Below are Milo’s SELECTS:
This has some major exemptions of films that have been deeply influential on me, but as with great pieces of work, their impact is widespread and already mentioned here. So, by no means exhaustive, but hopefully it includes some titles that might be fresh to some people, along with a few that feel relevant to me as a director in this particular moment.
As music videos go, this feels like poetry in motion to me. The synergy between the imagery, edit, and track is unmatched. I first saw it on a Mark Romanek box set someone showed me when I was a kid.
Will always be in my top three of all time. As original as it gets, and it has everything you could want from a film while defying all the laws of convention and genre in the process.
A film that somewhat inspired the concept for my most recent music video. A beautifully tender exploration of life and death, using film as an allegory. Koreeda, for me, is the master of sensitive and humane storytelling.
I recently saw ‘The Brutalist’, which is a stunning epic in its own right, but I want to draw attention to Brady’s first feature, which explores the childhood of a would-be dictator. For a debut to be so unique and instinctive in its choices, it makes complete sense to me that he’s now one of the brightest stars in contemporary filmmaking.
Such a sensory experience, with incredible performances by the group of teenage soldiers. It’s another film that, for me, falls between the cracks of definition and stayed with me long after the first viewing.
A voyage in time, documenting the story of London’s immigrants and one of the best portraits of the place that raised me and shaped my outlook on the world. I often feel like London hasn’t got a truly iconic narrative film that articulates its spirit, but this feels like a great contender and makes such cool use of archive and historical material.
A really formative piece of work for me, which I saw around the time I caught the bug for movies. My dad has an iconic DVD collection which sort of acted as my first film school. I was around 13, and he passed me a bunch of titles which were kind of my initiation into a different way of storytelling. ‘Hoop Dreams’ was one of those titles and is not just one of the best sporting docs ever, but one of the best docs on American life there is.
An unsung piece of TV magic. Impeccable writing and dialogue, with some of the best use of music. A tormented pulp fiction mystery writer, bedridden with a skin disease, relives his stories through imagination and hallucinations. It’s so clever, and all six episodes are available free on iPlayer (for UK readers). Please, please don’t watch the terrible remake with Robert Downey Jr.
One that has definitely been featured countless times, but in homage to the great man, I felt like I couldn’t leave it out. It paved the way for so much. To have an image and story language as distinctive as Lynch’s is something I can only attempt to aspire to. I’ve gone for Season 3, as maybe it doesn’t get the same recognition as the originals, but to me it’s just as mad and just as brilliant.
