David Goyer’s Five Favorite Films

My all-time favorite film is unequivocally The Man Who Would Be King. I love the film. First of all, I love John Huston; I love Sean Connery; I love Michael Caine. I just think it’s one of the best examples of classic 1970s action adventure epics that I’ve ever seen and I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it, maybe a dozen times. It’s my favorite movie of all time.

One of my other favorite films of all time is Being There. Hal Ashby [director]. Peter Sellers’ last film. I adore that movie. I think it’s profound, I think it’s funny, I adore Peter Sellers. I could watch that movie over and over again.

One of my other favorite films is Don’t Look Now, which is kind of an antecedent or… something we were going for a similar vibe with our film, The Forest. I think, to date, it’s still one of the most disturbing movies that’s ever been made. I love how Venice is a very unique specific place in that movie. I’m a huge Donald Sutherland fan. I had an opportunity to work with him at one point and always loved that movie, and I was just gushing over that film. And I like its sense of stranger-in-a-strange-land, how it’s about a westerner that’s trapped in this very unique and specific environment, which is something we were trying to mimic in The Forest.

I have to say one of my good friends Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. I think it’s an incredible movie. One of the things I love about Pan’s Labyrinth is that the film could never have been developed within the studio system. It’s one of the purest expressions of a very specific and unique vision. It’s a horror film, it’s a social commentary film, it’s a dark fairy tale, and when you know Guillermo, it’s a film that could only have spawned from his imagination.

I’m going to cite probably a really odd one: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Catherine Deneuve – it’s a musical in the 1960s, and I think that’s the best example of utilizing color and production design in a film that’s been done in the history of cinema. Basically it’s stunning and it’s a really delightful, buoyant film about love and friends. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful movie and probably not what your readers would have thought I might have picked. I use The Umbrellas of Cherbourg as an example of how color can inform a character’s internal head space. I’ve used that many, many, many times in my projects — I’ve pointed production designers, writers, and cinematographers to that film as an [example of how to use] color. It’s a cool movie.