A collection of Ian McKellen’s favourite movies
There are few actors on the planet that have had half the cultural impact that Sir Ian McKellen has over the last six decades. McKellen is just as well known on the screen as on the stage and has delivered some of the most nuanced performances fans of the narrative arts have ever seen.
McKellen came through as a theatre actor and has won five Olivier Awards throughout his career for his efforts in the likes of Pillars of the Community, The Alchemist and Richard III. But most people know the Lancashire-born star for his roles in the X-Men films as Magneto and, of course, in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy as Gandalf the Grey.
While several of McKellen’s performances over the years have comprised so many favourite cinema moments of film fans across the world, the actor himself is undoubtedly indebted to some of his favourite movies that have inspired his own acting efforts of his formidable career.
Back in 1990, the actor named some of his favourite movies of all time in a feature with The Sunday Telegraph. He admires Jacques Tati’s 1953 film Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday because it “suits his sense of humour”. He said, “It’s virtually silent, and the jokes are so visual and tell you so much about people’s characters.” It was the first film that introduced the world to Tati’s clumsy but good-hearted character.
The musical screwball comedy Top Hat, directed by Mark Sandrich and starring Fred Astaire as an American tap dancer who comes to England to star in a show, is another of McKellen’s big cinematic loves. He said of Astaire: “He’s my favourite dancer — you come away from one of his films, such as Top Hat, exhausted and full of admiration.”
McKellen said of Stanley Kubrick’s widely-admired anti-war comedy-drama Dr. Strangelove: “[It] is a very funny, very disturbing film in which Peter Sellers gives a gigantic performance. It’s extraordinary that such an anti-nuclear film was made at a time when CND was frowned upon.” Kubrick’s movie is a vitally important film even today, and it’s clear that McKellen holds it close to his heart.
Meanwhile, there’s a film that had a “great impact” on McKellen, the 1981 political drama Mephisto by István Szabó. Of Klaus Maria Brandauer’s performance, the actor noted: “He plays a German actor who collaborates with the Nazis and, although he began as a rebel, realises that if he’s going to get on as an actor, he will have to play the party game. He is a terrible traitor to his ideals, but it’s what we all do.”
Check out the complete list of McKellen’s top cinema choices below.
Ian McKellen’s favourite movies:
- Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (Jacques Tati, 1953)
- Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935)
- The Entertainer (Tony Richardson, 1960)
- Dr Strangelove; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1963)
- Mephisto (Istvan Szabo, 1981)
- Torch Song Trilogy (Paul Bogart, 1988)
