Edgar Wright names his 10 favourite films of all time
Although horror comedy is a notoriously difficult genre to master, one director who has perfected the art is Edgar Wright. Ranging from the infinitely nuanced Cornetto trilogy to the beloved cult classic Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Wright has influenced the discourse surrounding popular culture in numerous ways. Although some of his works might differ in tone, one constant element that is present throughout his filmography is his intense passion for cinema.
After directing the 2021 psychological thriller Last Night in Soho, Wright has been linked to a number of new projects – including a potential adaptation of Stephen King’s dystopian novel The Running Man. Last year, Wright also submitted his entries for the greatest films of all time in the BFI Sight and Sound poll, submitting ten personal picks. Featuring the works of pioneers like Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese, Wright’s selection is canon.
Wright began with Kubrick’s magnum opus – 2001: A Space Odyssey: “In the last decade, Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece has become the film I’ve seen the most times on the big screen. The reason I keep coming back is that the further we travel away from it in time and space, the more impressive it becomes. It was groundbreaking in its day, but if anything, it’s even more confounding now. When a docking spaceship is soundtracked by the Blue Danube, I’m in heaven. Will we ever see a major studio film like it again?”
The filmmaker also expressed his admiration for Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. He noted: “It’s appropriate that an Italian version of an American genre would give us filmmaking at its most operatic. Sergio Leone’s marriage of visual storytelling with composer Ennio Morricone’s score becomes utterly divine in this film’s climax, elevating a scene of three men standing in a cemetery to transcendent art. It was one of the first movies I saw again once cinemas reopened during the pandemic, and it left me reeling and levitating at the sheer beauty of cinema.”
Throughout his career, Wright has acknowledged the influence of Alfred Hitchcock, and he took this opportunity to heap praise upon Psycho. Wright declared: “Perhaps the most influential and indelible film of them all, with its then-shocking subversions of the genre becoming well-worn tropes ever since. Yet even sixty-plus years later, it still has the power to hypnotise. And it’s not just the shower scene. Psycho lures you into a lucid dream from the first bleakly beautiful monochromatic frame.”
Check out the list below.
Edgar Wright’s favourite films:
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
- Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
- Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen, 1951)
- Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)
- Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
- Madame de… (Max Ophüls, 1953)
- An American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981)
- Raising Arizona (Joel Coen, 1987)
- Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
One of the comedies to feature on Wright’s list is the Coen brothers’ brilliant 1987 work Raising Arizona, starring Nicolas Cage as a charming ex-con who falls in love with a cop. A hilarious romp that contains everything great about the Coens, Raising Arizona is one of those rare films that never fails to put a smile on the audience’s faces.
Wright mused: “Making comedy is hard. When a film is very funny, the word ‘effortless’ is often used. But this denies the fact that any great comedy is a Herculean task that requires screenwriting, performance, direction, composition, astute editing, and, frankly, every department of the crew to hit a bullseye on a moving target. That Raising Arizona also features exceptional action raises that difficulty level to ‘insanely ambitious’. Let’s please describe this, and any classic comedy, as ‘supernaturally funny’.”
