Billy Wilder

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

David Lynch

“I don't think about technique. The ideas dictate everything. You have to be true to that or you're dead.”

Terrence Malick

“[On Badlands (1973)] I tried to keep the 1950s to a bare minimum. Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything. I wanted the picture to set up like a fairy tale, outside time, like Treasure Island. I hoped this would, among other things, take a little of the sharpness out of the violence, but still keep its dreamy quality.”

Gus Van Sant

“I have my ideas of what a good documentary is, but drama is a different animal because you're arranging everything.”

Jean-Luc Godard

“A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order. ”

Mark Duplass

“Most people have one independent film in them, because it’s so hard. And then they’re like, “Thank God I made it through. Now I’m gonna go make studio movies.” Then they keep waiting for studio movies to be made. The thing is, I am willing to hang lights and suffer and keep doing it over and over again because I kind of like it. It’s the same thing that makes you want to go camping. You get into it.”

Jay Duplass

“[W]e’re obsessed with people and we’re obsessed with these weird little passive-aggressive dynamics and little hopeful things that they’re doing.”

Wim Wenders

“Any movie that has that spirit and says things can be changed is worth making. ”

Judd Apatow

“It's so difficult to shock America these days.”

Greg Mottola

Steven Soderbergh

“To me the director's job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.”

Guillermo del Toro

“I like actors that are good with pantomime and that can transmit a lot by their presence and attitude more than through their dialogue.”

Alfonso Cuarón

“The only reason you make a movie is not to make or set out to do a good or bad movie, it's just to see what you learn for the next one.”

Jim Jarmusch

“I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are. ”

Tim Burton

“I've always loved the idea of fairy tales, but somehow I never managed to completely connect with them. What interests me is taking those classic images and themes and trying to contemporize them a bit. I believe folk tales and fairy tales have some sort of psychological foundation that makes that possible.”

John Carpenter

“In France, I'm an auteur; in Germany, a filmmaker; in Britain, a genre film director; and, in the USA, a bum.”

Steven Spielberg

“I think that the Internet is going to effect the most profound change on the entertainment industries combined. And we're all gonna be tuning into the most popular Internet show in the world, which will be coming from some place in Des Moines. We're all gonna lose our jobs. We're all gonna be on the Internet trying to find an audience.”

Edgar Wright

“Everything that I've done so far has had a bigger budget than the last, but I've never ever felt the benefit of the bigger budget because the ideas always exceed the budget. ”

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.”

Terry Gilliam

“You get trapped by stories. Though I've got this reputation for being out of control, it's not true, it just happens to be a more interesting story than the truth.”