Ayo Edebiri

“I'm going to take High and Low. I've been seeing this popping off again on Letterboxd, which I think is good because this is just a truly masterful film to me and I think Kurosawa is like so amazing. I watched this, it felt like 50 times. It just all felt like a dance—like the camera is dancing but also like the actors are doing their own sort of choreography. I love the blocking of this movie and also Tsutomu Yamazaki, he has this moment of physicality at the end of the movie.”

“Charade, absolute fave. I love a heist and when I found out about this movie I was just like, oh perfect, literally perfect. Two hot people doing a heist but it's like very goofy and very silly and there's really fun set pieces and it's just got that like 60s wit.”

“I saw Rushmore and I really want to take Bottle Rocket. I love this movie because it is like the seeds of a director who you know is going to be great but also it's just like a movie made by pals and that to me is heaven. I love when guys be dudes, I love when friends make movies together and it's not as like polished yet as like Rushmore. Can we like get like Owen Wilson back on the keyboard?”

“Pure sexiness, pure Chicago. Love a heist as I said and the movie is Thief.”

“I'm taking The Funeral because I already have Tampopo. Juzo Itami is one of my favorite directors ever and I think of also all the male directors who are like 'my wife is my muse,' I'm like he's the best because he's not like torturing her. He's like you're gonna fix up a ramen shop or a supermarket or like take down the Yakuza. I think he's the absolute goat.”

“I love To Sleep with Anger. I mean, really taps at the core of like African American surrealist imagery in a way that I love. I'm very, very glad that this has been restored and remastered because I think this movie is worth hundreds of watches. And also shout out to Abbott because Sheryl Lee Ralph is in this and it's just amazing in this. Everybody's amazing in this. I love this movie.”

“Eyimofe is a movie by the Esiri brothers which I loved. They're two Nigerian brothers and filmmakers and they made a gorgeous, gorgeous movie about contemporary Nigeria and these intersecting stories. I saw it three times in theaters. My father was like 'I liked it' and that's a huge, huge review from an immigrant father. Eyimofe, also known as This Is My Desire in English. Amazing, amazing film, could not recommend highly enough.”