Ethan Hawke has been acting professionally for the better part of his life. He booked his first movie when he was only 14 years old. A few years later, at the age of 18, he had his breakout role in Peter Weir's Oscar-winning Dead Poets Society. Hawke himself has a total of four Oscar nominations to his name: In 2002, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Training Day; in 2005 and 2014, Best Adapted Screenplay for co-writing the second and third entries in the Before Sunset trilogy with Richard Linklater and Julie Delpy; and in 2015, he was once again nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Boyhood.
They are milestones in a career that has spanned nearly 40 years and seen Hawke live many creative lives, as an actor, a writer and a filmmaker. The later realization — that he wanted to direct movies too — came around the time he starred in Dead Poets Society.
"When you're a young actor, you have this idea that the director is in charge, and then at some point, some part of you invariably thinks, 'I want to be in charge,'" he says with a laugh. "I had a really great experience when I did Dead Poets Society. Peter Weir was a master. I really admired him and that gave me something to aspire for." Hawke directed his first short film the following year.
Over the years, Hawke has helmed four feature films, a documentary, and a six-part docuseries (2022's The Last Movie Stars, about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward). His latest directorial effort is Wildcat, a novel take on the biopic in which his daughter, the actress Maya Hawke, plays novelist Flannery O'Connor. In choosing the roles that he plays and the films that he makes, for Hawke, it's always about the people he gets to work with.
"In this case, it was Maya. I did that whole Marvel project [Moon Knight] because I met Oscar Isaac at a coffee shop, and I walked away like, 'I like that guy. I want to work with him. I'm going to do that.' I'm glad I did," he recounts. "It's really embarrassing, but I've had no agenda my whole life. I've just followed my intuition… none of it really makes any sense, but it's accumulated into my life. And I've just learned to trust it."
Below, Hawke shares with A.frame the five films that changed his life.
Directed by: Warren Beatty | Written by: Warren Beatty and Trevor Griffiths
One of the first films that really inspired me was Warren Beatty's Reds, with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson. I guess I'm a romantic, and there was something so powerful about that love story. It came out in 1981 when you couldn't even talk about any positive elements of communism or ideology behind it, and it seemed like such a dangerous movie when it came out. That he was going to make a movie about John Reed and the inspiration behind that movement, and their love story, that was powerful to me. And the acting is so good in it!
Written and Directed by: Spike Lee
I think that Do The Right Thing is a masterpiece. I remember walking out of the movie theater and I just couldn't talk to anybody. I couldn't speak. It's really rare that you can make a political movie that is so personal. It doesn't have an agenda with you besides the truth. And it's so funny, and the use of color. It was Spike Lee finding his absolute original voice and just throttling you with the truth. I saw it at the anniversary screening, and it was painful how it felt it would be just as original and just as timely now as it was then. It was a painful reality. And that's what great art can do.
Directed by: Stuart Rosenberg | Written by: Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson
I'd be a liar if I didn't include Cool Hand Luke. I saw it screened when I was about 21 and there's something so heartbreaking about the movie! You know, "What we have here is a failure to communicate." I could put Cool Hand Luke and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest as a great double feature about how society breaks us, those two movies with Newman and Nicholson. I'm now wanting to do double features, because what all I'm giving you is times I remember a movie hitting me in the heart really hard.
[Newman] has an uncanny ability to be present in front of the camera. I love watching him. He figured out how to use his good looks, and his intelligence, and his humanity, and channel it into a character. And his ability to be both insanely vulnerable, insecure, and confident in the same moment, that's what makes him vibrate as a performer so remarkably.
Directed by: Martin Scorsese | Written by: Paul Schrader
Another double feature I saw when I was really falling in love with movies was Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. I remember leaving the movie theater thinking that I really should quit, because everything that I ever wanted to do with my life had already been done. The two of them are masterpieces that just knocked me on my ass. The thing about great movies is they're not just entertainment, they become a part of your life. It becomes an experience seeing it. They do entertain you, but they leave you somewhere better than they found you. Your own personal insight into humanity expands with the experience presented to you.
Written and Directed by: Richard Linklater
When I saw Dazed and Confused, I felt like whoever made this movie, I have to work with him. And I got to meet Richard Linklater and we've made nine movies since then. So, Days and Confused quite literally changed my life.