Ti West’s Favorite Movies: 10 Movies You Want to See

March 23, 2023

The Sight & Sound ballot from “Pearl” and “X” features 10 towering American classics.

Ti West has been rocking gruesome indie horror films for nearly two decades, starting with “The Roost” before his 2009 breakout satanic panic thriller “The House of the Devil.” But he recently collaborated with A24 on the porno slasher ‘X’. ,” the campy gothic sequel “Pearl” and the trilogy-ending “MaXXXine” spawned an entirely unique Ti West Cinematic Universe: cause for celebration in a Hollywood where such franchises often seem to cannibalize each other in the by spinning out. – mythologies of control and winking and self-referential fan-baiting.

It’s interesting, then, that for the director of films like “Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever” and the Jonestown-inspired spoof “The Sacrament,” the great films in the annals of horror history largely don’t consider the medium to be the best. offer. At least that’s according to his ballot BFI 2022 Sight & Sound Filmmaker Poll of the best movies of all time. No “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” or “Halloween” here, but a sampling of arguably the greatest American films: “Citizen Kane,” “The Godfather,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Apocalypse Now,” “Psycho.” ” (makes sense), “Sunset Blvd.” and so on.

In other words, it’s a mix of the Western canon that, at the end of the world, humanity would be wise to bottle up and send into space for aliens to get an idea of what American movies are all about. When the list originally dropped, there was some debate on social media about its supposed generality, the Hall of Fame equivalent of a dorm movie poster. But why? It’s a perfect list that appeals to the director’s tastes, which are mostly mainstream and distinctly American. “Pearl” mines a very specific slice of “The Wizard of Oz”-meets-Norma-Desmond-film Americana that traces back to exactly those films.

West is, after all, in the good graces of the director of one of the films on the list (“Taxi Driver”) thanks to Martin Scorsese’s recent praise for “Pearl”: “Ti West’s films have an energy that is so rare these days, driven by a pure, undiluted love of cinema . You feel it in every frame… “Pearl” is a wild, mesmerizing, deeply—and I mean deeply—disturbing 102 minutes. West and his muse and creative partner, Mia Goth, really know how to play with their audience… before plunging the knife into our chests they start stabbing and twisting. I was enthralled, then confused, then so confused I couldn’t sleep. But I couldn’t stop watching.”

There is no better imprimatur. Below are the 10 films West considers the best of all time.

(Editor’s note: This article first appeared in March 2023 with results from the West 2022 Sight & Sound Poll. It will be updated over time.)

“Citizen Kane” (1941)

Image credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection

There’s a reason why Orson Welles’ 1941 noir epic about the rise and fall of media mogul Charles Foster Kane consistently tops these lists (twice on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest American films of all time.) At just 25 years old. year, Welles arguably made his best film debut of all time, inventing a new cinematic language and style—with a richly immersive screenplay to match, courtesy of co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz.
The Godfather (1972)

Image credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Francis Ford Coppola defined the New Hollywood with his 1972 Best Picture-winning mob epic The Godfather, which had an immeasurable impact on screens of all sizes. Going from an indie like 1969’s “The Rain People” to a Paramount studio film of this scale was unprecedented – and the film’s brutal, realistic violence ushered in a new wave of American crime filmmaking, traces of which can certainly be found in Ti West’s film. work.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Image source: Everett Collection / Everett Collection

Stanley Kubrick’s mind-bending film “2001: A Space Odyssey” remains as hypnotically mysterious and massive as it was in 1968, when “The Final Voyage” exploded in theaters like a bomb, showing audiences never-before-seen images and He played HAL. 9,000 for a household name.
“Apocalypse Now” (1979)

Image credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Not one, but two Francis Ford Coppola films are on Ti West’s list, including the Vietnam War epic director’s white whale, Apocalypse Now. The film’s expensive location shoots, location egos, and the filmmaker’s meticulousness threatened to destroy United Artists, but it is now arguably one of the greatest war films of all time. The horror, the horror…
“Chinatown” (1974)

Image credit: Everett Collection (chinatown1974-fsct21)

Six years after reinventing the horror film with Rosemary’s Baby in 1968, and less than half a decade after his wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered, Roman Polanski has risen again to strip the noir genre down to its raw, ugly essence. “Chinatown” is perfect filmmaking from top to toe, with an iconic Jack Nicholson performance and a distressed Faye Dunaway fading into gloriously grim eternity.
“Easy Rider” (1969)

Image credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Ti West’s cast has a taste for the open road, drugs and mayhem, so it’s no wonder Dennis Hopper’s 1969 acid-toned “Easy Rider” made the Sight & Sound list. It’s a hallucinogenic horror film about a wild, crazy ride to oblivion with Peter Fonda, Hopper and Jack Nicholson on a motorcycle.
“Jaws” (1975)

Image credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Steven Spielberg invented the idea of the modern-day blockbuster with 1975’s “Jaws,” which was among the highest-grossing films of all time until “Star Wars” came out two years later. The film’s influence on Ti West is clear, from the sneaky set-up scored by John Williams to the last man vs shark showdown in the film’s opening credits.
“Psycho” (1960)

Image credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Alfred Hitchcock did the impossible with “Psycho”: smuggle an avant-garde, formally experimental slasher film into mainstream theaters where moviegoers walked in with no idea what they were about to see. At first you think the film is about Marion Crane – until Janet Leigh is killed at the end of the first act and this terrifying portrait of psychopathy turns into something much deeper and stranger. Any horror director who doesn’t tick off “Psycho” is made of the wrong stuff.
“Sunset Blvd.” (1950)

Image credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection

Billy Wilder provided a grotesque mirror of 1950s Hollywood with Sunset Blvd. — subverting Gloria Swanson’s star image. Here, she plays fading star Norma Desmond, who draws William Holden into her twisted fantasy world. David Lynch also considers the three-time Oscar winner a significant influence.
“Taxi Driver” (1976)

Image credit: Courtesy of the Everett Collection

It’s no surprise that Travis Bickle made the list of Ti West’s best movies of all time. Martin Scorsese practically invented the new Hollywood anti-hero with star Robert De Niro and screenwriter Paul Schrader, whose own influences here came more from Bresson than from other American crime noirs before him.