As a child, Bong watched "Black Orpheus" (1959), which made a big impact on him, on Korean television. While he was in film school, Bong watched the "Qatsi" trilogy (1982–2002). His main inspirations are from Guillermo del Toro—his favorite films of del Toro's are "The Devil's Backbone" (2001) and "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006)—and Nagisa Ōshima, describing Oshima as "one of the most controversial masters". Bong also studied the films of Martin Scorsese and cited him as one of his major influences during his acceptance speech for the Academy Award for Best Director when he won for "Parasite" (2019). His process when working with actors is to make them feel comfortable and gives them a high amount of freedom when performing, even allowing them to improvise. Bong has commented that he doesn't like the term 'Directing Actors' as he feels that "acting is the actor's job and it's something I don't feel like I can direct".