my "fringe" directors

1. Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1940. He graduated from university with a degree in fine arts before starting work as a graphic designer. He then joined the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, where he started a film section, and this started his career ...

Features: Close-Up - 10 Like Someone in Love - 9 Taste of Cherry - 9 Certified Copy - 8.5 Shirin - 6.5

2. Vera Chytilová

Director | O necem jiném

Vera Chytilová was born on February 2, 1929, in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). She studied philosophy and architecture in Brno for two years, then worked as a technical draftsman, a designer, a fashion model, a photo re-toucher, then worked as a clapper girl for Barrandov Film ...

Features: Daisies - 10 Fruit of Paradise - 9

3. Wim Wenders

Director | Der Himmel über Berlin

Wim Wenders is an Oscar-nominated German filmmaker who was born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders on August 14, 1945 in Düsseldorf, which then was located in the British Occupation Zone of what became the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany, known colloquially as West Germany until ...

Features: Wings of Desire - 10 Paris, Texas - 9 Lightning Over Water - 8 (w/ Nick Ray)

4. Milos Forman

Director | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Milos Forman was born Jan Tomas Forman in Caslav, Czechoslovakia, to Anna (Svabova), who ran a summer hotel, and Rudolf Forman, a professor. During World War II, his parents were taken away by the Nazis, after being accused of participating in the underground resistance. His father died in ...

Features: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - 10 (i think?) Man on the Moon - 9.5 The Fireman's Ball - 9 Loves of a Blonde - 9

5. Pier Paolo Pasolini

Writer | Il Decameron

Pier Paolo Pasolini achieved fame and notoriety long before he entered the film industry. A published poet at 19, he had already written numerous novels and essays before his first screenplay in 1954. His first film Accattone (1961) was based on his own novel and its violent depiction of the life ...

Features: Salo - 8.5 Medea - 8 Mamma Roma - 8 Teorema - 5.5 (needs a rewatch)

6. Max Ophüls

Director | La ronde

Director Max Ophüls was born Max Oppenheimer in Saarbrücken, Germany. He began his career as a stage actor and director in the golden twenties. He worked in cities such as Stuttgart, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Vienna, Frankfurt, Breslau and Berlin. In 1929 his son Marcel Ophüls was born in Frankfurt, ...

Features: The Earrings of Madame de... - 9 Lola Montes - 9 Letter from an Unknown Woman - 8

7. Jonathan Glazer

Director | Under the Skin

Jonathan first found fame for his revolutionary work on Radiohead's 'Street Spirit' and Jamiroquai's multi-MTV award winning 'Virtual Insanity' video.

In 1999 he directed the ground-breaking Guinness 'Surfer', which picked up 2 D&AD Black Pencils and the top spot at most of the other awards ...

Features: Sexy Beast - 9 Under the Skin - 8 Birth - 7.5

Shorts: Rabbit in Your Headlights - 8.5 The Universal - 8.5 Treat Me Like Your Mother - 8 A Song For The Lovers - 8 Street Spirit (Fade Out) - 8 Virtual Insanity - 7.5 Karmacoma - 7.5 Karma Police - 7.5 Into My Arms - 6.5

8. Carlos Reygadas

Producer | Stellet Licht

Carlos Reygadas was born on October 10, 1971 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He is a producer and director, known for Silent Light (2007), Japan (2002) and Post Tenebras Lux (2012). He is married to Natalia López.

Features: Silent Light - 9 Post Tenebras Lux - 8 Battle in Heaven - 7

Shorts: Maxhumain - 7.5

9. 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 ...

Features: Memories of Murder - 9 Mother - 8.5 The Host - 8.5

10. 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 ...

Features: Easy Rider - 9

11. Peter Bogdanovich

Director | The Last Picture Show

Peter Bogdanovich was conceived in Europe but born in Kingston, New York. He is the son of immigrants fleeing the Nazis, Herma (Robinson) and Borislav Bogdanovich, a painter and pianist. His father was a Serbian Orthodox Christian, and his mother was from a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. Peter ...

Features: The Last Picture Show - 9 Directed by John Ford - 8.5

12. Carol Reed

Director | The Third Man

Carol Reed was the second son of stage actor, dramatics teacher and impresario founder of the Royal School of Dramatic Art Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Reed was one of Tree's six illegitimate children with Beatrice Mae Pinney, who Tree established in a second household apart from his married life. ...

Features: The Third Man - 9 Fallen Idol - 8.5 Night Train to Munich - 7.5

13. 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 ...

Features: Tokyo Story - 9.5 Dragnet Girl - 9 Tokyo Chorus - 8 I was Born, But... - 8 Passing Fancy - 8

14. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Director | Memoria

Apichatpong Weerasethakul (b. 1970, Bangkok) grew up in Khon Kaen, a city in the north east of Thailand. He has a degree in Architecture from Khon Kaen University and a Master of Fine Arts in Filmmaking from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has been making films and videos since the ...

Features: Syndromes and a Century - 9 Blissfully Yours - 8 Tropical Malady - 8 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives - 8 Cemetery of Splendour - 7

Shorts: Phantoms of Nabua - 9

15. Ben Wheatley

Director | Free Fire

Ben Wheatley was born in May 1972 in Billericay, Essex, England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Free Fire (2016), Kill List (2011) and Sightseers (2012).

Features: Kill List - 9.5 Sightseers - 8.5 A Field in England - 8.5 High Rise - 5.5

16. David Gordon Green

Producer | Halloween Kills

David Gordon Green was born on April 9, 1975 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Halloween Kills (2021), Prince Avalanche (2013) and Halloween (2018).

Features: George Washington - 9 Prince Avalanche - 9 Joe - 8 Pineapple Express - 7 The Sitter - 5

Shorts: Physical Pinball - 7 Pleasant Grove - 7

17. 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 (...

Features: Three Colors: White - 9 Three Colors: Red - 8 Three Colors: Blue - 8

Shorts: Talking Heads - 8 Seven Women of Different Ages - 8 The Tram - 6

18. Michelangelo Antonioni

Writer | Blow-Up

Together with Fellini, Bergman and Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni is credited with defining the modern art film. And yet Antonioni's cinema is also recognized today for defying any easy categorization, with his films ultimately seeming to belong to their own distinctive genre. Indeed, the ...

Features: L'Avventura - 9.5 The Passenger - 9.5 Red Desert - 7

19. 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 ...

Features: Lost in Translation - 9 Somewhere - 9 The Virgin Suicides - 9 Marie Antoinette - 8.5 The Bling Ring - 6

20. Jean Cocteau

Writer | La Belle et la Bête

Jean Cocteau was one of the most multi-talented artists of the 20th century. In addition to being a director, he was a poet, novelist, painter, playwright, set designer, and actor. He began writing at 10 and was a published poet by age 16. He collaborated with the "Russian Ballet" company of Sergei...

Features: Orpheus - 8.5 The Blood of a Poet - 8

21. Denis Villeneuve

Director | Dune

Denis Villeneuve is a French Canadian film director and writer. He was born in 1967, in Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada. He started his career as a filmmaker at the National Film Board of Canada. He is best known for his feature films Arrival (2016), Sicario (2015), Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), ...

Features: Prisoners - 9 Enemy - 8.5 Polytechnique - 8.5

22. Frantisek Vlácil

Director | Marketa Lazarová

Frantisek Vlácil was born on February 19, 1924 in Cesky Tesin, Moravian-Silesian, Czech Republic. He was a director and writer, known for Marketa Lazarová (1967), The Valley of the Bees (1968) and Adelheid (1969). He died on January 28, 1999 in Prague, Czech Republic.

Features: Marketa Lazarova - 9 The White Dove - 8

23. Lisandro Alonso

Director | La libertad

Lisandro Alonso was born on June 2, 1975 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a director and writer, known for La libertad (2001), Los Muertos (2004) and Jauja (2014).

Features: Jauja - 9 la libertad - 8.5 Liverpool - 8

24. 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 ...

Features: Ariel - 9 Le Havre - 8 The Match Factory Girl - 8 Shadows in Paradise - 7.5 Leningrad Cowboys Go America - 7.5 Total Balalaika Show - 7 Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses - 6.5

25. Donald Shebib

Director | Goin' Down the Road

Donald Shebib was born on January 27, 1938 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was a director and editor, known for Goin' Down the Road (1970), Nightalk (2022) and Down the Road Again (2011). He was married to Tedde Moore. He died on November 5, 2023 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Features: Goin' Down the Road - 9 Rip-Off - 7 The Pathfinder - 5

Shorts: Basketball - 9

26. Michael Powell

Director | Peeping Tom

The son of Thomas William Powell and Mabel (nee Corbett). Michael Powell was always a self-confessed movie addict. He was brought up partly in Canterbury ("The Garden of England") and partly in the south of France (where his parents ran a hotel). Educated at Kings School, Canterbury and Dulwich ...

+ w/ Emeric Pressburger

Features: The Red Shoes - 9 Black Narcissus - 9 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - 8 A Canterbury Tale - 7 I Know Where I'm Going! - 6

27. 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). ...

Features: A Woman Under the Influence - 10 Faces - 9.5 Shadows - 8.5

28. Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Director | Biutiful

Alejandro González Iñárritu (ih-nyar-ee-too), born August 15th, 1963, is a Mexican film director.

González Iñárritu is the first Mexican director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and by the Directors Guild of America for Best Director. He is also the first Mexican-born ...

Features: Birdman - 8.5 Biutiful - 8 Amores Perros - 7.5 21 Grams - 6.5 Babel - 5.5

29. Neil Jordan

Writer | The Crying Game

Neil Jordan was born on February 25, 1950 in Sligo, Ireland. He is a writer and producer, known for The Crying Game (1992), Greta (2018) and Breakfast on Pluto (2005). He has been married to Brenda Rawn since June 30, 2004. They have two children. He was previously married to Vivienne Shields.

Features: The Crying Game - 9.5 The Butcher Boy - 8

30. Ridley Scott

Producer | The Martian

Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom ...

Features: Prometheus - 9.5 Matchstick Men - 8.5 The Counsellor - 8 Blade Runner - 7.5 Alien - 7.5 Hannibal - 5

*re-doing ridleh

31. D.W. Griffith

Director | The Birth of a Nation

David Wark Griffith was born in rural Kentucky to Jacob "Roaring Jake" Griffith, a former Confederate Army colonel and Civil War veteran. Young Griffith grew up with his father's romantic war stories and melodramatic nineteenth-century literature that were to eventually shape his movies. In 1897 ...

Features: Intolerance - 9.5

Shorts: The Unchanging Sea - 9.5 The Country Doctor - 8.5 A Corner in Wheat - 8 Those Awful Hats - 8 The Redman's View - 7

32. Clint Eastwood

Actor | Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in ...

Features: The Bridges of Madison County - 9.5 Jersey Boys - 8.5 American Sniper - 6.5 *re-doing my clint

33. 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 ...

Features: The Thing - 9.5 Starman - 9 Ghosts of Mars - 8.5 Big Trouble in Little China - 8 Dark Star - 7 The Ward - 4

34. Gregg Araki

Writer | Mysterious Skin

Gregg Araki was born on December 17, 1959 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a writer and director, known for Mysterious Skin (2004), White Bird in a Blizzard (2014) and Kaboom (2010).

Features: White Bird in a Blizzard - 9.5 Kaboom - 8.5 The Living End - 7.5

35. 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 ...

Two-Lane Blacktop - 8.5 The Shooting - 8.5 Ride in the Whirlwind - 8

36. 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 (...

Features: Pasolini - 8.5 New Rose Hotel - 8.5 Invasion of the Body Snatchers - 8.5 The Blackout - 8.5 4:44 Last Day on Earth - 8

37. 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 ...

Features: The Prestige - 9 Insomnia - 8.5 Batman Begins - 8.5 Interstellar - 7.5 Following - 7.5 Inception - 7 Memento - 6 The Dark Knight Rises - 6 The Dark Knight - 5

Shorts: Doodlebug - 8.5