favorite directors

1. Akira Kurosawa

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...

The first nearly perfect director of all time. Everything he made is amazing and better than anything most other directors have made. He's easily one of the most influential directors of all time. I first learned who he was while reading a preview article for a game that had really caught my attention as a teen - Seven Samurai 20XX. Reading about how much he had influenced not just some but MANY of my favorite movies AND video games just blew my mind, and when I finally watched Seven Samurai and Throne of Blood (I was already a fan of Macbeth), it made most of my favorite movies up to that point seem a lot less great... these were my new favorite movies, and I wanted to see more like these! It proved to me that critics and film buffs actually know what they're talking about and that old films and foreign films are some of the greatest joy you can get from watching movies, if you give them a chance.

2. 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 ...

This man has never made a film that wasn't worth watching, and no only that, wasn't very well directed... going back to his first film, Following. I became a huge fan with The Prestige, after being blown away by Batman Begins. The Prestige hit it home for me that this guy is a genius. Well, probably along with his brother, Jonathan Nolan, the writer. He's not perfect, I could bring up a few nitpicks, but even then he's closest to being what could be the greatest director of all time. He perfectly balances intelligent and commercial films. His movies can entertain just as well as they provoke thought.

The Prestige, still my favorite film of his, is literally like a puzzle that most people won't solve the first time... and for someone like me, that encourages repeated viewing, and each time you notice something more and come out thinking differently about it. I showed the movie to a co-worker once, and he told me what he thought of the story... then I told him one thing that he had overlooked and you could see the "eureka" moment in his face, and he suddenly wanted to watch it again.

While a lot of top directors these days owe a lot of their success to old directors, who's films are still better than that which they inspired, Christopher Nolan is one of the few today who I would call an original... Of course, he was also inspired by history's greats, but you're more likely to see imitations of his work than his work imitating anyone else.

3. 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 ...

All my life I grew up watching Indian movies thinking that it was all commercial and stole ideas from the west to make quick bucks off of ignorant masses. I rarely loved Indian films, and even when I did I knew that there was basic issues with them, like unprofessional editing. After becoming a fan of Kurosawa, I read that Kurosawa had said about an old Indian director - "Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon." My favorite director, a director from Japan, was inspired by an Indian director!

After finally watching Pather Panchali, I could see why Kurosawa loved it so much. It is one of the greatest and most human films ever made. It shocked me that I had never heard of Ray from my own parents or family, or from the Indian tv and movie channels we frequently watched. Ray's films are more popular outside of Indian than they are inside of India, unfortunately. A big part of the reason is that he was a Bengali director who's films were in Bengali, not the dominant "Bollywood" language of Hindi. The only film I've seen on Indian satellite movie channels is "The Chess Player", only because that was his only film made in Hindi (Satranj ke Khiladi). I've never seen any movie with Hindi subtitles, they have to be made in Hindi or dubbed in Hindi or they won't be shown to Indian masses.

Through TCM, when celebrating his 100th birthday and other days, I saw many of his other movies, and they're all well made good movies, but nothing compares to Pather Panchali, at least in terms of direction. What I love more about some of his other movies is the stories he tells, especially in An Enemy of the People. I guess the thing is, his other great movies tend to rely more on heavy dialogue and script compared to his first masterpiece, and it's easy to notice that. Pather Panchalli is most powerful through how it uses images and emotion.

4. Mamoru Oshii

Director | Kôkaku kidôtai

Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker, television director and screenwriter. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of popular anime, including Urusei Yatsura (1981-1984), Angel's Egg (1985), Patlabor: The Movie (1989), Ghost in the Shell (1995), and Ghost in ...

He made my absolute favorite movie ever made - Ghost in the Shell. I think that's all I really gotta say. This director created an 80 minute work of pure art from start to finish. He used his film to spread ideas that changed my life.

5. Satoshi Kon

Writer | Tôkyô goddofâzâzu

Satoshi Kon was born in 1963. He studied at the Musashino College of the Arts. He began his career as a Manga artist. He then moved to animation and worked as a background artist on many films (including Roujin Z (1991) by 'Katsuhiro Otomo'). Then, in 1995, he wrote an episode of the anthology film ...

I've seen all of his movies and TV series, but only because of the sad fact that there isn't all that much out there... this director died far too young, and it's a fact that if we had even 10 more years of him on this Earth, we'd have even more of his amazing work to enjoy. He never created a dud. His stuff might not have always been commercially successful, but it was always amazing. He's one of the few directors who made something that I can directly connect to influencing Christopher Nolan - Paprika. That was also the first film of his that I ever saw (before I had even heard of Inception, btw). He's also influenced other directors who have made great movies.

6. Ram Gopal Varma

Director | Rangeela

Ram Gopal Varma was born in Hyderabad, the capital city of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He initially was a video store owner before eventually becoming one of India's leading film directors. A film buff during his youth, Varma would watch both American and Indian cinema regularly. As a young...

As a child watching Hindi films with my parents, his movies easily stood out and he was the first director I ever became familiar with because I was impressed by how his movies were actually cleanly cut and edited and had a unique style with attention to detail, since I had quickly become accustomed to the stereotype of commercial Hindi films looking cheap (technical quality decades behind western cinema) with odd cuts and violin-screeching melodramatic scenes. His movies clearly stood out, and when I wanted to understand why - I learned what a film director was.

I don't entirely hesitate to call this man - "The Vittorio De Sica" of India... something that modern India can't really handle, to be honest. Without a doubt the most interesting Indian filmmaker of all time. Both loved and hated, both celebrated and reviled, both overhyped and underappreciated, as artistic as he is commercial. One thing no one can deny is that he's a rebel and a rogue. He managed to find success outside of India's mainstream cinema system on his own terms. At a time when the best of his fellow Indian directors couldn't even get basic editing right, his films were edited sometimes even better than many western directors. He's the first director I've seen to get culturally review-bombed on IMDB for one of his movies, over at least a decade before it became a trend in the west. He makes the kind of films he wants to make and tries his best to get them made while trying to avoid the crap thrown his way.

But I have also had my bouts of disappointment with him. These days he can't seem to do anything but put out trailers and hype up movie and series ideas that generate a ton of buzz but almost never get made, and if they do get made they don't get released. He's way, way too busy talking about himself on social media these days. He's also way too obsessed with Ayn Rand, even though her philosophies have proven to have failed. He may also have fallen to Nationalism lately, but then that's most of India these days. But even when he makes true duds, his movies are still more interesting to watch than any other duds out there... and always filmed and edited well. I just wish he stuck with actually making movies.

One thing that never changed about him, though, is this remarkable eye for new talent, especially in women. Even when they're not new, he finds away to reinvent them and unlock their true potential - the greatest example being Urmila. If Vittorio De Sica had Sophia Loren, RGV had Urmila Matondkar. Another huge one being Amitabh Bachhan. He's also introduced/elevated other great, legendary actors to the mainstream in their early days, like Manoj Bajpayee.

Films like Satya, Company, Shiva, Rangeela, Kaun?, and Sarkar are among his most celebrated films, among my most favorite movies of all time, and just a few of his best movies. I personally also love (some since my childhood) - Daud, Mast, Raat, and Aag. There's also his great films from his RGV Company, which don't cast him as director but totally look like his work - Road, Gayab, Naach, James, etc.

I need to see more of his non-Hindi films... which is hard to do because I could never find a good source for non-Hindi Indian films with English subtitles.

7. Lotte Reiniger

Director | Silhouetten

Lotte Reiniger was born on June 2, 1899 in Berlin, Germany. She was a director and writer, known for Silhouetten (1936), Der Graf von Carabas (1935) and Lotte Reiniger - The Fairy Tale Films (1961). She was married to Carl Koch. She died on June 19, 1981 in Dettenhausen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

It's amazing what she accomplished by herself (with some help from her husband), back in the early days of cinema. She was a genius, and her stop-motion, hand-made paper puppet animation was far ahead of its time and still holds up today. Prince Achmed is still one of the greatest animated films ever made and a true classic.

8. 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...

The Ascent (1977) is masterful, perfect film-making. Tough subject mater, but definitely one of the very best directed films of all time, and definitely one of the best war films ever made. With that film, she did what Kathryn Bigelow was praised and awarded for doing, 30 years before her. I'm gonna jump at the chance to watch any of her other films when I can. Even if a director has a small repertoire of films, and even fewer films that are well known, she can still stand above most by showcasing genius in her craft if even in one film.

9. Vittorio De Sica

Director | Ladri di biciclette

Vittorio De Sica grew up in Naples, and started out as an office clerk in order to raise money to support his poor family. He was increasingly drawn towards acting, and made his screen debut while still in his teens, joining a stage company in 1923. By the late 1920s he was a successful matinee ...

If Japan's Kurosawa was in part inspired by India's Satyajit Ray, Satyajit Ray was in part inspired by this man from Italy, Vittorio De Sica. Bicycle Thieves is easily of my favorite movies and greatest films I've ever seen. Next to Ram Gopal Verma, this is probably the director I can relate to the most as well through the repertoire of films he had made. He's not just one of the greatest directors of all time, but also probably the most versatile... sometimes it's hard to believe any two of his movies could have been made by the same person, yet they're both amazing in their own way. He made Bicycle Thieves, one of the greatest emotional and realistic dramas ever, and he also made some of Sophia Loren's greatest, most classic, comedic films like "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" and "Marriage, Italian Style". In fact, he's the one who put her, my favorite actress (next to Urmila Matondkar), on the map with the serious war drama, "Two Women". I haven't even seen half of his films yet but every one that I have seen has been fantastic, I can't wait to see more.

And if that wasn't enough, he's even acted in some great movies.

10. Fritz Lang

Actor | Le mépris

Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. ...

Metropolis!

11. Tex Avery

Director | I Love to Singa

Tex Avery was a descendant of Judge Roy Bean and Daniel Boone, but all his grandma ever told him about it was "Don't ever mention you are kin to Roy Bean. He's a no good skunk!!" After graduating from North Dallas High School in 1927, Avery moved to Southern California in 1929 and got a job in the ...

The cartoon shorts he directed are hardwired into the DNA of all the best comedic cartoons ever made. Spongebob wouldn't exist without him. Half of my favorite cartoons I watched as a kid and still love today wouldn't exist without him. And when you learn that fact and go back to watch his work... he still beats them all. Far ahead of his time, still amazing today, still hilarious today.

12. 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 ...

The first true master of the cinematic EPIC. Or at least the one who should be credited with taking the genre to new heights and making a career of it. Lawrence of Arabia is cinema at its finest, un-replicable in any other medium. It was the favorite film of the first of my ancestors who was a cinephile, my favorite uncle, and probably the reason why anyone else in my family ever became cinephiles, including me.

13. Charles Chaplin

Writer | The Great Dictator

Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the ...

Timeless genius. I don't think you can go further back than him to find a comedian, actor, and director combo that has stood the test of time like Chaplin. He's the Super Mario of Cinema. Children and adults 100s of years from now, if humans and films still exist, will still laugh, smile, and cry just as much as kids and adults alike did when his movies first released.

14. 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 ...

15. Lois Weber

Director | Suspense

Lois Weber, who had been a street-corner evangelist before entering motion pictures in 1905, became the first American woman movie director of note, and a major one at that. Herbert Blaché, the husband of Frenchwoman Alice Guy, the first woman to direct a motion picture (and arguably, the first ...

I need to see more of her films, but Shoes, alone, is one of the best films I've ever seen, definitely one of the best silent films ever. It was like Cinema Verite, almost half a decade before it caught on in Europe with amazing films like Bicycle Thief.

16. Ron Fricke

Cinematographer | Samsara

Ron Fricke is known for Samsara (2011), Baraka (1992) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005).

17. 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 ...

18. 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 ...

Blade Runner is one of my top 10 all time favorite movies and one of the best movies ever made. Alien is also one of the best movies ever made and easily one of my personal top 10 favorites, and definitely my favorite horror film. And that just scratches the surface of how many great films he's made. Hell, I even liked G.I. Jane.

19. 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 ...

20. Elaine May

Actress | Small Time Crooks

Elaine May (born under the name Elaine Iva Berlin) is an American actress, comedian, film director, playwright, and screenwriter from Philadelphia. Her professional career started in the 1950s and is still ongoing. She has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. She ...

21. 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 ...

I think he's the most important American director in history. I'm no self-professed expert, but I'd wager that his films almost single handedly created, propagated, promoted, promised, mythologized, and exported the American Dream and 20th Century American Values. He could do all that because that's just how damn good of a director he was, and how damn good of an American he was. Every country wishes they had their own Frank Capra. Modern America needs a new Frank Capra, as rewatching his classics on cable during holidays isn't cutting it anymore... probably because most people have moved over to the internet. But those who make it a point to watch his films on special occasions are usually people worth knowing.

I just learned that there was a 1997 documentary about Frank Capra called "Frank Capra's American Dream", go figure.

22. 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.

She made one of my favorite movies in recent years - "An" (Sweet Bean). It's amazing that such a human and realistic film can still be made today. Should be considered one of the best Japanese movies in at least the past decade.

23. 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 ...

24. 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, ...

25. 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 ...

Here for obvious reasons, lol. Strangely, I'm one of the few people who would say "The Rumble Fish" when asked which of his movies is my favorite... I absolutely love that movie on a personal level. That said, I really didn't like his take on Dracula and I wasn't so into Jack... the most distinctive and unique thing about his direction, to me, is that it's as if all his films are directed by a different person, lol.

26. Deepa Mehta

Director | Fire

Deepa Mehta is a transnational artist and a screenwriter, director, and producer whose work has been called "courageous", "provocative" and "breathtaking". Her visually lush and emotionally resonating films have played at every major international film festival; receiving numerous awards and ...

It's interesting that there's two major female expat Indian directors who make films in English working around the same time. Of the two, I have to say Deepa Mehta is my favorite, and not just because she's the Canadian-Indian of the two (lol). She's made multiple good films that stuck with me... especially her "Elements Trilogy" of Fire, Earth, and especially Water. It's funny but, I first didn't like her at all, because she made Bollywood Hollywood, a cheesy, not very funny comedy (sex-comedy, even) that I felt like it embarrassed the Indian-Canadian community. Now I actually like that movie and have nostalgia for it, plus I like how she took a Canadian-Indian actress Lisa Ray's career from the Bollywood horror film "Kasoor" (where she had to be dubbed), to the comedic role in Bollywood Hollywood, to her greatest performance in Water.

27. Mira Nair

Director | Salaam Bombay!

Accomplished Film Director/Writer/Producer Mira Nair was born in India and educated at Delhi University and at Harvard. She began her film career as an actor and then turned to directing award-winning documentaries, including So Far From India and India Cabaret. Her debut feature film, Salaam ...

Of the two major Indian expat directors right now, Mira Nair, the American-Indian of the two, has less movies I've enjoyed in comparison... actually, just one - Salaam Bombay, and it was entirely in Hindi. It's one of the best Hindi films I have ever seen. Of the two directors, I have to say she's made the best film so far.

28. Kathryn Bigelow

Director | Zero Dark Thirty

A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. At 20, she won a scholarship to the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She was given a studio in a former Offtrack Betting building, literally in an old bank vault, where she made art and waited to be ...

It's sad to say, but it wasn't until Hurtlocker that I was aware that I was watching a film that wasn't made by a man. I'm sure I had seen films made by women before without knowing that they were... "Big" is one of those for sure, but Hurtlocker came out when I was really becoming a film-buff and so I knew more about who was directing what. I still remember the buzz Hurtlocker was getting from the very start, and it did not disappoint. It couldn't have been better directed. And while I appreciate the idea that more female directors are good for cinema because they can bring a different perspective and different ideas/stories, I'll just say it blatantly - Bigelow hit it home that a woman can make the same kind of great films men make and just as good.

After that I saw Zero Dark Thirty, which was fine, but not to the level of Hurtlocker for me. Going back I've seen some of her older films and those have impressed me more. There was a woman making excellent films all this time and I had no idea and her name wasn't talked about at least next to male directors like Michael Bay (who she easily surpasses in craft, imo).

29. Max Fleischer

Producer | The Tantalizing Fly

Max Fleischer was an American animator, inventor, and film producer from Krakow. As an inventor, Fleischer is primarily known for inventing the rotoscope, an animation technique that allowed animators to draw realistic images and movements, based on live-action images. He later co-founded the ...

If Tex Avery is the first great comedic animator in history for me, then Max Fleischer is the first great technical and artistic animator. Tex sowed the seeds for great comedic cartoons like Spongebob Squarepants, but Max is the origin behind cartoons like Batman The Animated Series and The Iron Giant. It's too bad more modern animated series can't be influence by him... western 3D animation is entirely devoid of his influence as subtlety goes out the window in favor of exaggerated movements, and not just for comedic reasons like Tex Avery appropriately did.

30. Masami Ôbari

Animation_department | Platinumhugen Ordian

Masami Ôbari was born on January 24, 1966 in Hiroshima, Japan. He is a director and writer, known for Platinumhugen Ordian (2000). He has been married to Ritsu Togasaki since November 14, 2016. He was previously married to Atsuko Ishida.

This guy cranks pure adrenaline and entertainment up to 11. For power trips, this is the expert. Sexy heroes and heroines, lots of cool super powers, shining awesome robots, more colours blasting at you than a double rainbow, and to top it all off - great animation. The epitome of pure 90s anime fun. I didn't know who he was until I started reading gaming magazines and saw his gaming anime like Fatal Fury and Gowcaizer, but I later learned that he may have been the hand behind the very first and favorite anime I ever saw as a child, before I knew what anime was - Teknoman (Tekkaman Blade). He basically defined what cool was for me as a kid.

31. Bhavna Talwar

Director | Dharm

Bhavna Talwar is known for Religion (2007), Happi (2019) and Broken (2016).

As far as I've seen, she's only directed one film that's actually been released and it's amazing. 2007's Dharm (Religion). It's actually one of my favorite movies. What's even more amazing is how overlooked the film has been by everyone within and without India. This movie should be required viewing in all schools, not only in India.

32. Godfrey Reggio

Director | Koyaanisqatsi

Godfrey Reggio is a pioneer of a film style that creates poetic images of extraordinary emotional impact for audiences worldwide. Reggio is prominent in the film world for his QATSI trilogy, essays of visual images and sound that chronicle the destructive impact of the modern world on the ...

33. Robert Clampett

Director | Time for Beany

Born in San Diego, California, the young Robert Clampett was monumentally moved as a child by the film The Lost World (1925), inspiring him to create a sea-serpent sock-puppet that he used in puppet shows to entertain the neighborhood kids. This led him to create a stuffed Mickey Mouse toy, which ...

For me, he's not at the level of Tex Avery, but close enough.

34. Bigas Luna

Writer | Jamón Jamón

Bigas Luna was born on March 19, 1946 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. He was a writer and director, known for Jamón, Jamón (1992), Caniche (1979) and Anguish (1987). He was married to Celia Orós. He died on April 6, 2013 in La Riera de Gaià, Tarragona, Catalonia, Spain.

35. Guillermo del Toro

Writer | El laberinto del fauno

Guillermo del Toro was born October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Raised by his Catholic grandmother, del Toro developed an interest in filmmaking in his early teens. Later, he learned about makeup and effects from the legendary Dick Smith (The Exorcist (1973)) and worked on making his ...

36. 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 ...

37. Tinto Brass

Writer | La vacanza

Giovanni Brass was born on 26 March 1933 into the family of a famous artist, Italico Brass, who was his grandfather. Italico gave his grandson a nickname "Tintoretto," which Giovanni later adapted into his cinematic name, Tinto Brass.

Tinto inherited his grandfather's artistic skills, but he applied...

38. Hiraku Kaneko

Animation_department | G-on Riders

Hiraku Kaneko is known for G-on Riders (2002), Maken-Ki! Battling Venus (2011) and Manyu Scroll (2011).

39. Akio Takami

Animation_department | Boku to Misaki-sensei

40. 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), ...

41. 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 ...

42. Penny Marshall

Actress | Laverne & Shirley

Penny Marshall was born Carole Penny Marshall on October 15, 1943 in Manhattan. The Libra was 5' 6 1/2", with brown hair and green eyes. She was the daughter of Marjorie (Ward), a tap dance teacher, and Anthony "Tony" Marshall, an industrial film director. She was the younger sister of filmmakers ...

43. Ida Lupino

Actress | High Sierra

Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was ...

44. 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...

45. Mary Harron

Director | American Psycho

Mary Harron (born January 12, 1953) is a Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter. She gained recognition for her role in writing and directing several independent films, including I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), American Psycho (2000), and The Notorious Bettie Page (2005). She co-wrote American Psycho and ...

46. Tamara Jenkins

Director | The Savages

Tamara Jenkins was born on May 2, 1962 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and writer, known for The Savages (2007), Private Life (2018) and Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). She has been married to Jim Taylor since 2002. They have one child.

47. Amy Heckerling

Writer | Clueless

Amy Heckerling studied Film and TV at New York University and got a Masters Degree in Film from The American Film Institute. Despite this education she couldn't get a break in Hollywood. However, in 1982, she made Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), and people started to take notice. In 1985, ...

48. Sarah Polley

Actress | My Life Without Me

Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her ...

49. Julie Taymor

Director | Frida

Julie Taymor is an Academy Award-nominated director, known for such films as Frida (2002) and Across the Universe (2007).

She was born on December 15, 1952, in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Her father, Melvin Lester Taymor, was a gynecologist. Her mother, Elizabeth Bernstein, was a ...

50. Peter Weir

Director | Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Peter Weir was born on August 21, 1944 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He is a director and writer, known for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), The Way Back (2010) and Witness (1985). He has been married to Wendy Stites since 1966. They have two children.

51. Chantal Akerman

Director | Les rendez-vous d'Anna

Chantal Akerman was born on June 6, 1950 in Brussels, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for The Meetings of Anna (1978), I, You, He, She (1974) and A Couch in New York (1996). She was married to Sonia Wieder-Atherton. She died on October 5, 2015 in Paris, France.

While I don't entirely enjoy her films sometimes, I appreciate and respect what she tries to do with them. A director can set their mark on cinema history not by being as good as other directors, but by setting themselves apart, and that's what Akerman is successful at. Films can tell a story like a book, but they can also be a canvas like a piece of art, and Akerman's films are truly art... not abstract art, but more like still-life and very human art. More than half a century after the first feature length film was ever made, she showed that it was still possible to do something entirely original with the concept of a motion picture. While I like Jeanne Dielman the most of her her movies, News From Home feels like a precursor to some of my favorite movies ever - Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka.

52. Ralph Bakshi

Director | Wizards

Ralph Bakshi worked his way up from Brooklyn and became an animation legend. He was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, Israel, the son of Mina (Zlotin) and Eliezar Bakshi, and is of Krymchak Jewish descent. He was raised in Brownsville, after his family came to New York to escape World War II. ...

53. Russ Meyer

Director | Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens

Russell Albion Meyer was born in San Leandro, California, to Lydia Lucinda (Hauck), a nurse, and William Arthur Meyer, a police officer, who divorced during his childhood. His parents were both of German descent. Meyer began winning prizes at 15 with his amateur films. He spent World War II in ...

Say what you will about him, even hate him, but I appreciate him for having the guts to bring sexuality to film without being gross or too violent, or without it being "porn". The world needs more sex-positive films for all kinds of people to counter the massive head-start that insidious sex-negativity has had in our world (at least the western world) for centuries now. Say what you will about him, but his movies are unique and original, even strange... there's nothing else like them, at least for their time... in fact that's the most amazing thing when watching his oldest movies... they feel ahead of their time just because of what he was able to get away with in them and his offbeat style. His comedic style also suits me and I regularly do get more than a chuckle while watching his movies.

54. Louis Lumière

Producer | La Mi-Carême, Char et batailles de confettis

Louis Lumière was a French engineer and industrialist who played a key role in the development of photography and cinema. His parents were Antoine Lumière, a photographer and painter, and Jeanne Joséphine Costille Lumière, who were married in 1861 and moved to Besançon, setting up a small ...

55. Auguste Lumière

Producer | Londres, alerte de pompiers: film Lumière n° 246

Auguste Lumière was a French engineer, industrialist, biologist, and illusionist, born in Besançon, France. He attended the Martinière Technical School and worked as a manager at the photographic company of his father, Antoine Lumière. Although it is his brother Louis Lumière who is generally ...

56. Anurag Kashyap

Producer | Gangs of Wasseypur

Anurag Singh Kashyap (born 10 September 1972) is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter. Kashyap made his directorial debut with as yet unreleased Paanch, with Kay Kay Menon as the lead. As a filmmaker, he is known for Black Friday (2004), a controversial and award-winning Hindi film ...

57. 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 ...

The Escape Movies and Big Trouble in Little China are more than enough reason to be grateful of this director's existence. They Live is also amazing.

58. 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 ...

59. F.W. Murnau

Director | Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

F.W. Murnau was a German film director. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, and became a friend of director Max Reinhardt. During World War I he served as a company commander at the eastern front and was in the German air ...

60. James Ivory

Writer | Call Me by Your Name

The main part of his few movies were filmed in the quarter of a century in which he worked closely together with the Indian producer Ismail Merchant and the German writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. His first films are all set in India and are very much influenced by the style of Satyajit Ray and Jean ...

61. Richard Attenborough

Actor | Jurassic Park

Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough of Richmond-upon-Thames, was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Mary (née Clegg), a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Frederick Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic administrator who was a don at Emmanuel College and wrote a ...

62. Prachya Pinkaew

Producer | Ong-Bak

Prachya Pinkaew was born on September 2, 1962. He is a producer and director, known for Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior (2003), The Protector (2005) and Chocolate (2008).

63. Bernardo Bertolucci

Writer | Il conformista

Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian director whose films were known for their colorful visual style, was born in Parma, Italy. He attended Rome University and became famous as a poet. He served as assistant director for Pier Paolo Pasolini in the film Accattone (1961) and directed The Grim Reaper (...

64. Robert Zemeckis

Writer | Back to the Future

A whiz-kid with special effects, Robert is from the Spielberg camp of film-making (Steven Spielberg produced many of his films). Usually working with writing partner Bob Gale, Robert's earlier films show he has a talent for zany comedy (Romancing the Stone (1984), 1941 (1979)) and special effect ...

65. Sergio Leone

Writer | Once Upon a Time in America

Sergio Leone was virtually born into the cinema - he was the son of Roberto Roberti (A.K.A. Vincenzo Leone), one of Italy's cinema pioneers, and actress Bice Valerian. Leone entered films in his late teens, working as an assistant director to both Italian directors and U.S. directors working in ...

66. George Miller

Producer | Mad Max: Fury Road

George Miller is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer, and former medical doctor. He is best known for his Mad Max franchise, with Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) being hailed as amongst the greatest action films of all time. Aside from the Mad Max ...

67. Sidney Lumet

Director | 12 Angry Men

Sidney Lumet was a master of cinema, best known for his technical knowledge and his skill at getting first-rate performances from his actors -- and for shooting most of his films in his beloved New York. He made over 40 movies, often complex and emotional, but seldom overly sentimental. Although ...

68. 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, ...

69. Alan J. Pakula

Producer | Sophie's Choice

Alan J. Pakula was an American film director, writer and producer. He was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Best Director for All the President's Men (1976) and Best Adapted Screenplay for Sophie's Choice (1982).

He also directed Presumed Innocent (...

70. Stanley Kramer

Producer | Judgment at Nuremberg

Stanley Kramer was born on September 29, 1913 in Hell's Kitchen [now Clinton], Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer and director, known for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and Inherit the Wind (1960). He was married to Karen Sharpe, Anne P. ...

71. 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,...

72. Terry Gilliam

Writer | Brazil

Terry Gilliam was born near Medicine Lake, Minnesota. When he was 12 his family moved to Los Angeles where he became a fan of MAD magazine. In his early twenties he was often stopped by the police who suspected him of being a drug addict and Gilliam had to explain that he worked in advertising. In ...

73. 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 ...

74. 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 ...

75. Louis Malle

Director | Au revoir les enfants

Louis Malle, the descendant of a French nobleman who made a fortune in beet sugar during the Napoleonic Wars, created films that explored life and its meaning. Malle's family discouraged his early interest in film but, in 1950, allowed him to enter the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies ...

76. 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 ...

77. Michael Curtiz

Director | Casablanca

Curtiz began acting in and then directing films in his native Hungary in 1912. After WWI, he continued his filmmaking career in Austria and Germany and into the early 1920s when he directed films in other countries in Europe. Moving to the US in 1926, he started making films in Hollywood for Warner...

78. David Fincher

Director | Se7en

David Fincher was born in 1962 in Denver, Colorado, and was raised in Marin County, California. When he was 18 years old he went to work for John Korty at Korty Films in Mill Valley. He subsequently worked at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) from 1981-1983. Fincher left ILM to direct TV commercials...

79. 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 ...

80. John Sturges

Director | The Great Escape

John Sturges was an American film director, mostly remembered for his outstanding Western films. In 1992, Sturges was awarded a Golden Boot Award for his lifelong contribution to the Western genre.

Sturges was born in the village of Oak Park, Illinois, within the Chicago metropolitan area. By 1930, ...

81. 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 ...

82. Nicholas Ray

Director | Rebel Without a Cause

Nicholas Ray was born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle in 1911, in small-town Galesville, Wisconsin, to Lena (Toppen) and Raymond Joseph Kienzle, a contractor and builder. He was of German and Norwegian descent. Ray's early experience with film came with some radio broadcasting in high school. He left the ...

83. Richard Lester

Director | A Hard Day's Night

Richard Lester was one of the most influential directors of the 1960s, and continued his career into the 1970s and early '80s. He is best remembered for the two films he helmed starring The Beatles: A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (1965), the frenetic cutting style of which was seen by many as ...

84. Luc Besson

Writer | Le Cinquième Élément

Luc Besson spent the first years of his life following his parents, scuba diving instructors, around the world. His early life was entirely aquatic. He already showed amazing creativity as a youth, writing early drafts of The Big Blue (1988) and The Fifth Element (1997), as an adolescent bored in ...

85. Kamal Haasan

Actor | Vishwaroopam

Kamal Haasan was born November 7, 1954 in Paramakudi, Ramanathapuram District, Tamil Nadu. He debuted as a child artiste in the film "Kalathoor Kannamma" (1960). Since then, he has starred in nearly 220 films in the major Indian languages - Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi. He has been a...

86. Brian De Palma

Director | Body Double

Brian De Palma is one of the well-known directors who spear-headed the new movement in Hollywood during the 1970s. He is known for his many films that go from violent pictures, to Hitchcock-like thrillers. Born on September 11, 1940, De Palma was born in Newark, New Jersey in an Italian-American ...

87. Don Bluth

Director | Anastasia

Don Bluth was one of the chief animators at Disney to come to the mantle after the great one's death. He eventually became the animation director for such films as The Rescuers (1977) and Pete's Dragon (1977). Unfortunately, the quality of animation that Disney was producing at this point was not ...

88. Michael Mann

Producer | The Insider

As a director, screenwriter, and producer, four-time Academy Award nominee Michael Mann has established himself as one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers in American cinema. After writing and directing the Primetime Emmy Award-winning television movie The Jericho Mile (1979), Mann ...

89. Terence Fisher

Director | Dracula

Terence Fisher was born in Maida Vale, England, in 1904. Raised by his grandmother in a strict Christian Scientist environment, Fisher left school while still in his teens to join the Merchant Marine. By his own account he soon discovered that a life at sea was not for him, so he left the service ...

90. John McTiernan

Director | Die Hard

John McTiernan was born on January 8, 1951 in Albany, New York, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Die Hard (1988), Rollerball (2002) and Last Action Hero (1993). He has been married to Gail Sistrunk since 2012. He was previously married to Kate Harrington, Donna Dubrow and Carol Land.

91. 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 (...

92. Robert Wise

Director | West Side Story

Robert Earl Wise was born on September 10, 1914 in Winchester, Indiana, the youngest of three sons of Olive R. (Longenecker) and Earl Waldo Wise, a meat packer. His parents were both of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) descent. At age nineteen, the avid moviegoer came into the film business through an ...

93. Bruce Timm

Animation_department | Batman: The Animated Series

Bruce Timm is an American animator, writer, voice actor and director. He is known for creating Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League and various installments of the DC Animated Universe. He co-created several DC characters including Harley Quinn and Livewire. He...

94. 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...

95. Howard Hughes

Scarface

Billionaire businessman, film producer, film director, and aviator, born in Humble, Texas just north of Houston. He studied at two prestigious institutions of higher learning: Rice University in Houston and California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Inherited his father's machine ...

96. 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 ...

97. Oliver Stone

Director | JFK

Oliver Stone has become known as a master of controversial subjects and a legendary film maker. His films are filled with a variety of film angles and styles, he pushes his actors to give Oscar-worthy performances, and despite his failures, has always returned to success.

William Oliver Stone was ...

98. 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 ...

99. John Frankenheimer

Director | The Manchurian Candidate

Born in New York and raised in Queens, John Frankenheimer wanted to become a professional tennis player. He loved movies and his favorite actor was Robert Mitchum. He decided he wanted to be an actor but then he applied for and was accepted in the Motion Picture Squadron of the Air Force where he ...

100. Elia Kazan

Director | On the Waterfront

Known for his creative stage direction, Elia Kazan was born Elias Kazantzoglou on September 7, 1909 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey). Noted for drawing out the best dramatic performances from his actors, he directed 21 actors to Oscar nominations, resulting in nine wins. He ...