Parasite's Director Thinks This Steven Spielberg Sci-Fi Hit Is One Of This Century's Best Movies

If you want to understand how a filmmaker like Bong Joon Ho became a master of juggling such wildly disparate tones in the same movie (and often in the same scene), a good place to start would be his list of the 10 greatest films of all time for the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound poll. There, you'll find Kim Ki-young's 1960 horror film "The Handmaiden" comfortably rubbing shoulders with Hou Hsiao-hsien's post-World War II tragedy "A City of Sadness." There's some magic realism in there as well (Alice Rohrwacher's "Happy as Lazzaro") and a trio of serial killer-ish films (David Fincher's "Zodiac," Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Cure," and Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho"), but you've also got Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull" and Luchino Visconti's epic family drama "Rocco and His Brothers." That horror is so pronounced here shouldn't come as a surprise for a director who's made three movies that fit into that genre, but Hou's film is an odd choice given its under-statedness. And for a director who loves to indulge in some pretty broad comedy, where's the funny stuff?

So, let's skip over to Director Bong's 10 favorite films of the 21st century, which he submitted to The New York Times as part of the publication's recently published poll. Once again, there's not an outright comedy in the mix, though I would say that Fincher's "The Social Network," George Miller's "Mad Max: Fury Road," and the Coen Brothers' "No Country for Old Men" are quite funny at times. I'm afraid this list is just as enigmatic as his Sight & Sound top 10, but it is fascinating to me that he selected a Steven Spielberg science-fiction flick, and didn't opt for the one that made the Times' own top 100.

23 years after its theatrical release, Spielberg's "Minority Report" is a disconcertingly prescient vision of a future where crime is prevented by a militaristic police force that acts on the premonitions of three "precog" oracles. This was Spielberg's first movie after fulfilling his filmmaking promise to Stanley Kubrick with "A.I. Artificial Intelligence," and the commercially minded director made sure that it more than delivered in the thrills department. This isn't to suggest that Spielberg compromised; though I think it falters a tad in the third act with a shopworn plot twist, it's still one of the most thoughtful studio movies of the modern era.

When it comes to 21st century Spielberg sci-fi, however, make mine "War of the Worlds." This is the director's response to 9/11, and he explores American paranoia and fear-mongering in a way that he really hadn't touched since the, yes, underrated "1941." Meanwhile, his staging of the alien invasion is a tour de force of sheer terror; this was the Spielberg of "Jaws" hurling higher and tighter than ever. Some viewers took issue with the "happy" ending, but Tom Cruise's son returning to him physically unharmed was a well-earned victory because he'd made the correct choice earlier in the film (by staying with his much younger daughter).

So, kudos to Bong Joon Ho for choosing wisely with his Times poll. I'd love for him to elaborate on this selection at some point, but for now, it's enough to know he is an enlightened cinephile.