The fantastic one-of-one Paul Rudd steps into the Criterion Closet and lets the cinephile heart spill.
In this latest episode of Criterion’s cult-favorite series Closet Picks, the fantastic one-of-one Paul Rudd lets everything spill — pulling titles from the Criterion Collection that have inspired, challenged, tickled, and moved him throughout his career.
It is one of those rare little movie-lover moments where the artisan-creator steps out from behind the characters he has embodied and speaks directly to the films that shaped his artistic consciousness. No big red-carpet machinery. No blockbuster noise. Just Paul, the closet, and cinema doing what cinema does.
Criterion Closet Picks turns Rudd’s film-love brain loose on teen classics, Sakamoto beauty, Linklater feeling, and full cinephile comfort food.
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Rudd selects a range of iconic works, moving from sharp coming-of-age cinema to deeply felt human comedy, musician portraiture, and the kind of films that linger because they understand people before they try to impress anyone.
His picks reportedly include Withnail and I, Boyhood, Defending Your Life, Secrets & Lies, Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and The Children Are Watching Us. A properly Rudd-coded stack: funny, tender, observant, a little melancholy, and very much built for somebody who has spent a career making charm look easy while still clocking the emotional undercurrent.
One of the sweetest threads is his praise for Amy Heckerling and her gift for capturing youth on-screen. That makes complete sense. Heckerling’s world has always understood that teenagers are funny, dramatic, awkward, observant, and emotionally ahead of the adults trying to define them. Rudd, forever connected to one of the great teen-comedy universes through Clueless, knows that terrain in his bones.
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Then comes the Ryuichi Sakamoto love, which shifts the whole thing into a quieter register. Opus is not just a music document. It is presence, memory, stillness, and the sound of an artist sitting with a lifetime of feeling at the piano. Rudd’s affection for that legacy gives the episode a lovely little pulse of reverence.
And then, because taste recognizes taste, he calls Richard Linklater “the great American director.” The Linklater pull makes perfect sense for Rudd: movies about time, friendship, aging, small moments, casual conversations that suddenly become life philosophy, and the strange way ordinary days become the entire story when you look back long enough.
That is what makes a good Closet Picks visit work. It is never just about what someone grabs from the shelf. It is about the tiny autobiography hiding inside the stack. The comedies they trust. The directors they return to. The performances that made them feel seen. The films that still have their fingerprints on the work.
With Paul Rudd, the whole thing feels easy but not empty — warm, thoughtful, funny, and quietly sincere. Very Paul. Very one-of-one.
Feel all of Rudd’s love below.
Paul Rudd’s Criterion Closet Picks bring teen classics, Sakamoto beauty, and Linklater devotion.
Watch Paul Rudd’s Criterion Closet Picks.
The episode follows Paul Rudd inside the Criterion Closet as he discusses the films and filmmakers that shaped his cinephile heart, from Amy Heckerling and Ryuichi Sakamoto to Richard Linklater.
Sources: Video and episode description via Criterion / YouTube; official Closet Picks hub via Criterion.
