Bret Easton Ellis names his five favourite movies
The literary works of Bret Easton Ellis are admired and condemned in equal measure. His postmodern take on the written art form has drawn acclaim from wide critical circles, although his novel American Psycho was the target of condemnation for its vulgar display of misogyny.
The 1991 novel was eventually made into a cinema in 2000 by way of Mary Harron, with Christian Bale performing in the lead role as Patrick Bateman. Ellis himself looks to be something of a cinema lover, and in a feature with Rotten Tomatoes, he named his five favourite films of all time.
First up for Ellis is Alfred Hitchcock’s widely-celebrated 1958 film Vertigo, the film noir psychological thriller which sees James Stewart play a police detective who has recently retired because he has developed an extreme fear of heights. Ellis said of the film: “I love that it’s a movie about movies. That’s what’s so fascinating about Vertigo. And it’s also the most crushing movie ever made about romantic obsession, and how we constantly relive our obsessions over and over and we’re hopeless in the face of them.”
Another highly-admired movie that Ellis admires is Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, which was first released back in 1975. The film tells of the rise and fall of a young Irish rogue in the 18th century and features one of the tensest shoot-out scenes of all time. “I think it’s a classic story of how you go through life, and also, for me, it’s Kubrick’s most emotional film,” Ellis admitted. “It’s breathtaking in terms of the narrative control along with the visual control of that movie.”
Out of all the films made in the Golden Age of Hollywood, Ellis admires Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane the most. The 1941 film is beloved by most cinephiles, and Ellis believes it is “flat out, the most entertaining”. Detailing his admiration further, he added: “It’s such a rush. Even now, after being overloaded on the spectacle of modern moviemaking, that still holds up, in a way, as its own kind of spectacle, and it never becomes boring.”
The classics just keep on coming for Ellis, which he concedes he finds rather “boring”. However, the films themselves are anything but, certainly not his next pick, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. The film speaks for itself, which is why Ellis said: “There’s nothing more to be said about the Godfather, movies. I mean, like, just leave a blank. I have nothing to say, except they’re probably my favourite movies. I mean, what do you say about that?”
Bret Easton Ellis’ five favourite movies:
- Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
- Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
- Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
- The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
- Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
Ellis’ list is rounded off by a horror classic, Brian De Palma’s 1976 chiller Carrie, which was adapted from Stephen King’s 1974 novel of the same name. Sissy Spacek stars in the titular role as a bullied teenager who gets her revenge. Ellis said of the film: “ I think one of the most ‘pleasurable’ movies ever made is Carrie. [It] was also, for me, that kind of auteur-driven movie that was both personal and also could reach a mass audience.”
