George Clooney names his four favourite movies of all time
A definitive Hollywood heart-throb, the American actor George Clooney was an iconic figure of cinema in the 1990s, rising to the top of the industry pile alongside the likes of Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Sandra Bullock. A beloved director, actor and two-time Oscar winner, Clooney is a multi-faceted star who often doesn’t get the credit he deserves for his acting chops and comedic timing.
Cruising to fame in the 1980s thanks to a wide array of TV roles, Clooney steadily transitioned onto the silver screen after forcing viewers to swoon time and time again thanks to his appearances as Doug Ross in the medical drama ER from 1994 onwards. In the years that followed, a collection of high-profile filmmakers called his name, from Joel Schumacher, who recruited him for the fatefully awful superhero flick Batman and Robin, to Steven Soderbergh, who got him onboard for the crime drama Out of Sight.
Ever since then, Clooney has become one of Hollywood’s most adored figures, heading up Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy alongside Brad Pitt and Matt Damon before earning awards success with 2006’s Syriana and 2013’s Argo, the latter of which he produced. These days, despite having taken a step back from the limelight, his fanbase remains strong, with the actor providing them a glimpse into his personality by revealing his favourite movies in an interview with Letterboxd.
First on the director’s list of favourites is the 1976 Alan J. Pakula film All the President’s Men, starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, which tells the story of the Washington Post reporters who uncovered the details of the Watergate scandal. Not too dissimilar from some of Clooney’s own self-directed movies, such as the political dramas The Ides of March and Good Night and Good Luck, it’s no surprise that the actor loves Pakula’s classic so much.
Next up is the first of two movies from the American auteur Sidney Lumet, 1964’s Fail Safe, a movie that tells the story of a mistaken nuclear attack launched by the United States on Moscow. Speaking about the movie, he stated, “It’s kind of the same film as Dr Strangelove, only it’s a straight version of it. There’s a couple of things that are overacted in it, but there’s something really extraordinary about it”.
His third choice went to a movie that regularly finds itself on all-time favourites lists, Francis Ford Coppola’s spectacular 1972 ‘Best Picture’ winner The Godfather. Calling the movie a “masterpiece”, Clooney adds that it’s the kind of film that he can always watch from start to finish whenever he sees it on the TV, being particularly fond of the two lead performances of Marlon Brando and Al Pacino.
The final movie to make his list of favourites is the Sidney Lumet classic Network, a drama that explores the line between information and entertainment in the backrooms of a TV news station. Winning big at the Academy Awards, Network is considered a gem of Hollywood cinema, with Clooney adding regarding the film, “I think what he wrote about in 1976 at the time was just a comedy, and everything he wrote about came true”.
George Clooney’s four favourite movies:
- All the President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976)
- Fail Safe (Sidney Lumet, 1964)
- The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
- Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976)
