Naomi Watts names her five favourite movies
Few actors in modern cinema can boast the same quality and diversity of filmography as Naomi Watts, the British actor who has had to battle personal tragedy and Hollywood hardship on her journey to the top. Struggling through TV roles at the start of her career, Watts’ hard work paid off further down the line, collaborating with the likes of David Lynch, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Peter Jackson, Noah Baumbach and Michael Haneke.
Sitting as the jewel in her crown is the 2001 David Lynch movie Mulholland Drive, an experimental movie masterpiece that changed Watts’ fortunes almost overnight. Starring as the enigmatic Betty in Lynch’s film that followed a Hollywood-hopeful searching for clues to a mystery in the twisted dreamscape of Los Angeles, Watts’ role mirrored her own real-life struggles to find success in the film industry.
Recently voted number eight on the Sight and Sound list of the best 100 movies of all time, Watts’ performance helped to immortalise the film in the highest echelons of contemporary moviemaking. As a result, Watts has become an actor in high demand, with filmmakers around the world seeking out her talent. Still, the actor find time to sit down with the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes in September 2022 to discuss her five favourite movies of all time.
The first film on her list is the 1971 movie Carnal Knowledge, directed by Mike Nichols and starring Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel. Speaking about the romantic comedy, Watts states that it is “an examination of relationships, and just a great character-driven movie. I had always wanted to work with that director too,” referencing Nichols, who also helmed The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.
The obscure romance flick Harold and Maude from director Hal Ashby takes Watts’ second spot, with the actor being fond of the subversive film that follows a young man who falls in love with an 80-year-old eccentric. “Harold and Maude I love for its strangeness, and it’s funny as well. Haunting, too,” the actor says of the movie that has since become a cult classic over half a century after its release.
Jumping forward a significant number of years, the 2019 Palme d’Or winner Parasite takes the third spot on her list, with the film being recognised as a modern classic by a large number of critics. Calling it “one of my favourite more recent films,” Watts praises the film for its long-lasting power and social pertinence.
The James L. Brooks romance Terms of Endearment takes the fourth spot on Watts’ list of favourites, praising the movie as one of the all-time greats. “So much love and humour and wackiness and just real life in that movie,” the actor says of the American family comedy-drama starring Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Daniels, Danny DeVito and John Lithgow.
Naomi Watts’s favourite movies:
- Carnal Knowledge (Mike Nichols, 1971)
- Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)
- Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019)
- Terms of Endearment (James L. Brooks, 1983)
- Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991)
Taking the fifth and final spot is the Ridley Scott feminist classic Thelma & Louise, starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, a film that changed the fortunes of everyone involved. “What woman doesn’t want to get lost in that movie?” Watts exclaims, adding: “Those two fantastic actresses in such supreme roles. I suppose, at times, we all have that fantasy of running away and changing our lives drastically”.
