A complete list of Sofia Coppola’s favourite films
Many filmmakers grow up watching cinematic masterpieces and inevitably end up falling in love with the medium. Since they have been enmeshed in film culture from an early age – like Quentin Tarantino, their films are influenced by a wide variety of works. In the case of Sofia Coppola, such an upbringing was almost inevitable.
As the daughter of New Hollywood auteur Francis Ford Coppola, she grew up watching all kinds of films. However, Sofia Coppola did not start out as a director and actually dropped out of college to start a clothing line. Eventually, she realised that filmmaking was what she wanted to do because it was the intersection of everything she loved.
Over the course of her career, Coppola has produced several well-received gems such as The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. Although she has faced criticisms about nepotism, Coppola has incorporated her own unique artistic vision into her works which originate from an aesthetic framework that is heavily influenced by her knowledge of fashion design.
On multiple occasions, Coppola has explained how various cinematic projects have influenced her own work. While her father’s The Godfather series immortalised him in popular culture, Coppola maintained that her favourite film made by her father was actually the 1983 cult-classic Rumble Fish because of its cinematography.
“I love that it’s an art film about teenagers,” Coppola explained an interview with Rotten Tomatoes while talking about all the elements of Rumble Fish that she fell in love with. “I just love the way that it’s shot—I love those old lenses, those Zeiss lenses; they have a softer feel. Roman [Coppola, her brother] and I are just sentimental about film.”
Check out the full list of the films that influenced Sofia Coppola below.
Sofia Coppola’s favourite films:
- A Brief Encounter – David Lean, 1945
- Gilda – Charles Vidor, 1946
- A Place In The Sun – George Stevens, 1951
- Breathless – Jean-Luc Godard, 1960
- La Notte – Michelangelo Antonioni, 1961
- Lolita – Stanley Kubrick, 1962
- The Servant – Joseph Losey, 1963
- Darling – John Schlesinger, 1965
- The Last Picture Show – Peter Bogdanovich, 1971
- Heartbreak Kid – Elaine May, 1972
- Badlands – Terrence Malick, 1973
- Fear of Fear – Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1975
- Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels – Chantal Akerman, 1975
- Bugsy Malone – Alan Parker, 1976
- All That Jazz – Bob Fosse, 1979
- Tootsie – Sydney Pollack, 1982
- Rumble Fish – Francis Ford Coppola, 1983
- The Thorn Birds – Daryl Duke, 1983
- Sixteen Candles – John Hughes, 1984
- Stranger Than Paradise – Jim Jarmusch, 1984
- Do The Right Thing – Spike Lee, 1989
- Goodfellas – Martin Scorsese, 1990
- The Piano – Jane Campion, 1993
- Safe – Todd Haynes, 1995
- To Die For – Gus Van Sant, 1995
- In The Mood For Love – Wong Kar-wai, 2000
- Together – Lukas Moodysson, 2000
- Chris Rock: Never Scared – Joel Gallen, 2004
- Head-On – Fatih Akın, 2004
- The Incredibles – Brad Bird, 2004
- Grizzly Man – Werner Herzog, 2005
- The Savages – Tamara Jenkins, 2007
- Let The Right One In – Tomas Alfredson, 2008
- The White Ribbon – Michael Haneke, 2009
- Ida – Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013
- Under the Skin – Jonathan Glazer, 2013
- Ex Machina – Alex Garland, 2014
- Force Majeure – Ruben Östlund, 2014
- Daddy’s Home – Sean Anders, 2015
- Bombshell – Jay Roach, 2019
- Uncut Gems – Safdie Brothers, 2019
Coppola’s list is definitely a wide-ranging one, including influential works such as Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless as well as modern masterpieces like Uncut Gems. Many of these films have also had a direct impact on her own work, most notably David Lean’s 1945 classic A Brief Encounter which inspired Lost in Translation.
The filmmaker commented: “It was a big inspiration for me when I was writing Lost In Translation. Just the intense emotion between these two characters. Very little is said, and you feel so much in just a gesture or a pause. It’s so emotional but everything’s under the surface. Maybe that’s very English? But I love that.”
