PARIS (AFP) ― Approaching 80 with a handful of Oscars under his belt, American film veteran Woody Allen says what drives him still is the desire to make a great movie.

“I’m 76 now so I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I keep trying,” he told journalists on Monday in Paris in his typical self-deprecating fashion.

“I would like to make a movie that I could ... show unashamedly at a film festival” alongside the likes of “Rashomon,” “The Seventh Seal,” or “8 1/2” ― movies he considers masterpieces, Allen said.

Of the 45-odd films he has made, about six or eight were “better than the others,” said the acclaimed screenplay writer, but “I would like to make a great movie and that drives me.”

Allen was in the French capital to promote his latest offering, “To Rome with Love,” which stars Penelope Cruz, Alec Baldwin and Roberto Benigni and sports an appearance by the director himself.

A tragi-comic study of relationships and the fickleness of celebrity, Allen said the film, like all his stories, has “a sad underside.”

“Underneath every story that I write, even if they are played out in a comic manner, there is a sad kind of reality to them,” he said.

“In the film I make the point that life is very difficult whether you are a celebrity or not a celebrity.”

Allen said he had no intention to retire as he enjoyed working too much.