Barry Jenkins’ Favorite Movies: 10 Movies He Loves and Recommends

Barry Jenkins has been a household name for a wide variety of filmmakers ever since he dramatically won Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards in 2017. The “Moonlight” writer/director’s tender approach to trapped and toxic characters first crystallized in his moving and romantic debut. Medicine for the Melancholy” in 2008 – of particular interest to those who see the complex considerations of the black American experience richly reflected on screen.

It’s fitting, then, that the If Beale Street could talk director has named three undisputed American classics about socio-economic divides in the BFI’s 2022 Best Films of All Time poll. Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver”, Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” and Charles Burnett’s “The Killer” all capture an element of the social division that unfolded in Jenkins’ later films, although only Lee’s tragicomedy set in Brooklyn from 1989. breaking the poll’s top 25 (24th on the final list). Jenkins also singled out Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi epic “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Jenkins nominated seven more films for the international selections. There is Miklós Jancsó’s 1966 “SGEGÉNYLEGÉNYEK” or “A körverseny” about Hungary: a seven-hour epic about a city that survived the fall of communism. As well as the tragic romance “In the Mood for Love”: Wong Kar Wai’s widely celebrated 2000 masterpiece from France and Hong Kong, which took fifth place in the final vote. Other French films on Jenkins’ ballot are Med Hondo’s “West Indies: Fugitive Slaves of Freedom” and Claire Denis’ “Beau travail.”

Jenkins hasn’t directed a feature film since 2018, but recently produced Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun and Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. Both were made for A24, which also made Moonlight. The screenwriter also wrote the upcoming sports biopic “Flint Strong” about Olympian Claressa Shields: the first American woman to win gold in boxing. The film will be directed by Rachel Morrison in her feature film debut.

Read on for Barry Jenkins’ list of his 10 favorite movies and his comments from them 2022 ‘Sight and Sound’ vote. He summed up his thoughts on the exercise as follows: “It was impossible. But damn if it wasn’t fun.”

“West Indies: Fugitive Slaves to Freedom” (R. Med Hondo, 1979)

Image credit: Courtesy of BFI

In the 2022 Sight and Sound poll, Jenkins’ first choice was “West Indies: Fugitive Slaves of Freedom”. He called Med Hondo’s lauded 1979 Caribbean epic – a boundary-breaking, unique dramatic musical – “cinema as action, a vital masterpiece of drive and ingenuity”.
“Taxi Driver” (dir. Martin Scorsese, 1976)

Image credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Picking “Taxi Driver” for the 2022 Sight and Sound poll, Jenkins neatly summed up many cinephiles’ thoughts on Robert De Niro’s bone-chilling portrayal: “Scorsese and (Paul) Schrader, supple and deadly, nihilistic symphony city of dreams.”
“Beau travail” (dir. Claire Denis, 1998)

Image Source: Screenshot: Film at Lincoln Center on YouTube

“Claire cuts deep — truly sensory cinema,” Jenkins wrote of Denis’s 1998 film Beau travail, a tragic drama about men in the French Foreign Legion and a partial adaptation of an 1888 Herman Melville work.

“The film falls on you from the screen,” Jenkins continued. “You can taste this. You can smell it. Cover.” “Beau travail” was named the seventh best film of all time in the 2022 Sight and Sound poll.
“In the Mood for Love” (Director: Wong Kar Wai, 2000)

Image credit: ©Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection

“Movement and endurance as theme and aesthetic, tension and release,” Jenkins wrote of Wong Kar Wai’s 2000 tragic romance, calling it the filmmaker’s “greatest masterpiece.” Thanks to votes from Jenkins and others, “In the Mood for Love” placed fifth in the 2022 Sight and Sound poll.
“Sátántango” (dir. Béla Tarr, 1994)

Image credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection

The Hungarian epic “Sátántangó”, as Jenkins put it, is an “uncompromising masterpiece”, built episodically – and with impeccable artistry – for more than seven hours. The director of “Moonlight” called the 1994 reflection on country, identity and faith “humiliating” in the 2022 “Sight and Sound” poll.
“POOR BOYS” (dir. Miklós Jancsó, 1966)

Image credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection

“Cinema is just past its 125th year,” Jenkins wrote of 1966’s “THE ROUND-UP” (aka “The Round-Up”).

“He’s so young. Miklós Jancsó’s restrained epic of desperate looks and oppressive light is an almost silent film that uses movement and silhouette as a thematic effect to build form. There’s still a lot to see.”
“2001: A Space Odyssey” (Director: Stanley Kubrick, 1968)

Image source: Everett Collection / Everett Collection

Jenkins said “2001: A Space Odyssey” — the 1968 Kubrick classic ranked sixth in the 2022 Sight and Spound Poll — taught him the limitless possibilities of movies.

He wrote: “The first time I saw this, I was like, ‘I think… a movie can be about anything.’
“Hidden” (dir. Michael Haneke, 2004)

Image source: Screenshot: BFI YouTube

“Not a wasted frame,” noted Jenkins in Michael Haneke’s elaborately crafted 2004 thriller. “Not a damn thing.” Jenkins’ 2022 Sight and Sound ballot “Hidden” stars Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche as parents who find their family terrorized by an unseen menace that seems to be watching over their home.
“Do the Right Thing” (dir. Spike Lee, 1989)

Image credit: ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection

“Bed-Stuy’s William Shakespeare is his most devastating tragicomedy,” Jenkins wrote of “Do the Right Thing,” arguably Spike Lee’s most influential work about the divided Brooklyn neighborhood. “For many of us, Spike is canon. The cinema is not complete without him.”
“Killer of Sheep” (dir. Charles Burnett, 1977)

Image credit: Milestone Film & Video/Everett Collection

“Charles’s contribution to cinema — a very particular kind of cinema — has been underappreciated for too long,” Jenkins wrote of “Bird Killer,” a moody, loosely structured 1977 portrait of Black Angelenos. The “monumental work” rounded out Jenkins’ selections for the 2022 Sight and Sound poll.