Ryan Reynolds names his four favourite movies
Ryan Reynolds, the actor who has turned snark into a career-defining acting technique, has proven time and again that he is more than just a comedic performer. After his breakout role in the low-budget restaurant comedy Waiting in 2005, the Canadian actor made a name for himself in romantic comedies like Definitely, Maybe and The Proposal before taking the successful leap into superhero movies (assuming we tactfully forget about Green Lantern). His gamble on portraying the titular wisecracking mutant killer in Deadpool paid off big time when the film became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, and he’s been an established Hollywood A-lister ever since.
In addition to acting, Reynolds has shown some serious business acumen. From owning a popular mobile network to buying Welsh football club Wrexham and turning the following season into an Emmy-winning documentary series, he has a surprisingly savvy business record for a celebrity known for light comedies and superhero franchises.
No matter how much credit you give Reynolds for his range as an actor and businessperson, however, you probably aren’t prepared for the movies he cited as his all-time favourites. To say that half of them are out of left field would be an understatement. When asked by an interviewer in 2024 for his list, Reynolds said, without skipping a beat, Gaslight, Grosse Pointe Blank, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and Rebecca.
Taking each of these picks in turn, Gaslight is perhaps the most surprising. The actor didn’t elaborate on why it made the list, which is a shame because this 1944 film starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer is a landmark entry in the psychological thriller genre that coined the term “gaslighting” and is a far cry from the bulk of Reynolds’s work. In it, Bergman plays a young wife whose husband (Boyer) tries to convince her that she’s going insane. It’s a brilliantly moody piece of cinema shrouded in a creeping sense of doom with an excellent performance from Bergman. It’s worthy of anyone’s top four list.
Grosse Pointe Blank is less surprising, and it’s easy to see why Reynolds cited it as a “huge influence” on him. It stars John Cusack as an assassin who is sent on an assignment to his hometown of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. He decides to hit two birds with one stone while attending his ten-year high school reunion. It’s a classic black comedy that is dripping with the kind of sarcasm that Reynolds is known for.
Similarly, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is a comedy that doesn’t conform to the usual lighthearted beats. On its surface, it’s a mismatched buddy movie about two strangers, a jovial salesman (John Candy) and a misanthropic marketing executive (Steve Martin), who are thrown into an uneasy alliance when bad weather hinders their trip home for Thanksgiving. Although it sounds like a simple setup for zany hijinks, Martin’s character is surprisingly cruel, making the film more of a black comedy with hints of tragedy than an all-out laughter fest. Since Reynolds often gravitates towards tonally contradictory movies in his own work, it’s not particularly surprising that he’s a fan.
Last but certainly not least is Alfred Hitchcock’s first foray into Hollywood filmmaking, 1940’s Rebecca. Daphne du Maurier’s novel about a young woman haunted by the death of her new husband’s first wife has been remade many times over the years, but the master of suspense put his stamp on it with the help of Joan Fontaine’s tremulous central performance. Interestingly, it bears many plot similarities to Gaslight, from the young wife haunted by a dead woman to a chilly, secretive husband to a grand house that seems to have a life of its own.
An impressive list, Mr Reynolds.
