For me, Fellini was like a watermelon. It is there. A watermelon cannot die.

Roberto Benigni

I like so many different directors: Scorsese, Coppola, Cassavetes, Jarmusch, Gus van Sant, Woody Allen and the greats like Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky and among current filmmakers von Trier, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I spend a lot of time in Paris, in Milan, and in New York, and Rome is a little bit different. There is something in Rome, incredible, like in a Fellini movie. Everybody's screaming and laughing very loud. It's something that can give me more energy in terms of freedom.

Alessandro Michele

My favorite favorites are people like Bunuel, Fellini and Charlie Chaplin.

Alex Winter

In a sense, 'Schmidt' is the most Omaha of my films. But have I gotten it right? I'm not sure. Did Fellini get Rome right? Did Ozu get Tokyo right?

Alexander Payne

It was I who made Fellini famous, not the other way around.

Anita Ekberg

I'm a huge fan of Italian new realism, work by directors like Fellini and Vittorio De Sica. Their image of women is so beautiful.

Anna Mouglalis

My mother is like a character who escaped from the set of a Fellini film. She's a whole performing universe of her own. Activists would run a mile from her because they could not deal with what she is.

Arundhati Roy

I think about a Richard Avedon photo series, the kind of faces he gets of real people, which I find so captivating. Fellini was also great in filling his films with this ambiance, this environment, sometimes chaotic and carnival-like, but people's faces were always amazing.

Cary Fukunaga

I was influenced by Ray Harryhausen and Lotte Reiniger, with her twitchy, cutout animation, which I happened to see at a very young age, but also by the Warner Bros. cartoons, 'Tom and Jerry,' and of course Disney. And also by Fellini's 'Giulietta of the Spirits' and Kurosawa's 'Ran.' And by other American illustrators and painters.

Henry Selick

'La Notte' is my favorite of the Antonioni pictures and my favorite work of the master cinematographer Gianni di Venanzo, who also shot '8 1/2' for Fellini.

Jake Paltrow

New York's like a boxing match. In Hollywood, it's like a Fellini movie or something.

John Cusack

Fellini was a little lofty for a teenage boy, but certainly he was a huge influence.

John Waters

There was a film that really affected me, 'La Strada' by Fellini, where Anthony Quinn and Giulietta Masina travel around on his little motorcycle thing.

Kris Kristofferson

Well, Fellini... there is always Fellini.

Louis Malle

I could spend my whole life photographing circuses. They combine everything I'm interested in - they're ironic, poetic, and corny at the same time. There's also something about a circus that's magical, sentimental, and almost tragic, like a Fellini film.

Mary Ellen Mark

I loved all movies, literally. I certainly loved 'Shane' and 'Roxie Hart.' Later on, when I was less of a kid, I loved 'L'Avventura' and 'Persona' and all Fellini movies and like everybody else I loved John Ford. Then and now, I loved Preston Sturges, maybe above anyone.

Mike Nichols

There are beauty icons that I can never be like, sorta like a Gena Rowlands - I'll never have that look. I love Giulietta Masina, the great Fellini actress. But I'm probably more Seymour Cassel. Or somewhere between Lou Reed and Nora Ephron?

Natasha Lyonne

But, I'm a big Johnny Cash and a big Lou Reed fan and a Fellini fan.

Noah Taylor

With 'Brick' there was the Dashiell Hammett influence, and with 'Brothers Bloom' there was a really strong Fellini influence - both those movies wore that on their sleeve.

Rian Johnson

Fellini and Bunuel changed my life for me, they are my favourites. If it is true that movies are dreams, both of them, Fellini and Bunuel were shooting in a dream way.

Roberto Benigni