use of slow motion.”

“And I will start with something here that is very important to me. It’s the trilogy made by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Three Colors. More specifically, Three Colors: Blue. That’s real director master shit. The balance between, and the precision between, the communication between the cinematographer, the director, the director, the cinematographer, and the composer. And I will say that it’s a movie that, when I watch it, it’s one of the rare movies that I... I’m still moved to tears by the cinematography. Voilà. There’s something about the way Kieślowski filmed women, that I was always being moved.”

“And I think that, if you step back in time, the man that... Preceded him was, of course, Bergman. And I will say that Through a Glass Darkly, this portrait of a father that is fascinated by how his daughter is... The sickness of his daughter and the guilt he has as an artist. You know, it’s an exploration of how artists sometimes can be vampires on their subject, and that really, I thought, was absolutely mesmerizing. I will say that, as a filmmaker, I came to cinema through documentary and the... The pressure of having to deal with reality, the pressure of having to... Know that you’re shooting real humans going through real... It’s something that I thought was a bit difficult to deal with, and I prefer fiction, frankly. Maybe I’m a coward, I don’t know. But... Through a Glass Darkly.”

“A filmmaker in the ’90s that... I keep saying that, without him, life will have been very boring. Lars von Trier. I love all his films, but specifically Europa, maybe was my introduction to Lars von Trier, it’s a... Hypnotic journey into postwar Germany. And it’s... So inventive, so creative, and so playful. There’s something about how Lars von Trier plays with the code of cinema, how he reinvents the codes of cinema. He has a tremendous sense of humor and is a very, very clever filmmaker. One of my favorites.”