James McAvoy names his four favourite movies
James McAvoy hasn’t won an Oscar yet (or even been nominated, somehow), but it seems fairly likely that he will at some point. With a career that spans the weirdest to the most mainstream, he’s shown that he’s game for just about anything. Following an early period of success as a romantic leading man in period dramas like Becoming Jane and Atonement, he’s found a niche more recently as a spine-chilling villain.
In M Night Shyamalan’s 2013 horror film Split, the actor played a man with 23 distinct personalities, giving what may be the greatest performance of his career. In 2024, he played a sinister husband who may or may not be an evil psychopath in James Watkins’ deeply unsettling Speak No Evil. And just to make sure he keeps fans guessing, he’s directing an upcoming biopic of the Scottish rap duo Silibil N’ Brains, who pretended to be American for two years in order to be taken seriously.
Given the diversity of his work, it should come as no surprise that McAvoy has an equally diverse taste in movies. Speaking to Letterboxd last month, the actor revealed that his four favourite films of all time are Ridley Scott’s space horror movie Alien, Richard Donner’s family classic The Goonies, Ken Loach’s low-budget drama My Name is Joe, and David Lean’s classic romantic tragedy, Brief Encounter.
Alien is a stone-cold classic that deserves to make anyone’s top four list. Featuring one of the most beloved heroines in cinema history and spawning legions of copycat creature features, it punched Ridley Scott’s ticket to Hollywood greatness and continues to be one of the best science fiction films ever made.
McAvoy has brought up The Goonies several times in interviews over the years, suggesting that it may in fact be his favourite of all of his picks. Released in 1985, it came out when the actor was about six years old, meaning that it could have been a formative cinematic experience if he had seen it when it hit theatres. Centring on a group of kids who discover a map leading to ancient treasure, it’s a beloved adventure movie that, as McAvoy’s consistently effusive referencing conveys, has never gotten old.
Ken Loach’s My Name is Joe is on the opposite end of the spectrum. As with most of the director’s work, it’s an understated, slow-moving drama about working-class Britons. Set on a council estate in Glasgow, it stars Peter Mullan as a recovering alcoholic who struggles to make ends meet and stay sober. Mullan won the ‘Best Actor’ award at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival for his performance, which managed to capture the pain, desperation, and innate charm of the central character.
Like Alien, David Lean’s Brief Encounter could easily land on anyone’s top four list. It stars Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard as two commuters who cross paths in a train station and fall instantly in love. They both have spouses and children, and their relationship is doomed from the start. The beauty of the film lies in its complete lack of sentimentality or melodrama. It’s a quietly devastating movie that perfected cinematic romance, unlike any film before or since.
McAvoy’s list is a pretty perfect quartet. Whether you’re feeling the need for a masterful, gory suspense thriller, the reassuring warmth of a classic family adventure, an understated tearjerker that feels more like a documentary than fiction, or a crushing romance that is somehow compulsively rewatchable, it’s got you covered.
