A collection of Brian De Palma’s favourite movies
Who is the greatest director of all time? A case can certainly be made for the likes of Steven Spielberg, Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese and Orson Welles, icons of the industry who are often touted as being the very best. But what about the undervalued innovators who have never received the due praise, including the likes of Mike Leigh, Jonathan Glazer, Roy Andersson, Claire Denis and Brian De Palma?
A student of cinema who helped to change the industry in the late 20th century, American filmmaker Brian De Palma entered the industry in the 1960s, taking on a number of minor feature films before he would make it big in the following decade. The bizarre comedy musical Phantom of the Paradise in 1974 would be his first big hit, showing off his eclectic tastes and cinematic versatility.
Following 1974, De Palma would go from strength to strength, helming the Stephen King adaptation of Carrie in 1976, Blow Out with John Travolta in 1981 and Scarface in 1983 with Al Pacino.
Revered in the industry, De Palma has long been idolised by the Pulp Fiction filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. “De Palma was a great influence to me,” he stated in a past interview, “And one of the things about De Palma that people don’t talk about is, De Palma is probably the greatest satirist of the last 20 years in cinema, his films are hysterical biting black comedies…no one has hit wit, it’s fantastic, even though he doesn’t make comedies”.
Just like Tarantino, De Palma has a passion for the history of the moving image, having countless favourites from some of the greatest filmmakers of all time.
Included in his list of all-time favourites are the likes of the Alfred Hitchcock movies Vertigo, Psycho, Rear Window and North by Northwest, as well as the John Ford movies My Darling Clementine, Two Rode Together and The Searchers.
Take a look at a collection of De Palma’s all-time favourites below, compiled from multiple interviews from across the years.
Brian De Palma’s favourite movies:
- My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946)
- Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
- Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
- Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
- Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
- Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
- North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
- The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941)
- The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015)
- A Hologram For The King (Tom Tykwer, 2015)
- Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998)
- Cop Car (Jon Watts, 2015)
- Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977)
- The Ides of March (George Clooney, 2011)
- Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
- Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
- The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1948)
- Rope (Alfred Hitchcock 1948)
- Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock 1954)
- Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998)
- Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
- El topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970)
- The Naked Kiss (Samuel Fuller, 1964)
- White Dog (Samuel Fuller, 1982)
- Homicidal (William Castle, 1961)
- The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976)
- David Holzman’s Diary (Jim McBride, 1967)
- Café Flesh (Stephen Sayadian, 1982)
- Nightdreams (Francis Delia, 1981)
- The Secret Cinema (Paul Bartel, 1968)
- Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932)
- Nightmare Alley (Edmund Goulding 1947)
- The Naked Spur (Anthony Mann, 1953)
- Two Rode Together (John Ford, 1961)
- The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
- The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
- Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971)
- The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1980)
- Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)
- The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984)
- Salesman (Albert Maysles, 1969)
- In Cold Blood (Richard Brooks, 1967)
- The Damned (Luchino Visconti, 1969)
- Ludwig (Luchino Visconti, 1973)
- The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1942)
- Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
- The Women (George Cukor, 1939)
- Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012)
- Address Unknown (Kim Ki-Duk, 2001)
- Flanders (Bruno Dumont, 2006)
- The Pirate (Vincente Minnelli, 1948)
- Man’s Castle (Frank Borzage, 1933)
- High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)
- Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
- The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
- Scarface (Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson, 1932)
