14 Aug 2025

Judd Apatow’s Closet Picks

The writer and director talks about the influence of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, shares his love for Original Cast Album: “Company,” and takes his chances on a series of blind selections.

Judd Apatow: everything they reached for, and whose taste is nearest

choices

11

10 single, 1 box set

single films

10

chosen on their own

box sets

1

one choice, many films

films reached

16

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.

152 George Washington 2000 SET John Cassavetes: Five Films 1075 Fast Times at Ridgemont High 1982 1071 Defending Your Life 1991 1090 Original Cast Album: “Company” 1970 738 Tootsie 1982 300 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou 2004 147 In the Mood for Love 2000 913 The Age of Innocence 1993 1201 Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio 2022 908 Kameradschaft 1931

single film, with its spine number box set

	Chose	Director	Year	Taken by
1	George Washington	David Gordon Green	2000	4
2	John Cassavetes: Five Films box set, 6 films			30
3	Fast Times at Ridgemont High	Amy Heckerling	1982	6
4	Defending Your Life	Albert Brooks	1991	12
5	Original Cast Album: “Company”	D. A. Pennebaker	1970	5
6	Tootsie	Sydney Pollack	1982	11
7	The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou	Wes Anderson	2004	2
8	In the Mood for Love	Wong Kar Wai	2000	10
9	The Age of Innocence	Martin Scorsese	1993	7
10	Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio	Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson	2022	2
11	Kameradschaft	G. W. Pabst	1931	2

How far across film history it reaches

Where this haul sits in film history single films 1931 to 2022, box sets 1959 to 2000

John Cassavetes: Five Films

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 16films run 31.3 hours. The median visit runs 19.2 hours, over the 375 whose every runtime is on record.

That is 170.6 minutes of film for each of its 11 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 11 choices had been taken by 8.27 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 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, taken by 2 visits in total.

This visit reached the work of Amy Heckerling, through Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Guillermo del Toro, through Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, who have been in this closet too. Not one of those reaches is returned.

On Vimeo · On criterion.com