His Movie Shelf Runs From Bresson’s Silence to Chaplin’s Chaos
John Leguizamo entered the Criterion Closet and immediately started talking movies like someone who had been waiting years to get locked inside. The actor, writer, director and producer moves from severe European masters to landmark Latino and Black cinema, proving his preferred film shelf has range—and plenty of opinions attached.
Leguizamo begins with filmmakers whose restraint hits harder than most directors’ spectacle. He singles out Michael Haneke and Robert Bresson as exceptional, praising Haneke’s unnerving The White Ribbon and showing love for Bresson’s methodical prison-break masterpiece A Man Escaped.
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Build Your Own Closet Picks Stack
John Leguizamo’s selections move from stark European masters to essential films about identity, migration and representation. Explore Criterion’s official Closet Picks, then add two of his standout choices to your own shelf.
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That appreciation for precise filmmaking carries directly into Alfonso Cuarón’s ROMA. Leguizamo pauses over its black-and-white cinematography and the way Cuarón builds meaning through composition, movement and background detail. It is exactly the kind of film that rewards watching the entire frame rather than waiting for dialogue to explain what matters.
The conversation becomes even more personal when Leguizamo reaches Gregory Nava’s El Norte and Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. He speaks about the power of representation and the importance of seeing communities pushed to the edges of Hollywood placed at the center of their own stories. These are not dutiful “important film” picks. You can hear what it meant for him to encounter work that made room for people, histories and neighborhoods the industry too often treated as invisible.
Leguizamo also pulls Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz into the stack, making room for one of cinema’s most feverish portraits of ambition, performance and self-destruction. His choices keep zigzagging across style and era, but the connection is clear: each filmmaker has a voice strong enough to be recognized almost immediately.
Inside the Criterion Closet, John Leguizamo discusses representation, filmmaking craft and a stack that includes Do the Right Thing and ROMA. Credit: Criterion Collection/YouTube.
Then comes Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, with Leguizamo reflecting on a pioneer whose physical comedy helped define the language of movies before sound took over. It is a fitting final turn from an artist who understands that comedy can look effortless while demanding brutal precision underneath.
Leguizamo’s visit works because he never treats the Closet like a list of titles he is supposed to respect. He talks about the movies as living things—formative, political, funny, painful and technically thrilling. The man came to pick films and left behind a miniature syllabus.
Watch John Leguizamo Make His Criterion Closet Picks
The complete Criterion video follows Leguizamo through his selections, including The White Ribbon, A Man Escaped, ROMA, El Norte, Do the Right Thing, All That Jazz and The Gold Rush.
Source: The Criterion Collection and the official John Leguizamo Closet Picks video.
