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Antonio Banderas names his five favourite movies
The Spanish actor José Antonio Domínguez Bandera, better known as Antonio Banderas, is known as one of the greatest actors of European cinema, winning the Cannes award for best male performance for the 2019 movie Dolor y gloria. Working throughout several genres, from independent Spanish flicks to Hollywood blockbusters, Banderas has become known as a quintessential contemporary star.
His career began through his collaboration with Pedro Almodóvar in the 1980s, making five films with the celebrated filmmaker including Labyrinth of Passion, Matador, Law of Desire, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! that would help to form the crucial foundations for his career. Shortly afterwards, Banderas would take to Hollywood, appearing in Philadelphia, Interview with the Vampire and Desperado from 1993-1995.
Since then, Banderas has enjoyed a fruitful career where he has collaborated with some of the most celebrated filmmakers of modern cinema, including Jonathan Demme, Robert Rodriguez, Richard Donner, Brian De Palma, Woody Allen, Steven Soderbergh and Terrence Malick.
In conversation with Rotten Tomatoes, Banderas revealed his five favourite movies of all time, referencing a separate handful of filmmakers who have made their mark on cinema history.
His first pick is the classic Federico Fellini movie 8 ½, an iconic drama that deals with the subconscious dreamworld of the Italian filmmaker. “I think it’s an act of freedom, the whole entire movie, practically,” Banderas told the publication, adding, “In 1962, which is the year when the movie was shot, I thought it was unbelievable that somebody would just go into an experiment like that. It’s still a very experimental movie, very emotional in a way”.
The fantastical drama, The Exterminating Angel, following a group of upper-class individuals who find themselves unable to leave a dinner party, directed by the great Luis Buñuel takes his second spot. “It’s a very, very beautiful and interesting story — also risky, and very misunderstood at the time that the movie opened,” Banderas tells the publication, adding, “Luis Bunuel is definitely one of my favorite directors of all time”.
Known as one of the greatest movies of all time, the Francis Ford Coppola crime movie The Godfather has received its fair share of praise over the years. Starring Marlon Brandon, Diane Keaton, Al Pacino and the late James Caan, Banderas calls the filmmaker “one of my favourites,” surely taking to the film for its intricate drama and layered characters that make up one an inspired trilogy.
Making its way onto countless favourite movie lists, David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia takes the fourth spot, with the epic drama, starring Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif and Alec Guinness, being a truly influential classic. “I love the scope of the movie,” Banderas tells the publication, adding, “there is something in David Lean that I like very much. He’s always of the macro worlds and the micro worlds; he didn’t only do it in Lawrence of Arabia, but repeated it in Dr. Zhivago and other movies”.
Bookending his list is the 1958 Orson Welles movie, Touch of Evil, a classic that is considered one of the director’s very best, though remains undoubtedly under the shadow of Citizen Kane. Revealing his love for the filmmaker, Banderas states, “I’m going to go to a guy who, being American, loved Spain; actually, he’s buried physically in the land where my father was born, in Ronda, Spain. His name is Orson Welles, and the movie is Touch of Evil”.
Antonio Banderas’ five favourite movies
- 8 ½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
- The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
- The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
- Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
- Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
