Luca Guadagnino Names ‘Ghosts of Mars’ One of the Best Films of the 21st Century

Luca Guadagnino, “Call Me By Your Name” and “I Am Love,” has long floated between arthouse elegance and genre thrills, often in the same film. But his latest hot take? It’s one for the books.

In his submitted list, for The New York Times, Guadagnino was asked to name the 10 best films of the 21st century. His picks included “In the Mood for Love,” and “Millennium Mambo.” Strong choices. Respectable. Wong Kar-wai and Hou Hsiao-hsien. Peak arthouse. The kind of answer that gets approving nods at dinner parties in the Marais.

Then came his #3: John Carpenter’s “Ghosts of Mars.”

Yes, that “Ghosts of Mars.” The 2001 space-Western-slash-Industrial-metal-hangout-movie featuring Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge, and a whole lot of red lighting. A film that was, at the time of its release, universally panned and widely assumed to be Carpenter’s final creative gasp. A film where Jason Statham has hair. A film that most critics would rather pretend doesn’t exist. But Guadagnino? He clearly sees something else.

What makes this even funnier is that Guadagnino’s list also included Catherine Breillat’s “Fat Girl,” another boundary-pushing, deeply uncomfortable Euro provocateur film that’s about as far from “Ghosts of Mars” as one can get tonally—unless, of course, you’re Luca, in which case they’re probably in conversation about “bodies in revolt” or “dissolution of structure under oppressive regimes.”

Is he trolling? I don’t think so. And to be fair, all of Carpenter’s films, even the terrible ones, hsve been undergoing critical reappraisal in recent years. Some might even argue that “Ghosts of Mars” a misunderstood genre pastiche, Carpenter’s middle finger to Hollywood expectations. Others could think it’s dumb fun. Guadagnino? He apparently thinks it belongs in the same league as Wong Kar-wai.

Say what you will, but the man commits to the bit. We eagerly await a 4K Criterion reissue with a Guadagnino commentary track.