Every Great Movie You Should Watch, According to Bill Hader

Bill Hader, fresh of his second Best Actor in a Comedy Emmy win for HBO's Barry, is a huge film nerd. Like, he's up there with Tarantino and Scorsese -- the latter of which made his list of essential movies all filmmakers and film fans need to see.

Hader (via Collider) joins the ranks of Spike Lee, Tarantino, and Scorsese among those filmmakers using their watchlists -- the movies that shaped theirs -- as curriculum for helping other filmmakers shape their own. For a filmmaker, there is arguably no better education that watching movies. Because filmmakers are film watchers. Learning about craft in action, watching screenplay structure unfold in real (read: movie) time, or the hard work of a DP and his crew pulling off a shot like the Cabana oner in Goodfellas, is a vital part of the process. Sure, it may seem unproductive -- sitting on your couch, watching movies. Or TV shows. 

But, it's actually background processing. Your research involves studying and observing the craft of others so that you can build your own. As we watch X scene or Y sequence, we're likely watching films in the vein of our work -- hoping some sort of inspiration or clarity strikes. And as we do so, we're often constantly background processing -- turning the mind over and over on a dialogue scene you can't crack in your script, or trying to come up with a visually exciting way to shoot exposition. Film watching is an essential, must-have component of the filmmaking process. You never know when it may come in handy -- or how it might help you win your second Emmy. 

Before Hader shared his list of influential films, he prefaced it with: 

"These are movies that, after seeing them, inspired me to go make…something, anything! Since I don’t know how old you are, you should know there’s some titles that are incredibly adult (Clockwork Orange, Enter the Void, Chopper, Come and See, Blue Velvet come to mind) so beware. But enjoy and be open; that’s how I like to approach a movie. And turn off you phone and don’t check your email, it affects the experience."

Truer words, Stefon. Truer words... Here's Hader's list:

8 ½

Abigail’s Party

Ace in the Hole

Act of Killing

Aguirre, The Wrath of God

Airplane

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Credit: Fox

All About My Mother

All that Jazz

All the Presidents Men

American Friend

Amores Parros

Apocalypto

Apollo 13

Ashes and Diamonds

Asphalt Jungle

Awful Truth, The

Bad Day at Black Rock

Ball of Fire

Bad News Bears, The (Richie)

Battle of Algeirs

Being John Malkovich

Being There

Best Years of Our Lives

Bicycle Thieves

Big Clock, The

Bigger than Life

Black Cat, The (Ulmer)

Black Narcissus

Blazing Saddles

Blood Simple

Blue Velvet

Bob Le Flambeur

Boogie Nights

Bottle Rocket

Breaking Point (Curtiz)

Bringing Up Baby

Broken Lullaby

Brood, The

Brother’s Keeper

Bucket of Blood, A (Corman)

Burbs, the

Cache

Canoa: A Shameful Memory

Carrie (DePalma)

Catch-22 (Nichols)

Charley Varrick

Children of Men

Chopper

Citizen Kane (duh)

Cleo 5 to 7

Credit: WB

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Closely Watched Trains

Come and See

Conformist, The

Contempt (Godard)

Cranes are Flying, The

Crime Wave (deToth)

Crimes and Misdemeanors

Crowd, The (Vidor)

Crumb

Cul-de-Sac

Cure (Kurosawa)

Dames

Dawn of the Dead (Romero)

Day of Wrath

Dazed and Confused

Dead of Night (Cavalcanti)

Death Line

Dekalog

Do the Right Thing