Top 100 Art Films Quotes
#1. Independent film is almost nonexistent right now, because all the distributers that used to love to put out these little art films are all out of business right now, because it costs so much to open a movie.
Ron Perlman
#2. As much as we'd like to believe that our work is great and that we're infallible, we're not. Hollywood movies are made for the audience. These are not small European art films we're making.
Harold Ramis
#3. I'm either offered window-dressing parts in large movies or little art films no one ever sees. People think the movies I end up doing are my real choices. I do the best things I'm offered.
Jacqueline Bisset
#4. 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
#5. If 'formulaic' is somebody who is unlikely to succeed starting down a process and succeeding - then isn't that what most films are about? And art films are about people who aren't likely to succeed and then don't succeed.
Ridley Scott
#6. You see, Suzanne, history lectures bore me, art films bore me, your friends bore me, and, if you want to know the truth, I guess you bore me too.
Francine Pascal
#7. In the early '90s, when those little art films started coming out, we were introduced to Quentin Tarantino and guys like that, and independent cinema was something that everyone wanted to be a part of.
Ron Perlman
#8. I think bad movies are made around the world, not just in Hollywood. There are as many bad art films in the whole world as there are bad commercial films.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
#9. So called art films. Movies like that never explained what was going on. Explanations were rejected as some kind of evil that could only destroy the films "reality".
Haruki Murakami
#10. You know, the art films would usually be more, I mean the exploitation movies would usually be more lurid, but not that much more. I mean, actually back in those days that was what foreign films had. They had sex, they were selling Laura Antonelli.
Quentin Tarantino
#11. Looking back, [R.E.M.]videos, by in large, have always been art films. I'm thinking of "Losing My Religion." That's a landmark piece.
Christopher Bollen
#13. There's a side that I want to do just like really retarded arty films like parody, pretentious art films that kind of are supposed to have some deep meaning.
Andy Milonakis
#14. Here is how to sit through small openings of your father's first art films, surrounded by surly foreign cigarette smoke and conversations so pretentious you literally cannot believe them, you're sure you have misheard them.
David Foster Wallace
#15. My films have elements of genre in them, which prevents them from being purely art films.
Mary Harron
#16. Art films aren't necessarily photography. It's feeling. If we can capture a feeling of a people, of a way of life, then we made a good picture.
John Cassavetes
#17. People talk about making art films - experimental films. I can make an art film every day of the week. Nothing to it. What's difficult is to combine a commercial film with art.
Carlo Ponti
#18. I think a smart person today realizes that you have to be part of the art films that are done just for the sake of the art.
Halle Berry
#19. The boundaries between contemporary art and cinema are so rigid. It's unbelievable. The film critics don't know my artwork and the art world doesn't know my films.
Agnes Varda
#20. MANY MANAGE TO SEPARATE THEIR LIFE FROM THEIR FILMS. THEY LIVE ONE WAY AND EXPRESS OTHER IDEAS IN THEIR WORKS. THEY ARE ABLE TO SPLIT THEIR CONSCIENCE. I CAN'T. TO ME CINEMA IS NOT JUST MY JOB: IT'S MY LIFE, AND EACH FILM IS AN ACT OF MY LIFE.
Andrei Tarkovsky
#21. It is an example of what films can do, how they can slip past your defenses and really break your heart.
David Gilmour
#22. I always think of my films within the context of where aesthetics meet economics. That's the nature of making art - not being naive about what is possible and getting what you need to tell the story you want to tell.
Ira Sachs
#23. Fear is a problem with film music and films; people want to be conventional, and there's more commercialism today. If you are not daring in your art, you're bankrupt.
Alex North
#24. Three films a day, three books a week and records of great music would be enough to make me happy to the day I die.
Francois Truffaut
#25. I'm an eclectic and avid filmgoer. I try to see everything from romantic comedies to blockbusters to art house films, world cinema and documentaries.
Pamela Yates
#26. Creating art (music, books, films, etc.) can be beautiful and liberating, but trying to sell art, well, that is the movie business. There are few winners, and lots and lots of losers.
Ronnie Apteker
#27. There's more emphasis on art and culture in Europe than there is in the United States and I think that a lot of American directors and writers are just trying to copy other American horror films, they don't pick up much in the way that European filmmakers do.
Wes Craven
#28. You create a work of art. You do not know whether it will get public sanction. Sometimes outstanding films do no business, and sometimes films which are not so good work.
Dev Anand
#29. Movies will end up being this esoteric art form, where only singular people will put films out in a small group of theaters.
M. Night Shyamalan
#30. We had forgotten the art of using silence to convey emotions in our films and that's what you seem to have mastered. You've used silence to great advantage in the film. It's brilliant.
Amitabh Bachchan
#31. I think that films or indeed any art work should be made in a way that they are infinitely viewable; so that you could go back to it time and time again, not necessarily immediately but over a space of time, and see new things in it, or new ways of looking at it.
Peter Greenaway
#32. People go into a gallery, and they're afraid to express their opinions about art. No one's afraid to say, 'Keanu Reeves was bad in that movie.' We see so many films that we can tell who's faking it. But with art, we can't always tell.
William Quigley
#33. Though games were barely acknowledged as a legitimate form of expression, let alone a legitimate art form, Tom was convinced that they were almost sublime forms of communication, just as films or novels. After
David Kushner
#34. The great art of films does not consist of descriptive movement of face and body, but in the movements of thought and soul transmitted in a kind of intense isolation.
Louise Brooks
#35. To get art nowadays, in cinema or books or anything, that grapples with the possibility of a meaningless universe ... it just doesn't happen any more. In even the most indie of the indie films, everything has to come to some kind of neat conclusion.
Emily Mortimer
#36. I don't trust a lot of popular films because they seem to indicate that people would like to be super-heroes or vampires, and that's the last thing I mean by the useful mirror of art.
William Monahan
#37. I was thinking about sort of the similarities between "art movies" and lowbrow movies like kitschy sexploitation films. I think they share certain qualities, whether they're hyper-stylized or overly emotive or just very visual.
John Waters
#38. Roman Polanski is a man who cares deeply about his art and its place in this world. What happened to him on his incredible path is filled with tragedy, and most men would have collapsed. Instead, he became a great artist and continues to make great films.
Harvey Weinstein
#39. I like the platform to show your art and everything that goes along with that. To show your voice and hopefully find films that are more politically driven, films that maybe inspire.
Antoine Fuqua
#40. It's been said that horror films are experimental forms of art, and I agree. As an actress, you're put in positions and have to experience emotions that are way beyond reality, whether fighting in a post-apocalyptic world or being possessed by the Devil.
Ashley Bell
#41. I wanted to know what exactly martial arts is. When you look at martial arts films, the later ones became more and more exaggerated. It's like, wow, is martial arts only a show?
Wong Kar-Wai
#42. The demarcation between an art house film and an entertainer has blurred, only because a larger section of the audience has accepted such realistic films.
Arjun Rampal
#43. Unlike with any other art form, filmmakers have this unique web of festivals. There are hundreds. It is a democratic system in which you submit films, and if they are good enough, they play. The only barrier to entry is the submission fee.
Jason Reitman
#44. Without art, a film is pure wastage of time and resources.
Abhijit Naskar
#45. I don't think there's any border between science and art. All the fiction films I have made were always on the same subject, - a discovery of the "Other," an exploration of difference.
Jean Rouch
#46. I came out to Hollywood when I was just 18, and my dad, he was really into Hollywood and theater and art, and I guess growing up, he exposed me to a lot of culture, and I just started making Super-8 films in high school and decided I wanted to be a filmmaker.
Bill Paxton
#47. I got exposed to art-house cinema and foreign films. I was from L.A., so it was a film culture that I didn't know about.
Lisa Cholodenko
#48. My favorite books, art pieces, films, and music, always have something jarring about them.
Pink
#49. I was born in a world of opera, theatre, films, poetry, art, and therefore, out of the wire, I made a stage. That's why they call me a high wire artist.
Philippe Petit
#50. I graduated from high school with the art award and I had made a ton of short films, but it was before DVDs with director commentary.
Kevin Munroe
#51. Then in college, besides economics, I also majored in studio art and got involved in photography and making short films and acting. But I didn't know you could make a living that way.
Brit Marling
#52. A lot of student films in art shows are samey. It's a look at the life of someone making these boring films.
Max Tundra
#53. I think of horror films as art, as films of confrontation. Films that make you confront aspects of your own life that are difficult to face. Just because you're making a horror film doesn't mean you can't make an artful film.
David Cronenberg
#54. There's good art and there's bad art. A lot of action films are bad art, but Paul Greengrass showed us with the Bourne films that it's possible to make an action film with a political, social conscience.
Joe Wright
#55. The films of Warhol, when they are about anything are about sucking people off. This can be high art, to people who are interested in sucking people off.
But that will not liberate Black people.
Amiri Baraka
#56. I enjoy talking to people about what I do - about films, music, directors, and art. It's very strange, having to talk about yourself.
Stephanie Sigman
#57. Everyone's attention span is getting shorter. As a result, everything - films, music, art - gets watered down and dumber. Every now and again, you get something great, but not often.
Kelis
#58. When I was young, I saw a lot of martial arts films with Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. I loved them. They are my heroes but, I'm so powerful, I'm so faster. I'm so young and so handsome like a model. I really loved them so they are my role models.
Rain
#59. I think there's escapist moviemaking, and we want to be captivated and taken away. If it's done right, you can craft an incredible film. There have been superhero films that I think are brilliant pieces of art.
Ryan Reynolds
#60. We can use films and art to express what is happening around all of us.
Stephanie Sigman
#61. I think Chelsea Girls is a complete masterpiece and I think Andy's [Warhol] films are equally as good as the art. I think one day they will be considered equal. They aren't yet. They will be.
John Waters
#62. I'm a contemporary artist and I show in art galleries and museums. I show a number of photographs and films, but I also make television programs, books and some appetizing, all with the same concept.
Alison Jackson
#63. I can remember the moment when I suddenly felt that the camera was a living partner. I suddenly felt this is art, and the camera is a co-operative living person. After that I was extremely happy to act in films.
Erland Josephson
#64. Films are an art form which are sold after packaging in this commercial world
Shahrukh Khan
#65. I think it's always hard for people to get their head around the fact that populist, commercial films can also actually be great works of art.
Helen Mirren
#66. It is my first preference to do films with social significance. Art cinema has given me credibility and status as an actor, but commercial cinema has given me a comfortable living.
Om Puri
#67. Every year, humanity produces some 30,000 films, 2 million books and 100,000 albums, and 95 million people visit a museum or art gallery.
Alain De Botton
#68. It is the transcendent (or 'abstract' or 'self-contained') nature of music that the new so called concretism
Pop Art, eighteen-hour slices-of-reality films, musique concrete
opposes. But instead of bringing art and reality closer together, the new movement merely thins out the distinction.
Igor Stravinsky
#69. I'm very happy to be a part of a very successful piece of art, as the 'Saw' films have been. One gets into this to participate. It's the coming together of a good story. So, that aspect of it has been just splendid. It really has nothing to do with me or my popularity. I'm fascinated.
Tobin Bell
#70. I choose films for their artistic value. I don't need a mansion or a Jaguar. When I leave this Earth, I won't take any money with me. All I will leave behind will be my art.
Brad Renfro
#71. Motion pictures are the art form of the 20th century, and one of the reasons is the fact that films are a slightly corrupted artform. They fit this century - they combine Art and business!
Roger Corman
#72. The 'low' quality of many American films, and of much American popular culture, induces many art lovers to support cultural protectionism. Few people wish to see the cultural diversity of the world disappear under a wave of American market dominance.
Tyler Cowen
#73. I don't believe in misconceptions in art and films. There are always so many different ways to relate to or understand a film. I love films that give a great amount of space to the audience to explore or be active with what the film is saying.
Claudia Llosa
#74. I think the point of art is to be controversial in a lot of ways. It's to cause conversations, and it's to get people excited about and talking about the things that the films are about.
Eloise Mumford
#75. Films go into vaults, art into museums, and music into halls of fame. Most fashion is worn for a few seasons and off-loaded into the recycling bin or, worse, some landfill.
Robin Givhan
#76. I was always a performing arts kid in general - but I felt like my ultimate goal was to be an actress and be in films.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead
#77. I know from my own experience that great films and great actors can have a really big influence on you. There is a place for art in the world, and if you're lucky enough to be good at something and to keep being given work, it's not such a bad thing.
Sally Hawkins
#78. The art of making films is a collaborative art. As a composer, you're always working with the cinematographer because he's so much the heart of the world they've created on film.
Howard Shore
#79. American films, it's a money-making industry. And in France, you can find great respect for cinema as art.
Woody Allen
#80. When I was coming up with the Hal Hartley films, I was cast as a no one. I had no name visibility. I was working at a downtown post-performance-art, avant garde theater company and doing a couple things on television. But I was a total unknown.
Martin Donovan
#81. You'll see more violence in any television crime series than you will in my films ... Art is there to have a stimulating effect, if it earns its name. You have to be honest, that's the only thing.
Michael Haneke
#82. Norway is a small country, about half the size of Sweden, but it has a very good film climate because they have municipal cinemas, so even in the smallest towns you have a cinema that shows art house films from all over the world.
Stellan Skarsgard
#83. We're told that independent film lovers ... folks that are used to watching art house films, won't come out and see a film with black people in it - I've been told that in rooms, big rooms, studio rooms, and I know that's not true.
Ava DuVernay
#84. Cinema is a wonderful art form for talking about loneliness. We can experience films together with other people. It can be a collective experience of loneliness. We're alone in the dark of the theater, but with other people.
Joachim Trier
#85. Silent films were, I think, more different than we know to sound films. We think of it as simply that we added dialogue and in actual fact I think it was an entirely different art form.
Peter Weir
#86. Making films is great. You've got 100 people around and you're all dressing up and making weird art-it's a fun group activity.
Sean Lennon
#87. I like acting, but I like filmmaking better. I went to film school. I want to make films.
Art Alexakis
#88. I think in art, but especially in films, people are trying to confirm their own existences.
Jim Morrison
#89. One of my favorite films is 'Late Spring' by Yasujiro Ozu. To me, it represents film as art.
Michael Arndt
#90. I think the one thing specifically that is most consistent, is that we want to harken back to martial arts movies because that's kind of the genre we're paying tribute to, so there are some similarities to a lot of films, because they all feed off each other!
Jennifer Yuh Nelson
#91. I'm lucky enough to be able to make films and so I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears and all those things with my work. That's an enormous privilege. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something.
Michael Haneke
#92. I think about all the people who have created something that lives after them - works of art, plays, music, films, literature, poetry that will be read, seen, performed, and heard for the rest of time. If I could do something that lives after me, then I think I will have had a life well led.
Seamus Dever
#93. It's disappointing to see films become pure entertainment, so that it's not an art form.
Richard Linklater
#94. I grew up in the heat of '70s postmodern fiction and post-Godard films, and there was this idea that what mattered was the theory or meta in art.
Noah Baumbach
#95. My father came to Chennai at the age of 16 from a village in Coimbatore. He was an artist and was clear he wanted to do something, so he came to Chennai and joined an art course for eight years before he came into films.
Suriya
#96. Horror films are art, it's all make believe. It's great if a filmmaker can try to push boundaries and see how much an audience can take and see what happens. It's fun to be able to do that.
Tom Six
#97. The Weinsteins believe in test screenings. I don't. I don't think good films are made that way. Call me crazy, but I'd like to think you need a singular vision to make good art.
Terry Zwigoff
#98. I always question if somebody else is going to love my films. I think that's what art is about - it's so individual.
Lee Daniels
#99. Israel is a wonderful place to be an artist - a place where imagination flourishes. Israeli culture is refreshingly avant garde - making films, music, performance art and visual art that continues to push the envelope, inspire and empower.
Ryan Kavanaugh
#100. I do feel like animated films really combine a lot of different of art forms: film-making and writing and drawing and painting - to a certain extent, even sculpting. It's a wonderful medium to work with as a craftsman because it's such so rich and so varied and so expressive.
John Musker
