Discover the cinematic inspirations behind the acclaimed Safdie Brothers, known for their unique storytelling and visual style. Here are five films they cherish deeply.
AI Assistant Editor Tool Eddie AI Expands Support to 30 Languages… But Curiously Still Not Klingon
Josh and Benny Safdie, brothers who have directed projects together and now work solo, are cinephiles who often pull from deep-cut films as inspiration.
Together, they directed Good Time with Robert Pattinson and Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler. More recently, Josh Safdie directed the upcoming Marty Supreme, starring and produced by Timothée Chalamet. Benny Safdie’s new movie is the sports biopic The Smashing Machine, which stars Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr.
They’ve spoken at length in various interviews about their favorite films. Here are five you should definitely check out.
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
A man searches Rome with his young son for the stolen bicycle he needs to keep his job in this Italian neorealist masterpiece. Vittorio De Sica directed this influential film that cast real people alongside professional actors.
Josh Safdie called this “the holy grail, the ultimate filmmaking bible” in his Criterion Collection top 10 list and described it as “a north star project” over at Rotten Tomatoes.
He told Criterion that “it maximizes its use of father/son dynamics and trying, real locations, all while its pure emotional current is completely understated yet very felt.”
Josh admired how director De Sica cast a real factory worker, Lamberto Maggiorani, after he showed up to an audition with his son, and cast the child actor off the street while filming.
A Man Escaped (1956)
In this thriller from Robert Bresson, a French Resistance fighter plans his escape from a Nazi prison during World War II.
Benny Safdie told Rotten Tomatoes that this is his favorite movie of all time because “it always makes me cry at the end, because I feel like I’ve achieved something that the character achieves.”
He praised its minimalist approach, saying “director Robert Bresson lets nothing go to waste: every shot serves a purpose, every hit on the soundtrack is carefully selected, and each of the sparse lines of dialogue has meaning.”
See More ...
Close-Up (1990)
A man who impersonated a famous Iranian director stands trial while the real filmmaker recreates his story using the actual participants. Abbas Kiarostami blurred the lines between documentary and fiction in this work.
Josh Safdie described this as influential because of “the way that that film blends fiction and reality, it is a north star for me” (via Rotten Tomatoes).
He explained that “it makes you question your own self. It makes you question, what is a personality? It makes you question empathy.”
The French Connection (1971)
A New York detective becomes obsessed with busting a French heroin smuggling ring in this gritty crime thriller featuring one of cinema’s greatest car chases. William Friedkin brought a documentary-style realism to this Oscar-winner, which stars the late Gene Hackman.
Benny Safdie praised this film during their Rotten Tomatoes interview, saying, “Just seeing that car barrel through the streets, you feel the danger and you feel the pressure of all of these things. It’s doing pulp in a whole new way and in a visceral way.”
He added that “you have these people with real stakes and real things happening to them, and [director William] Friedkin, he’s a king.”
Il Posto (1961)
A young man from the countryside secures a low-level corporate job in post-war Milan, finding brief romance amid the soul-crushing bureaucracy in Il Posto, directed by Ermanno Olmi.
The Safdie brothers said this Italian neorealist film “changed Benny’s life.”
Benny told Criterion during the brothers’ Criterion Closet video, “I was gonna be a physicist. I dropped out of my school, and then Josh told me to come to his class, and they were showing all these neorealist films, and this was one of the films that they were showing, and I remember just being like, ‘Oh my god, you can make movies like this?'”
Since I mentioned Letterboxd, you can find an even longer collection of some of the Safdies’ favorites here. Let us know which ones you like or still need to see!
