The comedian and actor presents a selection of his favorite films, and talks about watching movies with his dad, fart jokes in Ozu pictures, and why Bergman’s THE VIRGIN SPRING is hilarious. Be warned—some introductions contain plot spoilers!
The actor and comedian on a lifetime of moviegoing
Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1952 • Japan
Starring Takashi Shimura, Nobuo Kaneko, Kyoko Seki
One of the greatest achievements by Akira Kurosawa, IKIRU shows the director at his most compassionate—affirming life through an exploration of death. Takashi Shimura beautifully portrays Kanji Watanabe,...
Directed by Satyajit Ray • 1955 • India
Starring Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee, Karuna Banerjee
With the release in 1955 of Satyajit Ray’s debut, PATHER PANCHALI, an eloquent and important new cinematic voice made itself heard all over the world. A depiction of rural Bengali life in a style insp...
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1960 • Sweden
Starring Max von Sydow, Birgitta Valberg, Gunnel Lindblom
Winner of the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, Ingmar Bergman’s THE VIRGIN SPRING is a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden. With austere simplicity, the...
Directed by Wim Wenders • 1977 • Germany
Starring Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz
Wim Wenders pays loving homage to rough-and-tumble Hollywood film noir with THE AMERICAN FRIEND, a loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel “Ripley’s Game.” Dennis Hopper oozes quirky menace as an amoral American a...
Directed by David Cronenberg • 1979 • Canada
Starring Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle
A disturbed woman is receiving a radical form of psychotherapy at a remote, mysterious institute. Meanwhile, her five-year-old daughter, under the care of her estranged husband, is being terrorized by a...
Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen • 1984 • United States
Joel and Ethan Coen's career-long darkly comic road trip through misfit America began with this razor-sharp, hard-boiled neonoir set somewhere in Texas, where a sleazy bar owner releases a torrent of violence with one murderous though...
Directed by Jim Jarmusch • 1986 • United States
Starring Tom Waits, John Lurie, Roberto Benigni
Director Jim Jarmusch followed up his brilliant breakout film STRANGER THAN PARADISE with another, equally beloved portrait of loners and misfits in the American landscape. When fate brings together t...
Directed by George Sluizer • 1988 • Netherlands
Starring Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege
A young man embarks on an obsessive search for the girlfriend who mysteriously disappeared while the couple were taking a sunny vacation trip, and his three-year investigation dra...
