26 Jan 2025

Atom Egoyan’s Closet Picks

The writer and director shares how an act of generosity from Wim Wenders changed his life, recalls how Working Girls influenced the tone of Exotica, and explores the “erotic energy” of Walkabout.

Atom Egoyan: everything they reached for, and whose taste is nearest

choices

8

5 single, 3 box sets

single films

5

chosen on their own

box sets

3

one choice, many films

films reached

57

the same visit, box sets opened

Criterion's own upload · on criterion.com

This visit as a strip, a cell for each choice: paler the older the film, indigo for a box set, which is one cell however many films it holds. The order is the order Criterion's own page lists them in, which is probably but not provably the order they came off the shelf.

490 Wings of Desire 1987 SET Michael Haneke: Trilogy 259 Fat Girl 2001 1087 Working Girls 1986 SET Pasolini 101 59 The Night Porter 1974 10 Walkabout 1971 SET Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema

single film, with its spine number box set

	Chose	Director	Year	Taken by
1	Wings of Desire	Wim Wenders	1987	4
2	Michael Haneke: Trilogy box set, 3 films			3
3	Fat Girl	Catherine Breillat	2001	7
4	Working Girls	Lizzie Borden	1986	3
5	Pasolini 101 box set, 9 films			13
6	The Night Porter	Liliana Cavani	1974	6
7	Walkabout	Nicolas Roeg	1971	5
8	Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema box set, 40 films			13

How far across film history it reaches

Where this haul sits in film history single films 1971 to 2001, box sets 1946 to 2003

Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema

Pasolini 101

Michael Haneke: Trilogy

a single film, at its year a box set, across the years of its films the collection, by decade

The axis is the same 1920 to 2030 on every visit page, so a haul that stayed inside one decade looks like one. A box set is drawn across the years of the films inside it, which is a range of release dates and not a claim about the set. Nothing here is in the order the choices were made: displayed position moves film year by a fifth of one percent of its variance, which is not a slope worth drawing.

How long this haul is

Its 57films run 97.5 hours. The median visit runs 19.2 hours, over the 375 whose every runtime is on record.

That is 731.5 minutes of film for each of its 8 choices, counting a box set as the one choice it was. Across the 375 visits with a complete total, the median is 136.4 minutes.

How unusual this haul was

Its 8 choices had been taken by 6.75 visits each on average, counting a box set as one thing. Every one of them has been taken by somebody else too. The least-picked was Michael Haneke: Trilogy, taken by 3 visits in total.

This visit reached the work of Catherine Breillat, through Fat Girl and Wim Wenders, through Wings of Desire, who have been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.

On Vimeo · On criterion.com