Richard Gere’s five favourite movies of all time
Although Richard Gere has taken a step back from the landscape of modern media, there was a time when the actor was one of the biggest names in the industry. Regarded by many as one of the most iconic leading men of his generation, Gere’s filmography contains pioneering masterpieces as well as more commercial works which helped establish his image within Hollywood.
Starting out in the realm of theatre, Gere eventually moved to films through notable productions such as Terrence Malick’s 1978 masterpiece Days of Heaven. During a conversation with Rotten Tomatoes, Gere insisted that Days of Heaven will always have a special place in his heart because of its unique approach to the cinematic medium as well as its role in kickstarting his acting career.
“I’m gonna start with my first film, Days of Heaven, because it’s my first film. It’s probably, unfortunately, my best film. It’s very hard to follow up on a film like that,” Gere said. “It was the first film that Terry Malick made that kind of became Terry Malick in that movie. It also was the first film of mine at the Cannes Film Festival. So, everything about that film kind of was important to me as an actor and as a person.”
While talking about the films that influenced him the most, Gere also cited Babette’s Feast: “It’s very pure. It’s not tricky at all; the filmmaking is almost invisible. I think for the most part, it feels like there are non-actors in the piece — although I’m sure they’re actors — but it’s not an actor-y piece at all. It’s just beautifully conceived with a really generous heart at its centre. It just really moves me.”
The actor also took time out to note the mastery of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves: “What else comes to my mind? Bicycle Thieves was always one I loved, too. Again, deeply moving, operatic Italian story. Impossible to see the film and not weep. The simple life of people just trying to get through the day in very hard times. High unemployment after the second world war — a bicycle is the ticket out of unemployment and poverty. That’s a film that also still works. I see it every couple years. I look at that again.”
Check out the list below.
Richard Gere’s favourite movies
- Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)
- Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (Joseph Cedar, 2016)
- Babette’s Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987)
- Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)
- Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
The oldest film in Gere’s selection is the 1927 opus Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans by one of the towering masters of silent cinema – F.W. Murnau. The actor claimed that Murnau’s visual style in this work is one of the most impressive of its kind, capturing the unimaginably vast spectrum that is the human condition.
Gere explained: “It’s one of the most beautifully shot movies you’ll ever, ever see. Just the pinnacle of silent film art photography. Deep emotions of, again, almost operatic story. There’s a lot of nature in it, there’s a lot of water, fire, sunrises, and sunsets that are connected to the story. Human emotions and consciousness and yearnings and failings and karma.”
