“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” That famous line from Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is also the unifying thread in the Noah Baumbach cinematic universe. From The Squid and the Whale to Marriage Story, the director dives deep into what holds people together — or tears them apart. 

White Noise, his latest movie, adapted from Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel, continues the trend. Starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, the film’s logline describes “a contemporary American family’s attempts to deal with the mundane conflicts of everyday life while grappling with the universal mysteries of love, death, and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world.” 

As part of a new series at New York City’s Paris Theater, Baumbach has picked out six movies that helped shape White Noise. If existential comedies are what you seek, find what it all means in the list below. 

Everett Collection

Barry Lyndon

1975

Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1844 novel, The Luck of Barry Lyndon, stars Ryan O’Neal as a social-climbing 18th-century Irishman who marries a rich widow and uses her to ascend into the aristocracy. Pay special attention to the groundbreaking cinematography; many scenes were filmed primarily by candlelight. 

Everett Collection

High and Low 

Based on Ed McBain’s 1959 novel King’s Ransom, legendary director Akira Kurosawa’s film  stars Toshiro Mifune as Kingo Gondo, a rich industrialist whose family is targeted by a ruthless kidnapper. 

20thCentFox/Everett Collection

M*A*S*H

Centered around the trials and tribulations of the staff of a Korean War Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH), Robert Altman’s satire stars Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman and Robert Duvall. The movie has become emblematic of 1970s counterculture cinema, and went on to inspire a celebrated television adaptation that ran from 1972 to 1983. 

Everett Collection

Network

“I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.” If you know one thing about Sidney Lumet’s dramatic comedy written by Paddy Chayefsky, it’s probably worn-out anchorman Howard Beale’s (Peter Finch) iconic rant. Inspired by an unexpected ratings boost, producer Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) decides to lean into the madness, programming increasingly outrageous stories in an effort to capture viewers’ eyeballs. William Holden and Robert Duvall also star. 

Shoot the Piano Player

Released in the aftermath of his now iconic French New Wave film The 400 Blows, director François Truffaut’s adaptation of David Goodis’ novel Down There stars French crooner Charles Aznavour as Charlie Koller, a former classical pianist idling his days away in a grimy jazz club. But when his brothers show up on the run from some gangsters, Charlie gets more than he bargained for. 

Warner Brothers/Everett Collection

The World According to Garp

Based on John Irving’s 1978 novel, director George Roy Hill’s adaptation tracks the evolution of the relationship between only child T.S. Garp (Robin Williams) and his feminist single mother (Glenn Close). 

Buy your tickets for the Paris Theater’s Directors Select series here.