He has directed two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Chan Is Missing (1982) and The Joy Luck Club (1993).
(In response to negative reviews on The Center of the World (2001)): "I'm upset and depressed
but feisty...it's almost like sex is something that nobody wants to
deal with in an explicit way. I haven't seen anything other than Philip
Kaufman who's out there exploring new territory. Nobody is doing it. At
the same time pornography is going wild. Yet serious movies are not
dealing with it."
