If Film Quotes

#1. There's a big link between trains and film. One of the first filmed objects was a train. The clickety-clack of the projector and the clickety-clack of the train are similar. There is the idea of the voyage - every voyage is a story. I wonder if film would have been invented without the train.

Walter Murch

#2. I would love if film doesn't disappear, if we can have film forever so we would have all these brushes, all these possibilities available.

Emmanuel Lubezki

#3. If film making is magic, there's a difference between close up magic and David Copperfield. If you're doing close up magic, which independent filmmakers do, it is a very delicate craft, interpersonal relationship, and being able to enrapture a very small audience.

Guillermo Del Toro

#4. If film critics could destroy a movie, Michael Bay and Adam Sandler would be working at Starbucks. If film critics could make a movie a hit, the Dardenne brothers would be courted by every studio in town.

Alonso Duralde

#5. So much emotion can be brought in an animated film that's very hard to get in a live-action film. I haven't quite put my finger on why, but it might be because the characters can make facial expression that, if you made them in a movie, they'd call them corny.

Steve Martin

#6. Theatre is liberating because it only works if it's truthful - that's what it requires. That's not true of film: the camera does lie.

Helen McCrory

#7. People have said to me for a long time, "Man you're funny." I say, "Well, I'm quick," but being funny on purpose, take after take - that's why I said for me it was new territory, and so by improvising something might come out that might be good. And it's film, so they can cut it if it isn't.

Denzel Washington

#8. Jewish people, we're repulsed by Hitler, but we're obsessed with him. If you ever want to rob a Jewish person's house, all you have to do is call them up and tell them there's a Hitler film festival down at the multiplex - watch them file out.

Andy Kindler

#9. 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

#10. I don't do a film unless it has a sword in it. And if it doesn't have a sword in it, I insist that they have one in the same room to keep me comfortable.

Orlando Bloom

#11. If this were a [Hollywood] studio film, I wouldn't have pushed my father into a table, I would have beat him up. My father wouldn't have kissed my girlfriend; he would have raped her.

Noah Wyle

#12. One of my groupies gave me a film that they made, and it ended up being amazing, so I got it shown at South by Southwest. If I can help get their stuff out there, then great.

Patton Oswalt

#13. Whenever I finished filming a movie, I felt my job was only half done. Every film had to be nurtured in the marketplace. You can have the greatest movie in the world, but if you don't get it out there, if people don't know about it, you have nothing.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

#14. If you make a movie of the present day culture, in the future it'll be a horror film.

Jacque Fresco

#15. I don't really get stuck in a time warp where, if my film is a success, I have to keep partying till the next one releases, or if my film is a flop, I keep wallowing in sorrow until the next comes my way. My hard work in each film is always there.

Rani Mukerji

#16. If you can't explain it better leave it... (Dexter Season 2....)

Deyth Banger

#17. If I were to do a musical, I think I would rather make a film musical.

Seth MacFarlane

#18. Ordinarily if an actor gets chosen for the lead in a film, he or she has already built up a repertoire, and everyone knows what he or she is capable of.

Zhang Ziyi

#19. I don't believe in an annual dose of film music for the sake of it being film music. If we program film music, it will be because there is a real artistic reason for doing so.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

#20. It can take a long time for some people to find out how to ground themselves, and film sets are an odd atmosphere to do it in - especially if, like me, you finished school early.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers

#21. I love the theater, but if I had to choose, I would choose a film at this time in my life. Something meaty, to sink my teeth into.

Jeff Daniels

#22. Always care for the writing part first. Every good film project starts with good writing. If you have a good script, everything else follows. Writing is crucial.

Giovanna Cau

#23. In films of terror, it's often not about being graphic. Or if there is a graphic image, it's extremely swift. Everyone talks about the shower scene in 'Psycho,' but that's the only graphic scene in the entire film.

Charles Roven

#24. Every time I make a film, I try to do it slightly different. If you're not 100% engaged and interested, then it's not gonna translate into a successful film.

Jeremy Bolt

#25. I really approached the film as if it was a white big piece of paper and I was going to draw a picture on it. And whether that picture was good or bad, whatever people thought of it, what they could never take away was that it was my picture.

Johnny Depp

#26. If you're not bruised up, then you're not doing an action film in a real way.

Mads Mikkelsen

#27. As a writer I want everybody to get a chance to voice their opinions. If each character thinks that they're telling the truth, then it's valid. Then at the end of the film, I leave it up to the audience to decide who did the right thing.

Spike Lee

#28. You should not doubt someone if you
truly love him/her. #LIFE OF LOVE (Film)

Santonu Kumar Dhar

#29. If a film is well made, then great, whatever it's about.

Winona Ryder

#30. Play the age as comedy if you want to get away with murder.

James Agee

#31. I dare make those comparisons, but we often said 'the making of' would be as interesting if not more interesting than the film.

Brad Pitt

#32. If you look at professional baseball in New York, you can get all 162 Yankee games on television anytime you want. But people still go to the ballpark because they are two different experiences. It's the same with film.

Patrick Whitesell

#33. I'm sad to see celluloid go, there's no doubt. But, you know, nitrate went, by the way, in 1971. If you ever saw a nitrate print of a silent film and then saw an acetate print, you'd see a big difference, but nobody remembers anymore. The acetate print is what we have. Maybe. Now it's digital.

Martin Scorsese

#34. If you use hand-held techniques just to make the film stylish I think it's wrong.

Vilmos Zsigmond

#35. One of the wonderful things about making a film of any genre is that you have dialogue. You can take up a position. If you want to say something about your position, you can just say it. You don't have to spend massive amounts of screen time.

Woody Allen

#36. This must be a real horrorshow film if you're so keen on my viddying it.

Anthony Burgess

#37. I genuinely believe that if you want to get in the film business, get in the film business.

Daniel Craig

#38. I grew up thinking there was something called 'independent film,' which I wouldn't necessarily have had access to if there wasn't Sundance.

Ira Sachs

#39. I haven't thought about making a music film, but if I did, that would be a very interesting idea.

Lenny Kravitz

#40. It doesn't matter how good your film is; if people don't know about it, they won't go and see it.

Robert Kane Pappas

#41. Doing a film and saying, I've done a really dark film and now I have to do a comedy ... That's not me. If a script comes along and it's dark I'll absolutely do it and take the consequences. I'm not fussed about the image that goes along with it.

Daniel Craig

#42. Even if you have money, access to MoCap technology, and strong choreographic and computer-animation abilities, don't try to make a film like this if you don't have a lot of patience, perseverance and a deep affinity for risk-taking.

Martine Epoque

#43. One of the advantages of shooting digitally was that we had a lot of time. When you shoot, even if you do a good performance, it may get lost in the editing room. It's just one more way that a potentially good film might go astray.

William Mapother

#44. You seldom get that in film where you're lucky if you get any say at all in the final cut.

Greta Scacchi

#45. When I made my first film, Basquiat, I think one of the criticisms was that the way I work is episodic. Later, as people started to look at the movies, they started to realize that maybe that's my style. If I could do it better or another way, I guess I would.

Julian Schnabel

#46. In terms of doing another franchise after 'Transformers,' I don't know if that would be best for me. I'm really happy to inhabit the world of independent film.

Jack Reynor

#47. Albert Grossman called my office and spoke with my partner Richard Leacock and asked if we'd be interested in making a film with his client, Bob Dylan.

D. A. Pennebaker

#48. It does not matter what film you're making. If you're young and there's romance in the movie, it's compared to 'Twilight'.

Jake Abel

#49. Cinema is gambling. It is better to gamble on a unique film even if it seems like suicide.

Thomas Langmann

#50. I remember a time when I was younger, when if you had to see an actor, you had to go to the theatre and watch a film.

Vikram Rohit Shetty

#51. Bond? It is a bit like saying, 'Do you want to play Superman?' Anyone would dream of it. It's one of the most coveted roles in film. I'd be honoured. But I don't know if it will actually happen. I'm just happy with the idea of being associated with it. It's nice there's a lot of good will.

Idris Elba

#52. If you're doing a music film, you've got to be singing about something.

Jonathan Demme

#53. If you create something that is essentially alien to you - as a man - and make a film about woman, the more I can surround myself with woman and combine it with my soul's point of view, the more I become a stranger in a strange land.

Nicolas Winding Refn

#54. I believe if you go to a movie theatre, and you see something you think is incredible, if you walk out of the theatre and there was a bin in the lobby of DVDs of the film you just watched, you would buy four of them - one for you and three for your friends.

Kevin Spacey

#55. If you've ever seen the film In Which We Serve, but it was about a destroyer in the Mediterranean.

Richard Attenborough

#56. I think it serves the purpose of the film if the premise is that you're unsure of me because you've only ever really seen me play villains.

Mark Strong

#57. The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.

Keanu Reeves

#58. It's interesting going between small parts and then bigger roles where you carry the film. If the writing is good, and if the people involved have integrity, then you'll do it, even if it's only five minutes on screen.

Brendan Gleeson

#59. Film is new for me so I'm so fascinated by it and love it, but I would pass out if I could never do theater again. I'd be physically ill!

Nina Arianda

#60. All movies are pure process. A commercial movie isn't less process than an art movie. You can't make your decisions about a film on the basis of, 'Is it important enough? Is it serious enough?' It's either alive or it's not for me. If it's alive, I want to do it.

Mike Nichols

#61. If you go to a film festival and watch a bunch of features and then watch a bunch of shorts, you will almost always find that the shorts are where people are taking more risks and pushing more boundaries ... simply because they have much less to lose.

Don Hertzfeldt

#62. It sounds so weird, but I'm totally pro-aging. If you look at the film industry, it's so funny how it's so much more accepted that actors begin their prime in their forties or fifties, and for women it's so different. I think it's time to change that. Aging is a beautiful thing.

Michiel Huisman

#63. Fundamentally, the most important thing is to get the film made for me and to get as many people to see it as possible. And if I help that, then - I know I help that, let's put it that way. I do know that I help that. It is called show business.

Denzel Washington

#64. Theres a certain truth that you do end up making the same film again and again so if you vary the genre you have a chance of breaking that cycle.

Danny Boyle

#65. In an action film you act in the action. If it's a dramatic film you act in the drama.

Jean-Claude Van Damme

#66. I have people around me. I have a semi-permanent crew. If I make a film, they just turn up. They don't even invite themselves. They don't ask if they can come - they just turn up!

Stephen Frears

#67. My job is to portray real human beings and real human experiences, and if I haven't had a real human experience myself outside of the film industry, how am I going to be able to do that?

Emily Browning

#68. If I start paying attention to the mechanics of a film while watching it, then it's generally a bad film.

Terry Zwigoff

#69. Lord of the Rings was something I always wanted to do. I read the book when I was about 25, and I was always hoping if it was ever made into a feature film that I would be involved in some way. And then I finally got it, and I was over the moon. It was fantastic news.

Sean Bean

#70. There still seems to be a lack of film for the baby boomer generation, if you'd like to call it that. And I think 'Martin Bonner' showed what's possible. Later in life, when you've been working at something for a long time, to actually get some kudos for what you do is wonderful.

Paul Eenhoorn

#71. Audiences are less intrigued, honestly, by battle. They're more intrigued by human relations. If you're making a film about the trappings of the period, and you're forgetting that human relationships are the most engaging part of the storytelling process, then you're in trouble.

Ridley Scott

#72. I feel like there's a witch hunt by some film sites and people that immediately disregard something if it shows any sort of influence.

Max Winkler

#73. Hopefully, if I have done my job right, people will want to know and see more! There is certainly plenty more to tell. I would love to be part of that process of expanding on the lore that makes up Warcraft, but it will all depend on what you, the audience, think of our first film!

Duncan Jones

#74. I think I'll get a little more interesting small parts and see if I can really ... I guess you don't have to have the pressure on you compared to when you're a leading man in a film.

Robert Maillet

#75. I am not quite comfortable with people identifying themselves as my fans. You know nothing about me. You have just seen me perform in a film. How can you be my fan? If I have to tell you honestly, I want an audience and not fans.

Kangana Ranaut

#76. If I could direct it [films] I would be very happy. But the economics of business don't always allow you to do what you want.

Lee Van Cleef

#77. I think maybe because I do other things and they mean as much to me as movie acting, it takes the onus off me. It's not the end of the world if I can't get a film job, or if a movie doesn't turn out well - even though I don't like it when that happens.

Viggo Mortensen

#78. I sometimes get asked if I think about film stuff while I'm writing fiction, and the answer is, of course not.

Matthew Specktor

#79. Some people manage to make that transition from child actor to adult actor seamlessly. But I felt that if I spent my whole life on a film set without taking a few years to do something else, all I would ever know about was film sets.

Anna Popplewell

#80. Film is such a bizarre vehicle for acting. It's such a bizarre experience. I don't think you ever really get familiar with it. If you do get familiar with it, you're probably not that good anymore.

Liev Schreiber

#81. You see a Clint Eastwood movie, and you might not know if it's from Universal or Warner Bros. or another studio. He has affiliations with so many studios now, but there was a time when you'd just look at a movie and think, 'Oh, that's a Warner Bros. film.'

Robert Osborne

#82. If you make a film set in London or in Pakistan or wherever, the thing that interests me is the relationships between individuals - individuals and society, individuals and their family, their girlfriend or boyfriend, it's all the same idea.

Michael Winterbottom

#83. The thing is when you play a character it's the persona you bring across from a book to film, or book to script to film. If I play Frank Sinatra, there's gonna be things I do in a movie that Frank might not have done, but it's the personality that comes across.

Alex Pettyfer

#84. Pixar's short films convinced Disney that if the company could produce memorable characters within five minutes, then the confidence was there in creating a feature film with those abilities in story and character development.

John Lasseter

#85. Being an African filmmaker, Africa is what's important for me. If I were to shot a film in France or elsewhere it would only be because the story that was being told was something that concerned me, and that really called me or needed to be shown on the screen.

Abderrahmane Sissako

#86. When I make a film, I never want the film to become a vehicle of social propaganda. If I wanted to do that, I'd make documentaries.

Norman Jewison

#87. I come from the theater and I plan to always do theater. So I don't really see myself not being able to act even if people don't think I am sexy enough for film at 40, I'll still be acting.

Kerry Washington

#88. It's on the bucket list for sure to do a comedy film, even if it was just one line on the lot.

Miranda Hart

#89. I was one of those kids who had never seen an indie film before I got to college. If it wasn't a big, huge tentpole movie, or if it wasn't on the radio, I hadn't experienced it.

John Krasinski

#90. When you finish a film, if you believed in your character, you're empty.

Jean-Claude Van Damme

#91. I'm one of those people that think that what you put up on screen, no matter how you're stating it, is usually an advertisement for it. Even if I'm saying "it's really bad to do this, or it's really good to do this" - regardless, the fact that it's on film, presented in this huge way, is appealing.

Azazel Jacobs

#92. I know that if a film is ready to emerge out of what I write, I'll be able to go off and make it without asking anyone's permission.

Francis Ford Coppola

#93. HATE, even if it's making money. is an underground movie, that's how it was made. It's a film about police brutality in the largest sense, it's about the whole of society and not just about the hood.

Mathieu Kassovitz

#94. I'm a film buff and I was keen to find out about the response to Daniel Craig's 007. 'Empire' and 'Hot Dog' had great reviews, and finally he's been accepted as the new Bond. So many millions go into that franchise that if you make a mistake, it's awful.

Burn Gorman

#95. I grew up in a show biz family and, if you wanted to talk at the dinner table, you'd better be prepared to talk about film.

John Orloff

#96. Clearly any film company that makes a film is always going to talk about sequels particularly if they see something as being successful, which Werewolf was.

Jenny Agutter

#97. Every film I have made has corresponded to a very special moment of my life. I like to think that if someone wanted to reconstruct the story of my life, they can just see my movies and know what I have been through.

Bernardo Bertolucci

#98. If we bought everything on the Internet, our eyes and mouths and nostrils would probably begin to film over with a tegument - one initially tissue-thin and capable of being removed each morning, but which gradually thickened and hardened until we were imprisoned in our own tiny minds.

Will Self

#99. I definitely pay attention to details. I think one of the hardest things about making a movie is that it can be scrutinized over and over again. If anything just isn't right, it's going to take you out of the film.

Cary Fukunaga

#100. I think it's just a lot more pressure to make the scenes work when you're doing a film, because when you're doing a series you feel like, I have so many scenes, so many episodes, so if I don't get it exactly right this time, I have another scene later. You feel less pressure.

Chloe Sevigny