Twenty Great Directors, Past and Present
by Hairy_Lime | created - 02 Jun 2011 | updated - 09 Jun 2011 | Public20 great directors that mean the most to me. The order, especially after the first two, is rather fluid and not in order.
I am aware there are 21 names on the list.
And yes, fewer current directors. I need more history from people like del Toro, prefer to wait until Paul Thomas Anderson produces the truly great movie I just know he has in him, and am ambivalent at best about Tarantio, Fincher and - especially - Nolan. And good god, don't get me started on Lynch.
1. Billy Wilder
Writer | The Apartment
Originally planning to become a lawyer, Billy Wilder abandoned that career in favor of working as a reporter for a Viennese newspaper, using this experience to move to Berlin, where he worked for the city's largest tabloid. He broke into films as a screenwriter in 1929 and wrote scripts for many ...
Yeah, it's that Central European cynicism leavened with a large dollop of humanity. Want a message? Be a mensch.... a human being! For Sunset Blvd., The Apartment, Some Like it Hot, Double Indemnity, Ace in the Hole, and much, much more.
2. Alfred Hitchcock
Director | Psycho
Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England. He was the son of Emma Jane (Whelan; 1863 - 1942) and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock (1862 - 1914). His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William Hitchcock (born 1890) and ...
The Master of Suspense, sure. But he was a master FILMMAKER, whether it was working out his own psychosexual obsessions in Vertigo, or indicting his audience in Rear Window, or playing Holy Hell with story line expectations in Psycho. For those movies, and Notorious, Shadow of a Doubt, Rebecca, and more.
3. Martin Scorsese
Producer | Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Charles Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942 in Queens, New York City, to Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa) and Charles Scorsese, who both worked in Manhattan's garment district, and whose families both came from Palermo, Sicily. He was raised in the neighborhood of Little Italy, which later ...
His best movies are almost too painful to rewatch - literally for me with Taxi Driver. They have a brutal resonance that can leave you exhausted. Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and underappreciated Gems like After Hours and King of Comedy, and The Last Temptation of Christ.
4. Joel Coen
Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Joel Daniel Coen is an American filmmaker who regularly collaborates with his younger brother Ethan. They made Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail Caesar and other projects. Joel ...
And Ethan, of course. The two headed director. No one's movies since Wilder's connect with me, at the top of their game, like the Coens. And they are our best technical directors today as well - thanks be to Deakins and Livesay and Burwell. Fargo, No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man, Miller's Crossing, Blood Simple, and many more.
5. Ethan Coen
Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The younger brother of Joel, Ethan Coen is an Academy Award and Golden Globe winning writer, producer and director coming from small independent films to big profile Hollywood films. He was born on September 21, 1957 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In some films of the brothers- Ethan & Joel wrote, Joel...
And Joel!
6. Orson Welles
Actor | Citizen Kane
His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was ...
Oh, for him to have had the studio backing to have the career he deserved! He brilliantly understood how to take the methods of others and weld them into something that summed up everything and pointed the way forward. Citizen Kane, of course. But Chimes at Midnight - crappy version of it and all - is my favorite Shakespeare adaptation. Also Touch of Evil, The Magnificent Ambersons.
7. John Ford
Director | The Quiet Man
John Ford came to Hollywood following one of his brothers, an actor. Asked what brought him to Hollywood, he replied "the train". He became one of the most respected directors in the business, in spite of being known for his westerns, which were not considered "serious" film. He won six Oscars, ...
"By Old Masters I Mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford." - Orson Welles. He created our Western myth, and exploded it. And his visual style was impeccable. Every time you see one of Welles's low angled ceiling shots, that's Ford. The Searchers, Stagecoach, Grapes of Wrath, Young Mr. Lincoln, The Man Who shot Liberty Valance, Fort Apache.
8. Krzysztof Kieslowski
Writer | Trois couleurs: Bleu
Krzysztof Kieslowski graduated from Lódz Film School in 1969, and became a documentary, TV and feature film director and scriptwriter. Before making his first film for TV, Przejscie podziemne (1974) (The Underground Passage), he made a number of short documentaries. His next TV title, Personnel (...
He'd be here for Dekalog alone. His handling of the shifts and turns of modern morality is stunnign in its beauty, complexity, and thoughtprovokingness. Which might not be an actual word, but screw it. He's also here for Red, Blue, White, The Double Life of Veronique, and Blind Chance.
9. Robert Bresson
Writer | Au hasard Balthazar
Robert Bresson trained as a painter before moving into films as a screenwriter, making a short film (atypically a comedy), Public Affairs (1934) in 1934. After spending more than a year as a German POW during World War II, he made his debut with Angels of Sin (1943) in 1943. His next film, The ...
I admit to only seeing three of his movies to date, but they are all stunningly beautiful meditations on the lives of us poor sinners - and, of course, our donkeys. All is grace. The World in 90 minutes - i.e., Au hasard Balthazar - Diary of a Country Priest, Mouchette.
What, no picture? Can I at least get Balthazar?
10. Francis Ford Coppola
Producer | Apocalypse Now
Francis Ford Coppola was born in 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, but grew up in a New York suburb in a creative, supportive Italian-American family. His father, Carmine Coppola, was a composer and musician. His mother, Italia Coppola (née Pennino), had been an actress. Francis Ford Coppola graduated ...
Yes, there's the last 30 years of mediocrity occasionally rising up (Hello, Peggy Sue) but more often sinking down. (Goodbye, Jack!) But there is also The Godfather, its almost as good first sequel, Apocalypse Now!, The Conversation.
11. Robert Altman
Director | Gosford Park
Robert Altman was born on February 20th, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri, to B.C. (an insurance salesman) and Helen Altman. He entered St. Peters Catholic school at the age six, and spent a short time at a Catholic high school. From there, he went to Rockhurst High School. It was then that he started...
What a generous film maker Altman was, for us in the audience and for his casts. His movies seemed to amble on, spinning off threads this way and that, but that shambling ambiance was part of their beauty. Nashville is the Best English Language Movie of My Lifetime. M*A*S*H*, The Player, Gosford Park.
12. Woody Allen
Writer | Annie Hall
Woody Allen was born on November 30, 1935, as Allen Konigsberg, in The Bronx, NY, the son of Martin Konigsberg and Nettie Konigsberg. He has one younger sister, Letty Aronson. As a young boy, he became intrigued with magic tricks and playing the clarinet, two hobbies that he continues today.
Allen ...
Like Wilder, to an extent, Woody Allen is a great director because of his close connection with a great screenwriter whose work he films: himself. I admit to not watching much of what has done in the last 20 years and being kind of meh about what I have seen, but before that he did Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Manhattan. Not to mention his funny movies.
13. Federico Fellini
Writer | Le notti di Cabiria
The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the ...
I've always felt he was essentially a - a technical film maker. Granted, La Strada was a great film. Great in its use of negative imagery more than anything else. But that simple, cohesive core...Like all that Juliet of the Spirits or Satyricon, I found it incredibly indulgent. You know, he really is. He's one of the most indulgent filmmakers. He really is. Fellinin is carefully placed here to be in range of Woody and his large sock with horse manure in it. La Strada, Nights of Cabniria, 8 1/2.
14. Andrzej Wajda
Director | Katyn
Andrzej Wajda is an Academy Award-winning director. He is the most prominent filmmaker in Poland known for The Promised Land (1975), Man of Iron (1981), and Katyn (2007).
He was Born on March 6, 1926, in Suwalki, Poland. His mother, Aniela Wajda, was a teacher at a Ukrainian school. His father, ...
I think I'm just going to list and add thoughts later. Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds, Katyn, Man of Iron.
15. Roman Polanski
Director | Chinatown
Roman Polanski is a Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few truly international filmmakers. Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933.
His parents returned to Poland from France in 1936, three years ...
No, not just because he planked a 12 year old! For Knife in the Water, Chinatown, Repulsion, The Pianist.
16. John Huston
Director | The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
An eccentric rebel of epic proportions, this Hollywood titan reigned supreme as director, screenwriter and character actor in a career that endured over five decades. The ten-time Oscar-nominated legend was born John Marcellus Huston in Nevada, Missouri, on August 5, 1906. His ancestry was English,...
For his great collaborations with Bogart - The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, African Queen. And Prizzi's Honor.
17. David Lean
Director | Lawrence of Arabia
An important British filmmaker, David Lean was born in Croydon on March 25, 1908 and brought up in a strict Quaker family (ironically, as a child he wasn't allowed to go to the movies). During the 1920s, he briefly considered the possibility of becoming an accountant like his father before finding ...
Picture in my Oxford Desk Dictionary next to "Epic." Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, Passage to India, Great Expectations (not an actual epic).
18. Andrei Tarkovsky
Writer | Offret
The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which won the...
Like Bresson, another director who makes my list with very few movies - 2. But Andrei Rublev and Stalker are flat out brilliant masterworks.
Also like Bresson, another director with no picture. What gives?
19. Akira Kurosawa
Writer | Kakushi-toride no san-akunin
After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943). Within a few years, Kurosawa had achieved sufficient stature to allow him greater...
Note: List not in order! Roshomon, Throne of Blood, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo.
20. Steven Spielberg
Producer | Schindler's List
One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, ...
No, not for his "serious" movies which suffer from his inability to avoid weilding the emoptional hammer. For the movies where the emotional hammer is the raison d'etre. Jaws, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
21. Howard Hawks
Director | Red River
What do the classic films Scarface (1932), Twentieth Century (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), Sergeant York (1941), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Red River (1948) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and Rio Bravo (1959) have in...
Readerman is right! Directed two of my favorite Grant screwballs, and brought the steam out of the relationship between Bogie and Becall twice! His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby, To Have and To Have Not, The Big Sleep, Rio Lobo.
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