Credit: Far Out / Wikimedia

Jamie Lee Curtis names her four favourite films

Mon 13 March 2023 12:30, UK

Born into a family of actors, Jamie Lee Curtis screamed her way into Hollywood history with 1978’s Halloween. For the next decade, she dedicated herself to throwing off her reputation as a horror icon, landing roles in 1983’s Trading Places, 1985’s Perfect, and 1988’s A Fish Called Wanda, for which she received several Oscar nominations and a couple of Golden Globes. Since then, she’s appeared in everything from True Lies and Freaky Friday and 2022’s Everything Everywhere All At Once. Here, she picks her four favourite movies of all time.

Selecting just four titles is no easy task, but Curtis was full of confidence when Letterboxd interviewed her alongside her Everything Everywhere All At Once co-star Michelle Yeoh. Unable to narrow it down to just one from the franchise, she begins with “The Godfather I and II.” Directed by Italian-American master Francis Ford Copolla, the first Godfather film is frequently cited as one of the greatest films of all time – and for good reason.

Here’s how Far Out’s Calum Russell described the franchise 50 years after its release: “The Godfather, its elite sequel and even its mistreated third instalment, present one quintessential story about the American dream, a myth inextricably linked to the identity of the most fame-hungry nation on earth. Deconstructing this dream and questioning its place in an ever-modernising American landscape, The Godfather probed this concept and asked how Hollywood should approach the dream in the future.”

Two down, two to go. Next on Curtis’ list is The Rider, “Chloé Zhao’s first – maybe not first – but that fantastic film she made.” Released in 2017, The Rider stars Brady Jandreau as rodeo star Brady Blackburn, who is left with severe brain damage after an accident in the ring. Despite his doctors’ warnings that his seizures will only worsen if he continues to ride, Blackburn can’t help but feel the pull of his old life. A touching exploration of disability, masculinity, ambition and what it is to belong, The Rider is undoubtedly one of the most powerful films of the 2010s.

Curtis’ final pick is equally poignant: “The Lost daughter, my goddaughter Maggie Gyllenhall’s beautiful adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novella.” Based on Ferrante’s 2006 book of the same name, this intimate, daring and frequently uncomfortable film stars Olivia Coleman as a middle-aged divorcee who takes a trip to an Italian beach resort, where she becomes obsessed with women and her child, sparking memories of her early motherhood. “It’s as profound a question about motherhood [as anything],” Curtis says. Indeed, few films have been so unflinching in portraying modern society’s last great taboos: the fear and rejection of motherhood.

Check out the trailer below.