22 Apr 2025

Ben Affleck’s Closet Picks

The actor and director talks about his formative experiences watching Miller’s Crossing, Hollywood Shuffle, and The Elephant Man; praises films by past collaborators, including Richard Linklater and Terrence Malick; and shouts out a very special Criterion commentary.

Ben Affleck: everything they reached for, and whose taste is nearest

choices

13

every one a single film

single films

13

chosen on their own

box sets

0

none this visit

films reached

13

no set to open

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.

216 The Rules of the Game 1939 1112 Miller’s Crossing 1990 336 Dazed and Confused 1993 651 Badlands 1973 151 Traffic 2000 1173 Hollywood Shuffle 1987 1204 Trainspotting 1996 1160 Malcolm X 1992 936 Bull Durham 1988 1075 Fast Times at Ridgemont High 1982 13 The Silence of the Lambs 1991 40 Armageddon 1998 1051 The Elephant Man 1980

single film, with its spine number box set

	Chose	Director	Year	Taken by
1	The Rules of the Game	Jean Renoir	1939	6
2	Miller’s Crossing	Joel Coen	1990	6
3	Dazed and Confused	Richard Linklater	1993	7
4	Badlands	Terrence Malick	1973	6
5	Traffic	Steven Soderbergh	2000	7
6	Hollywood Shuffle	Robert Townsend	1987	5
7	Trainspotting	Danny Boyle	1996	7
8	Malcolm X	Spike Lee	1992	10
9	Bull Durham	Ron Shelton	1988	3
10	Fast Times at Ridgemont High	Amy Heckerling	1982	6
11	The Silence of the Lambs	Jonathan Demme	1991	4
12	Armageddon	Michael Bay	1998	1
13	The Elephant Man	David Lynch	1980	3

How far across film history it reaches

Where this haul sits in film history single films 1939 to 2000

a single film, at its year 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 13films run 25.6 hours. The median visit runs 19.2 hours, over the 375 whose every runtime is on record.

That is 118.2 minutes of film for each of its 13 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 13 choices had been taken by 5.46 visits each on average, counting a box set as one thing. One of them has been taken by nobody else. The least-picked was Armageddon, taken by this visit alone.

This visit reached the work of Amy Heckerling, through Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Danny Boyle, through Trainspotting and Ron Shelton, through Bull Durham, who have been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.

On Vimeo · On criterion.com