Luca Guadagnino names the 10 greatest films of all time
Born in Palermo, Sicily, in 1971, esteemed Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino grew up amid a golden era for Italian cinema. His education was informed predominantly by Italian movie industry legends, such as Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, and Bernardo Bertolucci. While Italian cinema held a special place for Guadagnino, it was hard to ignore the towering force of Hollywood.
In an interview with Purple, Guadagnino revealed that the earliest film he remembers seeing was 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia, which starred Alec Guinness and Peter O’Toole. “I remember my first impression of a screen, which had nothing to do with the actual film, when I was five years old. It was the desert in Lawrence of Arabia, by David Lean — years after the film came out. I was in my mother’s lap, in a big theatre in Ethiopia.”
“I’ve always been very enthusiastic about cinema, someone who really lives in it,” he added. “I always thought about and tried to understand all the threads that make film — cinema history, the relationship to the viewer, etc. So I got a degree in the history of cinema, in Rome.”
Despite his love for Italian cinema, Guadagnino is hesitant to refer to himself as an Italian filmmaker and would rather be thought of as an Algerian one. “I grew up in Ethiopia,” he once told Crash. “I came to Italy when I was seven. In my mind, deep emotions and visual landscapes are from Ethiopia and not Palermo or any place in Italy. I arrived in Italy as an outsider.”
In 2018, Guadagnino paid homage to Italian filmmaker Dario Argento with a remake of his 1977 horror classic Suspiria starring his frequent collaborator Tilda Swinton. Guadagnino had long been a fan of Argento’s and reportedly wanted to reprise Suspiria ever since he saw it 35 years ago. Guadagnino stamped enough of his DNA into the remake to divide critics, some of whom commended his imagination and felt it only served to mar the spirit of the original.
When naming his top ten favourite films of all time for a recent Sight and Sound feature, Guadagnino surprisingly left out Suspiria and Lawrence of Arabia, instead showing his undying allegiance to Roberto Rossellini and Bernardo Bertolucci. With three selections from the former, it’s clear to see who Guadagnino’s ultimate filmmaking hero is.
Appearing on the list twice is the Italian filmmaker Bertolucci, whom Guadagnino deeply admired. In 2013, he teamed up with Walter Fasano to direct a documentary about the legend titled Bertolucci on Bertolucci. The film documented Bertolucci’s artistic style and vision through a series of psychological introspections, anecdotes and visions from the late director.
See the full list of Guadagnino’s favourite films and watch the trailer for Bernardo Bertolucci’s brilliant ‘Last Tango In Paris’ below.
Luca Guadagnino’s 10 favourite films:
- Journey to Italy – Roberto Rossellini
- Germany, Year Zero – Roberto Rossellini
- Europa 51 – Roberto Rossellini
- Last Tango In Paris – Bernardo Bertolucci
- The Sheltering Sky – Bernardo Bertolucci
- L’Atalante – Jean Vigo
- In the Realm of the Senses – Nagisa Ōshima
- Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles – Chantal Akerman
- Samba Traoré – Idrissa Ouédraogo
- Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans – Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
