Darren Aronofsky names his four favourite movies of all time
By the time the 21st century rolled around, Hollywood was going through a pretty major shift, with such significant filmmakers as Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Francis Ford Coppola slowing down their rate of production to make way for a new cohort of creatives. From the darkness, the likes of Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Jonze and Darren Aronofsky emerged, with the latter creating a variation of bold creative projects that consistently push the cinematic envelope.
Announcing his arrival to the industry back in 1998 with the release of the experimental monochrome drama Pi, Aronofsky quickly established himself as an idiosyncratic filmmaker capable of tremendous cinematic vision. Further success followed with the release of Requiem for a Dream in 2000, The Wrestler in 2008 and Black Swan in 2010, which would earn the filmmaker his very first Oscar nomination for ‘Best Director’.
Often inspired by the history of cinema, it’s no surprise that Aronofsky has a great fondness for his filmmaking peers, revealing his four favourite movies in an interview with Letterboxd.
The director’s first choice is the classic Miloš Forman movie Amadeus from 1984, a film which tells the story of the legendary composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from the perspective of another musician, Antonio Salieri, who was incredibly jealous of his talents. Winning ‘Best Picture’ and seven other Academy Awards at the time, the film stars the likes of F. Murray Abraham, Simon Callow and Tom Hulce.
Next on his list is the Sergio Leone classic The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, which didn’t receive much industry praise at the time, but is now seen as an undisputed cinematic masterpiece. Starring Clint Eastwood alongside Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef, the story follows a bounty hunter who races two men in search of a buried fortune hidden in a solitary cemetery.
His penultimate pick is the Federico Fellini classic La Dolce Vita, which tells the story of a boisterous tabloid journalist living in Rome. Known as one of the greatest movies of all time, the film stars Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg and went on to win ‘Best Costume Design, Black-and-White’ whilst also being nominated for ‘Best Director’ and ‘Best Original Screenplay’ among other awards.
The final movie to grace his list is the iconic samurai movie Yojimbo, directed by the great Akira Kurosawa. Recognised alongside Seven Samurai and Rashomon as one of the director’s greatest samurai movies, Yojimbo tells the story of a ronin who comes to a new town to free the residents from the grip of two criminal gangs, choosing to play the two groups off against each other.
Darren Aronofsky names his four favourite movies of all time
- Amadeus (Miloš Forman, 1984)
- The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
- La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)
- Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, 1961)
