Robert Eggers Quotes

You have to be honest about what kind of films you want to make.

I want my movies to be audience experiences. As much as I like Michael Haneke, I'm not going to make a Haneke film. That's just not in my DNA.

A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake.

I wouldn't take a directing job if I didn't think it was enriching life.

Without a doubt, I was born to want to make cinema, but the kind of cinema I want to make is not like commercial movies, which I enjoy myself, but I wanted to be the kind of filmmaker who wrote original work, sort of like a novelist would who deals with who we are and our times or our relationships.

I love good film, whether it's an independent or studio film. The independent films, I think the good ones aren't necessarily eccentric ones but they're the more specific ones.

I really want to do film, but I want to do the right film. The truth for me is that I'm really driven by stories. So there are stories I want to tell, and if it's a good story then I want to do it, whatever genre it is.

I firmly believe that emotions are universal, and I know that when they connect with the audience, it works. There is no such thing as an entertaining or a serious film; there are good films and bad films. Good films will always find a vast audience.

I feel like the great filmmakers who have a true voice, yeah they take the notes, they understand the notes, but it's really about the notes underneath the notes. When you do a test screening and somebody says, 'Well, I didn't like the love story,' but it was probably just too long.

I'm not going to take something based on budget and do something just for the sake of it. I want to make good films.

I don't want to do a history lesson. I don't think cinema should be about that. Cinema should be about emotions.

That's what I wanted to do... I wanted to make a great film that just happened to be based on a video game.

I want my films to do the talking. I feel if people have to understand me better, I should do more good films. I just want them to know me through my films.

When I make a film, the yardstick is my mind. If I laugh at the jokes and feel sad at the serious undersides, then the subject works.

I'm always making movies for my audiences, but I'm not trying to meet their expectations.

As a filmmaker, I really want to utilize the tools to carry the voice - my voice, and the voice of the characters.

Luck, I never looked to make difficult movies on purpose. You make the films you can make.

It was unpredictable, good storytelling that brought you back each week.

I don't believe moviegoers don't have patience. Screenwriters are told a scene can't be longer than three minutes, that you have to cut to the chase. Not true!

I think that three-act fundamentalism in film culture is a problem sometimes, because it's almost too obvious, or it's too expected. And it's not the only way to fill two hours, or to phrase things, or to order thoughts, or order ideas.

The technology is really where all of the changes have taken place, but the fundamentals of a good story being the basis of every good picture, and really the only basis still remains the rule, more so today, I think, because we've unfortunately weaned an audience from birth to kind of mindless movies.

As a storyteller, when you're writing a movie and when you're directing, you want to keep people entertained. That's the whole point, right? It has to be entertaining.

What I keep searching for in movies, more and more, is the right gravity.

I think that those are the things that you can uniquely do with film that are difficult to do anywhere else: they can bring a picture to life, give it a natural and historical context and make you feel that everything else is suddenly credible.

And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.