John Carpenter’s favourite movie of all time: “What do I love about it? Everything”
There are few filmmakers who boast the same cultural impact as John Carpenter. A true master of the realms of science fiction, action and horror cinema, Carpenter has established himself as one of the vital figures in the American film industry and remains one of its most enduring icons.
With his early successes in the shape of Halloween, The Fog and Escape from New York, Carpenter announced himself as a filmmaker who would stick around for many decades and by following up with the likes of Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China, he became one of the most influential directors of all time.
Even the most influential directors, though, themselves have their own deepest inspirations, and even though Carpenter has stated his distaste for the state of the movie industry on several occasions, he’s equally never shied away from naming the films that he loves the most and that have provided the greatest entertainment and inspiration for him.
In a feature with Criterion, Carpenter once stated his favourite movies of all time, and after discussing the brilliance of the likes of Billy Wilder, Carol Reed, Alfred Hitchcock and David Cronenberg, he named his number one top choice of favourite movie of all time, a work from Howard Hawks.
“Howard Hawks has always been a big influence on me and my work,” Carpenter said, “and Only Angels Have Wings is my favourite movie of all time.” Hawks’ classic arrived in 1939 and told of a group of brave mail pilots who must traverse danger and treachery in order to deliver packages across the Andes mountains.
Responding to what it is about Only Angels Have Wings that Carpenter loves the most, he replied, “Everything. If you sit down and watch it and you don’t love it, then you can just forget Howard Hawks. Everything about him as a filmmaker is here: the relationships between men and women, the adventure, the mystery, the pleasure.”
Hawks’ film focuses on the courage of its characters, who are symbolised by the wings of an aeroplane and the kind of freedom they represent. In addition, Hawks displayed a masterly composition of the films’ aerial scenes whilst also managing to showcase the kind of character development for which he was most acclaimed throughout his career.
Carpenter went on to explain how Hawks had often detailed his artistic prowess through two different kinds of movies. “There are the dramas about daring men doing various adventurous things,” the director said. “Then there are the comedies, in which he takes his hero and humiliates him or brings out his goofier side.”
For Carpenter, though, Only Angels Have Wings is “unique” in that it showed how people would risk their lives to achieve greatness and recognition in their profession “while darkness is all around them.” He noted, “They have their own codes and their own ideas of bravery.”
Carpenter himself has provided much inspiration for his fellow filmmakers, especially in the horror, science fiction and action genres, but when it comes to his favourite movie of all time, there is no equal to Hawks’ Only Angels Have Wings. Widely considered one of Hawks’ best-ever movies, it’s easy to see why Carpenter holds it in such high esteem.