Benny Safdie’s 10 favourite movies of all time
With his stall already set out as one of the most dynamic and exciting filmmakers in the industry, the next stage of Benny Safdie‘s career has the potential to be even more fascinating now he’s decided to go it alone after instigating a soft separation from brother Josh.
Having collaborated on six feature films in the space of 11 years, from their debut The Pleasure of Being Robbed to Adam Sandler’s searing Uncut Gems, with plenty of cinematic mischief and mayhem between, two Safdies for the price of one can only be a benefit to cinema if they’re able to fly as high individually as they did as a collective.
Even as an on-camera talent, Benny’s profile has been increasing steadily through turns in the heart-wrenching Pieces of a Woman, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, Claire Denis’ Stars at Noon, long-awaited and widely-acclaimed literary adaptation Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Star Wars streaming series Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
Notably, this doesn’t even touch upon his role as the co-creator and writer of HBO’s wonderfully eccentric episodic series, The Curse. Additionally, his upcoming venture as a solo director marks a significant milestone as he collaborates with one of the biggest stars in the world, overseeing Dwayne Johnson’s return to more serious roles in A24’s biographical drama, The Smashing Machine.
Exciting times lie ahead, then, but in a similar vein to many noted creative minds, Safdie can’t seem to make up his mind on what constitutes his favourite films on any given day. Having already named a quintet previously, he was cornered by Letterboxd and quizzed for a second time, where he offered a completely different selection.
Kicking off with the star-studded financial disaster Mikey and Nicky, the troubled crime drama that went both over-budget and over-schedule, Safdie would then reveal he’s in line with great swathes of the moviegoing public by naming Frank Capra’s annual tradition It’s a Wonderful Life for the coveted second spot.
Technically cheating by opting to name “four and a half” instead of the typical quartet, Safdie placed the French prison movie A Man Escaped and Vittorio De Sica’s influential Bicycle Thieves in a dead heat, prior to taking the cinéma vérité documentary route for his fifth and final contender, Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March.
A typically eclectic selection from a filmmaker unbound by the conventions of genre himself, even if it stands to reason he’ll name an entirely different list the next time somebody asks.
Benny Safdie’s favourite movies:
- A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956)
- Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (Jacques Tati, 1953)
- Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
- Kings of the Road (Wim Wenders, 1976)
- Nuts in May (Mike Leigh, 1976)
- Mikey and Nicky (Elaine May, 1976)
- It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
- A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956)
- Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)
- Sherman’s March (Ross McElwee, 1986)
