How to Direct a Movie, With Sam Esmail

Barbarian 2022

Amanda's exception - plays the tropes for laughs, closer to Scream than to a straight scare.

Armageddon Time 2022

Esmail's one recent theater trip; loved the movie, hated the crowd.

Top Gun: Maverick 2022

Held No. 1 from Memorial Day to Labor Day because the studios left the calendar empty behind it.

Nope 2022

Sean's late-breaking top-five charge on a second watch.

2001: A Space Odyssey 1968

Esmail tried it on his daughter; she lasted ten seconds.

M3GAN 2023

The Blumhouse trailer that made Esmail laugh out loud - his potential Barbarian.

Scream 1996

The horror Amanda does like.

Crimes of the Future 2022

Eastern Promises 2007

Fast Company 1979

Cronenberg's oddball car-racing film; Esmail's verdict: you don't need to watch it.

Watcher 2022

The stalker thriller Esmail wouldn't recommend to Amanda - it would land too well.

Citizen Kane 1941

How Green Was My Valley 1941

The Best Picture winner that beat Kane - Esmail's example of a canon entry worth re-litigating.

Get to Know Your Rabbit 1972

De Palma's hard-to-find first studio movie, cited as completist trivia.

Everyone Says I Love You 1996

Amanda revisited it for the Julia Roberts Hall of Fame and bounced off the Woody Allen wish-fulfillment.

The Philadelphia Story 1940

Sean finally caught it off the AFI list; not a favorite.

His Girl Friday 1940

Shared favorite - a Howard Hawks point of connection.

It Happened One Night 1934

Bringing Up Baby 1938

Both prefer it to Philadelphia Story.

High Society 1956

Sean's blasphemous take: the soft Philadelphia Story remake he likes better.

Leave the World Behind 2023

The new film - his Rumaan Alam adaptation with Julia Roberts, changed heavily from the book. Prep and post are the joys; production is the nightmare.

Comet 2014

Esmail's first feature, where he met Emmy Rossum.

Tár 2022

The heavily written movie Sean would tighten in a spot or two; near five stars for him.

Taxi Driver 1976

The subject of Tarantino's "what if De Palma directed it" chapter - imagining other turns while flagging what Scorsese got wrong.

The Good Nurse 2022

Esmail defends the craft - Redmayne, Chastain, Jodie Lee Lipes's photography - against a script the hosts call the problem.

Ambulance 2022

Sean's cause: Michael Bay's drone work as a model for where action movies should go; Esmail and Amanda unmoved.

Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981

Sean's counter-model - Spielberg always knowing where to put the camera.

The Gray Man 2022

Same drone toys as Ambulance, but it showed Sean nothing new.

Avatar 2009

Sean's proof that a huge action film needn't rely on fast cutting.

Avatar: The Way of Water 2022

The sequel, not yet seen at recording.

The Hospital 1971

Paddy Chayefsky reference Sean drops - not the bar he's holding The Good Nurse to.

Parasite 2019

Best Picture winner Esmail still can't fully explain the scale of; also his Halloween costume source.

Devil in a Blue Dress 1995

Carl Franklin, whom Esmail floats as a Big Picture subject.

West Side Story 2021

Scouted Sean's old Echo Park house; ended up elsewhere.

Ticket to Paradise 2022

Amanda on Julia Roberts's jumpsuits as costume-design intent.

Mother! 2017

The kind of allegorical child-in-danger film that doesn't hit Esmail the way a realistic one now does.

Inglourious Basterds 2009

The 30-minute bar scene as Esmail's runtime argument: length isn't the problem, quality is.

The Banshees of Inisherin 2022

Esmail's AD worked on it; nobody expected how big the small, intimate film would land.

First Man 2018

Sean's only knock: too tight; why he's excited for Chazelle to go zanier.

Babylon 2022

Sean's most-anticipated - the film he can predict least.

The Fabelmans 2022

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 2022

She Said 2022

Amanda's most-anticipated; a Carey Mulligan and investigative-journalism draw.

White Noise 2022

Already seen; would've made the anticipation list otherwise.

Titanic 1997

Amanda's long-movie exception.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 1927

Esmail's last-great-thing - a Murnau silent that flew by.

The Bridge on the River Kwai 1957

A recent catch-up he loves - one of the great endings.

The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928

From his BFI-list run - Dreyer.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920

Among the silents his film-school sister finds boring; context comes later.

Battleship Potemkin 1925

"The one with the staircase."

Chimes at Midnight 1966

Welles as Falstaff - a four-hour film Esmail weirdly loved young.

Tokyo Story 1953

The Ozu he couldn't get through - a Greenwald favorite.