Ethan Hawke
Curator
As a prolific actor, director, author and screenwriter, it’s no surprise that Ethan Hawke’s high-caliber work features in the Galerie collection, from his eccentric labor-of-love documentary Seymour: An Introduction (2014) to his Oscar-nominated performance in Richard Linklater’s magisterial coming-of-age saga Boyhood (2014). But Hawke’s personal film favorites draw mostly from an earlier era, notably the New Hollywood boom of the 1970s, which was dominated by morally complex antiheroes and nuanced, novelistic storytelling and scripts. “The movies were my great babysitter,” Hawke tells Galerie. Raised in Vermont and New Jersey by a single mom (punctuated by visits to his father in Texas), his childhood screen tastes were forged by the indelible experience of sneaking into age-inappropriate movies starring heavyweights like Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton and Sissy Spacek, with uncompromising directors such as Terrence Malick, Peter Bogdanovich and Bob Fosse behind the camera. Today, as both an actor and filmmaker, Hawke remains true to this ageless rebel spirit, keeping the torch burning for fine-grained, literary, soulful Americana.
A Message From ETHAN
ETHAN’S FILM LIST
Click each title to discover our curator’s notes and where to watch
The theater has always been my first love, so to see a great piece of cinema about live performance sets my nervous system on fire. I think this film is a must-see for anyone seriously interested in movies.
{{ All Items }}Wanna have a good time? Watch Gun Crazy. Enough said.
{{ All Items }}If I had to pick my favorite film performance of all time, it would be Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces. This is the kind of film that makes you want to make your own movie. It feels personal. Lived-in. Heartfelt. You can tell the people who made it were friends with each other. The ending is haunting, stolen from a Flannery O’Connor short story. If you’re going to steal, steal from the best!
{{ All Items }}Flat out one of the best movies of all time. Based on Larry McMurtry’s book, it’s kind of the definitive Texas movie. I saw this movie when I was 19, shortly after Dead Poets Society came out. There’s something very daunting about having a lot of success as a young person, the pressure of maintaining quality before you really know yourself. Jeff Bridges’s performance in this film was inspiring. He became a north star to me, of how to survive being a child actor with grace.
{{ All Items }}Cool is a difficult word to define—you know it when you see it. Two-Lane Blacktop is cool. All these characters are people you want to hang out with. I’ve heard that James Taylor doesn’t even remember shooting it, but he’s amazing in this movie. I wish I could act that well while stoned.
{{ All Items }}From back in the day, when Terrence Malick hadn’t lost complete interest in plot. I love all his movies, but this is my favorite. Photography, performance and writing—all inseparable from each other. All perfect.
{{ All Items }}Okay, I take it back: If I had to pick my favorite performance of all time, it’d be Jack Nicholson in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
{{ All Items }}I said earlier that theater was my first love, and if that’s true, Bob Fosse has to be my favorite director. All his films are about artists: Cabaret, Lenny, Star 80, Sweet Charity. But his best, most personal is All That Jazz. My mother took me to see this film when I was probably too young, and she quickly forced me to leave to go into some stupid kids movie. Entranced, I snuck back, watching from the wings. I guess for me there’s something illegal about the film. Personal filmmaking at its finest.
{{ All Items }}This is Warren Beatty’s masterpiece. To make a movie in 1981, during the Cold War, about one of only three Americans buried in Red Square was a bold and dangerous move. Every element of this movie is conceived from exceptional talent. Elaine May helped write the script. Vittorio Storaro shot it. Sondheim contributed music. Jack Nicholson as Eugene O’Neill, and Warren and Diane Keaton as star-crossed lovers. This movie is flat-out reasons-to-live great.
{{ All Items }}When I was growing up, I had three VHS tapes in the house, and The Year of Living Dangerously was one of them. I must have watched that movie upwards of 50 times. Journalist-in-third-world-country movies were kind of a fad in the ’80s (Salvador, The Killing Fields), but I think this is the best. Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver are the definition of cool, and Linda Hunt’s performance is one of the best. It was my introduction to Peter Weir and proved to be great preparation for Dead Poets Society.
{{ All Items }}This is my favorite coming-of-age film. I was so deeply in love with Diane “Cherry” Lane. I dressed like Matt Dillon for years of my life. It begins with the perfect opening line, “When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.” If I died today, I’d want that on my tombstone.
{{ All Items }}Co-written by Sam Shepard. Directed by Wim Wenders. Scored by Ry Cooder. If a razor blade cutting you could feel good, then that would accurately describe the experience of watching Paris, Texas. Every shot in this film could be hung on your wall, and yet none of them draw attention to themselves. Everything serves the story.
{{ All Items }}I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve seen this movie more than any other one on this list (also one of the three VHSs I owned). It just makes me laugh. Harry Dean Stanton is a walking miracle, and this may be his finest hour. It also introduced me to punk music. If you make it to the end, the roof of your head will come off.
{{ All Items }}I saw this movie when it first came out, in 1989. And I saw it on the big screen again for its 25th anniversary. Sadly, Do the Right Thing is still as immediate and gut-wrenching as the first time I saw it. The use of music, color, performance, camera, humor—everything about it is original and packs a force that only Spike Lee can deliver. Another perfect film.
{{ All Items }}I should probably confess: When I first saw An Angel at My Table, I was falling madly in love for the first time. (Whenever I see the poster, I get misty-eyed.) But despite that, I think the film really holds up. I can’t even figure out how Campion began to conceive of this movie—everything about it is unexpected. It’s so much fun to see the male characters through such a female gaze, to realize what idiots we are. The filmmaking matches Janet Frame’s genius. Above all, the movie never descends into being a “biopic.”
{{ All Items }}A stoned cold masterpiece. This film introduced us to a whole new crop of amazing actors. Matthew McConaughey. Ben Affleck. Parker Posey. The list goes on and on. It’s such a sly comedy—seemingly meaningless, but it somehow goes where movies that are trying to be profound never can.
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