Jason Momoa Names The Five Movies That Mean The Most To Him
Jason Momoa may be famous for playing tough heroes and loud villains, but the movies that shaped him tell a quieter and more intense story. In an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, the actor opened up about the films that left the biggest mark on him and helped shape the way he looks at acting and storytelling.
Momoa started with Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic The Shining. He made it clear that his love for the film is deeply tied to Jack Nicholson’s performance. Trying to explain why Nicholson means so much to him, Momoa admitted it was hard to put into words. He’s a god to me. I love him. I don’t know how to properly explain why, but he’s just fantastic, he said. He added that Nicholson’s mix of humor, danger, and charm is something no one else has ever matched.
Looking back at his younger years, Momoa named The Last of the Mohicans as a childhood favorite. He talked about the feeling of the film and said the music still sticks with him today. According to Momoa, the soundtrack alone makes it one of the most powerful movie experiences he remembers growing up with.
His respect for great acting came up again when he spoke about Daniel Day-Lewis. Momoa pointed to Gangs of New York and focused on Day-Lewis’s role as Bill the Butcher. If you watched Gangs of New York, it sucked, but then you see him as Bill the Butcher, it’s unbelievable, he said, making it clear that the performance stood above everything else in the film.
Momoa also shared his love for director Terry Gilliam, especially his work on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He praised Gilliam’s creativity and wild imagination, saying he was amazed by how the director brought such a strange and difficult book to life. Terry Gilliam is phenomenal. I love Terry Gilliam, I just love his mind, Momoa said during the interview.
To close out his list, Momoa talked about films that felt so real they stopped feeling like movies at all. He mentioned Midnight Express and John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence as stories that pulled him in completely. That is not a movie. You do not see anyone going, ‘Cut! I’ll be in my f**** trailer!’ You watch that s***, and you are like, you are in that, he explained, saying this level of realism is what he considers true filmmaking.
Outside of talking movies, Momoa has been busy. As of early 2026, he is coming off the success of Minecraft, where he stars alongside Jack Black in a film that became a major family hit. He is also preparing to return as Dante Reyes in the final main Fast and Furious movie.
At the same time, Momoa is stepping into a bigger creative role with Chief of War for Apple TV+. The limited series, which he co-created and stars in, tells the story of the unification of the Hawaiian Islands and reflects a subject that is very personal to him.
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