Billy Wilder

“If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.”

Paul Thomas Anderson

“I'll rebel against powers and principalities, all the time. Always, I will.”

Anthony Minghella

“I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.”

Ramin Bahrani

“Film is really 24 frames a second in the present, and I realize when you leave certain gaps, it allows space for the viewer to enter the film.”

Jafar Panahi

“In a world where films are made with millions of dollars, we made a film about a little girl who wants to buy a fish for less than a dollar.”

Hrishikesh Mukherjee

Guru Dutt

Orson Welles

“A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet.”

Giuseppe Tornatore

“From the moment I enter the movie theater and the lights go out and the first images come up on the screen, I’m very happy about the fact that that film exists and I feel a great warmth toward it – even if, in the end, it turns out that it’s not a particularly good film.”

Christopher Nolan

“I think audiences get too comfortable and familiar in today's movies. They believe everything they're hearing and seeing. I like to shake that up.”

Ridley Scott

“People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God's sake, I'm not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I'm making a movie that people are going to look at. ”

Zhang Yimou

“To do art, one thing should always remember - subjects of people in misery have deep meanings.”

Alejandro Amenábar

“I wouldn't say I'm a very controlling person. For instance, when I talk to the actors, I don't tell them exactly what I want because I want them to surprise me. I even encourage them to change some of the verses of the script if they need to.”

Hal Ashby

“Hitchhiked to Los Angeles when I was 17. Had about 50 or 60 jobs up to the time I was working as a Multilith operator at good old Republic Studios.”

Mamoru Oshii

“The strength behind Japanese animation is based in the designers' pencil. Even if he mixes 2D, 3D, and computer graphics, the foundation is still 2D. Only doing 3D does not interest me.”

Jean-Pierre Jeunet

“I wanted to make a fake Paris, a Paris of dreams, like in my head when I was twenty and I arrived in Paris for the first time. I wanted to avoid the bad things: traffic jams, dog shit on the street, the rain.”

Michel Gondry

“Every great idea is on the verge of being stupid.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky

“Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles.”

David Fincher

“I don't know how much movies should entertain. To me I'm always interested in movies that scar. The thing I love about JAWS is that I've never gone swimming in the ocean again.”

Richard Linklater

“I've always liked the minds of criminals, they seem similar to artists. ”