Joel Schumacher’s five favourite movies of all time
Known for directing movies such as The Lost Boys, St. Elmo’s Fire, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, Joel Schumacher might not be the most critically revered director of all time, but he has enjoyed plenty of commercial success all the same. After beginning his career as a costume and production designer on films such as Play It As It Lays and Sleeper, Schumacher eventually began writing before moving on to directing.
Schumacher died in 2020, with two 2013 episodes of House of Cards standing as his last directorial credits. It’s safe to say that the filmmaker’s oeuvre was varied, and his list of favourite movies reflected this. Speaking to Rotten Tomatoes, Schumacher shared his five favourite films, ranging from an eight-hour historical drama to a sci-fi classic.
His first pick was War and Peace, directed by Sergei Bondarchuk. Schumacher referred to it as “the greatest film ever made”. Detailing further, he elucidated: “It took ten years to make, and everyone in it ages the ten years [they do] in the book. So there are no other actors playing the other people; the children all grow ten years, and so do the older people. That’s pretty amazing in itself”. The filmmaker also praised the “scope and size” of the epic production.
In second place was Double Indemnity, although he stated that Lawrence of Arabia was a close contender. Heralding Billy Wilder’s film, he explained that “it’s never been matched”. He continued: “That plot has been copied, you know, a million times, but that was the first. And his dialogue is great. Billy Wilder’s one of my favourite directors.”
The 1989 effort The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover also made Schumacher’s list, as he explained: “The visuals are magnificent. I think it is the consummate piece about the greed of the ’80s. It’s pure theatre, and it’s just a visual masterpiece.” He also dubbed the film’s star, Helen Mirren, as his “favourite actress in the world.”
The discussion of brilliant visuals led Schumacher to talk about another of his favourites, Blade Runner, describing it as “true visual genius, and also in a class never matched,” before continuing: “That opening — it’s embedded in my mind, that opening, with that scape of the city and its almost Mayan-like temple formation and those fires out of nowhere shooting up.”
Joel Schumacher’s favourite movies:
- War and Peace (Sergei Bondarchuk, 1966)
- Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
- The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (Peter Greenaway, 1989)
- Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
- Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
Schumacher’s final pick was Apocalypse Now. He said: “I would ordinarily say The Conversation because it was so ahead of its time, but Apocalypse Now — another masterpiece“. The director proceeded to list some of his other favourite filmmakers that he couldn’t fit into the list, such as Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Stanley Kubrick, John Ford and David Lean.
