Le film préféré de quelques grands noms d'Hollywood

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Darren Aronofsky
"In high school I remember my buddy Foss saying we should go see this new movie that was getting 'good reviews'. 'What's it called?' I asked. 'Brazil.' 'What?!' The title didn't do it for me. I complained the whole way to the theatre. Even during the previews I was whining. But then there was that opening sequence. The camera pulled back across that machine, and as reality got more and more warped and the shot kept going, my silent mouth hung open in awe. And now, in retrospect, what else could that masterpiece have been called? Moral: never judge a movie by its title..."

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Eric Bana
"I love the combination of realism and surrealism; George Miller had an innate ability to create a world of believable drama interlaced with all things beautiful and mechanical. If you're a mad rev-head like myself, there's no film that comes anywhere near it other than Mad Max 2. I just think it's one of the classic films of all time."

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Danny Boyle
"I am actually of an age where I remember Blade Runner came out. I remember how vilified it was at the time. I was young then and didn't have that arrogance to reject all the criticism of it, to be defiant. I couldn't quite understand the hatred and I thought, 'Am I wrong? This is absolutely amazing.' The creation of that world you can lose yourself in for a couple of hours - it's staggering. I still don't understand why it got such a negative reaction."

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Zach Braff
"Talk about seeing a movie that was unlike any movie you'd ever seen in your life. Charlie Kaufman is just... 'WOAH!' The man's brilliant. It is such a beautiful love story that dissects falling in love in a way that you've never seen before. It's so rare to see a movie that just makes you think, 'Oh my God, I've never seen anything like this.' It's certainly one of those movies that you have to think about. You'll be thinking about it a week after you've seen it, trying to put everything together. I still think about it. And every time I see it I'm still sucked in by it. I'm a huge Kate Winslet fan too. I just think she's genius."

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Zach Braff
"Annie Hall's probably my favourite movie of all time. It's the most perfect romantic comedy. They don't end up together at the end and it's just about that awkward dance of falling in love but not being sure that they're the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with. I love the lobster scene, when they're trying to get them in the pot and having this perfect moment of romance and love, and then later in the film he tries to recreate it with some date. 1think that's a perfect articulation of the way we try to recreate those naturally perfect moments that we've had with someone; how we try to recapture things that we can't. My parents are huge Woody Allen fans. Before home video my dad used to have this friend who would give him 16mm prints and my father used to throw Woody Allen dinner parties with the films projected on the wall. So I was sort of raised on that and I think it's had a very large impact on my sense of humour."

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Zach Braff
"I think it's an amazing movie, it's pretty close to perfect. I actually have the French poster on my wall."

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Zach Braff
"I love Lost In Translation. Every once in a while a movie comes along and feels like it was made especially for you. It is so beautifully shot and acted and Sofia Coppola's direction is so subtle. I like small movies rather than huge movies. I like films that are about people and character; I'm not as interested in story. In essence Lost In Translation is just about a girl meeting a man in a hotel and becoming friends. That's all it is. But you love watching these amazing characters interact and seeing where their relationship goes. I really think it's flawless."

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Jamie Bell
"My favourite film of all time is Terrence Malick's Badlands. It really says something about innocence in young people. I'm around the age of the characters in the movie and I think it captures youth beautifully. Favourite films can come and go, you know, but mine really is Badlands. It represents people caught up and confused, and in love and on the road - it's just fantastic."

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Shane Black
"Dirty Harry is my favourite. I can't really over-estimate the influence that that movie has had. It's a cop film, but it's also a detective film in a sense because he's such a loner. I've never heard those writers do anything else again, but there's something about that inauspicious little script that, at the time, probably didn't feel like that great a script. In retrospect, it represents, perfectly and elegantly, everything I love about '70s cop movies. It's about the garbage man, the trash-taker who has to do society's business so society can pretend it doesn't look and see. And that's literally the reason why it's called Dirty Harry."

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Adrien Brody
"I love De Niro's work, particularly his early work. I love him in Taxi Driver, but I really love him in The Deer Hunter. Michael is a compelling, tragic, kind of lost figure, and I think it's a wonderful role. Even before I knew I would be an actor, that was inspirational to me in some way. The beauty of being an actor is to find those characters and understand elements of that loneliness, or whatever struggles that we all encounter in our lives, and have a better understanding of that, and express it, and learn from it. And then hopefully people can connect to those experiences and learn from it too. It's an incredible performance."

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Mel Brooks
"The Ealing comedies were really the thing that started me on my way to film comedy. They formed me, even though it was unconscious at the time. They're larger-than-life comedies that never left the human equation. They were brilliant, all of them - Passport To Pimlico, The Man In The White Suit, Titfield Thunderbolt... The Ladykillers is a great, great film. Alec Guinness is wonderful, of course. I love that man. I loved him in Kind Hearts And Coronets - you believed he was all those marvellous characters. In this he's so creepy but you still love watching him. And that beautifully sweet, naive landlady who didn't know shit from shinola. Everything about it. It's terrific."

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Steve Carell
"This was the last comedy that really made me laugh. I can't pin down exactly what it is about it, but man, that movie made me laugh. I think it was a movie that defied my expectations. For example, when Ben Stiller zippers himself into his pants it was one of those scenes that was funny on its own. You knew the Farrellys wouldn't show him zippering himself in his pants, because how could they? There's no way! There's an old comedic premise that what you don't say is always funnier than what you do. But then they show it! Which just completely defied any of your expectations of what it would do and it was funny and it topped what had gone before. It was crass and vulgar and ridiculous, and yet the characters really had heart. It's a completely satisfying movie. I loved it."

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Steve Carell
"It's probably the best satire ever committed to film. It was so far ahead of its time. It's just one of those movies where you always see something new and is always funny - and always for different reasons."

Kevin Spacey
"I saw it for the very first time at a revival theatre in America, on the big screen. It wasn't a bad print and I remember how stunned I was that Peter Sellers played three parts. It was just a remarkable piece of work. Whenever I'm in the mood to be silly and have an undertow of something quite serious, I watch Dr. Strangelove."

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Paddy Considine
"It's my favourite film of all time. I try to watch it at least once a year. Having this guy who comes from the streets who's a potential bum, who has this chance to redeem his character, I identified with that. When I was a kid, people always thought he'd won and I was like, 'Am I the only guy here who knows he lost?' That's what I loved, it wasn't about winning, it was about, 'If I can stand on my feet and show everybody I'm not useless, I can walk around these streets with my head held up high.' Stallone's never been better than he was in that first movie, because I think he was Rocky Balboa at the time. I think they offered him more money for the script if they could get Robert Redford or somebody to play Rocky. And this guy was eating shit sandwiches and he turned it all down to play Rocky, and I thought that was a really bold move when you ain't got a pot to piss in. Can you imagine Robert Redford as Rocky? Me neither."

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Cameron Crowe
"I think it's a great glimpse of modern life, filmed like a book, presented like a wonderful piece of literature, which it also is, and as a music fan, few movies have used music as well as this."

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Cameron Crowe
"It's a Hollywood movie with the confidence of a one-man show. Darabont made this film the old-fashioned way, with the brute force of his ideas and images and script, and Stephen King's story, and not a big studio note in sight. It connects to people, it's personal, and that's why it's fun to call it a personal favorite. Because it feels like it was made for one person - you."

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Pete Docter
"I'm a huge fan of Miyazaki's work. He's just amazing. Like all his films, Spirited Away has these moments of truth, just these really well-observed moments, whether they be human emotion or the way water flows over a rock. It's just full of incredible observation, which is really why we go to the movies - to see life reflected in a funhouse mirror. And he is able to do that. They're a little far-out for some folks, but I think that's one of the reasons why fans appreciate them: they don't fall into any formula at all. Every one of his films is its own thing. People talk, absurdly, about 2-D animation being over, but this film shows that it's all about storytelling, not the medium."

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Peter Docter
Wallace and Gromit are one my favourites. Every one of their films, from the shorts to Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, is terrific. What really works so well for me is the reliance on the characters. The plots are always incredibly well constructed and keep you guessing and are interesting, but it always comes back to these engaging, fun characters and just lets them shine - and one of them can't even talk, which is even more impressive! Nick Park, I think, is really one of the most amazing filmmakers of our time."

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Peter Farrelly
"Right now I feel that people have kind of gotten away from the classic endings of the '70s when everything didn't have to end up good. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, they get killed at the end, and if you did that movie today, the audience would be demanding that they ride off into the sunset. But that's not the right ending. If they made that film now, people would say, 'Well, couldn't you break them all out and they go and live on an island somewhere?' But that's not the correct ending. This got it right."

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Peter Farrelly
"I avoided Schindler's List for a long time because I just thought it was going to be a work-out. I was afraid of it, you know, I didn't have three hours to feel bad for a long time. And then I said, 'I've got to see this movie, I want in.' It's just one of those movies that on every level was an amazing achievement. The scope of what he did there, you know that's Spielberg's masterpiece. Any time I ever hear anybody criticise Spielberg - because you get that when you're up top like Spielberg, you get people moaning - I come to his defence because he's made some of the most brilliant movies. It must be great to be him and to have made that movie and know you've accomplished something in your lifetime that is going to be lasting and is a permanent record. I immediately remember the little kids hiding in the toilets, the scene where they're in the outhouse and they're down in the shit and the piss and they're down there hiding from the soldiers. And where he lines up 200 or 300 people and they're emaciated - how do you cast that? Just the reality of it, that he went all out. I just love that movie. The Schindler story is great, but it's uplifting to me that a guy went and captured it and can move you in such a way. I mean, I was blubbering in that movie and I'm not an easy cry. I just loved it."

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Jon Favreau
"This definitely hit me at a time when I was very impressionable. The movies that scare you are the ones you tend to remember, and there was definitely a sense of danger in Close Encounters. And that was sort of a holdover, I think, of what Spielberg experienced watching Disney movies as a child. Children are scared a lot because things are always new to them and they tend to focus on things that scare them, but which, ultimately, once they're understood, are no longer scary. That's why I think Spielberg's family films are so successful, because they make sense of a world that's very overwhelming to children."

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Harrison Ford
"When I saw it I was moved and touched by it as a piece of theatre, moved and touched by it as a piece of social commentary, and recognised a great emotional power for good that can come from a film. And, of course, I loved the performance of Gregory Peck."

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Jodie Foster
"I completely fell in love with the film as soon as I saw it. I was really moved by it; I think it deals with violence in a way that's incredibly mature. It speaks about the fusion of cultures, the way American culture has pretty much permeated the world. Some of that's a good thing, some of that's a bad thing, but you can't take if away. An important theme in the film is that the whole while the characters and the audience are expecting something awful to happen, and when they've managed to convince themselves that they've avoided disaster, it strikes. This movie is about the solution being love."

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Curtis Hanson
"Seven Samurai is just a masterpiece. Not only is it a fabulously entertaining movie, but it says so much about life and relationships. The fact that it's from another culture and still speaks so strongly to me and to film lovers everywhere gives me confidence that it will also speak to film lovers in the future. And of course, it's been imitated so many times - The Magnificent Seven, A Bug's Life - so it must be good."

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John Hurt
"If film is images on screen, I can remember at least 30 images that still have an impact on me from seeing that film for the first time. And that's incredible. That's talking about pure, unadulterated film. There are lots of other great films, but if you want to be a purist, you can't beat Eraserhead, The soundtrack as well - fantastic, extraordinary, and it revolutionised sound. I was shown it before committing to Elephant Man because nobody knew who David Lynch was. He set up a viewing of it and I saw it with (entertainment mogul) Edgar Bronfman Jr., who was a friend of mine. And at the end of it, he said, 'Well, John, you won't be doing Elephant Man, I should think, after seeing that!' I said, 'You've got to be kidding! It's genius! I'm definitely doing it!' So he became head of Universal and I'm still a struggling actor. The images, from the baby, to the radiators, to the image of the hair... it's the most brilliant, imaginative understanding of a nervous breakdown you could possibly imagine. And funny! The sperms raining down! What a student film!"

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Peter Jackson
"It is absolutely true that when I saw King Kong it made me want to become a filmmaker. I've no idea whether I would be making films if I hadn't seen it, but after I saw King Kong I started making little stop-motion films. It is this wonderful blend - possibly the most perfect blend - of escapism and adventure and mystery and romance. It does everything I think that good escapist cinema should do. It transports you to places that you are never going to see."

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Mark Steven Johnson
"It's always been my favourite film. If it's on TV when I'm flipping, I can't take my eyes off it. Nicholson is the best he's ever been and he's surrounded by all these fantastic actors, from Christopher Lloyd to [Danny] DeVito. Every single one of 'em makes me laugh until I cry, and then they break your heart. It does everything a movie is supposed to do - it makes you think and it makes you cry and it makes you feel uplifted. When Chief picks up that sink and throws it at the window and the music is picking up, and he goes running off into the night, it's such a goosebump moment. The best movies are the ones that, as they get towards the end, you wish they could keep going, and Cuckoo's Nest is one of those."

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Neil Labute
"Manhattan is, I feel, as near to perfect as any movie has a right to be. I think every element is working in harmony. It's like a perfect little snowglobe of a time and place and a people. Woody Allen captured a snapshot of a particular time in New York. It's just delightful from one end to the other. When I was doing Your Friends & Neighbors, I screened Manhattan and said, 'Look, we're making a movie that's not as good as this, but that's what we're aiming for!'"

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Jude Law
"I saw this film when I was 12 years old, videoed it and, being the pretentious little sod I was, when I had a group of friends over next, I asked them if they wanted to see a black-and-white classic rather than an Eddie Murphy film or something. Robert Mitchum's at his best, playing the ultimate anti-hero. You don't know whether you love him or hate him, but you certainly can't take your eyes off him. Shelley Winters gives her best performance, in my opinion. I think one of the most important aspects of this is Stanley Cortez's cinematography. There's a shot towards the end of the film where the children journey towards their freedom, and it's the most extraordinary modern use of fairy-tale imaginative cinema I've ever seen; with just music, no dialogue."

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Neil Marshall
"I'm a huge Western fan, and the first time I saw The Wild Bunch I was blown away. It's an astonishing piece of filmmaking and I love the fact that it was made by a madman at the height of his madness. Peckinpah was a complete A-grade loon, but that brought out brilliance in his films, and he got this cast who were equally mad in their own way, a real bunch of wildcards, and he put them together and just created screen lunacy. The final shoot-out is the blueprint by which every shoot-out or action movie has been done since. Where would the Wachowski siblings or John Woo be without Peckinpah?"