Top 50 William Friedkin Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “There is a thin line between the policeman and the criminal. The best cops are always crossed. The best cops are the ones who are able to think like criminals. But for a quirk of fate, they might have been criminals.”

— William Friedkin

2. “But the audience is right. They’re always, always right. You hear directors complain that the advertising was lousy, the distribution is no good, the date was wrong to open the film. I don’t believe that. The audience is never wrong. Never.”

— William Friedkin

3. “I’m not a fan of Star Wars. That is not for me. That is for my nephews and nieces. I don’t get it.”

— William Friedkin

4. “All of the films I have made, that I have chosen to make, are all about the thin line between good and evil. And also the thin line that exists in each and every one of us. That’s what my films are about.”

— William Friedkin

5. “Star Wars gave birth to all the computer-generated superhero films.”

— William Friedkin

6. “I’m not a fan of 3D. But I am a huge fan of digital imagery. Because it allows a filmmaker much more latitude to appreciate their own visions and dreams.”

— William Friedkin

7. “With all of my films that are on DVD and Blu-ray, I have spent weeks with them in a color timing room. Just changing or enhancing them. I have been desaturating the color. Sometimes I will make a scene bluer or redder. I do use the new medium. I believe in it.”

— William Friedkin

8. “I believe it’s true that there’s good and evil in everyone and it’s a constant struggle to have your better angels prevail.”

— William Friedkin

9. “If Star Wars had failed, you wouldn’t have 90 percent of what’s out there today.”

— William Friedkin

10. “The art of movies is to allow the audience to suspend their disbelief. They need to use their imaginations.”

— William Friedkin

11. “I have to see the whole scene in my head before I go out and do it. Which I do. I will envision the entire scene before I shoot it.”

— William Friedkin

12. “I believe today that there is no film and no shot in a film that is worth a squirrel getting a sprained ankle.”

— William Friedkin

13. “Style is something that’s extremely important, but it must grow naturally out of who and what you are and what the material calls for. It cannot be superimposed.”

— William Friedkin

14. “I tend to be attracted to characters who are up against a wall with very few alternatives. And the film then becomes an examination of how they cope with very few options. And that’s, I guess, what interests me in terms of human behavior.”

— William Friedkin

15. “The first work of the director is to set a mood so that the actor’s work can take place, so that the actor can create. And in order to do that, you have to communicate, communicate with the actors. And direction is about communication on all levels.”

— William Friedkin

16. “Edgar Allan Poe is considered the great writer of horror stories, perhaps the greatest – I will say the greatest.”

— William Friedkin

17. “The informing idea of what you want to say and do, that’s what will take you from film school to professional – the idea. That’s what is original to you.”

— William Friedkin

18. “I don’t look back or analyze my films. I just make them. It’s for someone else to look at.”

— William Friedkin

19. “One of my themes is that there is good and evil in everyone. I was not out to make these guys heroes. I really don’t believe in heroes. The best of people have a dark side and it’s a constant struggle for the better side to survive and to thrive.”

— William Friedkin

20. “To me, the art of cinema is the same as the art of painting. The artist takes a 2D medium and gives you the illusion of depth. If you look at any of the great paintings, you have the illusion of depth. Which is part of the art. The same with the great movies.”

— William Friedkin

21. “We all wind up the same way, no matter what our goals or ambitions are. We have nothing at all to say about how we got into this world or how are going to leave it.”

— William Friedkin

22. “Star Wars is one of a handful of films that changed the zeitgeist forever.”

— William Friedkin

23. “I don’t believe that Citizen Kane or Gone With the Wind, or any damn picture that you can name, would be better off in 3D. I think it’s a gimmick. I find 3D distracting.”

— William Friedkin

24. “To me, the art of movies is to take a two-dimensional image and give the illusion of depth.”

— William Friedkin

25. “The Blu-ray is the real cinematech of world cinema. That’s how it’s being preserved. All of these guys that are trying to preserve 35mm negatives? They are wasting their time. There are better ways to see and project this stuff. It’s called digital.”

— William Friedkin

26. “I have seen lampoons of my work. And I have really enjoyed them. But I would never do another version of The Exorcist.”

— William Friedkin

27. “There are many untalented people making millions of dollars in the film business.”

— William Friedkin

28. “I don’t go to the movies much anymore. There’s very little that draws me. I watch mostly the older stuff, and I often don’t sit through the new films.”

— William Friedkin

29. “Even with some of the best action films like The Bourne Ultimatum, which is a great action film with a great chase sequence, so much of it is computer-generated. But that doesn’t bother me. I think it works. It’s fantastic.”

— William Friedkin

30. “You don’t leave the film alone. You have a new audience, and you have a new medium. Why would you leave it alone? Film is not an antique. It’s not a relic. It’s not a Leonardo da Vinci. I don’t want someone painting over a da Vinci or Rembrandt. But these movies aren’t that.”

— William Friedkin

31. “Every time you run a 35mm print, it picks up scratches. It picks up dirt. Sometimes it breaks, and you have to re-splice it. You lose frames. This doesn’t happen with digital or Blu-ray. I think that’s great. Because I love the new media.”

— William Friedkin

32. “The digital process gives me total control over how I want the film to look. The films look like they did when I was first looking through the viewfinder.”

— William Friedkin

33. “Violence is not funny.”

— William Friedkin

34. “Sam Jackson is a director’s dream. Some actors hope to find their character during shooting. He knows his character before shooting. Sam’s old-school. I just got out of his way. I never did more than two takes with Sam.-william friedkin.”

— William Friedkin

35. “I can’t sit through the superhero films. But I watched Draft Day, and it was kind of sweet in an old-fashioned way.”

— William Friedkin

36. “If you call yourself a non-believer, you’re referring to disbelief in something, and you’re acknowledging that there is something to believe in or not.”

— William Friedkin

37. “The studios are making fewer films. They are making more expensive films. Profits are tougher to come by. Not only because of the expense of production. But also because of the expense of promotion and hype. To boil that all down, it’s more about hype than it is about filmmaking.”

— William Friedkin

38. “And it was only a week later that I realized a close up of Steve McQueen was worth the greatest landscape you could find.”

— William Friedkin

39. “I had absolutely no focus as a kid. I never paid attention at school, I never went to college. Not because we were too poor; we were. But if I wanted to go to college, I would have found a way.”

— William Friedkin

40. “There are films that I’ve made that I like a little bit more than the others. But the films that I mostly watch, and see over and over again, are not my own.”

— William Friedkin

41. “God knows, as a minority, gay people have taken serious lumps for their sexual preferences. As has every minority.”

— William Friedkin

42. “You are always cheating for the audience.”

— William Friedkin

43. “I don’t think sexuality defines a person. It’s one small part of who you are, in my view. You are many things, and I never felt that people were defined by their sexuality solely.”

— William Friedkin

44. “When you make a Blu-ray, its not the same as the print process was. You have little or no control over any print that was ever made. You are a victim of the 35mm printing process.”

— William Friedkin

45. “If you’re a movie star, the studios don’t want you to act. They just want you to show up and look good and chase girls and have a lot of laughs.”

— William Friedkin

46. “I’ve seen my own films close to a thousand times in one form or another. When you edit them. When you shoot them. Then you run them over and over again for sound and music. Then you’d go to premiere screenings, and have to do promotional screenings in other cities. I can’t watch any of my old films.”

— William Friedkin

47. “Sure, you could go out and make Jaws today. But all of the sequels to Jaws weren’t good. They are all worthless. The Godfather II is the only sequel that I have ever seen that is as good as or better than the original.”

— William Friedkin

48. “Technique is of less interest than character and story.”

— William Friedkin

49. “All the great countries are at odds with one another over something, and yet if they don’t cooperate they’re going to blow up.”

— William Friedkin

50. “The thing that interests me is the good and evil in everybody. I don’t have conventional heroes in the films that I directed, because I believe there’s good and evil in everybody.”

— William Friedkin