Jason Sudeikis

“My favorite Stanley Kubrick film, Eyes Wide Shut. I saw this movie in the theater. I understand it a little bit more now. I mean, I understand the beginning, middle, and end, but what it means to me, I am still trying to figure it out. I think this movie rocks. Scary as it is sexy as it is interesting as it is smart as it is weird as it is just special. One of my all-time favorite movies.”

“You can get Eyes Wide Shut, you can get, you know, Fellini, or you can get House Party. Watched this recently, actually, with my kids. The kids love it. The dance sequence, this moment right here between the guys and the gals, is thrilling. Gave me goosebumps when I was a kid, gave my kids goosebumps, gives me goosebumps as an adult. Love having that in the mix.”

“A Face in the Crowd. Andy Griffith, who everybody thinks of as just being from his show and the whistling and the country bumpkin, but he is such a mean son of a gun in this thing. If I could remake any movie, it would be this movie right here. So if anybody at Warner Brothers, if several other people pass, come my way. I would love to take a crack at that, but I wouldn’t try to screw it up too much.”

“Two of the most lovely people ever to maybe be on Earth, but also do acting: Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, having a fun little Charade, this movie, stylish as hell. You’d think it’s a Hitchcock movie. It’s not. And that may be the idea. But Stanley Donen, come on. You can’t go wrong with that guy. He knows what he’s doing.”

“One of the all-time great film noir movies: Double Indemnity. This movie is based on a real-life story of a woman who… her and her boyfriend killed her husband and then got the insurance claim. That woman was then executed. The New York Daily News ran a photograph of it. A photographer snuck into… the electrocution, had a camera strapped to his ankle and the whole wire coming up his leg… and captured it. Fun fact: the guy that took that photo, named Tom Howard, my great-grandfather.”

“Love & Basketball, I think this thing is beautiful. I mean, I rewatched it with my kids, actually. They were hooked. They love it. Great soundtrack. I’ve seen Gina from across the court at a few Sparks games, and I’ve yet to make my way over to her, but big fan.”

“One of the best... Actually, speaking of sports movies, here we go, this one, another one: Bull Durham. Ron Shelton is basically, in my opinion, the Nora Ephron of sports films. And to write and direct and this be your first one, it still holds up, and it’s so funny. Ted Lasso, this used to be our comp. I remember recommending Juno Temple watch this, and she fell in love with it. I come back to this movie all the time.”

“Dazed and Confused. Come on. Classic. Now, first time I saw this movie, did not like it. I had to go to summer school, and I remember they showed this in summer school. A lot of the kids in summer school were a lot like a lot of the characters in this thing. Whatever that teacher was thinking, 'How do I connect with these young kids in summer school? I know: I’ll show them Dazed and Confused.' It worked.”

“When people ask me what my favorite movie is, I genuinely say Citizen Kane. Mr. Zinger showed this at night school. I remember looking around and I’m just riveted, following this movie, looking around, everybody’s asleep. This was the first movie that I feel I saw that I understood it that movies were art, as corny as that may seem. The fact that that guy did all that, at that age. That guy being Orson Welles. It’s so subversive, it’s so clever, it’s so funny, it’s so heartbreaking.”

“Martin Scorsese, After Hours. This movie was absolutely the inspiration for an episode of Ted Lasso we did, season two, where the character Coach Beard, played by Brendan Hunt, is our little nod in celebration to this film. But it’s just great storytelling, great performances, and yet, you know, any cynic could watch it and just go, 'Just walk north, man.' It’s, like, 'Hey, sometimes life isn’t that easy, all right?'”

“Pickup on South Street by Sam Fuller. I don’t know this one. I’ve never heard of this movie.”

“The Devil’s Backbone by Guillermo del Toro. I haven’t seen this. I don’t know anything about this. Awesome. That’s fun. That’s the way to do it, because, yeah, I have picked a bunch of movies that I’ve seen, and here are two that I hadn’t even heard of.”

“The Before Trilogy. I have not seen the third one yet, and I only watched the first two in the last few months. It’s nuts to watch something that you feel like you’ve seen and have always wanted and then it’s existed, then you catch up with it. Just two people, just great dialogue, great performances, and you get to be a fly on the wall and you kind of, like, romantically hope to seek out one of those moments in life.”