Aaron Eckhart names his five favourite movies of all time
After spending a couple of years off the radar, Aaron Eckhart is due to appear on the big screen with several projects slated for an upcoming release, including Roel Reine’s action-thriller Classified and the Vietnam-epic Ambush. After leading Thank You for Smoking in 2005 and playing diverse roles in Steven Soderberg’s Erin Brockovich and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, Eckhart proved himself an immensely skilful actor whose return to cinemas will be much welcome.
During a conversation with Rotten Tomatoes, Eckhart opened up about his favourite films and started with a Jack Nicholson classic. Five Easy Pieces followed only a year after 1969’s Easy Rider and signified a huge cultural shift in cinema and the beginning of the ‘New Hollywood’ era. The Jack Nicholson-led movie follows an oil rigger who makes a trip across America to return home to his ailing father. The impact made by Nicholson caused a ripple which still reaches actors today, and it certainly didn’t miss Eckhart. “Five Easy Pieces. Nicholson was a god. Is a god. Great movie. Fucking great movie.”
If Five Easy Pieces heralded a new era of cinema, then Apocalypse Now probably marked the beginning of the end of New Hollywood in 1979. The Vietnam-odyssey film based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was notorious for running over schedule, being over budget, and being marred by on-set paranoia and delirium that almost mirrored that of the actual movie. As Eckhart says, “You could tell that the movie was made in madness, as madness…” The result is an undeniably potent and staggering piece of cinema, which has clearly moved Eckhart deeply: “Someday I want to make a movie like that. Total consumption.”
Whilst cerebral and meditative films such as Apocalypse Now are a necessity, so is the simple genre flick. Sam Peckinpah was a master of genre cinema, exploring everything from the Western frontier to World War II, and his influence was most profoundly felt by Quentin Tarantino. For Eckhart, The Getaway in 1972 is Peckinpah’s best. “This is so easy, but I’ll say The Getaway, with McQueen.” The Steve McQueen vehicle details an outlaw husband-and-wife duo on the run from the law; pure entertainment at its best. As Eckhard says, “It’s just raw power and action.”
Another of Eckart’s favourite films that depict the criminal justice system, albeit in a drastically different way, is Alan Parker’s The Midnight Express, which shows an American tourist’s attempt to smuggle drugs out of Turkey and the devastating consequences he incurs. Also known as “The one where he goes to the Turkish Prison. Midnight Express. There you go. That movie terrified me.” Eckart continues, offering some sound advice: “Go to Turkey, but do your hash before.”
Even the best of us are suckers for nostalgia, which is where Eckhart’s final film in his top five comes from. “Bringing Up Baby, with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn — just because I grew up on those movies.” One of Cary Grant’s earliest films, Howard Hawks’ Bring Up Baby, is a zany romcom about a palaeontologist entrusted with a tame leopard called ‘Baby’.
Check out the full list below.
Aaron Eckhart’s favourite films
- Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
- Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970)
- The Getaway (Sam Peckinpah, 1972)
- Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938)
- Midnight Express (Alan Parker, 1978)
