best directors

1. Jim Jarmusch

Moved to New York City at the age of seventeen from Akron, Ohio. Graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in English, class of '75. Without any prior film experience, he was accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts, New York.

2. Aki Kaurismäki

Producer | Le Havre

Aki Kaurismäki did a wide variety of jobs including postman, dish-washer and film critic, before forming a production and distribution company, Villealfa (in homage to Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965)) with his older brother Mika Kaurismäki, also a film-maker. Both Aki and Mika are prolific ...

3. Zeki Demirkubuz

Director | Masumiyet

Demirkubuz dropped out of high school and started working in a textile workshop. He then worked as a street vendor for some time. After the 1980 coup d'état, he was imprisoned without trial for three years at the age of 17 for alleged communist activities and was tortured.

At the time, he was ...

4. Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Producer | Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da

Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in Istanbul on January 26th, 1959. In 1976, he began studying chemical engineering at Istanbul Technical University, in a context of strong student unrest, boycotts and political polarization. In 1978, he switched courses to Electrical Engineering at Bogazici University. ...

5. John Sayles

Writer | Lone Star

A bright child, John Sayles began reading novels before age 9. A Williams College grad in 1972, he shunned a corporate career to work various blue-collar jobs, moving to east Boston to take a factory job. He wrote stories and submitted them to various magazines, and the Atlantic Monthly gave him ...

6. Quentin Tarantino

Writer | Reservoir Dogs

Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.

In January of...

7. 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 ...

8. Darren Aronofsky

Writer | Pi

Darren Aronofsky was born February 12, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Darren was always artistic: he loved classic movies and, as a teenager, he even spent time doing graffiti art. After high school, Darren went to Harvard University to study film (both live-action and animation). He won ...

9. Doug Liman

Producer | Edge of Tomorrow

Douglas Eric Liman is a Jewish-American filmmaker and producer who directed Swingers, The Bourne Identity, Chaos Walking, Jumper, Go, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Fair Game, Locked Down, Edge of Tomorrow, The Wall and American Made. He executive produced the Bourne sequels except The Bourne Legacy, The ...

10. Alex Holdridge

Writer | In Search of a Midnight Kiss

Alex Holdridge is a writer/director/actor known for the Independent Spirit Award winning In Search of a Midnight Kiss (2007). His film, Meet Me in Montenegro (2014), he co-directed and co-wrote with Linnea Saasen. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was released by The ...

11. Vincenzo Natali

Director | Cube

Vincenzo Natali was born on January 6, 1969 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Cube (1997), In the Tall Grass (2019) and Cypher (2002).

12. Jason Reitman

Producer | Up in the Air

Jason Reitman is a Canadian filmmaker and producer who notably directed Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Juno, Thank You for Smoking, Up in the Air, Young Adult and Tully. He produced Chloe and Jennifer's Body, two films that advanced Amanda Seyfried's career for adult oriented roles. He is the son of Ivan...

13. Neil LaBute

Writer | In the Company of Men

Acclaimed and highly discussed filmmaker Neil LaBute has made himself a force to be reckoned with and a name to watch. With his true-to-life cynical and self-absorbed characters and all-too-true social themes, he has firmly established himself as an unforgiving judge of the ugliest side of human ...

14. Debra Granik

Director | Leave No Trace

Debra Granik (born February 6, 1963) is an American New York City-based independent film and documentary film director and screenwriter. She is most known for 2004's Down to the Bone, which starred Vera Farmiga, 2010's Winter's Bone, which starred Jennifer Lawrence in her breakout performance and ...

15. David Twohy

Writer | The Fugitive

As both writer and director, David Twohy has contributed much to the film world, helping to elevate movies in such a way that Entertainment Weekly was prompted to name him "one of the 100 most creative people in Hollywood." In his career, Twohy has worked with on-screen notables like Harrison Ford,...

16. Tobe Hooper

Director | The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Honored with many awards for his films and achievement in the horror genre, Tobe Hooper is truly one of the Masters of Horror (2005).

Tobe Hooper was born in Austin, Texas, to Lois Belle (Crosby) and Norman William Ray Hooper, who owned a theater in San Angelo. He spent the 1960s as a college ...

17. Daniel Myrick

Writer | The Blair Witch Project

Daniel Myrick was born on September 3, 1963 in Sarasota, Florida, USA. He is a writer and director, known for The Blair Witch Project (1999), Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) and The Objective (2008).

18. Eduardo Sánchez

Director | The Blair Witch Project

Eduardo Sanchez was born in Cuba in 1968. It was at a young age he gained an interest in film making. At Wheaton High School Ed made school movie projects such as Shrimp Fried Vice and Pride (in the name of Love) all of which starred his friends and family, as well as Ed himself.

After High School ...

19. Jonathan Dayton

Director | Little Miss Sunshine

Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have built an impressive body of work by perpetually seeking innovative projects in a variety of mediums.

After introducing bands such as R.E.M. and Red Hot Chili Peppers on their ground-breaking MTV show The Cutting Edge (1992), Jonathan and Valerie continued to ...

20. Valerie Faris

Director | Little Miss Sunshine

Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have built an impressive body of work by perpetually seeking innovative projects in a variety of mediums.

After introducing bands such as REM and The Red Hot Chili Peppers on their ground breaking MTV show The Cutting Edge, Jonathan and Valerie continued to work in ...

21. Todd Haynes

Director | Far from Heaven

Todd Haynes was always interested in art, and made amateur movies and painted while he was still a child. He attended Brown university and majored in art and semiotics. After he graduated he moved to New York City and made the controversial short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987). ...

22. John Carpenter

Writer | The Fog

John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, to mother Milton Jean (Carter) and father Howard Ralph Carpenter. His family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father, a professor, was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. He attended Western Kentucky ...

23. Richard Linklater

Director | Waking Life

Self-taught writer-director Richard Stuart Linklater was born in Houston, Texas, to Diane Margaret (Krieger), who taught at a university, and Charles W. Linklater III. Richard was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. ...

24. Monte Hellman

Director | Iguana

Monte Hellman was born on July 12, 1929, in New York City, where his parents were visiting, but he grew up in Los Angeles. He studied drama at Stanford University--on an NBC scholarship--and film at UCLA. After a few years directing in summer theater, Hellman hooked up with legendary "B" movie ...

25. Todd Solondz

Director | Welcome to the Dollhouse

Todd Solondz was born in Newark, New Jersey. One of his earliest jobs in the film industry was when, as a young man, he worked as a messenger for the Writers' Guild of America. During this time, he wrote several screenplays.

Solondz's first color film with sync sound was the short "Schatt's Last ...

26. George Armitage

Director | Grosse Pointe Blank

George Armitage was born in 1942 in the USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It. (1970) and Vigilante Force (1976).

27. Spike Jonze

Producer | Her

Spike Jonze made up one-third (along with Andy Jenkins and Mark Lewman) of the triumvirate of genius minds behind Dirt Magazine, the brother publication of the much lamented ground-breaking Sassy Magazine. These three uncommon characters were all editors for Grand Royal Magazine as well, under the ...

28. Andrey Konchalovskiy

Writer | Belye nochi pochtalyona Alekseya Tryapitsyna

The Russian theatre and film director Andrei Konchalovsky is an elder brother of Nikita Mikhalkov, born August, 20, 1937. As a youngster he planned to pursue a career of a musician and learned to play piano but his love for cinema outweighed and he entered VGIK-the major state film school where he ...

29. Charles Burnett

Director | Killer of Sheep

Born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on April 13, 1944, Charles Burnett moved with his family to the Watts area of Los Angeles at an early age. He describes the community of having a robust mythical connection with the South as a result of having so many Southern transplants, an atmosphere which has ...

30. Bryan Singer

Director | X-Men

Bryan Singer is an American film director and producer who got his start writing and co-directing the short film Lions Den with his classmates while he attended USC. He was hired by 20th Century Fox to direct X-Men, which helped kick-start the superhero renaissance. He later directed three sequels....

31. 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...

32. Dennis Hopper

Actor | Easy Rider

Multi-talented and unconventional actor/director regarded by many as one of the true "enfant terribles" of Hollywood who led an amazing cinematic career for more than five decades, Dennis Hopper was born on May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kansas. The young Hopper expressed interest in acting from a ...

33. David Lynch

Writer | Twin Peaks

Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future ...

34. George Lucas

Writer | Star Wars

George Walton Lucas, Jr. was raised on a walnut ranch in Modesto, California. His father was a stationery store owner and he had three siblings. During his late teen years, he went to Thomas Downey High School and was very much interested in drag racing. He planned to become a professional racecar ...

35. Gus Van Sant

Director | Elephant

Gus Green Van Sant Jr. is an American filmmaker, painter, screenwriter, photographer and musician from Louisville, Kentucky who is known for directing films such as Good Will Hunting, the 1998 remake of Psycho, Gerry, Elephant, My Own Private Idaho, To Die For, Milk, Last Days, Finding Forrester, ...

36. Kevin Smith

Producer | Clerks

Kevin Patrick Smith was born in Red Bank but grew up in Highlands, New Jersey, the son of Grace (Schultz) and Donald E. Smith, a postal worker. He is very proud of his native state; this fact can be seen in all of his movies. Kevin is of mostly German, with some Irish and English, ancestry.

His ...

37. Melvin Van Peebles

Actor | The Shining

Melvin Van Peebles was born on August 21, 1932 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Shining (1997), Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) and Don't Play Us Cheap (1972). He was married to Maria Marx. He died on September 21, 2021 in Manhattan, New York City, New ...

38. Sam Raimi

Director | Spider-Man

Highly inventive U.S. film director/producer/writer/actor Sam Raimi first came to the attention of film fans with the savage, yet darkly humorous, low-budget horror film, The Evil Dead (1981). From his childhood, Raimi was a fan of the cinema and, before he was ten-years-old, he was out making ...

39. Christopher Nolan

Writer | Tenet

Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear, storytelling, acclaimed Academy Award winner writer/director/producer Sir Christopher Nolan CBE was born in London, England. Over the course of more than 25 years of filmmaking, Nolan has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the ...

40. Steven Soderbergh

Director | Sex, Lies, and Videotape

Steven Andrew Soderbergh was born on January 14, 1963 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, the second of six children of Mary Ann (Bernard) and Peter Soderbergh. His father was of Swedish and Irish descent, and his mother was of Italian ancestry. While he was still at a very young age, his family moved to ...

41. Abel Ferrara

Director | Bad Lieutenant

Born in the Bronx, Ferrara started making amateur films on Super 8 in his teens before making his debut with violent exploitation films such as 'Driller Killer' and 'Ms.45'. Good reviews for the latter helped create his cult reputation, leading to larger budgets, studio funding and 'name' actors (...

42. Sofia Coppola

Actress | The Godfather Part III

Sofia Coppola was born on May 14, 1971 in New York City, New York, USA as Sofia Carmina Coppola. She is a director, known for Somewhere (2010), Lost in Translation (2003), and Marie Antoinette (2006). She has been married to Thomas Mars since August 27, 2011. They have two daughters, Romy and ...

43. 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 ...

44. George A. Romero

Writer | Land of the Dead

George A. Romero never set out to become a Hollywood figure; by all indications, though, he was very successful. The director of the groundbreaking "Living Dead" films was born February 4, 1940 ,in New York City to Ann (Dvorsky) and Jorge Romero. His father was born in Spain and raised in Cuba, and...

45. Spike Lee

Director | Do the Right Thing

Spike Lee was born Shelton Jackson Lee on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. Lee came from artistic, education-grounded background; his father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a schoolteacher. He attended ...

46. John Cassavetes

Actor | Rosemary's Baby

John Cassavetes was a Greek-American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He is considered a pioneer of American independent film, as he often financed his own films.

Cassavetes was born in New York City in 1929 to Nicholas John Cassavetes (1893-1979) and his wife, Katherine Demetre (1906-1983). ...

47. James Cameron

Writer | Avatar: The Way of Water

James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his ...

48. Richard Kelly

Writer | Donnie Darko

James Richard Kelly better known as Richard Kelly, is an American film director and writer, known for writing and directing the cult classic Donnie Darko in 2001. Kelly was born James Richard Kelly in Newport News, Virginia, the son of Lane and Ennis Kelly. He grew up in Midlothian, Virginia, where...

49. Sergei Eisenstein

Director | Ivan Groznyy

The son of an affluent architect, Eisenstein attended the Institute of Civil Engineering in Petrograd as a young man. With the fall of the tsar in 1917, he worked as an engineer for the Red Army. In the following years, Eisenstein joined up with the Moscow Proletkult Theater as a set designer and ...

50. 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...

51. Nikita Mikhalkov

Actor | 12

Nikita Mikhalkov is the son of the famous communist poet Sergey Mikhalkov, who wrote the lyrics of the Soviet national anthem and had strong connections to the Communist Party. Nikita Mikhalkov's mother, Natalya Petrovna Konchalovskaya, was also a poet and daughter of famous painter Pyotr Petrovich...

52. Aleksandr Rogozhkin

Director | Blokpost

Aleksandr Rogozhkin was born on October 3, 1949 in Leningrad, RSFSR, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for Blokpost (1999), The Cuckoo (2002) and Peculiarities of the National Hunt (1995). He was married to Yuliya Rumyantseva. He died on October 23, 2021 in St. ...

53. Pavel Chukhray

Director | Vor

Pavel Chukhray is a Russian screenwriter and film director. He graduated from VGIK (All-Union State Institute of Cinematography): in 1971 -- from the cameraman's department, in 1974 -- from the director's department. He began his film career as a cameraman assistant, a director of photography, and ...

54. Grigoriy Chukhray

Director | Ballada o soldate

Studied at the Moscow Cinema Institute under Soviet film master Mikhail Romm. He found fame after his 1959 film "Ballad of a Soldier" which is considered one of the best Soviet war films and which has played all over the world.

55. Andrey Zvyagintsev

Director | Nelyubov

Director and screenwriter Andrey Zvyagintsev is the winner of the Venice Film Festival (2003) and the Cannes Film Festival (2011, 2014, 2017). Two-time the Academy Awards and the BAFTA Awards nominee. Winner or the Golden Globe Awards (2015) for his film "Leviathan". In 2018, his latest work "...

56. Aleksandr Sokurov

Director | Russkiy kovcheg

He was born with a disability because of an anatomic defect of his leg, in 1951 in Podorvikha village in Siberian Russia. His father was a Red Army veteran of WW2. One of most important contemporary filmmakers, Sokurov worked extensively in television and later graduated from the prestigious film ...

57. Timur Bekmambetov

Director | Nochnoy dozor

Timur Bekmambetov is a Kazakh-Russian film director known for vampire franchise Night Watch (2004) and Day Watch (2006).

He was born Timur Nuruakhitovich Bekmambetov on June 25, 1961, in Guryev, Soviet Union (now Atyrau, Kazakhstan). His father, Nuruakhit Bekmambetov, is a manager at Guryev Energy ...

58. Pavel Lungin

Director | Ostrov

Pavel Semyonovich Lungin (born July 12, 1949) is a Russian film director. He is sometimes credited as Pavel Loungine (as in the American release of Tycoon).

Born 12 July 1949 in Moscow, Lungin is the son of a scriptwriter and linguist. He later attended Moscow State University from which he ...

59. Valeriy Todorovskiy

Producer | Stilyagi

Valeriy Todorovskiy was born on May 9, 1962 in Odessa, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Ukraine]. He is a producer and writer, known for Hipsters (2008), Ottepel (2013) and Country of the Deaf (1998). He was previously married to Evgenia Brik and Natalya Tokareva.

60. Alexei Popogrebsky

Director | Kak ya provyol etim letom

Alexei Popogrebsky was born on August 7, 1972 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He is a director and writer, known for How I Ended This Summer (2010), Koktebel (2003) and Prostye veshchi (2007).

61. Larisa Shepitko

Director | Voskhozhdenie

Larisa Shepitko was born on January 6, 1938 in Bakhmut, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine]. She was a director and writer, known for The Ascent (1977), Heat (1963) and You and Me (1971). She was married to Elem Klimov. She died on July 2, 1979 in near Redkino, Kalinin Oblast...

62. Mikhail Kalatozov

Director | Letyat zhuravli

Mikhail Kalatozov was born on December 28, 1903 in Tiflis, Russian Empire [now Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia]. He was a director and cinematographer, known for The Cranes Are Flying (1957), True Friends (1954) and Zagovor obrechyonnykh (1950). He died on March 27, 1973 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now ...

63. Grigoriy Chukhray

Director | Ballada o soldate

Studied at the Moscow Cinema Institute under Soviet film master Mikhail Romm. He found fame after his 1959 film "Ballad of a Soldier" which is considered one of the best Soviet war films and which has played all over the world.

64. Angeliki Antoniou

Director | Eduart

Angeliki Antoniou was born on July 12, 1956 in Athens, Greece. She is a director and writer, known for Eduart (2006), Green Sea (2020) and Nights, Gambled Away (1997).

65. Theodoros Angelopoulos

Director | Mia aioniotita kai mia mera

Theo Angelopoulos began to study law in Athens but broke up his studies to go to the Sorbonne in Paris in order to study literature. When he had finished his studies, he wanted to attend the School of Cinema at Paris but decided instead to go back to Greece. There he worked as a journalist and ...

66. Yorgos Lanthimos

Director | The Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos was born in Athens, Greece. He studied directing for Film and Television at the Stavrakos Film School in Athens. He has directed a number of dance videos in collaboration with Greek choreographers, in addition to TV commercials, music videos, short films and theater plays. Kinetta,...

67. Athina Rachel Tsangari

Producer | Attenberg

Athina Rachel Tsangari was born on April 2, 1966 in Aspra Spitia, Greece. She is a producer and director, known for Attenberg (2010), Chevalier (2015) and The Slow Business of Going (2000).

68. Emir Kusturica

Director | Underground

A Serbian film director. Born in 1954 in Sarajevo. Graduated in film directing at the prestigious Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague in 1978. During his studies, he was awarded several times for his short movies including Guernica (1978), which took first prize at the Student's Film ...

69. Mikhail Vartanov

Cinematographer | Parajanov: The Last Spring

Vartanov was blacklisted for his debut film, The Color of Land (1969), where he portrayed his dissident friends Parajanov (imprisoned in 1974) and Minas (assassinated in 1975). When Vartanov's artistic freedom was restored 20 years later, he responded with Minas: A Requiem (1989) and Parajanov: The...

70. Sergei Parajanov

Director | Tini zabutykh predkiv

One of the 20th century's greatest masters of cinema Sergei Parajanov was born in Georgia to Armenian parents and it was always unlikely that his work would conform to the strict socialist realism that Soviet authorities preferred. After studying film and music, Parajanov became an assistant ...

71. 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 (...

72. Cãlin Peter Netzer

Producer | Pozitia copilului

Calin Peter Netzer was born on the 1st May 1975 in Petrosani [Petroschen], Romania. His family belongs to the Transylvanian Saxons, a cultural minority of German descent who lives since generations in Romania. He was raised mainly in Cluj [Klausenburg]. Netzer's father was a dentist and emigrated ...

73. Vittorio Taviani

Director | La notte di San Lorenzo

Vittorio Taviani studied law at the University of Pisa, becoming interested in the cinema after seeing Roberto Rossellini's Paisan (1946). After writing and directing short films and plays with his brother Paolo, he made his first feature in 1962. The brothers have continued to work together ever ...

74. Claudia Llosa

Director | La teta asustada

Claudia Llosa was born on November 15, 1976 in Lima, Peru. She is a director and writer, known for The Milk of Sorrow (2009), Madeinusa (2006) and Loxoro (2012).

75. José Padilha

Producer | Tropa de Elite

He is best known for directing the Brazilian critical and financial successes Elite Squad and Elite Squad: The Enemy Within and the 2014 remake of RoboCop. He has won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for Elite Squad in 2008. He is also the producer and director of the ...

76. Quan'an Wang

Director | Tuan yuan

Quan'an Wang was born in Yan'an in 1965. A graduate from the 1991 Beijing Film Academy promotion, he belongs to what has been called the "sixth generation" of Chinese directors. From 1999 to 2009, he shared his life with actress Nan Yu, with whom he made his first four movies : "Yue shi" (Lunar ...

77. Kim Ki-duk

Writer | Bin-jip

He studied fine arts in Paris in 1990-1992. In 1993 he won the award for Best Screenplay from the Educational Institute of Screenwriting with "A Painter and A Criminal Condemned to Death". After two more screenplay awards, he made his directorial debut with Crocodile (1996) ("Crocodile"). Then he ...

78. Bong Joon Ho

Writer | Snowpiercer

Bong Joon-ho is a South Korean filmmaker. The recipient of three Academy Awards, his filmography is characterized by emphasis on social themes, genre-mixing, black humor, and sudden tone shifts. He first became known to audiences and achieved a cult following with his directorial debut film, the ...

79. Park Chan-wook

Director | Oldeuboi

Park Chan-wook was born on August 23, 1963 in Seoul, South Korea. He is a producer and director, known for Oldboy (2003), The Handmaiden (2016) and Decision to Leave (2022). He is married to Eun-hee Kim. They have one child.

80. Lee Chang-dong

Writer | Beoning

Lee Chang-Dong was born in 1954 in Daegu, which some consider the most right-wing city in South Korea. Lee is a former high-school teacher and an acclaimed novelist. He turned to cinema when he was over 40 years old. His debut film "Green Fish" (1997) brought immediate success and critical acclaim....

81. Ryu Seung-wan

Director | Beterang

Ryoo Seung-wan entered the global spotlight with his 2005 film CRYING FIST, starring Choi Min-sik (OLD BOY) and his younger brother Ryoo Seung-bum. The film displayed the director's capability to break traditional genre boundaries, and won him the FIPRESCI Prize at the 58th Cannes Film Festival and...

82. Jae-young Kwak

Writer | Yeopgijeogin geunyeo

Jae-young Kwak was born on May 22, 1959 in South Korea. He is a writer and director, known for My Sassy Girl (2001), Cyborg She (2008) and Mu-rim-yeo-dae-saeng (2008).

83. Yong-Kyun Bae

Director | Geomeuna dange huina baekseong

Mr. Bae studied visual arts in South Korea and France, and he's an art professor in Korea. His first and the only feature length film, "Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?", probably is the only film in Korean film history to be released abroad first. Its sudden debut caused quite a stir Korea,...

84. Kang Woo-suk

Producer | Silmido

Kang Woo-suk was born on November 10, 1960 in Gyeonggi-do, Gyeongsan, South Korea. Kang is a producer and director, known for Silmido (2003), Moss (2010) and Two Cops (1993).

85. Ji Woon Kim

Writer | Mellangkollia

Ji Woon Kim is known for Melancholia (2021) and Cheongdam-dong Alice (2012).

86. Kang Je-kyu

Writer | Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo

Director Je-Kyu Kang was born in South Korea. Before directing his hit film Shiri (1999) pronounced "Shee Rhee", Kang nearly gave up the film business. After struggling for many years, he has finally become one of the premier directors in South Korea.

87. 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...

88. Takeshi Kitano

Actor | Zatôichi

Takeshi Kitano originally studied to become an engineer, but was thrown out of school for rebellious behavior. He learned comedy, singing and dancing from famed comedian Senzaburô Fukami. Working as a lift boy on a nightclub with such features as comic sketches and striptease dancing, Kitano saw ...

89. Hideo Nakata

Director | Honogurai mizu no soko kara

Born in Kinko-cho, Asakuchi-gun (present-day Asakuchi City), Okayama Prefecture. He is most familiar to Western audiences for his work on Japanese horror films such as Ring (1998), Ring 2 (1999) and Dark Water (2002). Several of these were remade in English as The Ring (2002), Dark Water (2005), ...

90. Takashi Miike

Director | Jûsan-nin no shikaku

Takashi Miike was born in the small town of Yao on the outskirts of Osaka, Japan. His main interest growing up was motorbikes, and for a while he harbored ambitions to race professionally. At the age of 18 he went to study at the film school in Yokohama founded by renowned director Shôhei Imamura, ...

91. Kenji Mizoguchi

Director | Ugetsu monogatari

Coming from a lower class family Mizoguchi entered the production company Nikkatsu as an actor specialized in female roles. Later he became an assistant director and made his first film in 1922. Although he filmed almost 90 movies in the silent era, only his last 12 productions are really known ...

92. Yasujirô Ozu

Writer | Tôkyô monogatari

Tokyo-born Yasujiro Ozu was a movie buff from childhood, often playing hooky from school in order to see Hollywood movies in his local theatre. In 1923 he landed a job as a camera assistant at Shochiku Studios in Tokyo. Three years later, he was made an assistant director and directed his first ...

93. Shôzô Makino

Director | Dainankô fujin

Called the "father of Japanese film," Shozo Makino was a director during the pioneer days of Japanese film, and was also a producer and business executive. Makino was born in Kyoto on September 22, 1878. His mother ran a theater, and his association with movies began when the motion picture fan, ...

94. Tomotaka Tasaka

Director | Gonin no sekkôhei

Tomotaka Tasaka was born on April 14, 1901 in Hiroshima, Japan. Tomotaka was a director and writer, known for Five Scouts (1938), Hi no ataru sakamichi (1958) and Ubaguruma (1956). Tomotaka was married to Hisako Takibana. Tomotaka died on October 17, 1974.

95. Keisuke Kinoshita

Writer | Nijûshi no hitomi

Keisuke Kinoshita was born on December 5, 1912 in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan. He was a writer and director, known for Twenty-Four Eyes (1954), The Ballad of Narayama (1958) and The Garden of Women (1954). He died on December 30, 1998 in Tokyo, Japan.

96. Seijun Suzuki

Director | Tsigoineruwaizen

Seijun Suzuki was born in Nihonbashi, Tôkyô, on May 24, 1923. In 1943, he entered the army to fight at the front. In 1946, he enrolled in the film department of the Kamakura Academy and passed the assistant director's exam. For the next few years, he worked as an assistant director at several ...

97. Masaki Kobayashi

Director | Seppuku

Masaki Kobayashi was born on February 14, 1916 in Hokkaido, Japan. He was a director and writer, known for Harakiri (1962), Samurai Rebellion (1967) and The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961). He died on October 4, 1996 in Tokyo, Japan.

98. Kinji Fukasaku

Director | Batoru rowaiaru

Kinji Fukasaku was born on July 3, 1930 in Mito, Japan. He was a director and writer, known for Battle Royale (2000), Fall Guy (1982) and Crest of Betrayal (1994). He was married to Sanae Nakahara. He died on January 12, 2003 in Tokyo, Japan.

99. Nagisa Ôshima

Director | Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Nagisa Oshima's career extends from the initiation of the "Nuberu bagu" (New Wave) movement in Japanese cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s, to the contemporary use of cinema and television to express paradoxes in modern society. After an early involvement with the student protest movement in ...

100. Yoshishige Yoshida

Director | Ningen no yakusoku

Yoshishige Yoshida was born on February 16, 1933 in Fukui, Japan. He was a director and writer, known for A Promise (1986), Akitsu Springs (1962) and Wuthering Heights (1988). He was married to Mariko Okada. He died on December 8, 2022 in Japan.