Robert Rodriguez names his favourite movies of all time
Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez is known for directing the films El Mariachi, Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, known collectively as the Mexico Trilogy. The Texas-born director has also taken the lead on From Dusk till Dawn, Sin City, Machete and Spy Kids.
Rodriguez is a close friend of fellow director Quentin Tarantino, and the two collaborated on the grindhouse movie-homage Planet Terror. Rodriguez’s stature is undoubted, but how about his favourite movies? Fortunately, we can take a closer look at them per a feature with Rotten Tomatoes.
First up for Rodriguez is the aquatic horror classic Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg and released in 1975. The reason Rodriguez holds the film so close to his heart is because he showed it to his children. “We watched that,” he said. “They loved that, and they were like, ‘What else can we watch?’”
Next on Rodriguez’s list is the greatest crime movie of all time, The Godfather, the first part of which was released in 1972 and was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Rodriguez said of the film, starring Al Pacino and Marlon Brando in some of their respective most iconic roles, “It’s about family. It’s just a perfect film. Five-act structure… It’s just amazing. Coppola just did the coolest stuff with that..”
There’s also room for one of the greatest science fiction movies too for Rodriguez. He picks out Ridley Scott’s 1982 adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Rodriguez said of Blade Runner, “I love film noir movies, and that was just a new way of doing it. Set in the future, made up worlds. It’s just a straight up great movie; everything fell into place.”
He added, “[It] is just rare for things to happen that way. How everything came together, the artistry that went into it, the design, the music, and how resilient the story is, how you can just keep making new versions of it, and they all still kind of work.”
Going way back to the 1940s, Rodriguez also expresses his admiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1946 movie Notorious, certainly his favourite film by the legendary director, although another of his oeuvre also comes close. Notorious, the Hitchcock movie,” the actor said. “Between that and Strangers on a Train, I think Notorious, because it’s just… I just dig that one.”
Finally, Rodriguez’s list is rounded off by John Carpenter’s action classic Escape from New York, starring Kurt Russell, which is, in fact, Russell’s favourite film. “That’s the one that made me want to make movies. It was a fantasy world,” Rodriguez said. “It just felt like it was so renegade. It was independently done. It was just very inspiring.”
Robert Rodriguez’s favourite movies of all time:
- Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
- The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
- Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
- Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
- Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981)
