Paul Schrader Says ‘First Reformed’ and ‘Affliction’ are the Best Films of His Career

Last week, Paul Schrader was in Japan, screening his ’80s biopic “Mishima,” a dazzling and controversial portrait of Japanese author Yukio Mishima that was banned in Japan upon its release due to intense political and cultural sensitivities surrounding Mishima himself. It was finally shown there — 40 years later.

Schrader has also been in the middle of putting the finishing touches on “The Basics of Philosophy,” starring Jack Huston, a film centered on a university philosophy professor and shot in the stylistic mold of Schrader’s “Man in a Room” trilogy: First Reformed, The Card Counter, and Master Gardener.

Schrader is now telling The Film Stage that there are just two more weeks of mixing ‘Basics’ before it’ll be put in the can, ready to premiere at a festival — maybe Cannes, maybe Venice. In the middle of all that, he’s planning to shoot two movies next year: one a film noir (“Non Compos Mentis”) and the other tackling “malafemmena,” or female betrayal.

Suffice to say, the man is 79 and refusing to hang up his gloves. He could have easily done so, as any sane individual might, especially after his recent health scares, which included respiratory failure, severe pneumonia, and a detached retina. Hell, Schrader shot 2022’s ‘Master Gardener’ while carrying an oxygen tank around the set. But Schrader bows down to the church of cinema — it’s in his DNA — and it looks like he’ll never stop.

In this same interview, Schrader is asked, with now over 50 years of filmmaking under his belt, what he believes to be his best film. Is it “Mishima”, the film he once hailed as his masterpiece? Here what he said a few years ago:

It’s the one I’d stand by – as a screenwriter it’s Taxi Driver, but as a director it’s Mishima.

Schrader now seems to have changed his tune. ‘Mishima’ is the one he’s “proudest” of, but his best? It’s down to two films, which he can’t choose between, and which would also be my two picks:

I think “Affliction” and “First Reformed” are probably the most complete, solid films I’ve made, and “Light Sleeper” is probably the most personal to me.

I’d add another one, which goes unmentioned: 1978’s “Blue Collar,” a gritty, tense, and occasionally comic portrayal of three Detroit auto-plant workers — Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto — who rob their own union and uncover corruption that tears them apart. It doesn’t get talked about enough, but very much worth your time.

However, who are we kidding here? Schrader’s masterpiece isn’t a piece of direction, but rather the landmark “Taxi Driver” script he wrote for Martin Scorsese — a dark tackling of urban decay that still defines America to this day and presented us with one of the greatest anti-heroes in cinema history. Nothing Schrader has ever done since has replicated the game impact that was Travis Bickle.

So, what about you? With such an accomplished career, which Paul Schrader film is your favorite — the raw realism of “Blue Collar,” the religious existentialism of “First Reformed,” or perhaps you agree with me, it’s “Taxi Driver”?