Annie Hall is definitely my number one. It sets the standard for all other relationship movies. I still try to watch it every couple of months – it’s like hanging out with an old friend. 

I especially love the lobster scenes because, well, it’s the worst. You know it right away. A joke that maybe you had made with your last girlfriend, some shared experience that you enjoyed together, and you try to somehow recreate it with somebody new and… it just falls on such deaf ears. And that moment when Woody’s new girl is smoking in the kitchen and he says, “I haven’t been myself since I quit smoking.” “Oh, when was that?” and he says: “16 years ago.” “Um, I don’t get it; are you joking?” Oh, God, that moment, it’s cringeworthy but it’s also so relatable, and it’s kind of great because it’s a signifier of how rare it is to find somebody like that.

So that’s why I like Annie Hall. It’s well-observed and it has jokes in too. It’s universally relatable, intrinsically relatable. Even that Marshall McLuhan moment, I’ve had that. They start going on about something you don’t know anything about and there’s that temptation to say: “You know what, I happen to have Marshall McLuhan right here.” Completely refutes the guy. “If only life were this easy.” 

In fact, that’s one of the very few times I like it when people break the fourth wall and look at the camera. They employ a lot of devices like that that I don’t normally go in for – the great subtitle scene, with all the subtext of what they are talking on screen. And then the movie ends with that same, first person narration. It’s not to camera, sure, but, you know… “we all need the eggs.”

In fact, Annie Hall is the form of romantic comedy and everything else is trying to reach that form. Simple as that, really.