Yorgos Lanthimos’ favourite movies of all time
With seven feature films to his name, four major awards at Cannes, four nominations at the Academy Awards and a BAFTA for ‘Outstanding British Film’ with 2018’s The Favourite, you could say that Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos knows a thing or two about movies. In a 20-year career, the auteur has developed a catalogue of movies that dance between genres and geographical settings whilst always maintaining a consistent thread of distinct Lanthimos storytelling.
He’s made films in Greece, the UK and the US and worked with a host of unknown non-actors and major Hollywood A-list talent. His movies have taken audiences from contemporary Athens to early 18th-century England to, judging by the trailer for his upcoming Poor Things, an entirely new dimension altogether. With such an expansive approach to filmmaking encompassing so many elements of the medium, it’s unsurprising that a list of the unique director’s favourite films would similarly span countries, decades and styles.
Compiled together by the good people at MUBI, a list of 47 films revered by the idiosyncratic filmmaker illuminates an impressive and diverse taste that pretty much covers the entire spectrum of cinema. From the Czech New Wave to The Bourne Ultimatum, Lanthimos’ capacity to enjoy and be inspired by films of all kinds is a testament to his own creative prowess as a director. Examining the list gives us an extraordinary insight into the mind behind some of this century’s most intriguing, beguiling and unsettling films.
The inclusion of classics like Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men suggests a fondness for those good old-fashioned black-and-white films that mastered the art of suspense. The presence of Heli and Uncut Gems, on the other hand, points to an admiration for the thrilling, adrenaline-fuelled contemporary crime films of the 2010s.
While all horrors of different breeds, The Shining, Possession and Angst hint at the director’s inclination towards the macabre and the disturbing traits discernible in his own works – most visibly in the dread-laced The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Perhaps the most indicative of the director’s influences are found in his European choices from the 1960s and 1970s, like Juraj Herz’s The Cremator, which boasted severely unusual camera angles and wide-angle shots that would be seen later in The Favourite and, by the looks of it, Poor Things.
The disturbing mix of bleak violence and tragedy with absurdist humour and surreal imagery that defined the likes of Alps and The Lobster are seen at their most pronounced in the two films of Miklós Jancsó on Lanthimos’ list; the 19th-century revolutionary film The Round-Up and his similarly military themed The Red and the White, which came two years later in 1967.
Overall, Lanthimos’ list covers 83 years of cinema, and his choices’ sheer density and broadness only reaffirm him as one of the most exciting filmmakers working today.
Yorgos Lanthimos’ favourite films:
- Uncut Gems (Josh & Benny Safdie, 2019)
- Heli (Amat Escalante, 2013)
- The Bourne Ultimatum (Paul Greengrass, 2007)
- The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005)
- Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006)
- The Game (David Fincher, 1997)
- The Madness of King George (Nicholas Hytner, 1994)
- Naked (Mike Leigh, 1993)
- Man Bites Dog (Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel & Benoît Poelvoorde, 1992)
- The War of the Roses (Danny Devito, 1989)
- The Photograph (Nikos Papatakis, 1986)
- Detective (Jean-Luc Godard, 1985)
- Amadeus (Miloš Forman, 1984)
- Angst (Gerald Kargl, 1983)
- The Draughtsman’s Contract (Peter Greenaway, 1982)
- Possession (Andrzej Żuławski, 1981)
- The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
- Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)
- Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
- Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
- Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974)
- The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973)
- Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
- Macbeth (Roman Polanski, 1971)
- Husbands (John Cassavetes, 1970)
- Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970)
- The Reconstruction (Theodorus Angelopoulos, 1970)
- Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Elio Petri, 1970)
- The Cremator (Juraj Herz, 1969)
- Dillinger Is Dead (Marco Ferreri, 1969)
- Salesman (Albert & David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin, 1969)
- Mouchette (Robert Bresson, 1967)
- Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
- Branded to Kill (Seijun Suzuki, 1967)
- Thanos and Despina (Nikos Papatakis, 1967)
- The Red and the White (Miklós Jancsó, 1967)
- The Round-Up (Miklós Jancsó, 1966)
- Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
- Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964)
- The Servant (Joseph Losey, 1963)
- Vivre Sa Vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
- Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, 1961)
- North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
- Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959)
- 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet, 1957)
- All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)
- Things to Come (William Cameron Menzies, 1936)
