Ralph Fiennes names his four favourite movies
Ralph Fiennes has a genuine claim to being one of the best actors of all time.
The Englishman has a body of work that doesn’t just speak for itself; it shouts its glory from the highest mountain. Historical dramas, gut-busting comedies, record-breaking franchises, independent darlings, you name it, Fiennes has done it.
Given that he’s been so consistently excellent for so long, it’s hard to imagine that Fiennes has any time left over to actually watch movies, let alone have an opinion on them. Unfortunately, the content-hungry spectre of Letterboxd waits for no man. Speaking to the film-logging site to promote 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Fiennes was given the customary ‘Four Favourites’ treatment.
“We should have had an advance warning of this,” he said, exposing that he clearly hasn’t been on the internet at all for the past five years or so.
Eventually, the three-time Oscar nominee caved and presented his captors with his four favourite films of all time. First up was the classic Western drama, High Noon. Starring Gary Cooper as a town marshal who must choose whether to flee his post or stay and face down a gang of bloodthirsty criminals alone. The action plays out in real time, which only builds tension surrounding the lawman’s fateful decision.
Next up is a pick that must have delighted film students all over the world. Federico Fellini’s 8½ is a stalwart of alternative cinema and has been since its release in 1963. The story of a movie director attempting to overcome writer’s block is as delightfully meta as it sounds. It routinely appears in lists of not only the best Italian movies ever made, but in discussions about the greatest films of all time.
His third pick is arguably the most obscure of the bunch. Released in 1966, Andrei Rublev is Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky’s biopic of a famous Russian religious painter. The movie is also a favourite of modern horror guru Robert Eggers. If you’re thinking of checking it out based on these recommendations, then be prepared. It is a beast. The final theatrical cut of the film is over three hours long, and that’s the short version. If you want to witness the initial cut of the film, which was the one Tarkovsky himself endorsed, then you’d better have 205 minutes to spare.
Finally, Fiennes went for something obvious: The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola’s mob epic comes up a lot in these sorts of interviews, possibly because a lot of people love it, possibly because they think it will make them sound cool. Regardless, it’s the missing piece of this particularly tapestry.
Fiennes didn’t go into much detail about why he loves these films, but they all pretty much speak for themselves. We’ll never know if these are actually his favourite movies or just the four best ones he could think of at the time to get the interviewer off his back. He’ll take that secret to his grave.
