Focus Features

Obviously films tell stories about people. But they also tell stories about places — homes, offices, castles, prisons, dreams. It falls to the production designer and art director to work with the director to create those spaces. (To learn about the collaboration between Joe Wright and his production design, Oscar-nominated Sarah Greenwood in Design of History). For designers, these sometimes magical, sometime nightmarish constructions can spur on real life designs. Sometimes its as literal as copying an image. At other times, its more philosophical, like the issue of light for Deborah Berke in Wait After Dark. And sometimes is just the graphic shape of things, as the proportions and perspective of objects in The Bride of Frankenstein for Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz.

We asked five leading architect/designers to tell us what five films — and why — have inspired their own creative growth and direction. The results are fascinating, not simply for the diversity of films. Connecting the designers' work to their films throws light on the complexity of the creative process itself.