“It just feels good”: Kumail Nanjiani once named his five favourite movies
From stand-up to superheroes, Kumail Nanjiani’s rise up the industry ranks has seen him try his hand at a wide and varied array of projects covering multiple genres, an eclectic taste that’s reflected in the actor and comedian’s five favourite movies.
After first gaining attention as a cast member on the popular comedy series Silicon Valley, Nanjiani’s profile rose immeasurably when he landed an Academy Award nomination in the ‘Best Original Screenplay’ category for The Big Sick, which he scripted alongside wife Emily V. Gordon in a semi-fictionalised account of their own experiences.
Since then, he’s graduated into blockbuster fare by lending support in such expensive and effects-heavy productions as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Eternals, sci-fi sequel Men in Black: International, Robert Downey Jr’s cursed Dolittle, and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. In addition to that, he has also accepted hosting duties on Saturday Night Live and guest appearances in The Simpsons and Star Wars series Obi-Wan Kenobi, illustrating his current level of mainstream fame and visibility.
Never one to be pigeonholed, the Pakistan-born performer who shot to prominence in the United States kicked off his quintet of all-timers by naming a distinctly British romantic comedy as the cream of the crop, even if it was partially driven by the fact Four Weddings and a Funeral came first “because I have seen it the most times, and I just love it every time”.
“It’s so funny and charming, and everybody’s great in it,” he told Rotten Tomatoes. “It just looks good. It just feels good. I’d be lying if I put any other movie on top because that’s the movie I’ve seen the most.” For a rather drastic change of pace, though, he then opted for one of the greatest horror movies ever made.
John Carpenter’s The Thing wins plaudits for having “a great ensemble” and “awesome” design, with Nanjiani viewing the chilly nightmare as “one of those movies that you can watch over and over”. One of the most emotionally affecting and heartfelt animated films to ever come out of Hollywood, it has found a special place among the actor’s personal pantheon.
“The Iron Giant is the movie that makes me cry the hardest,” he admitted. “It’s just the best movie. It’s so good. I mean, so many moving moments. It’s just perfect.” For one that helped inspire his breakthrough big screen work, Nanjiani plumped for an acerbic romantic dramedy that unfolds under entirely different circumstances as his own film, but nonetheless served as an important touchstone.
“If we can try and make a movie that’s similar to Broadcast News in tone, then at least we’re trying to the right kind of thing” were the sentiments of Nanjiani and Gordon when they were writing, and he did a stellar job in trying to emulate the “really funny and really moving and really complicated and messy” satire of a fractious newsroom.
Lumping three films together as one is technically cheating, as he concedes, but Nanjiani can’t separate Before Sunrise from Before Sunset or Before Midnight. “Of those three, the one I’ve watched the most is Before Sunset,” he said, but that doesn’t necessarily make it his favourite when he became equally attached to all three after checking in with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy over the course of two decades.
Kumail Nanjiani’s five favourite movies:
- Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell, 1994)
- The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982)
- Broadcast News (James L. Brooks, 1987)
- The Iron Giant (Brad Bird, 1999)
- The Before Trilogy (Richard Linklater, 1995-2013)