Barry Jenkins has been a household name to cinephiles of all kinds since dramatically winning Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards in 2017. The “Moonlight” writer/director’s tender approach to trapped and toxic characters — first crystallized in his moving and romantic feature debut “Medicine for the Melancholy” in 2008 — is of particular interest to those invested in seeing complex considerations of the Black American experience reflected richly on screen.

It’s fitting then that the “If Beale Street Could Talk” director shouted out three undisputed American classics about socioeconomic division in his ballot for BFI’s 2022 Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time poll. Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing,” and Charles Burnett’s “Killer of Sheep” each capture an element of the social divisions played out in Jenkins’ later films, though only Lee’s Brooklyn-set tragicomedy from 1989 would break the poll’s ultimate top 25 (ranking at number 24 in the final list). Jenkins also spotlighted Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi epic, “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

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For his international selections, Jenkins called out seven more films. There is Miklós Jancsó’s 1966 “SZEGÉNYLEGÉNYEK” or “The Round-Up” from Hungary: a seven-hour epic about a town withstanding the fall of communism. Also, the tragic romance “In the Mood for Love”: Wong Kar Wai’s widely celebrated 2000 masterpiece out of France and Hong Kong, which snagged fifth in the final poll results. Other French films on Jenkins’ ballot are Med Hondo’s “West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty” and Claire Denis’ “Beau travail.”

Jenkins hasn’t directed a feature film since 2018, but recently produced Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun” and Raven Jackson’s “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt.” Both were for A24, which also produced “Moonlight.” The screenwriter also wrote the upcoming sports biopic “Flint Strong” about Olympian Claressa Shields: the first American woman to win gold in boxing. It will be directed by Rachel Morrison in her feature debut.

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Read on for a list of 10 of Barry Jenkins’ favorite films, and his comments from his 2022 Sight and Sound ballot. He summed up his thoughts on the exercise, “This was impossible. But damn if it wasn’t fun.”

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