Newsweek has a regular feature, a single column running up the right side of a page in the early section of the magazine, where they ask artists about their favorite works in their own medium. Novelists get asked about their five “most important” books in their lives, the one they were disappointed with when they reread it, and the one they would want people to share with their kids. Back in July of last year, timed to coincide with the release of Hellboy II, Newsweek featured Guillermo Del Toro in their “A Life in Movies” column. (It’s in the July 7-14 issue, p. 16.)

GDT’s answers to the question are revealing. We all know the man is widely read and enjoys a broad range of culture, from pop genre items to classics of literature and art cinema. Not all the titles on the list would be familiar to those who haven’t studied film history. Here’s a rundown.

Los Olvidados (1950). The great Spanish director Luis Buñuel made several films in Mexico during the 1950s. This is generally considered the best of them. It’s a dark tales of boys in the slums, though it has surrealist touches that are probably what make GDT refer to it as a “dark fable.”

The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). More familiar to those who watch classic black-and-white films from Hollywood’s golden age. This was one of the Universal horror series that helped keep the studio going during the Depression, also including Dracula, The Invisible Man, The Mummy, and The Old Dark House. Coincidentally, Ian McKellen, who will be playing Gandalf in The Hobbit, starred as James Whale, director of The Bride of Frankenstein, in the excellent Gods and Monsters.

Greed (1924). The masterpiece of the very small Naturalist strain in Hollywood filmmaking in the 1920s. Erich Von Stroheim brought the film in at eight hours, and it was taken out of his hands and cut down to less than three. Apparently the footage was destroyed, though it remains high on most silent-cinema lovers’ list of films they would most like to see discovered and restored.

The Gold Rush (1925). GDT is obviously a Chaplin fan, and as he says, this one contains “at least a third of Charlie Chaplin’s iconic moments.”

La Chienne (1931). Even people who have seen the two most famous masterpieces of Jean Renoir, Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, most likely don’t know this film. The 1930s was a miraculous decade for Renoir, who turned out one great film after another. La Chienne (1931) was the first of them, the tale of an artist who falls for a floozy who bilks him of everything.

The film that most disappointed him upon reviewing: Crime and Punishment. There have been many film adaptations of the novel, but I suspect GDT meant Crimen y Castigo, a 1950 version made late in the career of the respected older-generation Mexican director Fernando de Fuentes.

The film he hopes parents will share with children. GDT cheats and mentions two. One, The Little Princess (1995) is the critically acclaimed but financially unsuccessful classic directed in Hollywood by GDT’s countryman Alfonso Cuarón. It was an early case of what has become far more common these days, a successful Mexican director making the transition to Hollywood films, most notably Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Children of Men.

The second is The Iron Giant, another critical success and box-office disappointment, the first feature by Brad Bird, subsequently of Pixar fame.

It’s a fascinating list and reflects, not surprisingly, a somewhat eccentric taste. It also contains a bunch of excellent films. Most of these titles are available on DVD, though I couldn’t find La Chienne. Look for Los Olvidados under the title The Young Ones.

A note. I’m off for three weeks, doing my annual volunteer work on an expedition in Egypt. I’ll have minimal access to the internet, so I probably won’t be posting another entry until after I get back on March 15. I promise then I’ll do the Tolkien Trust wrap-up that I’ve mentioned.