Tyler Mitchell

“Okay, I will start by choosing Watermelon Woman. The way this plays with Black identity, Black lesbian identity, what it is to be sort of a Black cinema lover. Very fun movie.”

“I have to do this. This is like a left-field pick for me, but Bresson I'm starting to get into, so I want to take L'argent. I've seen it once, embarrassingly on a plane, so I want to take this to like properly watch it on the big screen.”

“A Brighter Summer Day. Yes, let's go. This movie is crazy. What do I say about this movie? I sat for four hours on a Sunday in Metrograph here in New York, watching this and just left feeling like nothing's the same. I mean, this is like a tale of like youth, and finding yourself at like its finest, I think.”

“Claudine. I just saw a poster for this outside. James Earl Jones. Looks amazing. "A bittersweet, big-hearted celebration of family and community set to a sunny soul soundtrack by Curtis Mayfield." You got me.”

“Okay, La ciénaga, a game changer. Criterion put me on to it. I would not have known about Lucrecia Martel, the incredible, without Criterion. I don't even know what to—look at that cover image. Like for me, growing up in Georgia with a lot of green around me, with a lot of nature, and this sort of sultry, humid, hot, slow, blood-boiling summer type of image. Watching this, sort of strange Argentinian family's like summer house crumble as the kids are running around and the dogs are barking and the wine glass is spilled. I, I don't know if I want to find myself in that situation, but I connect to it somehow.”

“The Music Room by Satyajit Ray. A aristocrat who has a opulent music room, who used to show everyone all of his amazing riches and throw these opulent parties. Really a story about indulgence gone wrong, cautionary for our times. And you know what, I want to like do something with this. I don't know what that means, but when I first watched it I had this impulse to be like, how do I, how do I expand or think about these themes now? I mean, amazing stuff.”

“Oh yeah, Love & Basketball. I'm so embarrassed I haven't seen it. That's it, that's all I'm going to say. I'm going to run home, see it now. Don't, bully me.”

“Yeah, Punch-Drunk Love. Okay, boom. This movie and all the work of Paul Thomas Anderson. I mean, I feel like I'm speaking on behalf of so many people when I talk about him. Paul, if you're watching this, I'm in the long list of people who would love to have lunch with you, because of this movie and everything else you've made. What a fun, dark, revelational—like this is a movie about finding love against all odds. I love it.”

“3 Women, Altman, who I discovered from my, like, everyone's hero and favorite, Paul Thomas Anderson, who cited Altman as a favorite. And then when I saw this, I was just like, what a strange and amazing movie. Emotional convergence, jealousy, envy, love, lust, friendship. I, I love this movie.”

“Okay, Garrett Bradley, Time. Shout out Garrett Bradley. I feel so connected to this filmmaker's voice, the way that she's sort of making movies, and artworks that sort of think through, gaps, missing images in sort of Black American life. What we haven't seen, what we don't know, what's lost in the archive. And then what I also love about Garrett is that she lives in New Orleans. She's working closely with sort of, oftentimes, people from the South, and being from Atlanta, that really connects to me. Love, love her work.”

“These I'm taking for Dad, Notorious and Rebecca. My dad raised me, on Hitchcock. This always hits, and I'm going to bring it right to him.”

“These I'm taking for Dad, Notorious and Rebecca. My dad raised me, on Hitchcock. This always hits, and I'm going to bring it right to him.”

“Ozu box set. Nick Tanis, Language of Film, Ozu. When I moved to New York as an NYU film student, talk about getting shown this in the NYU theater with Nick's laser pointer just dissecting how amazing every single frame that Ozu does, is put together, how intentional it all is, how the framing tells the story. I just didn't realize movies could look like this. I didn't realize they could be so poignant and quiet and subtle and powerful at the same time. It's amazing to be reminded by Ozu and by so many filmmakers that you don't have to do much photographically to, to, to say everything.”