Amy Adams shares her five favourite films
Amy Adams is one of Hollywood’s golden girls. Thanks to a career built from both comedic and dramatic roles, Adams has earned a place in the annual rankings of the highest-paid actresses.
With performances in romantic comedies such as Enchanted and Leap Year, alongside more serious roles in Man of Steel and Arrival, Adams has built an impressive filmography for herself. She is the recipient of two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to many other prestigious accolades.
Adams’ presence onscreen has been described as both engaging and gracious. Her acting style and her energetic performances can be traced back to her film taste, most notably her top five films, which she shared with Rotten Tomatoes.
First up on Adam’s list is the classic Gone With the Wind, the American classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Adams shares how Victor Fleming’s film, which was once the highest-grossing film of all time, “had a lasting effect on me.”
The actress also gives insight into the film’s strong points. “I love the cinematography; it was just such a groundbreaking movie.” Furthermore, she stated, “It’s interesting now to see, in looking back, how we approached race in Hollywood and how it’s changed so much. It was just epic and romantic and sweeping at that time in my life.”
Adams’ ranking proceeds with another revolutionary American classic. The Wizard of Oz was released in 1939 by MGM studios and follows farm girl Dorothy’s adventures in the magical land of Oz.
The actress suggests watching the film accompanied by another acclaimed piece of media. “Have you watched it with Dark Side of the Moon?” Adams asks, referring to Pink Floyd’s 8th studio rock album. The actress emphasises, “You should really do that, it’s very strange”.
Following a theme here, Adams gives her third entry as the horror masterpiece Psycho. This 1960 thriller follows the unorthodox nature of Norman Bates, a shy hotel proprietor. The film is directed by Alfred Hitchcock, cited as one of cinema’s greatest.
“I love Alfred Hitchcock, but that was the first one that I saw. I saw it in a humanities class in high school. We broke it down and had to write all these articles about it, and it stayed with me for a lot of reasons. In exploring all of the imagery that Alfred Hitchcock uses, and just the tone of the film”.
The actress then shares her experience of discussing Psycho in class. “To get to sit down with my teacher and break a film down intellectually was a discovery for me. It’s still one of my favourites. It speaks to me very strongly.”
The fourth film on Adam’s list is an adaptation of Stephen King’s dramatic novella, The Shawshank Redemption. The film shows a prisoner called Red reciting the story of Andy Dufresne, a successful but unorthodox prisoner, who is arrested for the murders of his wife and her lover. Adams explains, “Shawshank is one of those films that, every time it comes on television, I watch it”.
She highlights what she loves most about the film “It’s a good script, it’s a good story; it’s a story about the human spirit and redemption… it’s beautiful. That scene when the opera plays, and everybody stops for that moment, and you just hear Morgan Freeman’s voice come in, that kills me. It’s really great.”
Adams struggles to conclude on her final entry, first going for Casablanca but then swapping it for another film that “you really watch, like a hundred times.” The actress shares a film that, he acknowledges, won’t be known to AFI regulars. “You must see Paulie! I know you think I’m crazy. I love Paulie.”
This film follows the mishaps of a talking parrot subjected to an experiment and tries to escape. Adams shares how “it’s such a touching story. I hope I haven’t built it up too much.”
Check out the full list below.
Amy Adams’ five favourite films:
- Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
- The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming & Richard Thorpe, 1939)
- Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
- The Shawshank Redemption. (Frank Daranbot, 1994)
- Paulie (John Roberts, 1998)
