Top 175 directors by Y U M E

1. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Openly homosexual, he married twice; one of his wives acted in his films and the other served as his editor. Accused variously by detractors of being anticommunist, male chauvinist, antiSemitic and...

2. 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 ...

3. 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). ...

4. Shôhei Imamura

Director | Kuroi ame

Shohei Imamura's films dig beneath the surface of Japanese society to reveal a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath. Along with his colleagues Nagisa Ôshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Imamura began his serious directorial career as a member of the New Wave movement in Japan....

5. 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...

6. 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. ...

7. Kore-eda Hirokazu

Director | Manbiki kazoku

Born in Tokyo in 1962. Originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 went on to become an assistant director at T.V. Man Union. Snuck off set to film Mou hitotsu no kyouiku - Ina shogakkou haru gumi no kiroku (1991). His first feature, Maborosi (1995), ...

8. Derek Jarman

Director | Caravaggio

After school, Jarman studied history and art history at King's College. In 1963 he began studying art in Pop Art London. In the general mood of optimism from the mid-1960s onward, he began to openly confront his homosexuality. Jarman took over the set design for Ken Russell on the films "The Devils...

9. 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 ...

10. Douglas Sirk

Director | Schlußakkord

Film director Douglas Sirk, whose reputation blossomed in the generation after his 1959 retirement from Hollywood filmmaking, was born Hans Detlef Sierck on April 26, 1897, in Hamburg, Germany, to a journalist. Both of his parents were Danish, and the future director would make movies in German, ...

11. 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). ...

12. Hsiao-Hsien Hou

Producer | Cike Nie Yin Niang

Of the ten films that Hsiao-Hsien Hou directed between 1980 and 1989, seven received best film or best director awards from prestigious international films festivals in Venice, Berlin, Hawaii, and the Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes. In a 1988 worldwide critics' poll, Hou was championed ...

13. 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.

14. Werner Herzog

Director | Fitzcarraldo

Director. Writer. Producer. Actor. Poet. He studied history, literature and theatre for some time, but didn't finish it and founded instead his own film production company in 1963. Later in his life, Herzog also staged several operas in Bayreuth, Germany, and at the Milan Scala in Italy. Herzog has...

15. Satyajit Ray

Writer | Pather Panchali

Satyajit Ray was born in Calcutta on May 2, 1921. His father, Late Sukumar Ray was an eminent poet and writer in the history of Bengali literature. In 1940, after receiving his degree in science and economics from Calcutta University, he attended Tagore's Viswa-Bharati University. His first movie ...

16. 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 ...

17. 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 ...

18. Lodge Kerrigan

Writer | Clean, Shaven

Lodge Kerrigan is a New York film director who has made only four films in fifteen years but whose works have left a deep imprint on the minds of those who have seen them. Difficult indeed to forget Peter Green, the schizophrene of Clean, Shaven (1993), Claire Dolan, the reluctant call-girl of ...

19. David Cronenberg

Actor | The Fly

David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early...

20. Zhangke Jia

Producer | Jiang hu er nü

Zhangke Jia was born on May 24, 1970 in Fenyang, Shanxi, China. He is a producer and director, known for Jiang hu er nü (2018), A Touch of Sin (2013) and Mountains May Depart (2015). He has been married to Tao Zhao since January 7, 2012.

21. Shin'ya Tsukamoto

Actor | Tetsuo

Shin'ya Tsukamoto was born on January 1, 1960 in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. He is an actor and director, known for Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Vital (2004) and Tokyo Fist (1995).

22. Wojciech Has

Director | Pozegnania

Born in Kraków, Poland, in 1925. Feature film director. Graduated in 1946 from Cracow Film Institute, also studied painting. From 1947 to 1957 made a number of documentary shorts and educational films. Feature film debut: _The Noose_ (Petla, 1958, co-scr.). Other films: _Farewells_ (Pozegnania, ...

23. Daigo Matsui

Director | Chotto omoidashita dake

Daigo Matsui was born on November 2, 1985 in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan. He is a director and writer, known for Just Remembering (2021), Ice Cream and the Sound of Raindrops (2017) and How Selfish I Am! (2013).

24. Cristi Puiu

Director | Aurora

Cristi Puiu was born on April 3, 1967 in Bucharest, Romania. He is a director and writer, known for Aurora (2010), Sieranevada (2016) and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005). He has been married to Anca Puiu since April 21, 1998. They have three children.

25. Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit

Writer | 36

Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit is known for 36 (2012), Happy Old Year (2019) and Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy (2013).

26. Claire Denis

Director | High Life

The films of Claire Denis frequently explore the fragile connections between people and the ways in which the most seemingly inconsequential relationship can have life-changing effects. At the heart of Denis' cinema is a fascination with the delights and difficulties of belonging and otherness, the...

27. Abbas Kiarostami

Writer | Copie conforme

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 ...

28. Béla Tarr

Producer | Werckmeister harmóniák

Béla Tarr was born on July 21, 1955 in Pécs, Hungary. He is a producer and director, known for Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), The Turin Horse (2011) and Satantango (1994). He is married to Ágnes Hranitzky.

29. Kôji Wakamatsu

Director | Jitsuroku Rengo Sekigun: Asama sanso e no michi

The pioneering Kôji Wakamatsu (born Ito Takashi) was a contemporary of Oshima Nagisa and equally controversial, yet not as famous. The man was born in Miyagi Prefecture in the north of Japan before dropping out of agricultural school, some say following a physical altercation, moving to Tokyo at ...

30. Grzegorz Królikiewicz

Director | Przypadek Pekosinskiego

Polish film director, born in 1939. Married, three children. He has been getting experience by making documentary films and TV theater of fact, before he made in 1972 his first feature film ''Right through''. By that time he perpetually takes advantages of his talent in many topics and technics. ...

31. Luchino Visconti

Writer | Il gattopardo

Born in his ancestral palazzo, situated in the same Milanese square as both the opera house La Scala and the Milan Cathedral, Luchino Visconti (1906 - 1976) was raised under the auspices of aristocratic privilege, theater and Catholicism. This triangulation of monuments would create an equally ...

32. Kira Muratova

Director | Nastroyshchik

Kira Muratova was born on November 5, 1934 in Soroca, Romania [now Moldova]. She was a director and writer, known for Nastroyshchik (2004), Vtorostepennye lyudi (2001) and The Asthenic Syndrome (1989). She was married to Aleksandr Muratov and Yevgeni Golubenko. She died on June 6, 2018 in Odessa, ...

33. Maurice Pialat

Director | À nos amours

Maurice Pialat was a French film director. Film critics have noted the naturalist style of his films, and their autobiographical elements.

Pialat obtained his first camera when only 16-years-old, but his early career involved creating documentary short films. His ambition was to become a painter and...

34. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Director | Tokyo Sonata

Kiyoshi Kurosawa was born on July 19, 1955 in Kobe, Japan. He is a director and writer, known for Tokyo Sonata (2008), Pulse (2001) and Cure (1997).

35. 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 ...

36. Stanley Kubrick

Director | 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Sadie Gertrude (Perveler) and Jacob Leonard Kubrick, a physician. His family were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Romania, and Russia). Stanley was considered intelligent, despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would ...

37. Glauber Rocha

Director | Terra em Transe

He studied Law. He also directed theatre pieces, wrote movie criticisms and took part in the creation and development of the 'cinema novo' movement in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, becoming its theoretical leader and first embassador in Europe. After "Barravento (1962)", a trilogy of films and "Antonio ...

38. King Hu

Director | Xia nü

He was educated in art school in Beijing, left China for Hong Kong in 1949 and entered the film industry in 1951 in the art department. In the 1950s he began acting and in 1958 joined Shaw Brothers as an actor and writer, and later a director. In 1967 he left to start his own studio in Taiwan, ...

39. Tsai Ming-liang

Director | Qingshaonian Nuozha

Born in Kuching, Malaysia, he graduated from the Drama and Cinema Department of the Chinese Cultural University of Taiwan and worked as a theatrical producer and TV director. His second feature film, Vive L'Amour (1994), won the Golden Lion (best picture) at the 1994 Venice Film Festival. His ...

40. 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...

41. 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 ...

42. Souleymane Cissé

Director | Yeelen

Souleymane Cissé was born on April 21, 1940 in Bamako, Mali. He is a director and writer, known for Yeelen (1987), Baara (1978) and The Wind (1982).

43. Otar Iosseliani

Director | La chasse aux papillons

Otar Iosseliani was born on February 2, 1934 in Tiflis, Transcaucasian SFSR, USSR [now Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia]. He was a director and writer, known for La chasse aux papillons (1992), Winter Song (2015) and Et la lumière fut (1989). He died on December 17, 2023 in Tbilisi, Georgia.

44. Edward Yang

Writer | Yi yi

Born on November 6, 1947 in Shanghai, China, Edward Yang has become one of the most talented international filmmakers of his generation. Along with Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Tsai Ming-Liang, Yang ranks among the leading artists of the Taiwanese New Wave, and one of the world's most brilliant auteurs. ...

45. Naomi Kawase

Director | An

Naomi Kawase was born on May 30, 1969 in Nara, Japan. She is a director and writer, known for Sweet Bean (2015), Still the Water (2014) and Suzaku (1997). She was previously married to Takenori Sentô.

46. Shunji Iwai

Writer | Love Letter

Having received his education at Yokohama National University, Shunji Iwai started out in the entertainment industry by directing music videos and television dramas, including the likes of Maria, Lunatic Love and Fireworks, for which he received the award for Best Newcomer from the Japanese ...

47. Jim Jarmusch

Director | Paterson

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.

48. Carl Theodor Dreyer

Writer | Gertrud

The illegitimate son of a Danish farmer and his Swedish housekeeper, Carl Theodor Dreyer was born in Copenhagen on the 3th of February, 1889. He spent his early years in various foster homes before being adopted by the Dreyers at the age of two. Contrary to popular belief (perhaps nourished by the ...

49. 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 ...

50. Alex Ross Perry

Director | Golden Exits

Alex Ross Perry is known for Golden Exits (2017), Her Smell (2018) and Impolex (2009).

51. Benedek Fliegauf

Director | Csak a szél

Benedek Fliegauf was born on August 15, 1974 in Budapest, Hungary. He is a director and writer, known for Just the Wind (2012), Womb (2010) and Dealer (2004).

52. Pablo Larraín

Producer | No

Pablo Larraín was born in Santiago, Chile. He is a director, writer and producer, known for Spencer (2021), Jackie (2016), El Club (2015), NO (2012), among others. Together with his brother Juan de Dios Larraín, they founded Fabula in 2004, one of the most prolific production companies in Latin ...

53. Gurvinder Singh

Director | Chauthi Koot

Gurvinder Singh is an Indian film director. He is best known for his Punjabi language films Anhe Ghore Da Daan, and Chauthi Koot (The Fourth Direction) which premiered at Venice and Cannes Film Festival respectively. In 2016, he was invited by a Turkish production house to direct a short film '...

54. Mia Hansen-Løve

Director | L'avenir

Cinema came into Mia Hansen-Løve's life when she was seventeen, as Olivier Assayas made her start as an actress in Late August, Early September (1998). Two years later, he gave her the part of "Aline" in his Les Destinées (2000). Their artistic collaboration was coupled by a union in real ...

55. Elio Petri

Writer | Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto

Elio Petri was born on January 29, 1929 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a writer and director, known for Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), We Still Kill the Old Way (1967) and His Days Are Numbered (1962). He was married to Paola Pegoraro. He died on November 10, 1982 in Rome, Lazio,...

56. Ingmar Bergman

Writer | Smultronstället

Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born July 14, 1918, the son of a priest. The film and T.V. series, The Best Intentions (1992) is biographical and shows the early marriage of his parents. The film Sunday's Children (1992) depicts a bicycle journey with his father. In the miniseries Private Confessions (...

57. Kar-Wai Wong

Director | Yi dai zong shi

Wong Kar-wai (born 17 July 1956) is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylised, emotionally resonant work, including Ah fei zing zyun (1990), Dung che sai duk (1994), Chung Hing sam lam (1994), Do lok tin si (1995), Chun gwong ...

58. Xavier Dolan

Actor | J'ai tué ma mère

Xavier Dolan was born on March 20, 1989 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is an actor and producer, known for I Killed My Mother (2009), Tom at the Farm (2013) and Heartbeats (2010).

59. Shinji Aoyama

Director | Yurîka

A director known for the thematic and visual bleakness of his work, Aoyama often sets his films in the Kyushu region from which he hails. He graduated from Rikkyo University and became known in 1996, but it was Eureka in 2000, which won him prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. Aoyama would continue ...

60. 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 ...

61. Hayao Miyazaki

Writer | Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi

Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan's greatest animation directors. The entertaining plots, compelling characters, and breathtaking visuals in his films have earned him international renown from critics as well as public recognition within Japan.

Miyazaki started his career in 1963 as an animator at the ...

62. Karel Kachyna

Director | Ucho

Karel Kachyna was born on May 1, 1924 in Vyskov, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He was a director and writer, known for The Ear (1970), Nadeje (1964) and The High Wall (1964). He was married to Alena Mihulová. He died on March 12, 2004 in Prague, Czech Republic.

63. Ryosuke Hashiguchi

Writer | Gururi no koto

Hashiguchi Ryosuke directed 8mm-films while still at secondary school. In 1989 his short film "A Secret Evening" won the grand prix at the Pia Film Festival. In 1992 he made his first feature "The Slight Fever of a 20-year old", which was screened in Berlin and broke box-office records at one of ...

64. François Truffaut

Writer | La nuit américaine

French director François Truffaut began to assiduously go to the movies at age seven. He was also a great reader but not a good pupil. He left school at 14 and started working. In 1947, aged 15, he founded a film club and met André Bazin, a French critic, who became his protector. Bazin helped the ...

65. 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 ...

66. Ernst Lubitsch

Director | To Be or Not to Be

From Ernst Lubitsch's experiences in Sophien Gymnasium (high school) theater, he decided to leave school at the age of 16 and pursue a career on the stage. He had to compromise with his father and keep the account books for the family tailor business while he acted in cabarets and music halls at ...

67. Shûji Terayama

Writer | Saraba hakobune

Terayama Shuji was born the only son of Terayama Hachiro and Terayama Hatsu in Hirosaki City, Aomori on December 10th, 1935; but his birth and name were officially registered on January 10th, 1936. His father, an officer in the "thought police", leaves for the Pacific War in early 1941. He dies in ...

68. Andrea Arnold

Director | American Honey

Andrea Arnold was born on April 5, 1961 in Dartford, Kent, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for American Honey (2016), Fish Tank (2009) and Red Road (2006).

69. Cristian Mungiu

Producer | 4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile

Cristian Mungiu was born on April 27, 1968 in Iasi, Romania. He is a producer and writer, known for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), Graduation (2016) and Beyond the Hills (2012).

70. Agnès Varda

Director | Cléo de 5 à 7

Agnès Varda was born on May 30, 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on March 29, 2019 in Paris, France.

71. Aleksey Balabanov

Director | Brat

Aleksey Balabanov was born on February 25, 1959 in Sverdlovsk, Sverdlovskaya oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now Ekaterinburg, Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for Brother (1997), Cargo 200 (2007) and Of Freaks and Men (1998). He was married to Irina ? and Nadezhda Vasileva. He died on May 18, ...

72. Fred Kelemen

Cinematographer | Abendland

Born in Berlin (West), Fred Kelemen studied painting, music, philosophy, science of religions and theatre sciences and worked in different theatres as a director's assistant before he began his studies at the German Film & TV Academy Berlin (dffb) in 1989. Since that time, he has made a number of ...

73. 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 ...

74. Hideaki Anno

Writer | Shin Gojira

Hideaki Anno was born on May 22, 1960 in Ube, Japan. He is a writer and director, known for Shin Godzilla (2016), Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (2007) and The Wind Rises (2013). He has been married to Moyoco Anno since March 26, 2002.

75. Sam Peckinpah

Writer | The Wild Bunch

"If they move", commands stern-eyed William Holden, "kill 'em". So begins The Wild Bunch (1969), Sam Peckinpah's bloody, high-body-count eulogy to the mythologized Old West. "Pouring new wine into the bottle of the Western, Peckinpah explodes the bottle", observed critic Pauline Kael. That ...

76. Jonas Mekas

Director | The Brig

Jonas Mekas, born December 24, 1922, Semeniskiai, Birzai, Lithuania, is a director, cinematographer, editor, writer, actor, poet, artist and publicist. More than 60 years of tireless work in film, arts and media has earned him the epithet "The Godfather of American Avant-Garde Cinema". In 1944 ...

77. Patricio Guzmán

Director | Nostalgia de la luz

Patricio Guzmán was born on August 11, 1941 in Santiago, Chile. He is a director and writer, known for Nostalgia for the Light (2010), The Battle of Chile: Part I (1975) and The Southern Cross (1991).

78. Frank Capra

Director | It's a Wonderful Life

One of seven children, Frank Capra was born on May 18, 1897, in Bisacquino, Sicily. On May 10, 1903, his family left for America aboard the ship Germania, arriving in New York on May 23rd. "There's no ventilation, and it stinks like hell. They're all miserable. It's the most degrading place you ...

79. Peter Brosens

Producer | King of the Belgians

Peter Brosens is a Belgian independent film producer and director whose films have accumulated 400 festival selections and 75 awards, including top awards for both fiction and non-fiction. Peter is producer of Jessica Woodworth's feature LUKA (2023) and Mattias Bavré's debut Zlata (2023). Between ...

80. Mani Kaul

Director | Duvidha

Mani Kaul was born on December 25, 1944 in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India. He was a director and writer, known for Duvidha (1973), Naukar Ki Kameez (1999) and Uski Roti (1970). He died on July 6, 2011 in New Delhi, India.

81. Alejandro Jodorowsky

Writer | El Topo

Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in Tocopilla, Chile on February 17, 1929. In 1939 he moved to Santiago where he attended university, was a circus clown and a puppeteer. In 1953 he went to Paris and studied mime with Marcel Marceau. He worked with Maurice Chevalier there and made a short film, La ...

82. Brillante Mendoza

Director | Alpha: The Right to Kill

Brillante Mendoza is a Philippine director and producer. He is the first Filipino to receive the Best Director award at Cannes for his film Kinatay in 2009. He is also the only Filipino to receive France's "Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres" (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) in ...

83. Rokuro Mochizuki

Director | Shin kanashiki hittoman

Rokuro Mochizuki was born on May 9, 1957 in Tokyo, Japan. He is a director and writer, known for Another Lonely Hitman (1995), Onibi (1997) and Koi gokudo (1997).

84. Aleksey German

Writer | Khrustalyov, mashinu!

Aleksey German was born on July 20, 1938 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]. He was an actor and writer, known for Khrustalyov, My Car! (1998), Hard to Be a God (2013) and Moy drug Ivan Lapshin (1985). He was married to Svetlana Karmalita. He died on February 21, 2013 in ...

85. Sang-il Lee

Director | Akunin

Sang-il Lee was born on January 6, 1974 in Niigata, Japan. He is a director and writer, known for Villain (2010), Rage (2016) and Hura gâru (2006).

86. Guy Maddin

Director | The Heart of the World

Guy Maddin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Herdis Maddin (a hair-dresser) and Charles "Chas" Maddin (grain clerk and general manager of the Maroons, a Winnipeg hockey team). Maddin studied economics at the University of Winnipeg, working as a bank manager, house painter, and photographic...

87. Valerio Zurlini

Writer | Cronaca familiare

Valerio Zurlini was born on March 19, 1926. During his law studies in Rome, he started working in the theatre. In 1943, he joined the Italian resistance. Zurlini became a member of the Italian Communist Party. He filmed short documentaries in the immediate post-war period and in 1954 directed his ...

88. Boris Barnet

Director | Miss Mend

Boris Barnet was born on June 18, 1902 in Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a director and actor, known for The Adventures of the Three Reporters (1926), Secret Agent (1947) and Okraina (1933). He was married to Yelena Kuzmina, Natalia Glan, Alla Kazanskaya and Valentina Barnet. He died ...

89. 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 ...

90. Julián Hernández

Writer | Mil nubes de paz cercan el cielo, amor, jamás acabarás de ser amor

Julián Hernández was born on January 9, 1973 in Mexico, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He is a writer and director, known for A Thousand Clouds of Peace (2003), Long Sleepless Nights (2000) and Dos entre muchos (2022).

91. 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 "...

92. Adoor Gopalakrishnan

Director | Mathilukal

Adoor Gopalakrishnan is India's most acclaimed contemporary filmmaker. Born in 1941 in Kerala, a state in south India, he belongs to a family with strong links to the performing arts, especially Kathakali, a highly-stylised form of dance drama. From the age of eight Adoor began acting for the stage...

93. Yoshihiro Nakamura

Director | Fisshu sutôrî

Yoshihiro Nakamura was born on August 25, 1970 in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. He is an actor and director, known for Fish Story (2009), A Boy and His Samurai (2010) and Dark Water (2002).

94. Alice Rohrwacher

Director | Lazzaro felice

Alice Rohrwacher was born on December 29, 1981 in Fiesole, Tuscany, Italy. She is a director and writer, known for Happy as Lazzaro (2018), La Chimera (2023) and The Wonders (2014).

95. Eugène Green

Director | La sapienza

Eugène Green was born in 1947 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a director and writer, known for La Sapienza (2014), Le monde vivant (2003) and Waiting for the Barbarians (2017).

96. Anh Hung Tran

Director | Mùi du du xanh

Anh Hung Tran was born on December 23, 1962 in Da Nang, Vietnam. He is a director and writer, known for The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), Norwegian Wood (2010) and The Taste of Things (2023). He is married to Nu Yên-Khê Tran.

97. Atom Egoyan

Director | The Sweet Hereafter

Born in Egypt to Armenian parents, he was raised in Western Canada. Both his parents were painters, and he planned to be a playwright, but after making a short film, he became hooked on telling stories visually. Returned to ethnic "homeland" when he filmed Calendar (1993) in Armenia. Won attention ...

98. 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,...

99. Jafar Panahi

Director | Taxi

Jafar Panahi (Born 11 July 1960) is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly identified with the Iranian New Wave film movement. After several years of making short films and working as an assistant director for fellow Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi achieved ...

100. Petr Zelenka

Director | Mnága - Happy End

Petr Zelenka was born on August 21, 1967 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He is a director and writer, known for Mnága - Happy End (1996), Príbehy obycejného sílenství (2005) and Rok dábla (2002).