ByEddie Deezen|Jul 26, 2018, 4:00 PM EDT
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From classic comedies to cowboy-filled westerns, celebrities play favorites when it comes to movies, too. Here are some of the favorite films of politicians, musicians, actors, directors, and other celebrities.
1. BARACK OBAMA // THE GODFATHER (1972) AND THE GODFATHER: PART II (1974)
When Katie Couric asked then-presidential-candidate Barack Obama what his favorite movie is, he replied, “Oh, I think it would have to be The Godfather. One and Two. Three not so much. That saga—I love that movie.”
2. RONALD REAGAN // HIGH NOON (1952)
Reagan appreciated Will Kane’s dedication to duty and law in Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon. (Reagan was also rumored to have been a fan of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.)
3. RICHARD NIXON // PATTON (1970)
Nixon’s preference for Patton was mentioned in a 1970 TIME article: “The martial epic Patton so stirs Richard Nixon that he has seen the film at least twice.” According to American Experience: Nixon on PBS, “Richard Nixon loved the movie Patton and watched it again and again in the White House.” The Telegraph reported that Nixon “urged aides to see the film and became, in the words of Secretary of State William Rogers, a ‘walking ad’ for it. He screened it three times in the weeks before the US invasion of Cambodia in April 1970 …” Nixon’s love for Patton was also mentioned in Woodward and Bernstein’s 2005 book, The Final Days.
4. BILL CLINTON // HIGH NOON (1952)
Clinton was such a fan of the Western that he apparently screened the film a record 17 times at the White House.
5. GEORGE W. BUSH // FIELD OF DREAMS (1989)
According to a May 2001 article in The Atlantic, “Bush’s favorite movie is Field of Dreams, which made him cry, he once said, because it reminded him of playing catch in the back yard with his father—a pretty fair ballplayer himself once.”
6. DWIGHT EISENHOWER // HIGH NOON (1952)
Like to many other presidents, Eisenhower was reportedly a big fan of High Noon, screening it several times at the White House (though not quite as many times as Clinton).
7. JOHN MCCAIN // VIVA ZAPATA! (1952)
During his presidential campaign, John McCain was asked about his favorite film by Katie Couric. His response: “Viva Zapata … It’s a heroic tale of a person who sacrificed everything for what he believed in and there’s some of the most moving scenes in that movie that I’ve ever seen.”
8. DAN QUAYLE // FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF (1986)
During the 1990 presidential campaign, Quayle declared Ferris Bueller his favorite movie, with the explanation, “It reminded me of my time in school.”
9. JUSTIN BIEBER // STEP BROTHERS (2008)
In 2010, Bieber provided US Weekly with a list of “25 Things You Don’t Know About Me.” #17: “Step Brothers is my favorite movie.”
10. JENNIFER LOPEZ // WEST SIDE STORY (1961)
During a West Side Story-themed photo shoot for Vanity Fair in 2009, Lopez revealed that she watched the classic musical “37 times” growing up. She identifies with Anita, explaining: “I never wanted to be that wimpy Maria… I wanted to be Anita, who danced her way to the top.”
11. GEORGE HARRISON // THE PRODUCERS (1968)
Harrison reportedly liked the film so much that it inspired him to become a producer himself.
12. JOHN TRAVOLTA // A MAN AND A WOMAN (1966)
IMDb.com lists Travolta’s favorite movie as A Man And A Woman, also noting that he was partial to Yankee Doodle Dandy (1946) as a child.
13. HEATH LEDGER // THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
Ledger favored the classic film because, he stated, “It was the only film my parents allowed me to see as a kid.”
14. TOM HANKS // 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)
Hanks has frequently discussed his love for Kubrick’s classic, including at a forum for the film’s 40th anniversary, where he said of the movie, “You can look at it over and over and ponder its meaning,” he once said. According to a Tom Hanks fan site, the actor has seen 2001 approximately 40 times.
15. BILL PAXTON // SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (1961) AND HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971)
In a 2006 interview with TV Guide, Paxton said, “You’ve got to understand something about me and my career: I’m a romantic in life philosophy, in how I look at the world, the beauty of nature, of relationships. But I never got to do those roles. In my twenties, I wanted to be in a Splendor in the Grass.” The late actor listed both Splendor in the Grass and Harold and Maude for Cindy Pearlman’s 2007 book You Gotta See This.
16. SALMA HAYEK // WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971)
The “Times Topics” page for Hayek at The New York Times website reported: “At 6, she was smitten with acting after seeing Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”
17. VIN DIESEL // GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)
In 2006, ELLE asked Diesel, “Have you ever watched a movie and identified with a character romantically?” The actor replied, “Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind. Here’s this guy saying, ‘I may be rough around the edges, but I’m the better man for you, and you’re still locked over there with pretty boy.'” He also listed it as his favorite movie for Pearlman’s You Gotta See This.
18. TIM ALLEN //THE SEVEN SAMURAI (1954)
AFI interviewed celebrities about their films in a lead-up to their “100 Years, 100 Movies” event in 2007. In his interview, Allen named The Seven Samurai as his favorite.
19. OWEN WILSON // PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002) AND THE INSIDER (1999)
Wilson reportedly stated, “I loved Punch-Drunk Love. It revved me up to write something. It’s a simple story, but it proves it’s all in the details.” He also told Glen Whipp of the Los Angeles Daily News, “I loved Punch-Drunk Love, The Insider, and United 93.”
20. ANTONIO BANDERAS // TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) AND THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942)
Banderas is an Orson Welles fan. He listed Touch of Evil as one of his five favorite films (as well as the ever-popular Lawrence of Arabia and The Godfather) for Rotten Tomatoes, and he listed it again for Pearlman’s You Gotta See This, along with another Welles film, The Magnificent Ambersons.
21. JULIANNE MOORE // ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968)
For The New York Times‘ “Watching the Movies With” feature, Moore picked Rosemary’s Baby, stating, “This is the first movie that came to mind when I thought of what I wanted to watch,” and “Wow, I love the beginning of this movie.”
22. CHARLIZE THERON // I COULD GO ON SINGING (1963)
For You Gotta See This, Theron told Pearlman that I Could Go On Singing is “the best movie I’ve ever seen,” and then said—twice—”It’s my favorite film of all time.”
23. RICHARD GERE // THE PASSENGER (1975)
For You Gotta See This, Gere told Pearlman that The Passenger “has always been” one of his favorites.
24. UMA THURMAN // PILLOW TALK (1959)
For Pearlman’s You Gotta See This, Thurman revealed her favorite, explaining: “All my life I wanted to be Doris Day. One of my favorites is Pillow Talk. It’s a light, breezy romp of a film that’s so much fun to watch. I love that Doris didn’t play anyone but herself in her movies.”
25. REESE WITHERSPOON // OVERBOARD (1987)
Witherspoon disclosed this factoid during the 84th Annual Academy Awards telecast in 2012.
26. DENNIS QUAID // LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)
In an interview with US Weekly, Quaid said, “Lawrence of Arabia is, for me, a perfect movie.”
27. SETH MACFARLANE // THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1964)
When interviewed by IGN in 2003, MacFarlane was asked what his favorite film is. His answer: “I gotta give it to The Sound of Music. I’m sorry. I know that’s, like, a lame answer, but I f***in’ love The Sound of Music. It’s The Sound of Music … It’s not like it’s some obscure independent film. There are those who would be expecting me to say Caddyshack—which is number two.”
28. ORSON WELLES // CITY LIGHTS (1931)
Of the Chaplin film, Welles once said, “…but you must see City Lights… You’ll see Chaplin in City Lights.”
29. STEVEN SPIELBERG // LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)
Spielberg helped restore Lawrence of Arabia for a 2000 DVD release; in the accompanying documentary, “A Conversation with Steven Spielberg,” the director discusses the impact the movie had on his life and why it’s his favorite film.
30. ROGER EBERT // LA DOLCE VITA (1960)
In a 2008 column for The Chicago Sun-Times, the late critic asked himself, “What is my favorite film?” The answer: “Right now, this moment, the answer that would spring most quickly to mind is Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960). I’ve seen it, oh, at least 25 times, maybe more. It doesn’t get old for me. …I’ve grown so worked up just writing this paragraph that I want to slide in the DVD and start watching immediately.”
An earlier version of this article appeared in 2012.
The Real-Life Serial Killer That Might’ve Inspired ‘Dexter’s Dark Passenger
Brazil’s most notorious killer of killers has been called the real Dexter for years, but ‘Dexter’s’ creator tells a different origin story.
ByMatt Hoffman|Oct 30, 2026, 9:00 PM EDT
Back in July 2004, Jeff Lindsay introduced readers to Dexter Morgan, a Miami police blood-spatter analyst who kills only people who deserve it, egged on by a voice in his head he calls the “Dark Passenger.” Two years later, Showtime turned Darkly Dreaming Dexter into a hit series with Michael C. Hall.
Somewhere along the way, the internet decided Dexter had a real-life model: Pedro Rodrigues Filho, a Brazilian who claimed to have killed more than 100 people, most of them criminals. Entertainment sites now call him “the Brazilian Dexter,” and ScreenRant describes the show as loosely based on his crimes. No quote from Lindsay or the show’s producers backs that up, but the similarities are hard to miss.
The Boy Who Settled Scores
Filho was born in 1954 on a farm in Santa Rita do Sapucaí, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, with an injured skull: his father, he said, had kicked his pregnant mother during a fight. He told the magazine Época in 2003 that he first wanted to kill at 13, when he shoved an older cousin into a sugarcane press. A year later, after his father lost his job as a school guard over accusations that he was stealing school lunches, Filho shot the official who had fired him, then shot the guard he believed was the real thief. (Accounts disagree on who that first victim was: some Brazilian outlets say the mayor of his hometown, others the deputy mayor of Alfenas, also in Minas Gerais.)
He fled to Mogi das Cruzes, outside São Paulo, where he robbed drug dens, killed traffickers, and took over a dead drug boss’s business. When his pregnant girlfriend was shot dead, he went looking for the man who ordered it and, with four friends, hit a wedding party, leaving seven dead and 16 wounded, according to Época. He was arrested shortly after turning 18 and entered prison on May 24, 1973; in the van on the way there, he killed a fellow prisoner he said was a rapist.
Where the Comparison Holds
Like Dexter, Filho had a code, or said he did. He told Época he killed only people who were no good, and that he never killed children, women, or family men. He also had a father story to rival Harry Morgan’s, though a much darker one: Filho claimed he killed his own father in prison, in revenge for his mother’s stabbing, and chewed a piece of his heart. (Época noted that he gave a psychiatrist a completely different account of how his father died.)
The resemblance mostly ends there. Dexter’s code, as Mental Floss has laid out before, includes “don’t get caught,” and Filho spent roughly four decades behind bars, much of it bragging. He had “Mato por prazer” (“I kill for pleasure”) tattooed on his left arm. He claimed 47 victims inside prison alone, though Época found just 18 charges against him on file in 2003; by his death, Brazilian outlets counted 71 homicides on his record.
What Dexter’s Creator Actually Said
Lindsay has told his origin story many times, and it starts nowhere near Brazil: at a Kiwanis Club lunch where he sat at the head table waiting to speak and, as he told BookPage in 2005, “the idea just popped into my head that sometimes serial murder isn’t a bad thing.” He then built the character out of research: he collected books on sociopaths and murderers, interviewed psychologists and crime scene investigators, and got cop friends to turn him loose in their dead-files room. He also rejects the very label that made Filho famous: “Dexter’s not a vigilante,” he told Middlebury Magazine in 2011. “Vigilantes are trying to perform an act of justice. Dexter just likes to kill people.”
The Ending Dexter Survived
Filho walked out of prison in 2007, went back in 2011 for crimes committed during his sentence, and was released for good in 2018. Within months, he had reinvented himself as a YouTube personality who commented on crimes in the news and lectured about his past. On the morning of March 5, 2023, he was on a sidewalk in Mogi das Cruzes holding a small child when men in a black car opened fire, according to the news site G1. The child was unhurt, but according to the police report, one of the attackers stabbed Filho in the throat as he lay on the ground. He was 68.
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Every Season of ‘The Twilight Zone’ Ranked From Best to Worst by Rotten Tomatoes
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man, and it holds a ranking of every ‘Twilight Zone’ season.
ByLogan DeLoye|Oct 31, 2026, 8:00 AM EDT
You unlock this door with the key of imagination; beyond it is another dimension where Rotten Tomatoes has ranked all five original Twilight Zone seasons.
The Twilight Zone took over television screens from 1959 to 1964, inviting the people of Earth into “a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind,” of “both shadow and substance, of things and ideas.”
The science-fiction series, hosted by Rod Serling, spanned 156 episodes, each with different characters and plots that drew you deeper into The Twilight Zone. Just when viewers thought they had the story figured out, a supernatural (sometimes horrific and psychological) plot twist transpired, leaving you with a moral lesson.
The series as a whole received a 92 % on Rotten Tomatoes, earning top praise from the review site. They also ranked each season individually, with a few scoring higher than others. But which season was the best, and which fell short on the Tomatometer?
SEASON 1 – 100%
The first episode of The Twilight Zone premiered in October 1959 and immediately captivated viewers with a storyline they would never forget, though not the case for the main character. Mike Ferris wanders into the small town of Oakwood, with no idea who he is or why he is there. Hours go by, and he realizes he is entirely alone, but is it all just a simulation?
The season continues with favorites like “Mr. Denton on Doomsday,” “The Four of Us Are Dying,” “The Fever,” “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” “Mr. Bevis,” and “A World of His Own.”
Rotten Tomatoes gave Season 1 of The Twilight Zone a perfect rating.
SEASON 2 – 100%
Rotten Tomatoes also gave Season 2 a perfect score, which upheld the horror and speculative appeal of the first season.
The second season of The Twilight Zone opens with “King Nine Will Not Return,” in which World War II pilot James Embry is on a plane that crashes into the desert. When he wakes up, his crew is gone. Wandering through the desert and seeing strange visions in the sky, he wakes up in a hospital 17 years later, triggered by news headlines of the incident. Was Embry experiencing PTSD, or was there actually something supernatural occurring in his hospital room?
The season proceeds with “Eye of the Beholder,” “A Most Unusual Camera,” “A Penny for Your Thoughts,” “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?,” and the finale, “The Obsolete Man.”
SEASON 3 – 90%
Premiering in 1961, the third season of The Twilight Zone begins with an episode about an apocalyptic battle and two enemy soldiers. Throughout the episode, the soldiers, a man and a woman, learn to like each other despite being on opposing sides. With no one left on Earth, they must work together to survive, though hostile and tense.
Other episodes from this season include “The Shelter,” “The Mirror,” “It’s a Good Life,” “To Serve Man,” “Little Girl Lost,” “Nothing in the Dark,” and “The Changing of the Guard.”
Rotten Tomatoes gave the third season a 90%, with the Critics Consensus being that the season “manages to overturn an uneven structure with some superb writing that borders on profound and some of the finest half hours in the series’ history.”
SEASON 4 -86%
Season 4 of The Twilight Zone ranked lower than previous seasons with an 86% on the Tomatometer (tied for last).
The first episode of this season, “In His Image,” follows 35-year-old Alan Talbot, who struggles with homicidal urges and memory issues. He discovers he is actually an android with a malfunction. In the end, Alan is deactivated, and the scientist who created him assumes his identity… and his fiancée!
Other episodes in Season 4 include “Valley of the Shadow,” “Printer’s Devil,” “On Thursday We Leave for Home,” “No Time Like the Past,” and “The Bard.”https://www.youtube.com/embed/SXapeCPpyeo?feature=oembed
Season five of The Twilight Zone premiered in 1963 with “In Praise of Pip,” which follows bookie Max, who learns his son has been wounded at war. Max becomes mortally wounded himself and finds his way to an amusement park where he relives happy memories with a younger version of his son and prays to God to spare his son’s life in exchange for his own. Pip recovers and finds himself in the same park by the end of the episode.
Rotten Tomatoes scored this season an 86%, like the fourth season, once again tied for last, saying that “portions of these episodes are diminished by unfortunate clichés.”
Other Season 5 episodes include “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” “Living Doll,” “The Old Man in the Cave,” “Ninety Years Without Slumbering,” “The Masks,” and “The Bewitchin’ Pool.”
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