Christopher Nolan

“Got to get a little Don Siegel, Killers.”

“Definitely want to get the Cassavetes box set. Shadows, Faces, Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Woman Under the Influence. Incredible work.”

“For All Mankind, Al Reinert. That is a phenomenal movie. I do already have it. I suppose I could steal a second copy, but I think I’ll leave this here for somebody else.”

“So this one is great: Mr. Arkadin, a. K. A. Confidential Report, written and directed by Orson Welles. It’s a film he made all over the world in the scrappiest, most sort of homemade, put his friends together, grab some costumes, find an interesting location kind of way. But yeah, it’s got all the different versions that were ever released in different strange forms. It’s a very, very peculiar piece of work, but really speaks to Welles’s genius, absolutely.”

“Fritz Lang, Testament of Dr. Mabuse. Amazing mastermind criminal. We looked at Dr. Mabuse a lot, my brother and I, when we were doing The Dark Knight, for the character of the Joker.”

“And The Apu Trilogy, Satyajit Ray, one of the great Indian filmmakers, The trilogy, starting with Pather Panchali, which is an absolutely incredible film and just blew my mind, but I have not yet seen two and three in the trilogy, so pretty excited to get this one and complete the story.”

“Scorsese Shorts. I’m going to have to grab that. I’ve seen The Big Shave, but I haven’t seen the other ones, so that’s pretty exciting.”

“And on the subject of Martin Scorsese and The Film Foundation, which I’m a part of, I’m going to grab the box set from the World Cinema Project. It’s part of Marty’s project to really take what he’s done with The Film Foundation for American cinema and do it with different film industries around the world and really try and look at films in desperate need of preservation.”

“Yeah, Spike’s Malcolm X, I’ve been meaning to revisit that. I saw it on 70mm film when it came out and I don’t think I’ve seen it since, so going to check that out. I think John David Washington has a little cameo as one of the children at the end saying, “I am Malcolm X.”...”

“Lost Highway. That’s one of my favorite David Lynch movies. When I first saw it, I cannot say that I enjoyed the film. I found it quite laborious to sit through. I thought it was quite heavy going, quite hard, but I found myself thinking about it weeks afterwards and remembering it like I was remembering one of my own Dreams, which just speaks to the way that Lynch figured out how to take dream logic and the experience of dreaming and make a sort of cinematic proxy for that.”

“Definitely have to pull out The Qatsi Trilogy. Koyaanisqatsi, in particular, of the three, that is my great favorite. Extraordinary music by Philip Glass. No dialogue, just imagery. An emotional experience. It’s just one of the great pieces of pure cinema.”

“Going to have to pull out The Player. For me, Altman’s masterpiece. I don’t think it’s generally considered to be his greatest film, but possibly I’m biased because I work in movies, but I just think it’s an incredible thriller and it’s an absolutely incisive satire of Hollywood. Hugely influential on things that have come since.”

“Yeah, I got to take Linklater’s Boyhood. What an incredible concept and to actually pull it off in such a moving way, really something.”

“One False Move. Terrific movie. Carl Franklin directed it. It’s a great Performance by Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton. Really great neo-noir.”

“The Black Stallion, Carroll Ballard. Absolutely beautiful film. Saw it when I was a kid. It stayed with me. Incredible photography by Caleb Deschanel. Very, very influential visually, and just a beautiful kids’ film.”

“And I got to finish with Citizen Kane. I mean… I love that packaging, too. Just says it all.”