George Clooney’s two favourite movies: “I’d say a combination”
Though he’s more of a director and elder statesman these days, it’s worth remembering that George Clooney was once the actor. From the moment he broke free from his role on ER, he became Hollywood’s golden boy. Handsome, charming, talented, and effortlessly playful, he embodied everything people wanted in a movie star—a true throwback to the golden age of the silver screen.
Clooney’s affinity for the olden days is present in his work. One of his most famous roles, Danny Ocean in Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Ocean’s’ trilogy, was originated by Frank Sinatra. His character in the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! is based heavily on Robert Taylor, with the entire world of the movie based on the heady days of the studio system. In interviews, he has mentioned Paul Newman and Robert Redford as some of his idols, while he once referred to Spencer Tracy as his ‘favourite’ actor.
Unsurprisingly, Clooney’s favourite films are from quite a while ago, although they’re a bit more recent than you might think. “If you ask me what my favourite film is, I’d say a combination of two – [Sidney] Lumet’s Fail Safe and [Stanley] Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove,” he told Uncut. Both of these movies came out in 1964, and both have similar themes. Strangelove is about a rogue bomber pilot dispatched by an insane General to launch an attack on Russia during the height of the Cold War. As for Fail Safe, that follows a similar structure, but takes a more serious approach.
This interview was being conducted as part of the press tour for Good Night, and Good Luck, Clooney’s second movie as a director. It’s set in 1958, a similar time to the two films he had previously mentioned, and revolves around the Cold War policy of anti-communist investigations organised by Senator Joseph McCarthy.
“I’m a big fan of Lumet and John Frankenheimer, and that late 50’s television thing, like The Twilight Zone,” Clooney continued. Before he broke into movies, Lumet cut his teeth on TV shows like the drama anthology Danger and historical series You Are There. He announced himself in a big way with his debut feature, 12 Angry Men, a stunning achievement considering his lack of experience.
We shot the on-air material like a Lumet film,” Clooney revealed. “I was also looking as [sic] Godard films and started playing around with trying to shoot in super 16, then I realised it was going to look too cinematic. So [cinematographer] Bob Elswit and I started doing tests, and we ended up shooting everything like a DA Pennebaker documentary, or Robert Drew’s documentaries like Crisis and Primary”. Good Night, and Good Luck proved to be a major success, dazzling critics and solidifying Clooney’s position as an emerging filmmaking talent. A TV adaptation is supposedly in development, while the star will be making his Broadway debut in 2025, reprising his role from the movie in a stage version of the story.
The films listed by Clooney in this one interview alone prove that he is a proper scholar of the medium. You could do far worse for sources of inspiration than Lumet and Kubrick, and supplementing your knowledge with TV and documentaries is a great way to ensure your style never gets stale.
