Mia Goth names her four favourite movies
While Mia Goth is best known for her roles in the X trilogy, the actor has been starring in shocking and controversial films for over a decade. However, in 2022, Goth gained even more attention with her performance as the titular character in Pearl, a character she also plays as an elderly woman in X. Her impassioned line, “Why are you leaving me if I didn’t do anything wrong? I don’t understand. I thought you liked me!” became widely recognised, bringing the indie film series to a broader, more mainstream audience.
Goth is now a leading figure in Hollywood, but in the years leading up to her success as Maxine and Pearl in the X series, she cut her teeth in many erotic and horror-oriented productions by acclaimed directors, making her debut in Nymphomaniac by Lars Von Trier. She has also appeared in movies like A Cure For Wellness, Suspiria, High Life, and Infinity Pool, cementing herself as a serious star who isn’t afraid to take roles in boundary-pushing films.
Offering a peek behind her creative curtain during an interview with Letterboxd, the actor revealed her favourite movies, citing a list of titles that aren’t exactly easy watches. She began with Blue Valentine, an emotionally-taxing romantic drama about the disintegration of a relationship. Directed by Derek Cianfrance, the movie stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as the couple, whose once-pleasant relationship is shown in flashbacks, contrasting their current unhappy situation. It’s a heart wrenching film, and one that is rather underrated considering just how powerful it is.
She then picked one of Pedro Almodóvar’s earlier films, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, a dark comedy that remains one of his greatest achievements. It follows a woman who embarks on a strange and humorous journey to discover why her lover has left her, leading her to meet many interesting people. It was nominated for an Academy Award, and helped to expose Almodóvar to an even wider international audience.
Goth is also a fan of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams, a psychological thriller which follows various characters as they deal with the aftershock of a hit-and-run. However, the story is not told in a linear fashion, allowing the various characters’ stories to weave in and out of one another. It’s an impressive film, and it earned two Oscar nominations for Benicio del Toro and Naomi Watts.
Finally, she picked The Dreamers, a controversial erotic drama from Bernardo Bertolucci, who gained acclaim for helming The Conformist and Last Tango in Paris several decades prior. The Dreamers stars Michael Pitt as an American student who begins studying in Paris during the late 1960s and befriends twins – played by Eva Green and Louis Garrel – who are much closer than he initially realises. The film features many shocking scenes containing the siblings’ incestual relationship, as well as graphic nudity, which led to its divisive reception.
It appears that, despite her love of horror, Goth’s favourite movies to watch are psychologically testing dramas, demonstrating her love for boundary-pushing cinema that can cause viewers to feel uncomfortable without the use of any scary monsters or axe-wielding killers.
