Spielberg says “Green Book" is his favorite buddy movie since “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

Practically every day I get asked the same question: “what movie should I watch?” It’s become such a mundane query, given that you have to figure out what kind of movie tastes the person asking might have; Do they like drama? arthouse? Token Hollywood-ist conventionality? It’s very hard to just blurt out “Roma!” to every single person that asks because, truth be told, “Roma” is not as easily accessible a movie as, say, “Green Book.” However, I’ve been just saying “Green Book” to everybody since November, not out of sheer laziness but because I do truly believe it is the most universally loved movie at the moment. It’s such an easy recommendation. A sure-fire crowd-pleaser that has an A+ CinemaScore and an impressive 8.3 rating on IMDB. You’d be hard pressed to find a Joe or Jane popcorn moviegoer that doesn’t like Peter Farrelly’s Oscar-nominated film. I sure as hell haven’t. Everybody I’ve recommended it to came back to me raving about it.

And so, I was delighted to read that Steven Spielberg is also a fan, not just that, but that he also watched it five times and compared it to the buddy movie to end all buddy movie. From Anthony D’Allessandro’s Deadline write-up titled “How Steven Spielberg Changed the Course For “Green Book”:

“Spielberg watched [“Green Book”] at 8AM and called me at 10AM,” said Farrelly. “He flipped and said it was his favorite buddy movie since “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

“Oscar-nominated “Green Book” editor Patrick J. Don Vito added that Spielberg loved the movie so much “he watched it five times over two weeks.” The pic was on a DCP which has a code, and Spielberg called every time he wanted to watch “Green Book.”

Spielberg has been in the news of late for other reasons. While accepting the Filmmaker Award at the Cinema Audio Society’s CAS Awards, he took the time to shoot some darts at streaming services, most notably Netflix, and their inability to match, what he called, the “theatrical experience”:

“I hope all of us really continue to believe that the greatest contributions we can make as filmmakers is to give audiences the motion picture theatrical experience,” he said. “I’m a firm believer that movie theaters need to be around forever.” He went on to praise a number of elements about the home viewing experience, including the sound, given his audience, but he added, “but there’s nothing like going to a big dark theater with people you’ve never met before and having the experience wash over you. That’s something we all truly believe in.”