Ang Lee Quotes

I don't think the audience always listens to the critics. That's been proven time and time again.

I do know my own films don't necessarily work within that high-pressure reductive moment of the opening weekend - or all the ways that many people assess the value of movies.

People feel the worst film I made was 'Jack.' But to this day, when I get checks from old movies I've made, 'Jack' is one of the biggest ones. No one knows that. If people hate the movie, they hate the movie. I just wanted to work with Robin Williams.

I don't read the critics.

I learned a lot about critics, not to really take them too seriously about movies.

I don't think 'Cocktail' was a perfect critical success, but it touched a vein in our culture.

The culture of independent film criticism has totally gone down the drain and this seems to come with the territory of the consumer age that we are now living in.

A strange thing happens when Spielberg discusses his own work. His degree of self-criticism seems a direct reflection of each film's box-office performance. You will not catch him complaining that the audience 'didn't get' a film; if it didn't do well, it generally didn't deserve to.

I believe in good films and bad films. Box-office business and all is my husband's section. Sometimes I really get surprised when good films don't do well... Sometimes you are really shocked when an average film does very well.

If you ask my opinion, I don't look at a film according to its box office collection.

I don't judge cinema on its box-office success.

I do feel bad when my films don't do well, but I respect audiences' verdict because they know well which films to support. If they don't like a film, we should accept it.

You can't expect critics to appreciate all kinds of cinema.

In LA I was watching At the Movies with Ebert and Roper, it was, nice to see them differentiate between the subject matter and the art form of making the film, and they both gave it thumbs up, and I was kind of pleased at their honesty as far as reviewers go.

I feel reviewers are tougher on comedies in general. They don't take them seriously, and the ones that get great reviews are not necessarily the ones that I like.

Critics? Don't talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I don't.

People can criticise all day long, I think I've proven myself, I think I deliver. And I agree, box office does not mean a movie's good, but I feel like I'm making good movies and I'm delivering in box office.

I don't believe that you can judge the worth of a movie in the atmosphere in which it comes out the first time. There's just so many reasons why some pictures don't catch on.

A film cannot make it into the culture without the support of critics.

It's a good question, because a movie isn't good or bad based on its politics. It's usually good or bad for other reasons, though you might agree or disagree with its politics.

I was seeing a lot of really good things about Get Shorty when it came out, and my wife pointed out that if you validate the good reviews, you also have to validate the bad reviews.

I read every single review, because I love film criticism and I'm interested.

If you make action movies, the critics will savage you, and then your movies are outdated the following week with the new wave of special effects.

The greater part of critics are parasites, who, if nothing had been written, would find nothing to write.

How do you rate works of genius? Partly by personal inclination, partly by accepted wisdom, partly by popularity.