Quotes & Sayings About Watching Films

Working with Terry Gilliam was magic - I've been watching his films since I was little. — Paloma Faith

I love research. Sometimes I think writing novels is just an excuse to allow myself this leisurely time of getting to know a period and reading its books and watching its films. I see it as a real treat. — Sarah Waters

As a writer, one of the things we all learned from the movies was a kind of compression that didn't exist before people were used to watching films. For instance, if you wanted to write a flashback in a novel, you once had to really contextualize it a lot, to set it up. Now, readers know exactly what you're doing. Close-ups, too. — Salman Rushdie

Even as a child, when kids my age would watch cartoons, I preferred watching horror flicks. I had watched some Hollywood horror flicks and even films made by the Ramsay brothers by the time I was six! I have always been biased towards that genre. — Emraan Hashmi

I'm such a fan of actors and also enjoy watching them work so that I can help their acting in any way I can. Sometimes it walks a tricky line because you want to be entertaining to some degree. But honesty is always entertaining to me. I'm a big Woody Allen and Spike Lee fan, and I find their films to be very honest. — Dito Montiel

It's always been a lot of fun for me, just to be in films that people see and they connect to, big or small. The big ones tend to reach a wider audience, so it's exciting to feel like you've got fans in countries, all over the world, who are watching what you're doing. That's really great! — Mary Elizabeth Winstead

I haven't watched that much TV, to be honest. To be honest, I don't watch that many films anymore - partly because I don't have time; secondly, because I watch a lot of sports, and I love watching sports. — Mads Mikkelsen

I make some movies for myself. I do that sometimes when the subject matter is very sensitive and very personal and I really can't imagine that I'm an audience member. I would lose myself too much if I thought of myself as the audience. There are other types of genre films that I need to be able to direct from the audience, to be right next to you watching the picture being made. — Steven Spielberg

I don't think I'm the world's most die-hard sci-fi fan, but I definitely grew up watching 'Star Trek' religiously - all of them: the original, 'Next Generation,' 'Deep Space Nine,' 'Voyager.' I think sci-fi has an important place in the cinema world. Fantasy is a big part of why films actually exist. — Olivia Thirlby

For me, personally, I'm usually not on my phone that much. I prefer listening to old radio shows and watching foreign films than tweeting. — Yara Shahidi

I love films where you go into the cinema and loosen the edges of yourself and you hopefully enter into the world of the film. You're watching something unfold before you. I prefer the idea of wonder or intense wonder over shock or something. — Julia Leigh

I think one of the blessings that I've had in watching, you know, films be made now from four of my books is to realize that it's a separate thing. It's a separate work. — Scott Turow

I was rather shaken by all the green trees. I always am. It gets me. I don't want to be funny about it but I am. I loved seeing all the westerns, but I had asthma and couldn't go anywhere, but I loved watching them in Technicolor and seeing the cowboys and the landscapes of Monument Valley and you'd see the forests of the Anthony Mann films and think, 'wow, that's fantastic', but I could never go there! — Martin Scorsese

I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action. — Twyla Tharp

When watching 'The Passion,' Jews and Christians are watching two entirely different films. For two hours, Christians watch their Savior tortured and killed. For the same two hours, Jews watch Jews arrange the killing and torture of the Christians' Savior. — Dennis Prager

It's a real gift to work with my sister. We obviously have such a shorthand communicating with each other that it makes the process easier. And from growing up together and watching so many films together, we ended up with pretty similar taste. — Jennifer Todd

I love watching horror films because I don't get scared easily. — Esha Gupta

I think feature films sell on the idea, and I think TV works based almost entirely on execution. I don't think anybody is going, 'Wow, that show is executed poorly, but the idea is so cool I just have to keep watching.' — Bill Lawrence

You definitely do not do films for that particular reason. You do them for yourself, for your satisfaction of creating this thing with characters and watching these characters take on real life - that's all you care about. — Clint Eastwood

Action films can be like watching paint dry. You can just die in the trailer waiting for them to set up a shot, then you go out for a few minutes or an hour of endurance testing. — Pierce Brosnan

You get to a certain moment where you realize all those humans who landed on the moon did so in between Chris [Nolan] being born and me being born and no one had gone back since, all these Super-8 films we grew up watching of rocket launches, you get to a certain age and you realize all the speeches about going back, they're speeches, there's no money there, we're not going back. — Jonathan Nolan

Films with female protagonists don't attract many eyeballs. Most of them are perceived as feminist films. If Bollywood starts giving women major roles in entertaining movies, then the audience, too, will open up to the idea of watching commercial films in which the actresses do more than just play the role of the hero's love interest. — Bipasha Basu

You know, I grew up watching all kinds of films. So, as an adult, I wanted to be involved in all kinds of plays and television and film. — David Schwimmer

What I've always loved about watching movies myself of course that's [Bas] Luhrmann. His Moulin Rouge! is incredible, his Romeo + Juliet. Wow. You know. When I saw those, those really were transformative films for me. — Fredrik Bond

I always loved movies, especially watching some of my mom's films when I was younger, like 'Out of Darkness,' where she played a schizophrenic. — Evan Ross

I've been really lucky to work with a lot of really great actors, so watching the films back, it's really important to admire the people that you were working with and see their full performance. — Juno Temple

I find a danger in watching films. It is like passive dreaming. It requires no participation, no effort. It induces passivity. It is baby food; no need to masticate, no need to carve. There is no need to learn to play an instrument, to learn to read a book. People stretch on specially inclined chairs and receive the images in utter, infantile passivity. Speech, already inadequate in America, will soon disappear together with the ability to derive significance from the printed world. This is as radical a change as from monkey to man, it is an evolution from man into automaton. — Anais Nin

Christopher Reeve so completely inhabited the character Superman when he was in that costume, and that had such a huge effect on me as a child, watching those films back in the '70s. There was so much of that character that was, for me, Superman. — Gary Frank

For British cinema to survive, you really need a British film culture, and it's got to start down there, with young kids watching films in the cinema - so they can be transported to a different world. — Gurinder Chadha

I don't make a habit of watching my parents' films, because it is a little strange. But I will say that I binge watch 'House of Cards' compulsively, and I think it's the first time I've ever seen one of my mom's projects and totally forgot she was my mom! — Dylan Penn

I like watching films when I don't know anything about the people. — Keira Knightley

I think it was really crucial that the actress was age appropriate. There are films, such as An Education, where that wasn't the case, and I think that really affects how you receive what you're watching. — David Schwimmer

Horror films had died a little bit before Scream came around. That was one of the reasons I wrote it. I wanted to write something that wasn't being made right now and maybe sell if I come up with a new horror film. Because no one is watching those movies. Let's do it. That was my whole goal, and it paid off. I feel like it's never stopped. — Kevin D. Williamson

In the last ten years of watching films I have found that some of the foreign films I saw affected me most. One American film that stands out for me for its workmanship and artistry is 'Ratatouille.' It was an astonishing effort in filmmaking. — Irvin Kershner

My filmmaking education consisted of finding out what filmmakers I liked were watching, then seeing those films. I learned the technical stuff from books and magazines, and with the new technology you can watch entire movies accompanied by audio commentary from the director. You can learn more from John Sturges' audio track on the 'Bad Day at Black Rock' laserdisc than you can in 20 years of film school. Film school is a complete con, because the information is there if you want it. — Paul Thomas Anderson

I grew up watching all the great Disney animated films and to be able to carry that torch and know that I'm contributing to the same magic and wonder for a whole new generation is a great thing. — Jim Cummings

I've written films that are violent. I'm not big on sitting and watching violence. — John Ridley

I am a fan of movies and there is something about watching film that is burned into celluloid for all time that is now a piece of history. You go watch, being a fan of classic films and my children and their children are going to be watching these movies. — Edward Zwick

The lack of diversity, specifically in genre films and the superheroes our kids grow up watching and emulating, they can't really identify with. When you see the same thing, over and over again, and it seems not to speak of you and your heritage and your culture, it leaves you out of this world a little bit. — Djimon Hounsou

To make films is as boring as watching paint dry - you usually have to do little tiny bits here and there. You go off waiting for lighting, you come back - the energy dies. You hope you can find someone who can keep it going. — Jenny Agutter

My teacher, Ben Johnston, was convinced that our tuning is responsible for much of our cultural psychology, the fact that we are so geared toward progress and action and violence and so little attuned to introspection, contentment, and acquiescence. Equal temperament could be described as the musical equivalent to eating a lot of red meat and processed sugars and watching violent action films. The music doesn't turn your attention inward, it makes you want to go out and work off your nervous energy on something. — Kyle Gann

I am very critical! I hate watching myself but I know I have to because I'm going to be asked so I need to have some sort of semblance of what the films with me are like. But it's not an enjoyable experience watching yourself. I hate it less than I used to but I still don't enjoy it. — Daniel Radcliffe

Hot Fuzz in a strange way, for me, summons up the spirit of watching R-rated films that I was too young to watch. I was 14, 13 maybe, when Robocop came out. Seeing Robocop at my brother's friend's house, and not really supposed to be watching it, because it was [rated] 18 and I was 13. That mind-blowing experience, because not only is it a great film, but it feels illicit. — Edgar Wright

I've been changed watching films or reading books or hearing music, and that helps you to live your life. — Juliette Binoche

Like any traveler, I'm always looking for those experiences that are almost unique to any place, and watching films around Alaska of the skies in winter made me want to taste those unworldly showers of light in person. — Pico Iyer

I am a product of Indian cinema; I've grown up watching Indian films ever since I can remember. And song and dance is part of our lives; it's part of our culture; we wake up to songs, we sleep to lullabies, you know, we celebrate every religious and traditional function with music. — Karan Johar

I was watching Orson Welles and Jean Vigo films at a ridiculously young age. — Brady Corbet

Watching John Lasseter's films, I think I can understand better than anyone that what he's doing, is going straight ahead with his vision and working really hard to get that vision into film form. And I feel that my understanding this of him is my friendship towards him. — Hayao Miyazaki

The Best films are a small amount, some films learn us things which we won't forget, others just show us one of the things which we already know others just lose our time. But which are the best? and Which you will choose?..
Are the best two questions you must ask yourself before you start watching a film! — Deyth Banger

I don't particularly enjoy watching films in 3D because I think that a well-shot and well-projected film has a very three-dimensional quality to it, so I'm somewhat sceptical of the technology. — Christopher Nolan

I had little contact with people outside academia and had formed my assumptions about the rest of the world primarily from watching films and televisions as a child. I recognised that the characters in 'Lost in Space' and 'Star Trek' were probably not representative of humans in general. — Graeme Simsion

I feel that so many sci-fi films and films in general have just become really dependent on and addicted to CGI, and that some of the big CGI films of the summer, you see these effects that look like crap. You don't know if you're watching a cartoon or something that's real. And I didn't want to fall into that trap. I really thought there was a way to use a lot of these old techniques to do some new and really neat stuff. — Darren Aronofsky

I've made a way to allow myself to do big films, small films, dramas, comedies, action films, horror films, or whatever interests me, as a movie-goer. I like watching myself in movies. I want to choose movies that allow me to enjoy myself, the way that I want to entertain myself. — Samuel L. Jackson

As much as I like watching horror films, I never thought I would act in them. — Jessica Lucas

I always loved watching movies because I loved what certain moments inside of films did to me. — Jason Silva

I used to practice cello while watching TV and films. I watched several complete TV series this way, including 'Lost' and 'The Wire.' As a kid, I'd read books while playing. — Joshua Roman

Watching Ray Harryhausen's films growing up was a pure joy. He brought legends to life and he became a legend himself. And I am sure that future generations of animators will continue to look to him for inspiration. — Joe Letteri

I remember watching films in my teenage years, and you'd be in love with Leonardo DiCaprio, and then a song would come on. You'd love that song forever; it changed your life. — Lykke Li

People who love horror films are people with boring lives ... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news. — Ryu Murakami

Usually the films that I do are released theatrically in foreign markets. In the U.S., they're either picked up as HBO premier films or Showtime first-runs. In today's market, in America, you need at least $50 million for your budget to go to the big show, and I'm not quite there yet. But keep watching - maybe someday I will be. — Brian Bosworth

Most actors hate watching their own films because all you can see is the glaring mistakes, your own tricks and ticks. — Eddie Redmayne

Although I could read before I went to school, and I won the school reading prize at five years old, my early children's stories came from the radio and watching films at a cinema on Saturday mornings in Australia. It wasn't until I was nine years old on a ship returning from Australia that I was introduced to children's books. — Michelle Magorian

One thing I try to avoid in my films are effects that have a CG 'look' to them. The challenge is never let the audience get distracted by thinking that they're watching something made in a computer. — Jonathan Mostow

I am really easy to scare, and I don't enjoy watching spooky films. — Kate Ashfield

The fact that I do place music at the end of my films is not to accentuate the emotion. It serves an opposite purpose which is to remove them from the emotional space and allow them to enter a space of thinking, because I believe that when the audience is watching the film they're watching it with their feelings. — Asghar Farhadi

If you really love films, and you really want to get the full impact, there's a huge difference between watching something on a small screen with a mediocre sound system and watching it on a giant screen in a giant theater with a huge beautiful sound system. I mean, the difference is electric. — George Lucas

I love music, and can dance on the desi beats. Punjabi music is my favourite. I listen to artists like Honey Singh. I love his music. I also love watching Bollywood films. — Vijender Singh

I always think the most romantic books or films are the ones where the romance doesn't happen, because it makes your heart ache so much watching it. — Natalie Portman

As an actress, I'm constantly watching different shows and films and am always gathering information and inspiration for characters and techniques to make my performances the best they can be. — Rachel G. Fox

I think my mom is the inspiration of me wanting to do film and TV and be an actor because she loved film so much. She loved, like, horror films and action films, so growing up, she loved watching all the Charles Bronson films and all the westerns. — Rick Gonzalez

I think I'm no different to my friends who are doctors or businessmen or architects - we all started watching films of the golden age together. But whether I'm making films or writing poetry or doing photography, it's very much rooted in my sense of unease. And that's really where everything goes back to. — Abbas Kiarostami

I know that Wes Craven feels watching horror films does have a psychological effect, in a good way. It is very cathartic. He might be right about that. — Marley Shelton

I'm part of that generation that grew up watching TV, and being an actor was all about being on TV or being in films. — Lennie James

The implications are clear: Facebook wants to build an Internet where watching films, listening to music, reading books and even browsing is done not just openly but socially and collaboratively. — Evgeny Morozov

Moving from chair to chair, from coffee machine to coffee machine is the limit of my action in most films. But I enjoy being cast in them because I love watching them. — Stephen Fry

I grew up watching my dad scout games live. They played on Saturday. Sometimes they wouldn't get the films until Monday. Sunday air shipping from wherever the college team was located - Starkville, Mississippi, or wherever the film was coming from. It took two days. — Bill Belichick

I love to snuggle up on the sofa wrapped in my duvet watching old black and white films, and catching up with friends and family on the phone. — Martine McCutcheon

I'm not coming from film school. I learned cinema in the cinema watching films, so you always have a curiosity. I say, 'Well, what if I make a film in this genre? What if I make this film like this?' — Wong Kar-Wai

People who grew up watching Disney films like myself, there are films that are certain benchmarks in my childhood. 'The Little Mermaid' was the first movie I remember seeing. 'Beauty And The Beast,' 'Aladdin,' those are three I remember right off the bat. — Mandy Moore

A lot of my time is spent watching films and reading scripts. And it can be all-consuming. And it's obviously something I'm fortunate that is both my work and my hobby. It's what I would naturally be doing anyway. — Felicity Jones

For me chilling out is when I can stay at home, order food from outside and watch a film with my friends. Listening to music and watching films are my idea of perfect relaxation. — Bipasha Basu

While I was writing the book, I went to see Louise Brooks's most famous film, Pandora's Box, at the Tivoli in Kansas City, and it was a lovely experience. You can watch old silent films on DVD or even on YouTube, but it was a different feeling watching her up on the big screen, seeing the film the way people saw it all those years ago. — Laura Moriarty

[on what interests him as a moviegoer] I'm interested in seeing films that confront me with new things, with films that make me question myself, with films that help me to reflect on subjects that I hadn't thought about before, films that help me progress and advance. Those are the kinds of films that interest me. For me, personally, I think watching a movie that simply confirms my feelings is a waste of time. That applies not only to movies, but also to books and every form of art. — Michael Haneke

My siblings and I, we were raised on TV and films. Not a day went by that we weren't watching one of three movies - 'Caddyshack,' 'Animal House,' 'Beverly Hills Cop' - on rotation. Our comedy, our personalities were set watching 'Sesame Street': these really sort of wacky, Jim Henson-y characters. — Teddy Sears

You grow up watching certain films or admiring certain filmmakers, and to write a love letter to one and have them validate it, it's extraordinary. — Simon Pegg

I was watching an interview with Martin Scorcese concerning Raging Bull, which is one of my favorite films, and he was talking about how he'd worked with a lot of guys who weren't quote-unquote "actors," like Joe Pesce and Frank Vincent. Scorcese was very smart in the way that he cast, because you don't know where you're going to find the right person who can carry a role and summon that emotion you're looking for. — Lenny Kravitz

I mean, mentally you brace yourself for the ending of a novel. As you're reading, you're aware of the fact that there's only a page or two left in the book, and you get ready to close it. but with a film there's no way of telling, especially nowadays, when films are much more loosely structured, much more ambivalent, than they used to be. There's no way of telling which frame is going to be the last. The film is going along, just as life goes along, people are behaving, doing things, drinking, talking, and we're watching them, and at any point the director chooses, without warning, without anything being resolved, or explained, or wound up, it can just...end. — David Lodge

I've learned by watching films that inspired me and people who inspired me like Robert Redford and Paul Newman. I love old school acting. I love subtlety, and I also love being spontaneous, and that's really what works for me. — Alex Pettyfer

I think that stories, and the telling of stories, are the foundations of human communication and understanding. If children all over the country are watching films, asking questions and telling their stories, then the world will eventually be a better place. — Beeban Kidron

I was never that kid who grew up in New York and was always at the arthouse watching important films. I was the kid who grew up in the Midwest where there weren't any art films, and I watched TV. And that was really the medium that affected me and that I fell in love with. — Shawn Ryan

People should train their brain by watching films, by listening music, by playing games, by reading quotes. If people do this, I can said from this a big percent from here you can become clever. — Deyth Banger

I really liked 'Starter For Ten' because I grew up watching 1980s teen films like 'St. Elmo's Fire' and 'The Breakfast Club' and I've always wanted to play the underdog lead hero in a 1980s-inspired film. — James McAvoy

I love watching Marty Scorsese's films, but they always make me feel terrible about being a man. — Martin Donovan

I really started watching films when I was 14. As I became a teenager, there was nothing that really interested me apart from music, books and films. — Claire Denis

Watching a movie for the first time is a flirt. Rewatching it, is a date. — Guillermo Del Toro

Who reads short stories? one is asked, and I like to think that they are read by men and women in the dentist's office, waiting to be called to the chair; they are read on transcontinental plane trips instead of watching banal and vulgar films spin out the time between our coasts; they are read by discerning and well-informed men and women who seem to feel that narrative fiction can contribute to our understanding of one another and the sometimes bewildering world around us. — John Cheever

'Troll 2' is one of the rare sequels where you don't have to waste time watching the first one, since the films have absolutely nothing to do with one another. — Eli Roth

My earliest memories are making little Super 8 films - or watching my brother make stop-motion space spectaculars. — Jonathan Nolan

I like 'The Usual Suspects'. Great film. I also like 'Scarface', films like that. Lots of gangster films. I really like watching all kinds of films, dramas, romance. I'll watch comedies. I like Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Denzel Washington, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle. I'd like to meet them. — Barkhad Abdi

Anything that's memorable about a movie is often what a test audience will object to because they're being asked to be experts. They just compare the film they finished watching to all of the other films that they've seen. — Andrew Dominik