So, what movie are we watching tonight? Don’t answer that—Christopher McQuarrie, avid Letterboxd member, is here to shuffle his watchlist he’s made just for you.

The filmmaker pulled up his beloved list Tonight’s Recommended Viewing to supply the Letterboxd community with a title that might just make your weekend, your week, whatever day you’re next sitting down on the couch and ready to enjoy a great film.

We land on John Sayles’ Lone Star, which McQuarrie calls “one of those movies you don’t really hear talked about” that focuses on “how the past comes back to haunt us.” Come for very early Matthew McConaughey, stay for a standout turn from Sayles regular Chris Cooper.

In the process, McQuarrie also gets a recommendation from Letterboxd HQ to add to his own watchlist: Brian’s favorite coming-of-ager, he writes on Letterboxd: “Sayles is delicate in his direction and the script (co-written with Amy Robinson) is perhaps the most authentic high school-to-college transformational romance ever made by an American movie studio.”

Moving on to McQuarrie’s own on-set inspirations, Brian points out the influence of Buster Keaton on the Mission: Impossible films—which, it turns out, is right on the money. “Every single movie goes back to Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin,” McQuarrie says, pointing out Keaton’s The General in particular as another movie to watch tonight.

He also preaches the gospel of John Frankenheimer’s riveting thriller The Train, which the Mission team studied extensively. “I don’t know how they ever made that movie. It’s truly an extraordinary achievement,” the director says. “Having now done a train sequence, if you handed me that script I would have run screaming. It’s incredible what they pulled off in that era with that technology. It’s the original Mission: Impossible.”

Of course, nobody knows about a good action sequence better than Christopher McQuarrie (well, maybe Tom Cruise, fine)—and it all began in a movie theater, many moons ago, learning exactly what audiences need.

“The single most educational experience I ever had was working at a movie theater as a security guard for years,” he says. “My job was to stand in the back of the audience and make sure fights didn’t break out. For four years, I was watching the audience while they were watching movies. That was my film school.”

Dive deeper into Christopher McQuarrie’s likes, loves, inspirations and experience in the video above. Vital homework ahead of your next mission.