Ingmar Bergman apparently loved Ghostbusters. He’s not alone among great directors. Even some of the most storied names in film loved popcorn junk once in a while; Film Comment magazine has been collecting lists of directors’ favorite guilty pleasure movies for years now, and The A.V. Club rounded up some of their favorite examples.
John Carpenter’s love for B-movies probably comes as no surprise given his own work (Halloween and Big Trouble in Little China), but he also loves The Conqueror, the notoriously terrible Genghis Khan period piece starring John Wayne that may have endangered the cast and crew by filming near a nuclear weapons test site. Martin Scorsese admitted to liking Exorcist II and Howard Hughes’s opulent (and white-washed) Land of the Pharaohs. And Furious 7 director James Wan is a fan Disney’s Tangled – not really a movie you should feel guilty about enjoying, but it’s not what you’d expect from him.
Some of these movies are terrible or unwatchable today for their dated politics. But people like what people like, whether you’re one of the most famous filmmakers or history or just a random person reading this blog right now. There’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure if you really enjoy it!