Tony Bennett’s five favourite movies of all time
The late musician, Anthony Dominick Benedetto, better known as Tony Bennett, was an iconic pop singer known for such classic hits as ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ and ‘Body and Soul’, which he dueted with Amy Winehouse back in 2011. Amassing 20 Grammys over his career, as well as two Primetime Emmy Awards, Bennett was an iconic musician, praised by the likes of Lady Gaga, Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire and Cary Grant.
As well as a celebrated musician, Bennett also thrived in a surprising number of roles on the big and small screen, taking part in TV shows such as Entourage, The Simpsons and King, the 1978 mini-series about the life of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. In addition, Bennett also appeared in the 1994 Michael Ritchie movie The Scout, Harold Ramis’ Analyze This, and the Jim Carrey comedy Bruce Almighty.
Indeed, whilst Bennett was known for being an iconic musician, he was also a fond fan of cinema, even sitting down with Rotten Tomatoes in 2012 to discuss his favourite movies of all time.
First on his list is the film often considered to be the best of all time, Orson Welles’ 1941 classic Citizen Kane. “Orson Wells was a genius!” Bennett exclaimed of the filmmaker and the star of the movie, who thrives as the titular character, a publishing tycoon whose dying words send the world’s media into a scramble, each trying to decipher his complex life.
Staying with classic cinema, Bennett’s second pick is the Charlie Chaplin comedy The Kid, which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. One of Chaplin’s many comedy successes, the film features the icon as The Tramp, his popular cinematic character, who takes care of an abandoned child in this seminal 1922 movie which Bennett praises by simply stating: “Another great Chaplin film”.
Clearly a fond lover of the British comedy great, Bennett also saves another slot in his top five for the Chaplin movie Modern Times. “Charlie Chaplin was a genius and a great humanist,” he says of the actor and filmmaker whose 1936 film that follows a man struggling to keep up with the ever-modernising environment of the workplace, was way ahead of its time.
Calling his fourth pick, My Fair Lady, “such a wonderfully written movie,” Bennett gushes over George Cukor’s 1964 romance. A musical penned by Alan Jay Lerner from the play by George Bernard Shaw, My Fair Lady told the story of a snobby professor who agrees to a wager to make a humble flower girl a member of high society. Starring the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway, My Fair Lady is a bonafide Hollywood classic.
Bookending the list is something a little bit different, the 1948 John Huston western flick The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the three-time Oscar-winning movie that follows the story of two unlucky Americans who convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the mountains. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston, Bennett quite simply calls the film, “My favorite movie”.
Tony Bennett’s five favourite movies:
- Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
- The Kid (Charles Chaplin, 1921)
- Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936)
- My Fair Lady (Goerge Cukor, Scott Heming, 1964)
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)
