Quotes on Movies

I'll go to the movies and hear 'Angel From Montgomery' in some film, and nobody ever even told me about it. They don't tell you your stuff is going to be in a movie. They don't have to, so they don't tell you. You get paid eventually.

A street is a story in asphalt - so it's a paradox that the streets are the one place where the movies play fast and loose with continuity, something to which L.A. streets lend themselves as naturally as does the city's psyche.

I just want to see more women in film and behind the camera. I'm tired of seeing movies from one perspective.

I've often been accused of, 'Oh the movies looked good but there's no story,' but I disagree with that in theory, and '9' is a perfect example for me because the feel, the texture, and the look of that world, and those characters, is the story. That's a major component of why you feel the way you do when you're watching it.

You can't improvise without a skeletal structure; you can't just go in and start talking. This is a very misunderstood craft because no one else makes movies like this.

You cannot be an actor like I am and not have been in some of the worst movies like I have. But I stand before you deeply honored, mighty grateful and just plain gobsmacked.

We are constantly - in order to cope with painful realities - shuffling through third-rate, half-remembered fantasies taken from movies, from TV, from people we admire. We do this individually, we do it collectively - we tell stories to escape our most painful truths.

When you're hanging out with your friends, you reference books and movies, and you don't always know if your friends know what you're referencing. But you throw it out there, and if it connects, it makes people laugh.

Through most of my career, I've made a decent living making movies no one wants to see.

I think all of us, under certain circumstances, could be capable of some very despicable acts. And that's why, over the years, in my movies I've had characters who didn't care what people thought about them. We try to be as true to them as possible and maybe see part of ourselves in there that we may not like.

I notice when I'm at a party where I don't know anybody - even if I have nothing in common with somebody - we can still talk because we were raised by the same TV and cartoons and movies.

A lot of movies about artificial intelligence envision that AI's will be very intelligent but missing some key emotional qualities of humans and therefore turn out to be very dangerous.

I feel I'm all over my movies. I know my movies are all over me.

As a filmmaker, I believe in trying to make movies that invite the audience to be part of the film; in other words, there are some films where I'm just a spectator and am simply observing from the front seat. What I try to do is draw the audience into the film and have them participate in what's happening onscreen.

An often-repeated assertion in the body of film criticism I have written is the assertion that movies do not just mirror the culture of any given time; they also create it.

You hope that the responsibility of making movies will fall into the hands of essentially moral people.

I've always tried to make movies that pull the audience out of their seats... I want audiences to be transported.

No film has captivated my imagination more than 'King Kong.' I'm making movies today because I saw this film when I was 9 years old.

I don't understand why people still behave as though making movies with female protagonists is risky, given that - hello - we do make up over 50 percent of the population, and we go to movies.

I really hate relaxing. I've done three movies in a row, worked for two years straight, and to me, idle time is the devil's workshop. I like to focus on something.

If I were able to write, I probably would. But movies have given me a part of my life where I can express feelings and bring convictions to an audience as if I could write. So I made 'Gandhi' about human relations, prejudice and the empire. In 'Cry Freedom' I expressed my horror and disgust about apartheid.