A collection of Timothée Chalamet’s favourite movies
French-American actor Timothée Chalamet has secured a firm position at the centre of the new generation of Hollywood. Through a series of appearances in tender indie coming-of-age films like Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name, big budget epics like Interstellar and Dune, and even a collaboration with iconic auteur director Wes Anderson, Chalamet has quickly gained a varied and celebrated filmography.
The actor has become associated with writer and director Greta Gerwig and co-star Saoirse Ronan after a number of collaborations, endearing his on-screen presence to film critics and internet Letterboxd lovers alike. But before he broke into the industry, Chalamet studied performing arts at LaGuardia High School, whose alumni include the likes of Al Pacino and Jennifer Anniston, before focusing on acting while attending university in New York.
Studying the acting of the actors who populated Hollywood before him, Chalamet gained a wide knowledge of and appreciation for films, particularly those with stand-out character-focused performances. Offering a peek behind the curtain, the actor has named a number of his favourites in interviews throughout the years – from superhero films like The Dark Knight to obscure indies like James White. Below, we’ve collated his words on some of the films that inspired his passion for acting.
Chalamet has named Christopher Nolan’s 2008 Batman adaptation, The Dark Knight, as the film that first inspired him to get into the business. He told Indiewire: “I just had no clue what was going on in [Heath Ledger’s] head, and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world”. It’s fitting that Ledger’s iconic performance of the Joker, which gained him a posthumous Oscar and is widely regarded as the best on-screen interpretation of the character, inspired Chalamet’s drive to become an actor. Chalamet went on to work with Nolan just six years later on his space epic Interstellar.
When Chalamet met Christian Bale on the set of Hostiles, he told DP/30: The Oral History of Hollywood that he “grilled him” about The Dark Knight and American Psycho, another of Chalamet’s favourites. Like Ledger’s Joker, Bale’s performance as the psychotic Patrick Bateman has been widely celebrated.
Chalamet shows an interest in performances that see actors push themselves into the minds of characters on the darker sides of humanity. Though the performances he admires are a far cry from his own soft performances in Little Women and Call Me By Your Name, it seems that Chalamet is on the lookout for a similarly transformative role. He stated: “I wanted to play something or someone like Heath Ledger’s Joker” in his acceptance speech at the National Board of Review Gala in 2018.
The only film Chalamet recalls having as visceral a reaction to as The Dark Knight is Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2012 movie The Master. In the same speech, he noted his particular admiration for one scene: “About 40 minutes into the film, there’s a processing scene, an interrogation of sorts, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character says to Joaquin Phoenix that he has to answer everything he asks of him honestly and without blinking. I was floored.”
But Chalamet has named his favourite film as James White, a 2015 drama that follows a man in his 20s in New York. It’s no surprise that the movie lent itself to Chalamet, who spent his university years in New York. He told director Xavier Dolan: “My favourite movie is James White by Josh Mond, and it’s a testament to the filmmaking that I couldn’t tell where the filmmaking was. It felt like watching a man’s journey. Josh has his finger on what it is to be alive now”.
He names his favourite love story, however, as Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine, starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling. An unconventional choice for a romance film, the plot tells the story of the couple’s failing marriage. Chalamet told Sensacine that he admired the filming for its acting.
From Blue Valentine to Batman, it seems that Chalamet’s favourite films are based around raw and remarkable lead performances. It’s no surprise that his own filmography has focused on similarly revealing, emotional characters and stories – from the heartbreaking conclusion of Call Me By Your Name to the desperation of Laurie in Little Women. Still, it appears that Chalamet is still on the hunt for his own iconic, psychotic Patrick Batmen-esque starring role.
