Mindy Kaling

“This is an incredible movie: Anatomy of a Fall. I love this film because it answers the age-old question of: did this woman murder her annoying husband or not? I was about to say Sandra’s Performance as though she’s my good friend. I’m gonna call her Sandra, like we know each other and we text. Her Performance is so good. I actually wasn’t aware of her. It’s exactly the kind of thriller that I like, a domestic thriller.”

“Next is the classic Love & Basketball, directed by the iconic Gina Prince-Bythewood. This is one of those movies that made me want to write for TV and film. And what I like about this romantic movie is that it kind of proves that competition can be foreplay. That is the kind of romance I like, when two people are ambitious people gunning for the same thing, and that’s what the two leads in this movie are. Also, I do a TV show about basketball, basketball is hot.”

“This is a movie that is very special to me: Frances Ha. Do you ever have that film where when you meet someone new and you want to show them a movie that really encapsulates who you are? To me, that is Frances Ha. When I first saw it, I thought, “This has so beautifully captured what it’s like to be broke, underappreciated, and just longing.” But instead of romantic longing, it’s longing for close, intimate female friendship. And Greta is luminous in this movie.”

“This is A Room with a View, and it’s a Merchant Ivory film, which, if you’re Indian and you were around in the ’80s and the ’90s, Ismail Merchant was so huge for us because he was one of the people we could look to as really making it in the business and being successful. And there’s actually a very grown-up scene in the movie people who know the movie will know, which is Julian Sands and another actor are running fully Naked around a pond in this joyous scene.”

“My next choice I think is going to be a surprise to people, which is The Shape of Water. I love Guillermo del Toro because he has this way of making monsters seem human and humans seem terrifying. And when I saw this, I was like, “Is that amphibian man hot?” Like, you understand why Sally Hawkins falls in love with this man. And the relationship between Octavia Spencer and Sally Hawkins in this movie is one of the most tender friendships, I think, in any film.”

“This is Mississippi Masala, directed by the iconic legend Mira Nair. Mira Nair has made so many amazing movies, but this one, to me, really sticks out because of how ahead of its time it is. Not only are Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury the best looking that they’ve ever been, the movie is about immigration, displacement, and how marginalized communities can feel prejudice towards each other, and, like I said, I just think it’s incredibly ahead of its time.”

“Pickup on South Street. Hey, this looks hot. I think I did a good job. I can’t wait to see that, so that’s going to go in my bag.”