The two movies Tim Burton will never get tired of watching: “Even if I had seen them the day before”
Anybody who ever thinks of Tim Burton, the first word that probably springs to mind is gothic, and for good reason.
The filmmaker who created the likes of Beetlejuice, Sleepy Hollow and Edward Scissorhands is obviously one of the most well-versed in the industry when it comes to all things dark, damp and dreary. But that’s not to say everything Burton creates is horror-adjacent and nightmarish as his debut film was Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, and he is the mind behind the heart-warming exploration of fantastical storytelling through the eyes of a child that is Big Fish.
However, Burton’s films undoubtedly carry his signature fingerprint of the weird and wonderful. So you’d expect someone with such a distinctive visual and world-building style to favour aesthetics and stories similar to his own. This seems about right with his previous list of top five films, which included The Wicker Man and Dracula AD 1972. When it comes to the movies he simply can’t get enough of, they offer a slightly different insight into his tastes.
When asked this question by the Cannes Film Festival, he offered two oldies but goodies (well, the latter’s for you to decide), and the first pick is the most surprising. “It’s strange, there’s a weird one like Where Eagles Dare; it’s a movie that every time it’s on TV, I watch it,” he explained. Yes, that’s right, a Clint Eastwood film, that’s certainly not something I thought would be high on Tim Burton’s list.
While it’s certainly a left-of-field choice for the filmmaker, it’s not so much weird in terms of its premise, which is just classic Hollywood action from the 1960s. Starring Richard Burton and Eastwood as Allied soldiers on a secret mission to liberate an American general from a Bavarian fortress where he’s being held hostage by the Nazis, as you can imagine, there are a lot of ridiculous explosions, aerial tramway stunts and gratuitous violence.
But for Burton, he can easily rewatch it time and again because “it’s got a mood to it, in the snow, and you’ve got the soundtrack and the quietness”. Shot on location in Austria, the film involved some of the best people in the business at the time, including award-winning composer Ron Goodwin and cinematography from Arthur Ibbetson. While the gung-ho action and themes might not particularly align with what we expect of the Corpse Bride director, there’s no doubt the film looks and sounds amazing.
For Burton, it’s “the same thing with The Omega Man. There are certain films I would watch anytime, even if I had seen them the day before”. The Omega Man isn’t necessarily a complete surprise from Burton, as it appeared on his previous list too, clearly demonstrating his love for the film, this still might seem a little at odds with his own off-beat storytelling and visual style. However, once you look past the action film veneer, it becomes clear why this film is on his list.
A precursor to the 2007 Will Smith zombie flick I Am Legend (they’re both based on the same book), it follows Charlton Heston’s US Army Col Robert Neville as the ‘last man alive’ after a Sino-Soviet biological warfare causes a deadly plague.
Except, he’s not alone. He spends his days patrolling abandoned an LA and hunting down members of “the family”, a cult of deranged, nocturnal plague victims, while also talking to statues, dressing up, drinking and watching clips from Woodstock in abandoned cinemas; kind of a vibe, really, slightly akin to maybe 2009’s Zombieland. As a kind of monster flick, mixed with an extremely appealing 1970s visual style, it’s understandable why Burton never tires of the film.
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