Oscars host and talk show legend Conan O’Brien has shared his four favourite films ahead of the Academy Awards ceremony.
O’Brien, 61, spoke with Letterboxd during a premiere appearance promoting Rose Byrne-starring If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. The talk show hero turned podcast host shared his four favourite films last month with the film logging website’s team, and joked he wished he’d “gotten some prep” before the question was asked. Fans have praised O’Brien’s choices and say they are relieved someone who “actually likes movies” is hosting this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. Letterboxd reposted their interview with O’Brien yesterday, where he spoke on the four films which he loved, including one starring the late Gene Hackman.
O’Brien said: “Couldn’t I have gotten some prep for this? Pick any one of the Pink Panther film series with Peter Sellers and that’ll be one of my favourites. Citizen Kane, one of my favourites. I think Unforgiven by Clint Eastwood. I think it’s 1992, it’s a beautiful movie, and I got to meet him once, and I told him that was one of my favourite movies because it’s a very European film.
“Everybody in the film is trying to do the right thing and it only makes things worse, which is not an American sentiment in film. We tend to be more blindly optimistic.
“Duck Soup by the Marx Brothers. And those are not my four all-time favourites. Those are just the ones that popped into my head just in this moment right now. I could give you thirty-five more.” O’Brien has gone on record with other favourite films in previous interviews. The former talk show host had shared some of his favourite horror films in an episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, a podcast he hosts alongside Sona Movsessian and Matt Gourley.
@letterboxd Four Favorites with tomorrow night’s Oscar host, Conan O’Brien 🏆 The 2025 Oscars air live on ABC or Hulu at 4pm PT/7pm ET tomorrow. #oscars2025 #conanobrien #host #letterboxd #fourfavorites #teamcoco #foryou #oscars #actor #redcarpet #interview #filmtok
He said: “I find movies where something’s just off, but it’s not that explicit…That terrifies me. In the movie The Witch, they can just show trees in the distance, and they’re undulating in the breeze, but because of the tone they’ve set and the music, I find that scary … guys dressed up in a leather mask with a chainsaw doesn’t do anything for me.
“I never liked those ’cause I never understood what the rules were. I like to know what the rules are. The Omen scared me.” He called the work of Ari Aster and Robert Eggers “brilliant,” and says their work is “superior” to the past slashers. He said: “Those freak me out. Those are brilliant. I think the horror they’re doing now is maybe superior.”
O’Brien went on to call The Witch, Hereditary and Midsommar his favourite horror films.
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