Edgar Wright’s latest movie, The Running Man, hits theaters in November, based on the Stephen King novel and previously adapted in the 1980s with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead. Schwarzenegger himself has said the new movie is loyal to King’s story, and the early Running Man reactions are positive, which is no surprise for a Wright movie.

Edgar Wright has always been open about the filmmakers and movies that influenced him over his career. This has been evident from his breakout movie, Shaun of the Dead, to his later efforts like Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho. With The Running Man as his latest success, here are the biggest movies that influenced Edgar Wright’s career.

Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

Edgar Wright showed great respect for George A. Romero in his breakout film, Shaun of the Dead. Of course, Romero created the modern-day zombies with his breakout horror movie Night of the Living Dead, and Wright both paid homage to that classic while also adding some biting humor to create a perfect horror-comedy.

To make things even better, Romero loved Shaun of the Dead and invited both Edgar Wright and star Simon Pegg to have a cameo in his next zombie movie, Land of the Dead. Wright and Pegg played zombies in that movie, and it was clearly a huge moment for the young filmmaker as he was making his own career path.

Shaun of the Dead remains a beloved zombie horror-comedy, and it was clear he owed much of that success to studying the films of George A. Romero.

The Italian Job (1969)

After Edgar Wright released Baby Driver, he mentioned films that influenced it. Wright offered his influences on a BFI streaming series called Edgar Wright presents Car Car Land, and he named 10 classic movies that influenced Baby Driver. Wright’s film was about a getaway driver who finds his life in danger when he wants to find a way out.

Among those movies, one of the most notable was the 1969 Steve McQueen film The Italian Job. “I am a fan of action cinema in its purest form, and the best film car chases are some of the most glorious collisions of sound and image in the art form,” Wright said when introducing the list of films he pulled from.

According to Wright, he looked at the scene in Turin, which is where the Mini chase took place in The Italian Job. He also pointed to Quincy Jones’ music during the chase scenes, which Wright focused on above all else in his movie, ensuring the songs matched the car chase’s beats.

Peeping Tom (1960)

Edgar Wright took the time to count down his 10 favorite Criterion Collection films, and he had a dark thriller on his list in the neo-noir Peeping Tom. In fact, when discussing that film, he admitted that he edited Scott Pilgrim vs The World on Charlotte Street in London, and two locations from Peeping Tom were right outside his door.

He admitted how weird it was to see the streets he traveled on every day used in a haunting, disturbing film, and it really affected him when he saw it on the big screen for the first time. He said that after that big-screen experience, he began thinking about Peeping Tom every day, especially when out on those streets again.

There is a lot of Peeping Tom in Wright’s horror movie Last Night in Soho. Wright chose to shoot much of his film in familiar locations around London, and this might influence later filmmakers who see their home in his movie, much like Peeping Tom influenced Wright himself.

Rushmore (1998)

While it might not have influenced a specific movie, Edgar Wright credits Wes Anderson’s Rushmore as a film that influenced him as a filmmaker in general. If anything, there might be a lot of Rushmore to see in Wright’s initial television sitcom, Spaced. It seems from his discussions about the film that he sees a little of himself in Max Fischer.

Jason Schwartzman, who played Max Fischer in Rushmore, later appeared in Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, a full-circle moment for the filmmaker and one of his greatest influences. When breaking down the movie, Wright said it was “a brilliant gem by Wes Anderson, and one that still shines brightly today.“

Wright also admits that this movie influences many of the young filmmakers working in cinema today. The director said people can see its influence in music videos, commercials, TV shows, and other movies, and it is “an undeniable cult classic.”

Le Samourai (1967)

Le Samouraï is one of the greatest neo-noir movies of all time, a French crime thriller by auteur Jean-Pierre Melville. The movie stars Alain Delon as Jef Costello, an assassin betrayed by one of his main clients. The film is notable for the fact that Jef says almost nothing throughout the movie and lets his actions speak for him.

Edgar Wright said he watches it repeatedly and loves its minimalist style. He also borrowed from it for his movie Hot Fuzz. It wasn’t the quiet hero who influenced the film. Instead, it was the scenes he borrowed from Le Samouraï, including one with the hero lying alone on his bed in a bare apartment.

Shocking, it was the bare dialogue that Wright loved the most. However, he has never chosen to implement that in his movies, which are full of rich dialogue. That said, he noted that it is what makes Le Samouraï a “must-watch.”

Repulsion (1965)

If there is one movie that strongly influenced Edgar Wright’s horror thriller Last Night in Soho, it is Roman Polanski’s 1965 film Repulsion. That movie was Polanski’s first American movie and follows a young woman repulsed by sex who is haunted by disturbing images. Some independent theaters even showed a Repulsion trailer before Wright’s film.

Wright said there were 25 films from the 1960s that inspired Last Night in Soho or that he watched while making the movie that influenced him. He said he shared them with the cast and crew to provide further inspiration beyond the script and production. One of these was Repulsion.

Last Night in Soho and Repulsion share similar themes, with the young women having horrific visions and remaining unsure of what is real and what is in their minds. Both also have a London flat, turning from a boring little room to a terror-filled, claustrophobic place of hallucinations.

The Wicker Man (1973)

The similarities between The Wicker Man and Hot Fuzz are undeniable. Both feature a by-the-book cop going to a small village only to find that it is the coven for a cult-like group with their own ulterior motives for committing murder. According to Simon Pegg, they watched 138 action films before making Hot Fuzz, and The Wicker Man was first.

Looking at Edward Woodward’s performance in The Wicker Man, it is easy to see that it strongly influenced Simon Pegg’s performance as Nicholas Angel, and Pegg even referred to Woodward’s character as “the grandfather” of his character. “Angel is this fastidious, uptight, absolutely by-the-book, humorous, blowhard spoilsport, almost,” Pegg said.

It is also notable that Hot Fuzz also stars Edward Woodward. However, instead of being the cop who encounters the village’s cult, he is one of the cult’s leaders, the head of the Neighborhood Watch Alliance, and someone with a hand in several of the murders in Edgar Wright’s movie.

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

Edgar Wright has mastered the use of music over his career as a filmmaker. He knows how to add music to amplify the scene’s themes and establish the mood. He also has incredible needle drops that remain iconic in all of his movies. Baby Driver is where he uses music to its most significant effect.

Edgar Wright once listed the 10 movies he could rewatch forever, and This Is Spinal Tap made the list. Of those movies, Wright said This Is Spinal Tap was one of the films he “can silently mouth along with every single line of.” He also said he doesn’t know if the filmmakers knew how influential the movie would become.

Wright finished by saying that This Is Spinal Tap is the one film that influences every UK comedy writer, actor, and director of his generation.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)

Edgar Wright’s first movie wasn’t Shaun of the Dead. Instead, it was a no-budget movie he made in 1995 called A Fistful of Fingers. This was even before he began working with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It is a Western comedy about a cowboy who chases a wanted man who caused the death of his horse.

The movie was 78 minutes long and cost $15,000 to make. The title suggests that one of Edgar Wright’s main influences for the movie was Sergio Leone’s Fistful of Dollars trilogy. When breaking down films he wanted his fans to watch, Wright listed the last movie in the trilogy, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

“It’s appropriate that an Italian version of an American genre would give us filmmaking at its most operatic,” Wright said about the Clint Eastwood Man with No Name masterpiece. Wright pointed to Leone’s visual storytelling and Ennio Morricone’s musical score as examples of the “sheer beauty of cinema.”

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)

The last movie in the Three Cornetto Trilogy by Edgar Wright was the least appreciated of the three films. That is disappointing because there is a lot to love about The World’s End. Shaun of the Dead was a zombie horror movie, Hot Fuzz was a buddy cop film, and The World’s End was a sci-fi alien invasion movie.

It makes sense that one of the main inspirations for any alien invasion movie would be Invasion of the Body Snatchers. However, Edgar Wright emphasized that it wasn’t the original, which he still likes, but the 1978 remake by Philip Kaufman.

“I especially like the remake… It’s one of my favorite films. I grew up with a lot of those films, and they were always on TV when I was a kid.“

The World’s End even had pod people, but in robot form. Both movies also featured the iconic “point and scream” moment. In Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it was Donald Sutherland’s character, and in The World’s End, it was one of the robots. It was yet another masterpiece that influenced Edgar Wright’s career.

Sources: Indie Wire, Criterion Collection, Stop Smiling, Far Out Magazine, It Came From