Hi, Cinephile Barbies! At this point, it’s near-impossible to avoid the magnificent marketing machine powering the upcoming Warner Bros. live-action adaptation of the famous Mattel doll, which made her debut appearance in 1959. But even before the tie-ins with donuts, Malibu DreamHouses, roller blades, video games and oral health products, Barbie was already the most anticipated film of 2023 on Letterboxd—ahead of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, ahead of Oppenheimer.

The attraction for cinephiles (apart from your unironic, heartfelt childhood connection to the animated movies) is that magic mix of filmmakers behind many, many Letterboxd faves: director Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird and Little Women); her co-writer Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha, starring Gerwig, and Marriage Story); their producer and star Margot Robbie (I, Tonya, her Harley Quinn outings) and her co-star Ryan Gosling (La La Land, Blade Runner 2049, Drive and, never forget, The Notebook). Theirs are the films that make our “most obsessively rewatched” lists, that have the “most fans”, that keep the most comfort. 

Throw in Letterboxd Barbies like Hari Nef, Sarah Greenwood’s perfectly pink production design and Academy Award-winner Jacqueline Durran’s sparkling costumes (both women worked on Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice and Atonement)—plus a Ken in the form of Scorsese/Iñárritu cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto—and you’ve got a bubbly, Technicolor concoction of contemporary and Golden Age Hollywood, complete with plenty of sugar on the rim and novelty curly straw.

Gerwig’s fantasy-comedy-kind-of-musical might be a gargantuan advertisement for a 60-year-old doll, but deep in its plastic heart, it’s a movie made by and for people who love movies—cat-eye glasses and matte paintings and dream ballets, oh my! So forget the Barbie world tour, because you’ve got your own rose-golden ticket to come with Greta Gerwig on this exclusive Letterboxd journey through the official list of films that influenced Barbie—a list that started at 29 and quickly expanded to 33 classic masterpieces.

Let’s move from Oz to Cherbourg—you want to talk about Umbrellas?
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg: that’s an amazing movie and astonishingly beautiful. I loved the use of color and the surrealness. Rodrigo Prieto and I—he shot the film and he’s one of the greatest DPs who ever lived—were talking about that layering of the colors and how you’d shoot five different shades of pink or red in one shot and not have it overwhelm anything, that you feel like there’s separation, but that it’s vibrant. Everything feels painterly, and that was a big part of it.

I noticed Barbie’s hair in one scene was very much like Catherine Deneuve’s.
It is indeed, yes. That was definitely a nod to that Catherine Deneuve hair.

Such gorgeous hair. I also wanted to bring up The Young Girls of Rochefort—I was really reminded of that.
Yeah, we had one of their hats! I tried to, in my list, not do every Jacques Demy movie. The same with Model Shop, another one where he does these amazing constructed worlds that operate on their own rules, which is part of what I was so interested in. Also, they’re just delicious. His movies are delicious.

They’re so sweet and colorful.
Then they also have something underneath that’s quite moving and deep; they’re great.

Rochefort also has Gene Kelly, who’s amazing. You picked a couple of Gene Kelly films.
Well, Gene Kelly was my favorite, I would have to say. When I was growing up, Gene Kelly was my crush, which was weird.

That’s not weird at all! He’s dreamy.
Yeah! I picked An American in Paris for lots of reasons, but the opening: he lives in this tiny apartment and everything folds into everything else. There was something so satisfying about watching him go through his morning routine—that was one of the morning routines I loved. Even though Barbie has much more of an expanse, I was like, “This is a great opening.” Then they have Leslie Caron in these very graphic, beautiful shots against an entirely purple room or an entirely green room; she’s going through her day. It was these flourishes that were almost surreal in that film.

Then I also picked Singin’ in the Rain, which is my favorite movie. There are so many great things in Singin’ in the Rain, but the dream ballet inside of the dream ballet is one of the most incredible, beautiful, completely unhinged things. Don Lockwood’s [Kelly] pitching this idea, then we go into the dream ballet, and then even from there they go into a deeper dream ballet. When he’s dancing with Cyd Charisse with the stairs, and she’s got that long white scarf that floats up—that was sort of how we wanted to model a certain Ken ballet.

The dream ballet in Oklahoma! is also an extraordinary dream ballet, with choreography by Agnes de Mille. Gold Diggers of 1935… has this one really surreal dance number with a bunch of steps. There’s, like, a million tap dancers that go through each other. It’s kind of unreal.

I thought a lot about the lighting of A Matter of Life and Death: at the beginning when she’s talking to the pilot, there’s all this light that flashes on her face of different colors. I was like, “It’s such a simple thing to do, but changing the light on her face is so emotional as she’s talking to him.”

The Red Shoes [is] all over the movie. There’s a shot of her walking up to that house, which I wanted it to feel like that when Barbie walks up to [Weird Barbie’s] house. Ryan Gosling wears a pair of glasses that are the cat-eye glasses that the director wears in it, because I was like, “How stylish and bold that that man’s wearing cat-eye glasses—it’s so fun.” Then Ryan was like, “Can I wear cat-eye glasses?” and I was like, “You definitely can,” and then he had two on.

Again, just the theatricality and the colors and the way that it never pretended to be anything other than on a soundstage, I like that authentic artificiality. It’s really heightened. That whole ballet sequence was very inspiring in that way.

All That Jazz also has that authentic artificiality.
Yes, All That Jazz is a masterpiece. I think it’s incredible. The whole audition sequence at the beginning, which is one of my favorite sequences, where all the dancers are auditioning, but then all this stuff with Jessica Lange and the Gods, and then you see that they’re on a set and she’s talking about his life. It’s extraordinary.

There are these shared existentialism aspects, like the “I think I’m gonna die” sequence and Barbie’s “Do you guys ever think about dying?”
Yes, of course, “I think I’m gonna die.” [Laughs] I didn’t even think of that. That’s true.

One thing I love about Heaven Can Wait is it’s extremely high concept, but it’s always human. There’s nothing about it that makes you feel distanced from it. It totally works, even though in some ways it seems sort of wacky, but when you’re watching, it’s so beautiful. When he’s talking before he doesn’t get on the plane in the Heaven, and it’s like this expanse of white and it has all that ground fog—I remember talking to Rodrigo, and I was like, “How do we get the ground fog?” and he was like, “It’s dry ice. It can’t be done. Don’t make me do it.” I was like, "Okay, okay. I won’t make you do that.”

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: the way [Pedro Almodóvar] layers colors. 2001: A Space Odyssey; I think we all know why. His Girl Friday, because of how fast they talk.

I wanted to ask about His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story, because I love Cary Grant so much. He was one of our greats.
Oh, the best.

Twentieth Century because to me, Margot reminds me of Carole Lombard and Ryan reminds me of John Barrymore in how funny he is. There are scenes where they’re just screaming at each other; I was like, “This is perfect.” There’s a heightened, dramatic thing that John Barrymore does that I showed to Ryan, then he took that and put it in our movie. It was amazing.

The Ladies Man, the Jerry Lewis movie, because of the opening: they built this house that was cut out, and then they moved around the rooms with a camera in this one continuous shot with all these girls getting ready. It’s incredible. That’s where I got the idea for the mirror that has nothing in it that you look through, and it’s just her.

Then, Rear Window for builds, and seeing everything. And the Ship Sails On has a great fake sea. Wings of Desire because it has conversations with an angel—that was that. Then I honestly think The Earrings of Madame de… is on there because it has the most beautiful camera work—I mean, I can’t believe some of those shots. They’re just extraordinary; it’s always a reminder of what we’re all going for.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is also one of my favorite movies. That was there because it was about this maniacal belief in something that seemed sort of crazy, but was actually true, that I thought captured something about Barbie to me. Modern Times because of all the physical humor, of course. I love Pee-wee’s Big Adventure; that’s the best. Also, the rhythm of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure: there’s that section where he gets on a train and is a tramp on a train and sings songs, then he gets bored of it and falls off the train and it takes 60 seconds. It’s hilarious, but it’s just a really short thing. Grease, because Grease is great: it’s a musical about the 1950s, but made in the 1970s and everybody’s 30. Love it.

I had to include The Truman Show both because I watched it again before I made this movie, and because Peter Weir very generously got on the phone with me before I started shooting, and he talked to me for a long time about how he shot it and how they made it work. They shot it actually outside, but they hung lights, so it would feel like it was in a studio. He told me, “I don’t suggest that. It was very hot.” Oh, and also Mon Oncle—and PlayTime, which is not on this list.

I was going to bring up PlayTime, because of the practical sets in Tati’s films.
Incredible, amazing. Jacques Tati is the king of the slow joke. The way those movies unfold are just so perfect. I always thought of Mattel as existing slightly in Jacques Tati’s world.

You were doing amazing; you were talking as fast as His Girl Friday. According to the rest of the list, you got 27 out of 29 [which will turn into a list of 33 by the end of this conversation].
Wait, wait. What are we missing?

Splash and Saturday Night Fever.
Oh, Splash and Saturday Night Fever. Easy, easy. Splash is another movie that is utterly charming and works emotionally, even though it’s so high concept and it’s down to Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks, who are so great. I’m sure the tagline was, like, “Fish Out of Water.” It felt like a crossing-worlds movie… It’s one I’ve loved since I was a kid, too.

Then, Saturday Night Fever, I always had a sense of wanting this to be a movie with an amazing soundtrack. Saturday Night Fever obviously has this incredible soundtrack by the Bee Gees. There’s a documentary about the Bee Gees, and I’d seen it and was so touched by the Bee Gees, and I thought Barbie seemed so disco to me in her heart, because Barbie’s sort of—and I will say this as a lover of Barbie and disco—a little bit dorky in the best way. Saturday Night Fever was a movie that was driven by music, but not a musical. I guess we’re half of a musical.

Yeah, I agree—I don’t think “dorky” should be derogatory.
I know! I always think of Margot saying, “Yay, space!” When she did that, I was like, “That’s Barbie. Barbie is, ‘Yay, space!’”