Jane Campion’s Favorite Movies, from ‘Seven Samurai’ to ‘The Night Porter’

In 2022, Jane Campion made history as the first female director to be nominated for Best Director twice. And then, for “The Power of Dog,” she followed through and won, becoming the third female director to take home the top prize.

The win was a triumphant and long overdue achievement for Campion, who has consistently been one of the best directors actively working since her 1989 feature debut “Sweetie.” The black comedy about a dysfunctional family marked the New Zealand-born director as a great talent immediately, entering the Cannes Film Festival and taking home an Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film shortly afterwards. Just a year later, Campion released her first masterpiece: the Janet Frame biopic, “An Angel at My Table.”

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From there, her 1993 feature “The Piano” netted Campion her first Best Director nomination, while efforts like “The Portrait of a Lady,” “Holy Smoke,” “In the Cut,” and “Bright Star” received acclaim. An long gap from the big screen soon followed, during which she worked on the television limited series “Top of the Lake,” before “The Power of the Dog’s” triumphant 2021 release brought her back to the forefront of film circles with a bang.

Like so many great directors, Campion has a deep knowledge of cinema and an eclectic array of all-time favorite movies. Her recommendations transcend borders and include many international selections: in particular, she has a deep love for Japanese cinema, including films like “Tokyo Story,” “Seven Samurai,” and “Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto.” Other selections hail from Italy (“The Night Porter”), the Czech Republic (“The Firemen’s Ball”), Sweden (“Scenes From a Marriage”), and France (“Contempt”). Many of her favorite films inspired her work as a director; see “Badlands,” which influenced the cinematography of “The Power of the Dog.”

Read on for our list of 10 of Jane Campion’s favorite films of all time, curated from interviews from with legendary director over the course of her career.

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