Okay this is excellent. Being able to link directly to the individual pages from the master list is a superb feature. Now you just need to bump Kurosawa 10 or 11 spots up the list and it’ll be perfect!
@Matt Harris– haha– yeah the links are a new thing here so bear with me on this continual work in progress. I have a few films to go to finish up the study but it does feel inevitable he’ll jump up when I reappraise the list.
Great list Drake! Is this the exact same list as before (when you used to release singular director pages) or did you make some slight changes? It looks pretty similar. Anyways. Great job!
@R- Thank you for visiting the site and the comment here. So unfortunately the works of Angelopoulos have been very hard for me to find over the years. So I wouldn’t think too much of my omission of him here. As for Bela Tarr— I largely used my top 500 list of films as the backbone of my top 250 directors list and I have a 10 year moratorium on all films for that list. So this spot for Tarr really doesn’t include The Turin Horse. So he should climb this list. As far Bergman and Tarkovsky– I mean I have them #3 and #8- that is really the very top tier
Is it difficult to set up? Ideally the next level would be to be able to link to your individual film reviews from the director or actor pages, but I have no notion of how much work that would entail.
@Azman
I think I’ve stated here that Kurosawa is my choice for #1. I have no problem with anyone opting for one of Drake’s current top 2 though.
@Matt Harris– it isn’t difficult once I messed around with it. It’s just busywork– this was just hours today not reading or writing about cinema or looking for screenshots or anything fun like that. I’m going to start linking more often moving forward. There are just 1500 pages now so the idea of going back and doing it doesn’t exactly appeal. I’ll start updating the year by year archives with hyperlinks to the films though as I go.
No love for Tarkovsky?
Actually i thought that the ideal would be, linking in the top 500 reviews them, although i think there are not many, take a look at the top 100 and so far i have found 43.
Is there any other director besides Scorsese and PTA who has reviews for all his filmography?
Everyone he’s done a study of since launching the site. Ozu, Tarantino, Corbucci, etc. Soon Kurosawa and Fuller. Well all the archivable filmography anyway.
@Aldo– is the Tarkovsky comment for me? There are other directors with their entire filmography covered with reviews here for sure. Some of them just have a lot less films (Steve McQueen for example).
It was actually for @Matt Harris, but i forgot to mention it.
I hope you have seen my comment on Kalazatov’s page, on the YouTube channel where I am cuba is, there are other movies of him, hopefully they are good.
@mehmet- if you’re asking me — I still have work to do on Ceylan. I’ll admit that I’ve seen four of his films to date below- once a piece, and I didn’t find any to be worthy of a spot on the top 10 of their respective year. But I’d like to do a more exhaustive study- maybe I’ll have time for it in 2021.
2002- Distant
2006- Climates
2011- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
2014- Winter Sleep
My list wouldn’t differ tremendously from Drake’s. I think GOAT status can be a little more clearly established for directors than for individual films, so I wouldn’t travel too far down that list before I’d have a problem with ranking someone higher than the three I listed.
As for the current directors… I could list so many put I’ll pare it down to the bare bones. Scorsese is the greatest living. PTA, Tarantino, Cuaron, Nolan are the greatest current. Malick, Lynch, Wong, Tarr, Coens are the greatest to emerge between those two epochs. Chazelle and Aster are the young guns that most excite me going forward. And I’m sure I forgot someone essential that I’ll kick myself for later.
Amazing! This really is much better than I envisaged. Gosh it puts things into perspective. Despite reading his page, PTA might be the most revelatory of the lot. Still, seeing names like Wong, Malick, the Coens, Jarmusch right alongside or above Dreyer, Ophuls, Visconti and Mizoguchi really shows your objectivity in ranking. Love it!
I feel I should have said this first, but the hyperlinks are fantastic. I’m raring to dive into the 75-150 directors’ pages haha.
I find the absence of Frank Darabont to be completely inexcusable. To me, The Shawshank Redemption has some really wonderful camerawork. You have it graded as only a Must-See, but there are some cinematically transcendent moments that stand out as masterpiece-worthy to me, such as the scene with the music on the speakers, and the famous escape sequence. Its narrative and screenplay are in the conversation with the best of all time, and Darabont is able to capture all of the necessary emotion.
And that isn’t his only well-acclaimed film: he also did The Green Mile.
@Graham– thanks for the comment. Completely inexcusable huh? I mean Shawshank is superb- and very well directed. Just out of curiosity, who are you moving off this list to make way for Darabont? I had him on my list here- just didn’t quite make the cut in the top 250.
Okay, I will agree “completely inexcusable” was a bit harsh. It was just very surprising for me that I didn’t see his name.
I am not nearly as knowledgeable about film as you, and I have not heard of a lot of the directors on the list, so I cannot say which ones exactly I am moving. I simply feel that of all the good movies I have seen, The Shawshank Redemption seems to stand out as superb filmmaking. I am not the only one who believes this; it is the number one IMDb movie, for starters.
@Graham — thanks again for the comment. Darabont would be somewhere between 250-300 if I kept going (and I do at some point). I’ll have to admit I do not pay much attention to the IMDB list. This is another really good list here worth sharing- http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_top250directors.htm – I’m not saying this is gospel truth (nor is my own list of course) but they also don’t have a spot for Darabont. There are just a lot of great directors out there.
Lisa
March 6, 2022 at 4:09 am
All Time Great lists are a herculean task. And the placement perhaps even more so.
As a collective, we lovers of film often feel a personal favorite didn’t make the cut.
This is certainly a superb, undeniably deserving group of artists!
You know who I missed?
Lina Wertmueller…
Swept Away and Seven Beauties blew my mind despite being quite young upon 1st viewing. Revisiting her work years later the thrill was still there ♡
Drake
March 6, 2022 at 4:04 pm
@Lisa- Thank you for visiting the site and the comment. Hopefully the list and site gets better over time as I correct some things and fix blind spots. I must admit I have not had a chance to catch Swept Away yet.
Hi Drake, I’m a dear fan of your lists. The Lists are very informative & enjoyable. I know no one outside of India heard his name. But, Kasinadhuni Viswanath is a God of South Indian Cinema. His films are aesthetically brilliant & he is one of the few greatest filmmakers who manages style with substance and has very high respect for Arts like Classical Indian Music, Dance & Literature in Telugu Cinema (Not Bollywood). His Greatest Films are (we consider here):
1. Shankarabharanam (1980)
2. Sagara Sangamam (1983)
3. Swathi Muthyam (1986)
4. Swarna Kamalam (1988)
5. Swayam Krushi (1987)
Besides Satyajit Ray, there are many Great Filmmakers in India only if you want know more Indian Culture & Art:
1. K. Balachander (Apoorva Ragangal, Avargal, Maro Charitra & Rudraveena)
2. Guru Dutt (Pyaasa & Kaagaz Ke Phool)
3. Ritwik Ghatak (Meghe Dhaka Tara, )
4. Singeetam Srinivasa Rao (Pushpaka Vimanam, Aditya 369 & Michael Madana Kama Rajan)
5. K. Raghavendra Rao (Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari, Annamayya & Pelli Sandhadi)
6. Shekhar Kapoor (Masoom, Mr. India & Bandit Queen)
7. Maniratnam (Nayakan, Iruvar, Dil Se… & Kannathil Muthamittal)
8. Ram Gopal Varma (Shiva, Kshana Kshanam, Rangeela & Satya)
9. S. S. Rajamouli (Magadheera, Eega & Baahubali 2: The Conclusion)
10. Lijo Jose Pellisery (Angamaly Dairies, Ee Ma Yau & Jallikattu)
{ Majority of our Indian Films are combined with songs, melodrama & comedy. So, if someone gets used to it then, These Great Films are the right place to start in the Whole Wide World }.
@RAVI KIRAN- thank you for the kind works and for sharing this. I’ll keep this here and come back to it– I want to try to catch some of these films and filmmakers. I am actually planning to do a Guru Dutt study in 2021–I’ll be watching as many Guru Dutt films as I can find.
There’s a few in the lower sections of the list that would not make my own. I’d take an Adam McKay, Alex Garland, or Ben Affleck over Tom Hooper, Bennett Miller, or Kenneth Lonergan for instance, but I’m not that interested in arguing at the margins of a tremendous list.
If I were to make any “inexcusible” claims it certainly wouldn’t be for Darabont. Not when Tsai Ming-Liang, Kim Ki-Duk, and Raoul Ruiz are nowhere to be seen. But lists evolve and what we have here is pretty much as good a resource as there is. I’m not about to start making demands… other than Kurosawa jumping up of course. 😉
@Matt Harris- thanks for the comment- appreciate the praise — and I like that you offer some suggestions for those you’d swap. Some I’ve seen the work and they just didn’t quite cut it (like McKay, Garland, Affleck)– McKay and Garland were very close- I hadn’t really considered Affleck but maybe I should (I do love those helicopter shots). And others (Tsai Ming-Liang, Kim Ki-Duk, and Raoul Ruiz) I have work to do yet studying their films before I could put them on.
Since we are with objections haha, i was surprised not to have seen Parajanov have The Color of Pomegranates HR and Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors HR / MS, i have not seen any of them, but the images in the reviews are that exquisite, they certainly have surrealism in common.
What a great list and what a great feature for the site. Can’t even imagine how much work went into this. So many people to check out and get familiar with, so thank you for providing it all in one place.
I have some names I think should have made it though. Except Kusturica who we already talked about, I am surprised to see no Hirokazu Koreeda and Andrey Zvyagintsev on the list. Did they not make it or you didn’t study them yet? Also feel like Claude Chabrol could have made the lower half of the list.
@Chief Keef– thanks for the comment and the note here about the list and site– it means a lot. It was a lot of work– but I enjoyed doing it of course.
Yep- just haven’t caught enough of Kusturica to include him. I’ve seen three films a piece for both Koreeda and Zvyaginstev…. four for Chabrol. In each case just one time viewing of those films a piece. So it is sort of a combination of I didn’t study them enough and they just didn’t make the list. If I had been struck by them or blown away- surely they’d be on the list. But I don’t feel confident saying they definitively shouldn’t be on the list either if that makes sense– not until I’ve had a closer look.
This is great, thank you very much man. I think this is just your best feature on your archives and the most accurate list you have made, objectively speaking. I cannot think of a better list of directors. And each director page has something special. Thank you
I just thought of sort of an odd idea. Who is the equivalent of all these major auteurs as actors and vice-versa? In essence, who has a similar style of performance/direction? Actor-directors such as Welles, Chaplin, and Eastwood would be themselves of course, but besides them it’s interesting to think about. Some ideas to consider:
Kubrick is Daniel Day-Lewis. They don’t make movies very often and their genre/character is always different but they pack quite a powerful punch. Their performance/”cold” direction style is not “friendly” or accessible but quite interesting.
Wes Anderson is Charlie Chaplin (Of course, Chaplin as a director would be himself as an actor). They are whimsical and endlessly entertaining, but also surprisingly emotional, with a one-of-a-kind style/character that they follow every single time.
Fellini is Jack Nicholson. They are very energetic and always doing a version the same clownish worldview/character, but can become quite serious and forthcoming about human nature when it is necessary. Sometimes, narratives/characters finally get their sanity together by the end, while other times they wind up hopeless.
Capra is Henry Fonda. Often noted for moral rigidity, with a sly satirical element in their characters/movies that is not always noticed. Known for being collected and assertive, although they can burst into strong emotion easily as well.
Tarkovsky is Ryan Gosling. Plots/performances are very subtle and don’t quickly shift between events/emotions. Nothing is on the surface, and you must pay attention if you’d like to fully understand the message/character motivation.
Ozu is Ingrid Bergman. A master of subtle emotion, although not so subtle that we don’t understand the feelings portrayed, whose mise-en-scene/face is very beautiful. Foreign audiences may have difficulty grasping the style/voice at first but will become attached to the narrative/character after a short time.
Ophuls is Jimmy Stewart (this is probably not one you expected). The camera/he seem to be always moving and pacing around, making for an energetic ride for the viewer. Although their stylistic/slightly accented voice is very recognizable and unchangeable, they can be comedic, tragic, contemplative, and many other things.
Ingmar Bergman (perhaps David Lynch as well) is Maria Falconetti. Their performance/direction is very expressionistic and surreal. They seem somewhat grim and always obsessed with finding the truth about God. Very meaningful, although you must sift through the unusual character/movies to understand the messages,
Lumet is Leonardo DiCaprio. Prone to sudden bursts of anger, and when they become angry, they are shouting at the audience at loud as they can. Sometimes they have something big to say about the American system (political system, judicial system, corporate system) or about persevering through unexpected events.
Leone is Brad Pitt. Their characters are always trying to look cool, but often slow down for a minute or two at points to analyze their status in the plot/character development. Those who accuse them of constant sameness and being unrealistic can’t seem to notice how well they can adapt to different situations.
John Ford is Humphrey Bogart. They are tough and
Coppola is Gene Hackman. I’m mostly not going with collaborators but they did only one film together. They can be very contemplative but usually have moments of psychologically complex violent events/actions. Their top few movies/performances are all very close in (very high) quality.
Scorsese probably should be De Niro, but for non-collaborators I’d go with Marlon Brando. Their personal voice is very unique and carefully cultivated, but can be altered to whatever they find fits the narrative/character. They can become violent and angry, but are even more often personal and sensitive. Protagonists are often ordinary men who became unusually powerful due to plot circumstances.
Kurosawa probably would be Mifune, but outside of him I’ll say he’s Gloria Swanson. Emotions are heightened to a point of being purposefully urealistic, and characters often grow insane and delusional. They are prepared to show no mercy to people, but feel colorful even when their movies aren’t in color.
Are there any more ideas you’d add? Would any of the ones above work better as an equivalent to a different actor or director?
Wow, I didn’t realize how long that comment was and how many director-actor combinations their were until I posted it. I forgot to finish the Ford/Bogart comparison, though. Here is what I was going to say:
John Ford is Humphrey Bogart. They are tough but sensitive, and characters’ opinions often become clear in a concise shot/line. They claim that their only goal is to entertain, but are being humble about their true artistic merits. Sometimes, characters feel like they might just have to kills others to get what they want
@graham- very good interesting question. first id say that comparing gosling to tarkovsky is an insult to the soviet master. hmm. i’d say spielberg is jack lemmon for his humble gentleness, or ving rhames. dustin hoffman is hitchock for choosing studio films that explore his own personal ideas, howard hawks is harrison ford for making big studio films with great unrealized often films of artistic merit. de palma is jim carrey because they are both misunderstood greats (or adam sandler). marlon brando is orson welles for their poetic genius and tarantino is either robert pattinson or taylor lautner from twilight (maybe even bradley cooper).
Thanks and good additions. Gosling with Tarkovsky is, to me, certainly not an insult. Tarkovsky would certainly be ranked higher among diectors than Gosling among actors, but the later is one of the better subtle, often stone-faced performers in the tradition of Buster Keaton. Drake agrees, putting Gosling as the second-best of the 2010s,
Also, I’ll add another one: Herzog is Joaquin Phoenix. Kinski is the logical option, and there are many parallels between the two actors, but I think Phoenix actually works better. Herzog and Phoenix often explore people going mad, but their films/characters are very different in how they get to that madness. They also heavily deal with the theme of loneliness and feel sort of untouchable and unreachable, but interesting.
Haha this is very interesting @Graham, I wouldn’t put Gosling for Master Tarkovsky, for Lumet it would put Pacino, I will not say that your choices were wrong. some feel strange, but honestly it never would have happened to me.
Yes, I was thinking about Pacino going somewhere and Lumet was my first idea. DiCaprio may not seem very similar to Pacino, but I think he and Lumet work. All three (Al, Leo, Sidney) love to shout.
Who would you put with Tarkovsky, other than Anatoly Sonitsyn, the obvious (and perhaps more correct than Gosling) choice?
Makes no sense after number 5 (remove Hitchcock form 1)
David Barwinski
September 24, 2020 at 5:55 pm - Reply
Great list!
I agree with Matt Harris that Kurosawa should be much higher. Really it’s Kubrick, Kurosawa, Hitchcock. Take your pick.
I’d put Tarkovsky higher. He and Bergman are neck and neck.
Not sure about Ozu being so high. “Tokyo Story”, “Late Spring” are great, of course, but something about his static camera which just doesn’t quite work. Kind of like Dreyer’s and Bresson’s asceticism. Cinephiles adore these guys, though, so maybe it’s just not my style.
No love for Herzog? I would place Herzog much higher and Scorsese a bit lower. I think that the two of them are the greatest living, still relevant directors by far. They seem to have a lot in common, too. I’m surprised they don’t get compared much.
But overall, very nice job. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.
I feel like purely as a filmmaker, Herzog is ranked appropriately. However, if documentary work was also considered, Herzog would easily be one of the greatest of all time. Lessons of Darkness is absolutely gorgeous. Absolutely incredible. His other documentary work is also good.
However, based on all his films (Aguirre etc), a top 40 rank (at 40) is perfect for Herzog.
Drake, I’m just wondering; why don’t you mention Pressburger and Gene Kelly for the films they co-directed? I’m curious because Donen and Powell are mentioned on your list. Pressburger and Kelly helped out a bit while directing too.
I’m sorry for being picky Drake. This was something small I noticed.
Your list is mostly incredible and the directors are placed appropriately.
What are some of the best films you know of that are directed by multiple directors? Do you know if there’s a reason why most directors prefer directing on their own?
You’re right here Azman, why do the Coens count together and the others don’t? Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Fargo, the Big Lebowski the credited director is Joel Coen, you still count those movies for both.
@Azman and @Aldo– you’re partially right and partially wrong. I should list them on the individual film pages (as I do here) http://thecinemaarchives.com/2020/04/10/i-know-where-im-going-1945-powell-pressburger/ and on the year by year archives (like I’ve done with some of Buster Keaton’s co-directors as I update the yearly pages. But Donen directed films Kelly didn’t and that’s why he’s on the 250 list and Kelly isn’t. Pressburger is well known as the financial side of the Powell and Pressburger tandem as I explain on the Powell page. http://thecinemaarchives.com/2019/05/14/the-35th-best-director-of-all-time-michael-powell/ . It is also well known that (up until now) the Coen brothers share their writing/acting/producing duties.
@Drake, Gene Kelly co directed Singin in the rain, Its always fair weather and On the Town with Stanley Donen.
Other movies he has directed or co-directed are:
Invitation to the dance
Happy Road
The tunnel of love
Gigot
A guide for the married man
Hello Dolly
The Cheyenne Social club
That’s entertainment part 2.
I don’t know if these ‘non-Donen’ films are archiveable, but Kelly had quite a big role with directing the musicals with Donen. He helped choreograph the dance scenes (especially in SIngin in the rain). Kelly decided some shots too and how to shoot them. Perhaps the most famous dance scene in cinema history was choreographed by Kelly and some shots too
Drake
September 24, 2020 at 7:57 pm
@Azman- Thanks–I’m aware. Happy with how I have things here.
This is crazy stat, I mentioned Lang with Metropolis and M, but we could well declare Anderson the best of all and close the book, the 14 directors in front of him have never given the best movie of the year more than 3 times the exception is Coppola, Anderson gave the best movie of the year 5 times
Hitchcock 3: 1935, 1951, 1958
Kubrick 3: 1968, 1971, 1987
Bergman 2: 1957, 1966
Fellini 2: 1960, 1963
Scorsese 3: 1976, 1980, 1990 although you could also give 2019
Coppola 4: 1972, 1974, 1979, 1983
Welles 1: 1941
Ford 2: 1940, 1956
Kurosawa 2: 1950, 1954
Truffaut 1: 1959
Renoir 2: 1937, 1939
Anderson 5: 1997, 1999, 2002, 2007, 2012
Tarkovsky, Ozu and Antonioni they add up to a total of zero, they never gave the best movie of the year
@Aldo- very interesting. Others are going to have different #1 films of the year (even I am going to make some changes as I update my year by year archives) but this is still fascinating. Thank you for compiling.
Well i did this based on the Archives by year section, taking the movie that appears in the cover, so i don’t know how much it changes when you update it, although i must confess Tarkovsky’s statistics makes me very sad.
What do you think is due to Anderson’s crazy 5 statistic, you mention that there is no one equal to his generation and i agree, do you think it’s because he has no competition? because for example Hitchcock had bad luck, you mention his crazy career 58,59,60 but only in one of those years was he the best, but this is due to the amount of good directors working, in 54 he lost to 7 samurai, very movies good / rare that hardly appear, also Stalker would be the best movie of the year in +90 times, the same Manhattan, but they are unlucky that Apocalypse now came out that year, in the 50s and 60s there were several directors of the same level Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Godard, Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut, Anderson belongs to that group, but in an era where he is alone
@Aldo- I mean I find it interesting- but it isn’t a declarative statement about which filmmakers are the best. I’m doing 1932 next (after 1931 of course) and there isn’t a film on the level of 1931’s M (which came runner-up so to speak in 1931). I may have had Full Metal Jacket as the best film of 1987 but there are a number of films from 2007 or 1960 (just way stronger years) better.
As for Tarkvosky, I have Stalker in my top 10 of all-time. So don’t feel too sad. haha. And when I update 1983- Nostalgia will be #1 so he’ll have at least one year as #1.
As for PT Anderson- I do think he’s the greatest of his generation. But he has a ton of competition (from Cuaron, Fincher, Tarantino, Wes Anderson for starters) but I’m not sure any generation, before or after, can compare with the late 1950’s and early 1960’s at the top
Drake, i want to apologize sincerely if i made you feel like i don’t appreciate the site. this is specifically in reference to a comment i posted yesterday on your back to the future page where i wrote ‘why aren’t there more images on this review’ and you replied ‘whats wrong with THIS one.’ i apologize, as i did not mean to offend you. i and everyone else who visits this site respects or should the hard work you put into it. all the movies you watch, your knowledge of the art form, allowing civil discourse, it is all very appreciates and as i said i respect what you do. i will take a break from commenting for a long spell and i think just focus on growing, watching more films and such. i don’t want to offend anyone, certainly not anyone who is this dedicated hardworking and passionate.
A really wonderful list you have put together here, only outdone by the depth of study and focus you have done for each director on it. Any plans for what your next big ranking might be? I have seen a few ideas being tossed around in these comments like screenplays and directors ranked between 251-500, but do you know what you’re drawn to most yet?
@Declan- thanks for the kind words. I’m updating the year by year archives right now (last did it in 2017) and then I’m not sure after that. I do find myself drawn to the auteur/director aspect of things but people do love the actor rankings, too. We’ll see. I’m only on 1939 right now- doing 2-3 a week so this will take me some time to work my way through things and I can think about it
Chaplin directed amazing movies in silent era and after that.. For me, is on my top 5. He touches both eras as no director ever made, and directed great pics (Modern Times, the Great Dictator.. so many..)
You’ve mentioned a small number of films that you think could rightfully be called the single greatest of all time when examined thoroughly. How long do you think the list of directors is that you would accept as number one? How far down the list would it take until you think you could argue against a person’s choice? I know it must be a little farther than twelve, or else you would have parted ways with Matt Harris years ago (Although you’ve implied Kurosawa may be moving up now that you’ve finished your study). What about actors and actresses, or even some other occupations like cinematographers and writers?
@Graham- Interesting. I’m not sure there is a set number But I’d say if you get too far past 25 then either I’m missing something (which can happen- I was wrong or uninformed when it came to Ozu a few years ago) or we’re using different criteria (and at that point I’d disagree with the criteria being used). It may be a little deeper than that for actors and actresses.
I know this website is all about making lists- and hey- I love doing them, debating them— but to it is more about admiring the work from all of them and trying to be as specific as possible (sometimes down to the minute in a film or the frame from the film or a camera movement) as the the reason. Who is worthy of admiration and study and where do you start if you had to prioritize your time? It doesn’t get me too worked up debating Hitchcock vs. Welles or whomever. Why are they in the top tier? Who else is with them? and so on.
I completely agree, and thanks for responding. Admiring and enjoying cinema is much more about just that – enjoyment and admiration – than specificity and analytics. I couldn’t set such a number myself, anyway. Sometimes it is fun to pay attention to the specific moments and superiority of a person’s skills over another, and sometimes I just like to sit back and appreciate the majesty of the movies. That’s “There’s nothing else, just us, and the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark.” And there can also be times of “All right, Mr. (or Ms.) DeMille (or Kubrick, or Coppola, or Hepburn, or Lubezki), I’m ready for my close-up (or filmography study)!”
@Graham- yep we’re on the same page. And I mean if you read my feelings on like director #199 or #228– I’m mean I’m pretty passionate about their work, filmography, style to study and admire. It isn’t like I spend the whole time on the page complaining why they aren’t Kubrick or Tarkovsky. That isn’t the point there. There are so many great directors to discover.
@Pedro – thanks for visiting the site and for the comment. So Resnais on the list- at #142. But your comment may be saying that he is underrated at #142. I did a quick study of Resnais’ available work in the spring of 2020 so if you search “Resnais” you’ll get my pages for a handful of films. He will be moving up the list the next time I update it based on this study.
Patrick Dunne
November 4, 2020 at 11:25 pm - Reply
Happy to see Hitchcock at the top spot, but why is Rob Reiner so low?
Drake, you’ve always maintained that your best actors lists are different than a “most talented actors” list because a less talented person may have a superb filmography and vice-versa. In theory, how would a most talented directors list for you look? Would that be the same as a list ranking “style-plus” directors? Who might be a rough top five for you on such a list?
@Graham- that’s interesting … The next time I update it I could see whose filmography is rated lowest in comparison with their overall landing spot on the list– that may tell me something. I don’t think I’d get outside of the top 10-20 though to get to those 5 for your list
It would not be something like Tati or Kalatozov that their films are unique but they do not have much depth of work.
Usually the best directors are not the most mediocre.
The ten most talented directors are the top 10.
Usually won’t find low-talented directors like Chaplin being the best, it just doesn’t make sense, to make many of the best movies you need to be the most talented.
You can make a very good movie like many, but you just won’t find the best movies made by untalented directors, just take a look at the top 20, almost all of them are made up of the top 10 directors, it’s called luck in some cases, but luck doesn’t strike many times as you can see with Stanley Donen
Here’s another interesting exercise I just envisioned. What can be considered the signature shot of each of these talented auteurs, or the one that most defines their work? This is not necessarily the same as their greatest shot. I will go in order mentioning the ones for which I have an idea.
Hitchcock – I think the iconic shot of Cary Grant running away from the crop duster epitomizes the master of suspense perfectly.
Kubrick – It is difficult to choose a single image. Perhaps the opening shot of A Clockwork Orange? Semi-symmetrical, unforgiving, and including that famous Kubrickian stare. Another is the pilot riding on the bomb as it falls in Dr. Strangelove.
Bergman – The dance of death is the most memorable, but the choice for Bergman must be some sort of arrangement of faces. I select the beautiful moment in Persona in which the two leads’ silhouetted heads lean together.
Ozu – Every shot in an Ozu film could be regarded as his signature shot. Ebert mentions a simple shot in Tokyo Story where two pairs of shoes are sitting in the hallway of the resort to which the elderly leads traveled to “rest” – perhaps his best “pillow shot.”
I will have more soon.
@Graham- love the exercise. So tough to pick just one. On my 250 individual director pages I’m obviously trying to do this (but I can pick 2, 3 and in some cases can’t help myself and get to 15-20- haha). Of course I could be missing some and some (tough increasing less and less) could be hard to find images of
Continued from the above comment:
Fellini – Any shot that satirizes life as a whole could suffice for this choice. The scene at the end of 8 1/2 where the characters dance around in a circus seems to embody this idea best, but Guido floating away from the sweaty traffic jam in the same film and Marcello wading into the fountain in La Dolce Vita are just as perfect.
Scorsese – The Copa shot in Goodfellas and the one that tracks over to the empty hallway in Taxi Driver are wonderful, but perhaps not the most characteristic of his style. I’ll go with the slow motion (very Scorsesian) moment in the final fight scene of Raging Bull where De Niro leans in waiting on the bars.
Coppola – The superimposed image of Sheen’s upside down head on the exploding forest constitutes my favorite opening sequence in cinema. Effective camera angles, dissolve editing, a contemplative protagonist, and superb openings are characteristic of Coppola.
Tarkovsky – The “candle shot” in Nostalghia of the poet walking back and forth for nine minutes is something absolutely no one but Tarkovsky would have the guts to do, but I think the choice must be the stunning wide shot of the room in Stalker with mounds of sand. Green-gray color scheme and the floor as an element of composition.
Ford – The doorway shot in The Searchers. Duh.
Kurosawa – The image of the swing through the jungle gym in Ikiru is an impeccable one and the old lord walking out of the burning castle in Ran is another, but I will lobby for what may be my favorite closing shot in cinema in Seven Samurai.
Truffaut – It’s pretty obviously the freeze frame that closes The 400 Blows. This gives us three in a row that are the final shot in a movie.
PT Anderson – The Master’s shot of Freddie lying above the sailors on the boat may be Anderson’s most beautiful, but I think Daniel being forced to recount his sins in the church in There Will Be Blood best epitomizes his thematic and visual style.
Ophuls – It must be an energetic tracking shot for Max Ophuls. Perhaps the opening of The Earrings of Madame de…?
Lynch – This one is not as obvious a choice. Perhaps the shot in Mulholland Drive’s Club Silencio where everything becomes dark blue? This incorporates Lynch’s dark, odd and haunting use of color and setting.
Dreyer – The shot to define Dreyer’s work must be a close-up with evocative mise-en-scene. How about the one of Joan praying with the cross behind her in The Passion of Joan of Arc?
Continued again:
Leone – One of Leone’s trademark extreme close-ups might seem better, but I think the frame near the beginning of OUaTitW where Frank’s three duelists square off with Harmonica may be a signature shot for him.
Wong – The saturated orangey image of Cheung and Leung standing by the wall of the hallway beautified by the shadows of bars in ITMFL seems to best illustrate Wong’s mood oriented color design and calm film structuring.
Malick – Any shot in a Malick movie, or at least any focusing on nature (a.k.a. any shot in a Malick movie) would suffice. Perhaps the terrific composition in Days of Heaven where the six silhouetted men are situated in the fields by the mansion watching the locusts rise above is my favorite.
Murnau – Either the shadow of Nosferatu creeping up the stairs or the Man in gazing at the moon by the lake (two in a row shots of silhouette men in fields looking at something above them) in Sunrise is perfect for Murnau. I will select the latter as I believe it includes Murnau’s wonderful gliding camera movement.
Allen – Do I really have to do this (sorry, that’s a reference to a film by the next director :)? It is certainly the iconic photography of Woody and Keaton sitting on a bench by the Queensboro Bridge.
Spielberg – There are many options, but the brilliant silhouette of E.T. and Elliott biking across the moon at night is impossible to resist. Quite Spielbergian.
Beginning here, the number of directors for whom I can decide becomes sparser. I will choose some random ones I can think of quickly for now.
Lean – The beautiful frame of Gasim staggering away into the sunset may be Lean’s most gorgeous shot, but one earlier in Lawrence of Arabia better illustrates his epic scope. It is the extreme wide shot of the dunes with two tiny figures in the distance that introduces us to Arabia.
Altman – Altman is known for his reliance on steady, calm zoom lens usage and his expansive amounts of characters. The shot of Tomlin in the back of the bar in Nashville incorporates both traits.
De Sica – I don’t believe that the moment where Antonio and his son hopelessly sit onto the curb in Bicycle Thieves is the film’s single greatest, but it is certainly the most iconic
Fincher – He is known for dark ligting and subtle color creation, both of which appear in nearly every shot. The final shot of Fight Club watching the effects of Tyler’s scheming may be the epitome of Fincher’s style.
Kieslowski – The choice here must be one with brilliant use of primary colors and fine-tuned formal significance. Any of the shots of the blue mobile in Blue embody these ideas quite well.
Griffith – The crane shot of the massive Babylon gate in Intolerance is the best choice here. Expansive and epic.
Sorry to be flooding the comments, but the site will not allow me to put it all in one entry.
Herzog – Kinski’s speech leaning against the tree in Aguirre is haunting, psychological, and minimalist. Very Herzogian (who says you can’t make an -ian out of every director’s name?).
Bertolucci – The shot of the many-windowed corridor in The Conformist is an immaculate composition and work of lighting like all of Bertolucci’s ouevre.
Mann – De Niro leaning on the post by the window in Heat is a justifiably iconic image. It includes Mann’s trademark use of dark blue as well.
Scott – Blade Runner has Ridley’s famous smoky shadows in all its shots. The one with Rachel holding the cigarette in her hand is a masterful use of lighting.
Peckinpah – Although Peckinpah is mostly known for editing, he slow walk of the four uncaptured members of the group to retrieve their kidnapped comrade is famous for other reasons.
Cuaron – Children of Men and Gravity have many perfect Cuaronian (as I said with Herzog, I’ll make any name an adjective if I like) moments, but the obvious choice is the tracking shot of the family hugging on the beach in Roma. Breathtaking photography and style.
W. Anderson – It must be something symmetrical with bold color design. Perhaps the shot of Monsieur Gustave smiling at the concierge dest of the Grand Budapest?
Tati – There is a composition in Playtime with a man walking down a long hallway in half the frame and two men having a conversation in another. It is a perfect mise-en-scenal (I can make adjectives out of other kinds of nouns, too!) creation.
Gilliam – The fisheye lens shot of the man wearing the baby mask in Brazil’s torture chamber is exactly the absurdism that make his movies so wonderful.
Chaplin – You must have more restraint than any other human on this planet if you have the ability to refrain from laughing at any point in City Lights’ boxing scene.
S. Coppola – The everlasting loneliness of Charlotte sitting next to the window in Lost in Translation is the easy contender here.
Demme – The Silence of the Lambs’ creative close-up shot of Clarice with Hannibal reflected on the glass next to her is the best illustration of Demme’s style.
That’s enough for now. Have I made the correct choices? What may be the signature shot for some of the auteurs I missed?
von Sternberg- the final shot of Morocco as Amy leaves her shoes in the sand and follows the French Legionnaires across the dunes
Rossellini- Shot of Magnani running down the street in Rome, Open City
De Palma- Split diopter of the fish with the ice pick and the Nancy Allen lookalike in Blow Out (alluding to her fate)
Keaton- Charging onward as the Confederate army retreats in the opposite direction in The General (at least epitomizes Keaton’s reluctant heroism)
Stone- the slain Sgt. Elias’ arms outstretched in an obvious allusion to Christ in Platoon
Have you seen films from Jean Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet ? If yes, what is your opinion ? I’m looking forward to get to them but I don’t think the films are easy to find.
@Cinephile- I have not seen them. I’ve been looking for them but yeah- not easy to find. You and others can probably teach me about finding stuff on YouTube. I know it varies by geography/region but aside from some public domain silent stuff in high quality I’ve stayed away from youtube as a resource. Perhaps I’m missing out
@Drake – I really hope you manage to view Possession before updating 1981. It is a true game changer. So unique and expressionistic to a fault. I don’t want to get extensively into it, but I’ve watched this and That Most Most Important Thing: Love, and it would be really great to talk about Zulawski on this blog. I’m missing out on On the Silver Globe, which I hear is his most visually and stylistically ambitious effort. @Cinephile, would you recommend it?
@Georg– On The Silver Globe is aesthetically innovative in its visual style but I found the film deeply problematic. Truly overlong, narratively defective, often formally uninteresting (at least to me), maybe it’s “100% unfinished” nature makes it lose some power and if you put there the constant screams of the actors that I really found annoying and exasperating, you can say I didn’t love it. Still, maybe I’d give it a Recommend grade. But to be honest, it felt unwatchable to certain occasions.
@Cinephile- well, I guess you could say Zulawski is somewhat excessive haha. That Most Important Thing: Love didn’t work at all (though both Romy Schneider and Klaus Kinski were tremendous, I’m not even exaggerating, they were amazing here), but his characteristic style is there. Perhaps an R, but even then closer to not being recommended at all. Possession is truly visceral though and has all the trademark traits that one would seek in auteur cinema. I think I’d watch On the Silver Globe out of curiosity, but I take it you don’t think much of it, haha. I can really imagine all those drawbacks you describe.
KreatoR
January 28, 2021 at 1:31 pm
Watch it bro, i doubt you will be disappointed. Zulawski is a special marvel of European cinema.
I’m sorry friend but Possession it’s on level cult of The Room, meets Suspiria, remake of course. It’s not good cinema. It’s borderline superb though. The screenplay it’s TERRIBLE
@Azman- well first off directors with really strong films between 2009-2020 (and newer) will climb. I used my top 500 as the main skeleton for my top 250 directors list and I have that 10 year moratorium. But beyond that- certainly it feels like Kurosawa will climb, definitely Visconti… I enjoyed the Jarmusch study but he will fall a little (certainly Visconti will go past him)– I’m not sure on others… I haven’t decided what to do next after I update the year by year archives (currently on 1951 so there is a ways to go).
@Cinephile- haha interesting- I haven’t heard the term in a few years- it was quite a topic (in cinephile circles) in 2012-2013 I think. I think it is just largely an extension of the normal auteur theory championed by the Cahiers Du Cinema critics and Andrew Sarris— they all saw themselves as finding consistencies throughout a directors work- regardless of genre, budget, popularity and championing those that deserved to be championed— I’d like to think that’s what I’m trying to do in my own little humble way as well (certainly not putting myself in the company of these giants)… what are your thoughts?
@Drake– I find the theory quite interesting. I think many cinephiles, me too when I finally got serious about cinema, have a bias against genres. It’s interesting since many of us cinema lovers, in the before-serious-with-cinema period, we loved the movies that fall into the vulgar auteurism category, then when we finally discover and watch Tarkovsky and Bergman, we become these snobbish pricks that all of a sudden are biased against the films that wouldn’t qualify as “serious” artistic achievements. But then, our cinephilia becomes more mature and we finally appreciate everything. Wow. Quite a journey–haha. I support vulgar auteurism. Especially here in Greece, the local critical community is incredibly skewed on the genres. I’m not saying that every “vulgar” movie must be championed, because many people, in their attempt to be these kinds of controversial or contrarian cinephiles go in the other side and find a masterpiece out of a bad movie. Every film is a craft and must be evaluated as such. To conclude, I’m beginning my journey with the “vulgar” movies, I’ll give them attention probably starting with Paul W.S. Anderson movies and we’ll see from there.
@Cinephile– happy near year to you as well– I agree with you here. But do you see a big difference between “vulgar” auteurism — and the auteur theory in general– I mean if you go back two decades before the phrase with what Tarantino was doing praising genre films, De Palma— or even further back the French critics praising Hitchcock and coining the phrase “noir” for B-movies after WW2? I don’t. I mean I have Refn’s Only God Forgives firmly in my top 100 of the 2010’s as an example— anyways- please report back if you find any films or particular directors worthy of a closer look
Cinephile
December 31, 2020 at 5:37 pm
@Drake– I fully agree here, you make a great point. Yesterday, I saw The Grey, which I’ve seen people categorize as vulgar auteurism. It’s great, the best film in the Neeson action persona in the last decade or so. Maybe I’ll go in the 2011 page and write more about it.
I Haven’t seen as many films as you’ve seen. But, According to me,
Top 10 Greatest Filmmakers of all Time are:
1. Stanley Kubrick
2. Ingmar Bergman
3. Alfred Hitchcock
4. Kasinadhuni Viswanath
5. Akira Kurosawa
6. Federico Fellini
7. Andrei Tarkovsky
8. Martin Scorsese
9. Jean-Luc Godard
10. Steven Spielberg
@RAVI KIRAN – thanks for visiting the site and for the comment here. This is a great list of filmmakers– I haven’t seen any films from Kasinadhuni Viswanath or heard of him– any particular film to start with if I can locate his films?
If a director were to make a brilliant style-plus film that was the best of all-time or at least on the level of 2001, Apocalypse Now, and such, but then never make another movie at all, where would they land?
@Graham- well it isn’t on the level of 2001 but Andrew Dominik with The Assassination of Jesse James may be the closest example…. he has a couple of other archiveable films (and a new one coming in 2021 that i’m excited about) but the other archiveable films don’t land in the top 20 of their year so this is pretty much it. I have him at 200 here– so certainly if someone made 2001 and that was it– I’d have him/her on the list, and higher than Dominik— I’m not sure how high I’d have to go– Carol Reed at #118?
How much does having a masterpiece or multiple masterpieces, rather than simply a great body of work, impact a director’s placing? If that question is too unspecific, imagine this hypothetical situation (all I seem to ask on this site are hypothetical situations haha): there is a director who has made 20-30 must-see films, but none that rise to the MP level. Using your filmography ranking scale, I would assume this director would land at or near the very top, but the lack work in the very top tier would seem concerning. Roughly where would this director fall on the general list? I know such a director would be unlikely to occur, but it is fascinating to consider.
I’m not Drake, but if you have a shitload of MSs that would mean you’re a great director, a reaaaaaally great director even, but if you don’t have at least 1-2 MPs than can you really be THE best director? Just a thought.
@Graham— I think 20-30 Must-See’s is what changes this. I think I have Fassbinder with 5 Must-See’s (I actually think he has at least one masterpiece now but that’s a different conversation) and he’s at #51 on my list. 20-30 is a crazy number– the last time I updated my top 500 Hitchcock had the most total films– so this hypothetical person would pass Hitchcock— even without a masterpiece I don’t see how you could keep them out of the top 10
If you ever get the chance, try to watch Nikos Nikolaidis’s films. One of the best filmmakers to come out of Greece. He makes a truly divergent cinema compared to other Greek movies. They never made films like his in the country.
There are an alarming number of coincidences among the names of cinematic masters. Two of the three greatest French filmmakers are named Jean (Renoir and Godard), and the best actress from France has the female version of the name (Jeanne Moreau). The debut and masterpiece of one of those Jean directors stars an American named Jean (Seberg). The best French director is not named Jean, but one of his muses is (Leaud). The best Swedish director has Bergman as his surname (Ingmar), as does the country’s/world’s greatest actress (Ingrid). Two of the most acclaimed American actress are Hepburns (Katharine and Audrey), and there are at least three notables Keaton actors (Diane, Buster, and Michael). The greatest director of this century and the two greatest mise-en-scene masters of recent times all have the last name Anderson/Andersson (PT, Wes, Roy), as do two of the muses of Bergman (Bibi and Harriet). Leigh is a promising name for actresses (Vivien and Janet), as is Lee for directors (Spike and Ang). None of these people, as far as I know, are related.
There may be many more. I can’t pretend these aren’t common names, but it is fun to explore.
Quite surprised to not see Parajanov on the list.
Definitely a unique style. So i saw his 2 most famous movies (the same ones that you saw and have a review)
I can only assume that you forgot to include it in the final spaces, he should be somewhere near Jodorowsky
It saddens me that Mikio Naruse is so criminally overlooked in almost every “greatest directors” list I find on the internet. I know I’m in the minority and most people would call it sacrilege, but I personally like him more than Ozu. Now, I know that’s completely subjective and I’m not saying he deserves a top 10 placement, but he should definitely be somewhere in that list.
I would also like to mention Luis García Berlanga and Carlos Saura, two Spanish filmmakers who I think should be included too, especially Berlanga, who somehow managed to avoid Francoist censorship for years and made some of the sharpest satires in European cinema.
That being said, it’s a great list overall. I would make some adjustments in regard to some of the placements, but most of these names I’m 100% on board with.
I can finally comment here.
You did not answer this comment Drake, have you seen any Mikio Naruse movies?
I must admit i had no idea who Mikio Naruse was until @David brought it up.
Definitely the similarities are pretty obvious with Ozu, he even places the camera at ground level, and uses the shoji doors for framing, as well as using Setsuko and Kurosawa actors.
It could be said that he is another disciple of Ozu just like Hsiao-Hsien Hou.
I could see one of his movies “When a woman ascends the stairs”, good movie.
If i remember correctly there are some Naruse movies on Criterion, you should take a look.
It’s been over a year and I would like to backtrack: after revisiting Ozu’s ouvre, I must say that he is a way better director than Naruse, at least from a purely stylistic standpoint, so I was definitely wrong about that. It’s taken me a while to truly appreciate him. That being said, I still think Naruse is better at working with actors, and he elicited some brilliant performances over the course of his career, especially from his muse Hideko Takamine (I would submit films like Yearning, Flowing, A wanderer’s notebook and When a woman ascends the stairs as examples). I still think he deserves some placement on this list for his subtlety, thematic depth and precise editing, even if he’s not as visually startling as some of his contemporaries.
Also, I’m going to take this chance to push for Carlos Saura once more. I strongly recommend that you take a look at some of his work from the 70s because there is a lot to appreciate in them (Raise ravens and Elisa, vida mía are both brilliant films, the latter having tremendous performances from Fernando Rey and Geraldine Chaplin).
Anyway, keep up the good work!
Drake
April 25, 2022 at 9:18 pm
@David- Thanks for the comment- great share. I have much work to do on Naruse – I’m hoping I can do so here later in 2022.
Are you familiar with the work of Seijun Suzuki?
He worked a lot in the 60s for Japanese movie studio, Nikkatsu?
He’s clearly an influence on Tarantino and I’m sure a number of other directors.
He currently has 7 movies on the Criterion Channel, I’ve seen 5 of the 7 and was thoroughly impressed by all of them.
I bring him up because I know you’ve said you are a style over substance critic and Seijun Suzuki is certainly style over substance director. Both Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill are candidates for best Yakuza movie of all time in my opinion
@James Trapp- great share– so the answer here is no. I’ve had Branded to Kill sitting here ready to go for years– I just have not got around to it yet. Maybe I’ll slide a Suzuki study in soon. Thank you
Consider yourself lucky cause you’re in for a real treat. If you like Tarantino, Jean Pierre Melville, John Woo, and others cut from that same cloth then you definitely appreciate his style. Here is an article about Branded to Kill
@Drake and anyone else who’d like to chip in: if you gave all the money in the world to these directors and the message “direct whatever the hell you goddamn please,” how do you think their rankings might change?
Great question. I think it is rather difficult to determine what would happen for some but fairly easy for others. Dreyer is perhaps the most instantaneous prediction for me. I would assume that he, who demonstrates supreme talent in all elements of cinema but was unable to make films often, would push past some other directors ranked higher on the list. Welles is one that I’m sure many would expect to exceed his level of greatness if he had been able to obtain more financial backing. However, ego played a role in his slight decline as well, which cannot be eased by simply the access to money. Coppola is a similar case, but I don’t believe he lacked funds or artistic freedom for his later career. I would love if Leone had made more movies, but as far as I know, his small resume was a personal choice rather than a negative financial effect. Would having more money and artistic freedom stop Tarkovsky from dying so early? Perhaps that’s a little insensitive. I don’t think he’d change drastically one way or the other. Lynch and Cronenberg seem to have been successful in crafting their odd nightmares exactly the way they like, so I wouldn’t expect either to rise much (I find each slightly overrated as it is). Dominik is an intriguing case. I think we’ll have to wait and see the future of his career before determining the possible effects. This may be a controversial opinion, but I think your hypothetical situation might actually drop Christopher Nolan in average quality. He seems to have a thorough desire to do all he can to complicate his narratives and special effects. I’m worried that too much support would cause him to go haywire with the complexities and begin to ignore the stylistic prowess he possesses.
It’s often said that with Welles he was probably the single most gifted director of all time (and I think there’s a very compelling argument to be made about that) and that if only he had more money and Hollywood threw themselves at his feet constantly he would’ve made the greatest films of all time. I do feel this is somewhat wish-fulfillment but considering how great Welles’ movies are it is an intriguing idea.
With Coppola I do somewhat disagree with you, he had much difficulty finding funding later in his career. One From the Heart was a box-office catastrophe as was Rumble Fish the following year (not that these aren’t great films), followed by yet another bomb in The Cotton Club after that, though it made substantially more money than the previous two. Despite this, 1983’s The Outsiders was a big hit and he often alternated between hit and bomb the next few years until his financial situation forced him into directing The Godfather Part III in 1990, which he never had truly planned to ever make, since it was almost surely to be a hit, and of course it was. He may have had money and artistic freedom (he kept getting directing jobs even as his films failed not unlike Scorsese in the same decade), but in the end he kept losing money forcing him into a project it never really seemed he actually wanted.
With Leone, I’m not entirely sure, I might have misplaced him here but he only made one film in both the 70s and 80s and it might just be better to think of Leone making more, anyway at the time of his death I believe he secured $100M for a Soviet war film called Leningrad to star Robert de Niro that of course fell apart when he died, a shame he left us so early at 60.
With Tarkovsky, I mean idk, maybe you could have him escape to the West sooner so that he doesn’t have to film Stalker in such a hellish environment that ended his life and those of many others (at least hopefully he still makes a Stalker analogue here; it’s just TOO good to lose). However I do agree that I don’t really think he’d change his style, even after he went West nothing much actually changed.
Cronenberg nowadays has found difficulty finding funding for his films and has considered retiring because of it but I do have a vain hope he makes another Dead Ringers or A History of Violence; maybe in the 80s he shoots bigger after The Fly and “lands it” so to speak in the public mind, though hopefully not dropping the quality of his films which were very good in this period.
Lynch, idek, he’s definitely a maverick from Hollywood especially after Dune so I don’t know what changing his funding or reputation could do but it could get Mulholland Drive as a full miniseries (though I fear it might be worse than the amazing end result), more seasons of Twin Peaks early and probably various other things not coming to me right now. And too with Dominik the main problem I guess is just not working enough. We’ll have to wait for Blonde to see if he can pull off another Jesse James.
I agree with your take on Nolan. He seems pretty hit-and-miss which was clear probably more than ever this year with Tenet and giving him like $400M to make whatever he wants will probably not result in an amazing film, but if he writes a script of the quality of Inception than you might have something great on your hands.
You are probably correct with Coppola. You have a bit more insight than me about his financial and production situation. I agree with everything else you have stated as well.
With Tarkovsky, I suppose in this fantastical situation we perhaps could divert his attention away from radiation areas for Stalker. However, I think that’s getting a bit carried away. Hollywood would probably not welcome his calm and very un-New Wave style at that time anyway.
Zane
February 3, 2021 at 12:27 am
Who says he’s going to Hollywood? He never did when he fled the Soviets in our timeline. He did Nostalghia in Italy and The Sacrifice in Sweden. I’m not going to deny I can absolutely see him coming to America however if for the experience alone. Aside from that, I’m sure there’s going to be some number of screenwriters battering down his door constantly to have their scripts directed by the great Russian. How many of those he accepts – I expect the number won’t be too far north of 0, if that – is up to debate of course.
Graham
February 3, 2021 at 12:36 am
Good point. I assumed you meant the United States when referring to the West, but I agree that remaining in Europe would be a more fruitful career move.
You may be correct that screenwriters would be eager for him to direct their films, but he would certainly accept few, if any.
I agree with Graham here.
Dreyer is the option.
Give me that Jesus movie
I would say that almost everyone had financial difficulties, except for Nolan.
You could also add Kurosawa tried to commit suicide and had a hard time getting funded in the 70s.
It also adds Griffith. I was basically broke after making the best movie of its time.
There are countless options. As for the others, I’m not sure they fit.
Good point with Griffith, he’s a good pick. Made two MPs then done because even though the first one made the money to fill Fort Knox and more the second one failed. Kurosawa, I mean he had had an entire career by that point and even made a comeback in the 80s so I’m not sure much would change there.
But yes, I’d probably shoot for Dreyer over Welles. I mean to the point where the average time between your films is close to 10 years because of how bad your funding is, but the movies are that great anyway, the world would do great with a few more of them. But I don’t see how, say, Cimino doesn’t fit. He made two great films but everyone hated the second one at the time and well that was it. If Heaven’s Gate isn’t so hated at the time then maybe Hollywood would keep riding the idea of him as the next great Italian and he’d keep making great films. Welles of course definitely fits too as I said, given his difficulties with Hollywood. Indeed, however, the big one is probably Dreyer.
It’s… pretty bad. Kicks it off with bashing the auteur theory and implying that great writing is the key to making a masterpiece, and, well, like he said about David Lean, “it’s all downhill from there.”
The list would have a bit of credibility, if it weren’t for putting Scorsese and Hitchcock on the list.
Looks more like an underrated directors list, Aronofsky, Mann, Lean overrated? mmm
I saw one the other day that Nolan beat Hitchcock and Lean in a poll of the best British director.
Wow, what a dismal failure that list is. To add onto its atrociousness, I would also like to point out that he has included no non-English language directors. Is it because he loves international cinema and finds it gloriously underrated or because he’s barely seen any and knows nothing at all about foreign directors? Naturally, we will all gravitate toward the second answer.
I wonder if he would benefit from discovering and exploring this site. At best, he might gain an understanding of the fact that directors do, in fact, have tremendous power over the success of their films, and that there are indeed stylistic elements that each auteur he mentioned uses to create brilliant masterpieces. More likely, he’d be too ignorant to discover much or any of this and would criticize Drake’s admirable and skillful work as pretentious (an useless and overused word) and unengaging.
Hey, Drake! How are you doing? I was wondering what your thoughts are on Chantal Akerman. I love many of her films (especially News from Home, which I think is a MP) but she isn’t on your list. Did she just not make the cut or are you not that familiar with her work? Thanks!
Don’t mean to burst your bubble, but News From Home is a documentary, which Drake doesn’t study. Of course she made fiction films as well, which I cannot comment on.
@pedro- doing well thanks- hopefully you’re doing the same. Good question- it is mostly the latter here– the only film of Akerman’s I’ve seen was Jeanne Dielman and I wasn’t very impressed. I’ve sort of put off seeing any of the others but do have that on my list to hopefully cross off in 2021 here. I don’t do documentaries though (or shorts– so not sure that leaves that much) so I won’t be watching those.
Oh, okay. Thank you, Zane and Drake. If we’re talking just fiction, I really enjoyed Je Tu Il Elle, Toute une nuit and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna. It’s a shame you weren’t impressed with Jeanne Dielman, I loved it. Oh well.
@pedro– are you open to sharing what you loved about Jeanne Dielman? I’ve only seen it once- certainly not willing to write it off.
pedro
February 9, 2021 at 9:01 pm
Certainly. I’m sorry for the delay in my response, I hadn’t seen your question.
I think what is very interesting about Jeanne Dielman is how Akerman crafts (1) a very unique narrative and (2) an extremely distinctive dynamic between the viewer and the film.
(1) Akerman shows us a woman (Jeanne Dielman) who lives in a very robotic way and is controlled/limited by this uneventful routine, and little details here and there are what tie everything together. It’s amazing how, by just showing what actually (and exactly) happens, a narrative can be created. Akerman doesn’t need dramatic events (or even any event at all) to tell us everything we need to know about this character. After all, these are the stories that happen the most in real life.
(2) We, as an audience, are thrown into this impersonal “game” between the camera and the environment, and I love playing it. Akerman challenges us, as an audience, to piece things together for ourselves. We never know for sure, for example, how the rooms in Jeanne’s house are connected. We simply find that out by guessing, by seeing her move from room to room. In a narrative where “””nothing really happens”””, little details become the most important thing. We are at all times looking for something new, a new motion, a new expression, a new scenario, even.
A lot of people call it minimalist, but I, personally, can’t 100% agree with that (it is, at the end of the day, a lengthy movie). I would call it spare. And its obsession with the ordinary (maybe not that ordinary) happenings of an ordinary woman is what turns it into a fascinating film.
My knowledge of film is still very limited, so take this comment with a grain of salt, I’m merely listing what I liked about the movie. Also, I apologize if there are any language mistakes. Thanks!
Drake
February 9, 2021 at 9:19 pm
@pedro- Thank you- appreciate you sharing this here very much
You know, when you update your director’s pages in a few years I was thinking it would be a cool idea if you write about a runner-up, which would be a director’s second best film, especially if they’re two films of the same category (MP, MS, HR). Like La Dolce Vita is as deserving of a mention on Fellini’s page as 8 1/2 and such. Ditto with, say, M and Metropolis, Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet, Seven Samurai and Rashomon, and so forth (and I personally would place Mulholland Drive slightly ahead of Blue Velvet but there’s not much separating them of course; I also probably need to rewatch both this year) And the best film of each director should get their own page going into depth on each film that is then reposted on the full director’s page.
How do you think cinema might change if the Academy Award for Best Unique and Artistic Picture, awarded solely to Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans in 1928 at the 1st Academy Awards and then permanently discarded, were still awarded to this day? Might more avant-garde films receive greater public attention?
@Zane- I like that idea. I have never thought about that before. I’m sort of impressed with the Academy at the moment. I’m choosing to be optomistic- but check out the list of the best director winners: Joon-ho, Cuaron, del Toro, Chazelle, Inarritu, Inarritu, Cuaron… nice streak!
True, but there were three pretty wet farts in the years before that: Tom Hooper over Fincher, Nolan, and Aronofsky, Hazanavicius over Malick, Malick, Malick, Malick, and Malick, and then Ang Lee over the Anderson not-brothers and Tarantino.
@Aldo- It certainly is in some circles- and there have been some very impressive winners. The Golden Lion is right there as well in Venice. I did this exercise with the Palme and Academy Award Winners once year by year and it came out about even– some years they both get it right, some years one is laughably bad, and vice versa. Of course the Palme is only pulling from those who enter where the Oscars can technically pull from the entire field that year.
Drake, in Cannes reward avant-garde films.
What i’m pointing out is that every cinephile knows that the most prestigious award is Cannes.
As you pointed out, films that are not shown cannot win.
Wild at Heart won in Cannes but was not nominated in the others, can you imagine Wild at Heart will be awarded prizes? not me.
They openly choose to ignore these movies.
For example 1978 where an unspectacular movie won (The Knack …and How to Get). Among the competitors is neither Repulsion, Juliet, Pierrot.
And in the other part they weren’t even nominated, i could go on and on.
To top off the superiority of Cannes, la dolce vita won, in the others only was nominated for director and not for film, despite being better than any other nominated film.
Zane
March 7, 2021 at 6:00 am
For a while, foreign-language films could not be nominated for Best Picture. It’s stupid, I know, but it explains why they were not nominated for Best Picture. For example, Cries and Whispers (side note: I think there’s a compelling argument this is Bergman’s best work but for me that’s still Persona), was not nominated for best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, since Sweden submitted Scenes From a Marriage that year, but it received a Best Picture nomination. La Dolce Vita too, for example, was not submitted by Italy for Best Foreign Language Film, though it not receiving a Best Picture nomination is a pretty serious misstep.
Also, you mean 1965, not 1978. Can’t think of why you wrote 1978 there.
Lastly, Cannes doesn’t always reward truly avant-garde films, per se. Just 95-98% of the time.
Drake
March 7, 2021 at 12:36 pm
@Aldo- I don’t want to make a big thing of it but I mean that’s just not accurate that “every cinephile knows what the most prestigious award is Cannes”. In 2004 Cannes picked Fahrenheit 9/11 over Oldboy and 2046, in 2016 they picked I, Daniel Blake over American Honey, Paterson, The Handmaiden .. in 2008 another embarrassing year…. In 1965 here the year in question, they would have picked Kwaidan, The Ipcress File, The Hill…. As I said, literally half the time the better film is The Oscar winner.
Have you seen nomadland? It’s expected to win best picture and director. It also did won golden lion.
I have mixed feelings about the movie though , but i mostly liked it.
What are some collaborations you would love witness to between two people with different film industry occupations who lived in different eras? Here are some random ideas that drifted into my mind:
Sidney Lumet directing an Aaron Sorkin screenplay
Sven Nykvist shooting a Pawel Pawlikowski film
Buster Keaton starring in a Wes Anderson movie
Thelma Schoonmaker editing a Sam Peckinpah Western
Gregg Toland shooting a Ridley Scott film
John WIlliams scoring a David Lean epic
Juliette Binoche acting in a Carl Theodor Dreyer movie
James Cagney starring as a Martin Scorsese gangster
Paul Thomas Anderson directing a John Huston script
@Graham– haha I love these- all of them intriguing. Sign me up for Sven shooting a Pawlikowski film if I had to pick just one I think.. but really you can’t go wrong
If you were to expand the top 250 directors list where will Jim Sheridan land?He has the three films that he made with Daniel Day-Lewis and In America as well.And do you actually intend to expand this list?
@Anderson – I certainly plan to expand the list of the top 250 directors. It’ll be some time though. I’m not sure where Sheridan would land. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer. It has been awhile since I’ve had my mind on that project. My guess is it would be between 251-300.
They seem adequate, but there are some issues. First, I’m Thinking of Ending Things acquired absolutely no nominations. That’s awful. It deserves a spot in the races for Best Picture, Director, and Actress at the very least. Mank garnered a sufficient number of nominations, but it bizarrely does not appear in the Editing category. That’s one of its strongest elements.
Nomadland is expected to lead the pack for many of the awards, which is satisfactory to me. It’s a brilliant work.
I wonder if the Academy will ever allow miniseries or anthologies. Small Axe deserves some nominations, but it has been excluded due to its series categorization.
I believe they are referring to John Huston at 102 (this is the directors’ list). I agree that 102 is rather low, but top ten is also rather unthinkable.
@Rick- I admire both– Craven just missed the cut- he’d be between 251-300 most likely. I have work yet to do on finding and watching Russell’s films. I saw a really crappy copy of The Devils years ago that really shouldn’t count. TBD there. Hopefully I’ll be able to locate a few yet in 2021.
Gordon Morrice
December 27, 2021 at 5:06 pm - Reply
Sad not to see Ken Russell on this list. He revolutionized the British film industry in the 1960s and 70s. A truly visionary artist, one of the last great eccentrics of Britain. But Warren Beatty is deemed worthy? Hmm.
He was one of the masters of the “Commedia all’Italiana” ,Comedy Italian Style, and, got 6 nominations at the Academy Awards. He was very local, and I’ll explain why. He got an incredibile body of work, was very prolific from 1935 to 2006 as a director and screenwriter and influenced a lot of modern italian directors. He was consistent in his themes, with a very distinguished look on the human condition, rich with a bittersweet humor mixing tragedy and comedy, altough his cynism can be lost in translation. The Great War, Amici miei and The Girl with the Pistol are his gems for me. He worked with the best Italian Actors of the golden age (Mastroiani, Sordi, Toto, Gassman, Tognazzi, Monica Vitti etc). Here is my point: Monicelli was a story teller more than a visual artist, by choice : he didn’t want to hide the actors behind the frame, didnt want to “show off” . For him his direction was focused to serve the actors and the story, the dialogues. To show the reality as is, without embellishment. Neorelism without the pedagogic intent. But he was not sloppy or uninterested in visual story telling, that was just his artistic, autorial, choice. So to me he checks all the requirements of being in this excellent list, but mostly, I just want to highlight a great career, to maybe entice some fellow movie students to try his cinema. (Small time crooks by woody allen is to me an homage to Monicelli’s Big Deal on Madonna Street. Also I recommend An Average Little Man)
@max- thank you for sharing the knowledge here and the recommendation. I’ve seen Big Deal on Madonna Street but I’m not sure if I’ve seen anything else from him yet.
I just visited the TSPDT page for Chantal Akerman, where a quote describes her as “arguably the most important European director of the ’70s and ’80s.” Yeah right. Andrei Tarkovsky who??? And what about any of the 3 Kaisers of the New German Cinema?
Great list! I discovered this a few months ago and have been using it as a personal guide for what films I plan to watch next. It is an extremely insightful list and you make some excellent points. I especially enjoy the mise en scene shots you include–they are captivating. As someone who is trying to learn more about film history and directing, this has been a major help.
A couple of questions I had: What do you think of Panos Cosmatos? Have you seen his film Mandy from a couple of years ago? I found it to be entrancing. He is certainly a stylistic and distinctive director, to say the least. I realize he has only made a couple of films so far. I was just wondering if you had an opinion on what you’ve seen.
Also, I noticed you didn’t include Stanley Kramer on your list. He has several great films. However, he is not known as a stylistic director and most of his films are dialogue driven. Opinions?
Keep up the great work. I look forward to seeing updates on active directors.
@Scott- thank you for the kind words regarding the website- I’m happy to hear you’ve found it useful. I’m a big admirer of Mandy. I was lucky enough to catch it in theater in 2018 and have been itching to get back to it since… I have a page for it here with my first impressions: http://thecinemaarchives.com/2018/09/18/mandy-2018-cosmatos/
I’ve had Beyond the Black Rainbow on my list to see for quite some time but just have not got around to it yet.
I have seven Stanley Kramer films in the archives (below) which is an impressive number for any director. I’ve seen them multiple times and these are good films. So it isn’t that I think he’s a bad director. He isn’t. But he was one of those “important” directors, racking up a lot of awards and such because of the serious messages in his films– not necessarily because of artistic merit. I just simply think there were many superior directors during that era.
1958- The Defiant Ones
1959- On The Beach
1960- Inherit The Wind
1961- Judgement at Nuremberg
1963- It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
1965- Ship of Fools
1967- Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Does anyone know any of the most famous “guilty pleasure” movies of directors? PTA’s love of absolute trash films is well documented, hell he even made an Adam Sandler movie (which is not the same as a movie starring Adam Sandler mind you), in addition to once saying the MCU gets too much hate, and I do believe I remember hearing about David Lynch loving some not-so-well-recieved films as well. On top of those, Stanley Kubrick loved White Men Can’t Jump, and so I’ve heard he died with Kingpin in his DVR. Similarly, Ingmar Bergman was known to have owned Beverly Hills Cop and Anger Management, and Terrence Malick is a huge fan of Zookeeper with Ben Stiller.
@Joe- I have more work to do here. I do have The Seduction of Mimi and Seven Beauties in the archives but it has been so long since I’ve seen them I don’t have a grade for them. I’d have to see them again and have one or both land in the top 100 of the 1970’s for Wertmuller to have a shot on the top 250 list.
I have trouble picking between my top four – Williams, Hermann, Morricone, and Steiner. But for sheer quality and depth of work, I have to go Williams. Jaws, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back (which introduced the Imperial March), Indiana Jones, Superman – how can you go past a resume like that?
There is a really fantastic podcast called The Soundtrack Show which dedicates several episodes at a time to breaking down the score for different movies. They have covered a lot of those Williams scores I mentioned, but my personal favourite episodes are those on LOTR. He takes a very formalist approach much like Drake to analysing these pieces of music. Very highly recommended.
Yeah, I remember reading about Under The Skin getting the #2 spot on its Wikipedia page or elsewhere. Even then, I’d not go quite that far, I mean the #2 film score of all time? Come on, but I wouldn’t argue with anyone who puts it on their top 50, and I wouldn’t surprise myself if I eventually do so myself. That’s an excellent score.
Had to remove The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance which sadly leaves this list without a Western. I still have a month before the poll is up so there’s a chance I might decide to put one or both of them back on there (Liberty Valance is more likely).
In case any of you are interested, Declan, Graham and I have started a Discord server that Graham recommended I post here: https://discord.gg/KnWvZkCRYB
Out of curiosity, why do you feel the need to place the given name first for Asian directors who do not arrange their names that way? I understand the desire for conformity and don’t find it a huge issue, but Hong Kong’ greatest filmmaker is not named Kar-Wai Wong; he’s Wong Kar-Wai. The same goes for Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Lee Chang-dong, and Zhang Yimou. Most other sites do not refer to them the anglicized way, with the occasional exception of IMDb, a complex database that requires a little more conformity to succeed.
@Graham-Drake uses the iMDB name for these directors. In iMDB he is called Kar-Wai Wong. He also uses in almost all the time the release year for a film according to iMDB. That’s why films like The Assistant and Sound of Metal which feel like 2020 films are listed as 2019 films. I think that is the reason.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I was on Henry Hathaway’s page on TSPDT when it accidentally glitched out and, instead of giving me just his films, it gave me every single film ever entered into TSPDT! I don’t know if this glitch will work for you, but I was on Google Chrome for iPhones and as I said it was Henry Hathaway’s page.
I know now that the first film on the TSPDT Top 1000 of all time is George Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon, the second and fourth are Louis Feuillade’s Fantômas and Les Vampires (he has the second and fourth films ever on the top 1000 and this guy doesn’t have a page on TSPDT???), the third, fifth and sixth are D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, and Broken Blossoms, and the seventh is Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, followed by such works as Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler and Nosferatu.
The most recent film on the TSPDT All-Time Top 1000 is Toni Erdmann in 2016, but so as not to leave a sour taste in Drake’s mouth I’ll tell him that beyond that are Mad Max: Fury Road, Boyhood, Under the Skin, The Act of Killing, Holy Motors, The Master, Amour, Melancholia, The Tree of Life, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, A Separation, The Turin Horse, Certified Copy, The Social Network, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and Nostalgia for the Light from the preceding decade.
The first film on the TSPDT 21st Century Top 1000 was Devils on the Doorstep in 2000. The first films on the All-Time Top 1000 from the current century are As I was Moving Ahead I Saw a Glimpse of Beauty, accompanied by In Vanda’s Room, Dancer in the Dark, Werckmeister Harmonies, The Gleaners and I, Songs From the Second Floor, In the Mood for Love, Amores perros, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Yi Yi, Code Unknown, Memento, Platform, and Requiem for a Dream in 2000; quite a lineup. The most recent film currently on the TSPDT 21st Century list is City Hall, immediately preceded by Shirley.
@Zane- I, also, was disappointed about the news of the “big” movie today. I thought Cannes had a big 2019 comeback (obviously no show in 2020) but had been losing ground to the fall festivals (Venice, Toronto) prior to 2019.
I started doing my own version of Director Studies, so far Orson Welles, Wong Kar Wai, and finishing up Vittorio De Sica.
I’m trying to decide next between these 3 choices:
1. Francis Ford Coppola
2. David Fincher
3. Jean Luc Godard
Feel Free to weigh in
I did the same thing myself haha, started with Tarkovsky then did Bergman and WKW, did a belated journey into Godard that I got about 9 films into and just haven’t continued for some reason, and I’ve done brief visits into Welles, Fellini, Hawks, and Kalatozov that I may pick back up, and I’m now considering Bunuel, Renoir, Dreyer, Bresson and a few others (leaning Bunuel but not by much) and I don’t know where to go anymore at this point as I’ll be really busy these next few weeks.
I’d personally recommend you go with Godard, I was really amazed by what I found in his filmography and it changed how I feel about him. I used to judge him mostly by some of his opinions about cinema which are very questionable and by a lot of what he’s been doing from Weekend onwards but his work before that is something truly exceptional and I’d describe A Woman is a Woman, Vivre Sa Vie, Contempt (especially this), Band of Outsiders, Pierrot le Fou, Alphaville, and Weekend as some of my favorite films now, and I even quite like Made in USA which Declan sadly hated. That being said my recent viewing of The Conversation was an absolute stunner, should end up well in the top 100 if nothing changes and there’s a great argument that you should pick Coppola instead.
You really inspire me to study De Sica who alongside Rossellini I’ve been looking at lately. I hate that I’ve only seen Bicycle Thieves so far as it’s so good and 5 months on I’ve seen nothing else.
@Zane – thanks for weighing in, yeah I think I’m leaning toward Coppola but will ultimately cover Godard, Fincher, and others.
Yeah, I strongly suggest De Sica, I’ve made a few posts on the De Sica page. Umberto D. is definitely a masterpiece near the level of Bicycle Thieves in my opinion. He’s versatile though and has some lighter comedy material as well which still is in the style of Neorealism. Sophie Loren and Marcello Mastroianni do some great work in the later De Sica films.
Hmm I wouldn’t say I hated Made in USA. I’ve seen it twice now and gave it a Recommend, which may be underrating it compared to Drake’s HR/MS, but still isn’t really hate.
Declam, who are you? I was talking to an individual by the name of Declan, with an n at the end.
Jokes aside, I did not actually see you gave it a second watch. But the first time, which I did notice, you did not archive it, which is what I was talking about here.
Decla (last letter TBC)
June 8, 2021 at 12:58 am
Haha all good, I wrote that about 5 minutes after waking up this morning hence the mistake. I’m giving the higher ratings you and Drake gave it the benefit of the doubt since you both watched it as part of Godard studies. I haven’t ruled out moving it higher, hopefully I’ll come round on it (and First Name Carmen) when I do my own proper Godard study.
Grahan
June 8, 2021 at 3:14 am
In fact, Mr. Green and I have participated in an official letter swap; he will henceforth be legally documented as Declam, and I as Grahan. Substituting letters in one’s name with another being of the same species is the first step instrumental in reaching the evolutionary state necessary for consideration by the Monolith to evolve a life form into the Star Child heavenly form.
I recently completed a Roy Andersson study comprising Songs from the Second Floor; You, the Living; A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence; and About Endlessness. It was my first real “study,” and I would highly recommend that you venture through it as well if you haven’t seen any of his films. It’s a relatively short investment of time and I think those four movies probably work best when placed together.
I just checked him on TSPDT (I’ve been to his page here a few times) and I must say he has great taste with his favorite films being Amarcord, Andrei Rublev, Barry Lyndon, Bicycle Thieves, and Rashomon. I’ve been interested in his films for a little while due to the interesting look of his films so he’s an idea I might try, but I’ll put him on the list for now.
After finishing my second viewing of every wes Anderson film (i have seen grand Budapest 10+ times) I was thinking about great filmmakers with great visual style who are also equally great writers with specific style of writing. Here’s my take (I’m not including Kubrick, Coppola and Welles. They are excellent writers but are even better filmmakers)
1. Coen brothers
2. Wes Anderson
3. Paul Thomas Anderson
4. Woody Allen
5. Tarantino
What are your thoughts on it? Am I missing someone? I would love everyone to participate.
Great collection – you have included many I would include. I think Bergman is a clear omission. His visual style is obviously great (faces, tight close-ups, stark imagery, strict color design), and his thematic screenwriting (thoughtful monologues interspersed with silences, internal crises, spiritual uncertainties) is masterful too. Godard is a possible choice as well. His storywriting and plot construction are not necessarily perfect, but he is a master of clever, subversive dialogue and a style that seems both brilliantly conscientious and nonchalantly careless.
Wilder is arguably an even greater screenwriter than any of these people, but his cinematic style is not as rigid. Antonioni has the opposite strength. Due to recent events (a.k.a. I’m Thinking of Ending Things), I’d say Kaufman is a worthy choice, but perhaps he has not done enough direction to solidify a particular visual style.
It is difficult to determine the eligibility of filmmakers whose greatest scripts were co-written by other people, such as Welles, Coppola, Fellini, Kubrick, and more.
That’s great that you’ve seen Grand Budapest more than ten times haha; it is an all-time favorite of mine.
Bergman and godard are excellent. I was also thinking Mike Leigh, baumbach and gerwig.
Agreed about wilder. Kaufman and Schrader are 2 of the writer turned filmmakers who are navigating excellently (unlike Sorkin).
Agreed on these guys as well.
Grand Budapest is one of my favorite as well.
God we are on same page about everything.
Are there any directors you’d prefer to transplant to another place or time? Perhaps a contemporary director who could create greater cinema in the silent era, or an old director who would benefit from the advent of current technology and more elaborate special effects and sets? How about an American who would succeed better in the international cinema world, or a foreign director who would be better off in high-profile Hollywood? Is there a director from the black and white era or digital cinema age who deserves large-format Technicolor, or vice versa?
@Graham- I’d certainly like to see Welles today. I think he’d have an easier time getting at least a little bit of money for his passion projects. This is where my head goes immediately with this question. Guys like Sam Fuller. Perhaps I’m wrong though. What do you think? I’d love to see Kalatozov with less political restrictions and just an unlimited budget too.
Welles is a great suggestion, and Kalatozov perhaps an even better one. The weightless camera movement, crane shot, and canted-angle close-up loving Russian master was certainly able to push beyond his propagandist obligations to become a stylistically free and untethered auteur. Nonetheless, one must wonder what he could craft without the hindrance of political duties. I bet he’d make a formidable competitor to Cuaron as far as rapid movement long-shot/creative mise-en-scenists go.
One has to wonder how Griffith might fare in more recent times. Of course, I wouldn’t want to remove the massive influence he had on cinema’s future in the 1910s, so let’s assume there’s someone else to carry that duty in the hypothetical. If Griffith could clean up his racial opinions or change them entirely, I think he’d benefit from fewer budget constraints, better sets, the possibility of sound, and a larger audience appetite for massive scale and scope within the age of epics (1955-65 or so).
Eisenstein is a possibility for time period boosting whose reasons lay almost halfway between Kalatozov and Griffith: the possibility for more elaborate film production like D.W., and the necessity to escape Leninist political ideals like Mikhail.
We could try to move around some of the directors who died early, such as Tarkovsky, Murnau, and Fassbinder, to see if modern lifestyle or life in a different country could keep them alive for a bit longer, but perhaps that wouldn’t have much effect.
Controversial directors would be more comfortable in a more recent time where their subjects would not be so touchy. Perhaps Pasolini a few decades later would help? Powell may seem old-timey by today’s standards, but the taboo undertones of Black Narcissus and Peeping Tom would be better understood in a less restrained time.
Some directors would be nice to see in the 1940s-50s noir period, though I’m not sure they necessarily need to move. I’m referring to people like David Fincher, Fritz Lang, or Jean-Pierre Melville. Perhaps Damien Chazelle would be a little happier living in the 1950s Technicolor time? I’m not sure.
Kurosawa was more respected in the United States than in Japan, so I wonder if he could succeed better working here. Perhaps we’d have more fruitful work from him during the 1970s period in which he nearly ended his life.
At first glance, Roy Andersson seems a prime choice for transplanting to some earlier time: he does not need modern technology like digital cameras or a Steadicam; people in the past were more tolerant of slower films and physical comedy; his production design does not include especially modern looking props or design; and his characters toil through timeless struggles. However, for a certain reason, I think Andersson is actually living at precisely the right time. I wrote a comment that no one saw on his page describing differences between Roy and comparable auteurs, and I will reiterate what I said about Tati’s primary difference: Tati’s movies were about the birth of modernism, and the resulting frenetic confusion, while Andersson’s are about the death of modernism, and the resulting melancholic stagnancy. That wouldn’t have the same devastating effect in the past.
There are some directors who seem essentially timeless, and could succeed at any time. Hitchcock lands squarely in the category, as there have always been people with a ravenous appetite for intelligent thrillers. Wes Anderson in some ways seems very modern and groundbreaking, but a part of me would love to walk into a theater in 1920 and see a double feature of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and a version of The Grand Budapest Hotel. One half of the brain could comment on clear similarities such as great set design, seminal composition, and entertaining and twisted narrrative, while the other half could notice large differences, such as the lopsided world vs the symmetricality, the oblique angles vs the crisp parallel lines, and the dramatic thriller vs the deadpan comedy. Bela Tarr is completely timeless in terms of his themes, but I wonder if he’d suffer without the modern Steadicam. He might replace the role of Murnau back in the twenties; I wonder if it would actually be advantageous to swap their places so Murnau was current and Tarr a silent film master.
In some ways, it’s actually more interesting to discuss the people that shouldn’t be transplanted. For example, Christopher Nolan seems so fervorously modern, so inextricably linked to special effects, the Hollywood blockbuster structure, and contemporary complexity. How would he fare as a silent 1920s Polish indie director? Could he successfully adapt to such a circumstance, or would we lose his greatness?
@Graham Well thought out. Especially liked your points about Wes, Nolan and Roy Andersson. I think that maybe John Frankenhaimer would have thrived if he stared later (although this way he wouldn’t have extensive tv experience and if I remember correctly he had a lot of personal problems in the 70’s and 80’s). And maybe Tod Browning? If I understand correctly, he suffered due to censorship.
Soviet directors are an interesting case. Because sure, I would love to see what they can do without ideological constrains, but on the other hand Hollywood would put another set of limitations on them. Like, I really cannot imagine Hollywood making Come and See in the form we received(maybe Europe could be great artistic/commercial compromise, especially in the 60s).
Also, many Soviet directors found interesting and creative ways to subvert these restrictions, which is precisely what made their movies great.
Oh, I remembered another one, Jules Dassin. I wish he wasn’t blacklisted. He was on such a roll in the second half of forties. And as far critical opinion goes, he wasn’t great after Rififi (I haven’t seen myself movies after Rififi yet). On the other hand, we lose Rififi and maybe Night and the City, which hurts.)))
@Gustavo Mello- Not really well enough. I have seen Black God, White Devil- but it has been 15 years or so and the copy of the version I saw wasn’t ideal
If you have time to check out his movies.
He is the greatest director in Brazil and has been highly praised by directors such as Scorsese, Pasolini and Bong Joon-ho.
I would like to know if he would have a space on that list.
@Gustavo Mello- Absolutely- he and his work are very well respected. I do have a poor transfer dvd copy of Black God, White Devil but as I said have been holding out to find something better.
Drake, if there was a scenario where “Mr. Y” had directed The Searchers (currently number one on your all-time films list) and it’s the only film he had ever directed, and “Mr. X” had directed Nosferatu The Vampyre (currently number 500 on your all-time films list) and it’s the only film he had ever directed. About where would “Mr. Y” rank on the list and where would “Mr. X” rank?
@RK- interesting hypothetical. So the Mr. X question is easy to answer- Mr. X wouldn’t be one of the top 250 directors on the list. Mr. Y is more difficult. I’d say between 80-100 maybe? There would be other small factors so it’s hard to determine. It wouldn’t be the same as like Falconetti on the female list (#27)
@RK – I asked a similar question on the Francis Ford Coppola page, only I asked where would he would be ranked if he had only directed 3 films, The 1st and 2nd Godfather and Apocalypse Now and Drake said somewhere between 20-35, so around 27 would be the middle of that range. Woody Allen is number 27 and he has 33 archivable films including several MPs so that shows the power of huge MPs like Godfather level films.
Why Thomas Vinterberg isn`t part of the list?
Because he is much better then, for example Tom Hopper or Jeff Nichols.
He wouldn`t be in top 100, but he should be in top 250.
Archivable movies:
The Celebration
The Hunt
Another Round
@RujK- Well for one this page was written before Another Round was released. I think Vinterberg has an argument over Tom Hooper or Jeff Nichols- but they’re in the same class, even with Another Round. “Much better” feels like a reach.
Hi, Drake. Following Mad Mike’s comment… maybe it’s just for me, but I think there are issues with both Bi Gan pages you have (Kaili Blues and Long Day’s Journey Into Night). On my phone it works fine, but on desktop there’s no content for some reason.
I’ve mentioned this before but you have to see Angelopoulos. The Travelling Players is available in the Stremio app with subtitles, so is Alexander the Great in the best quality you can find them. Probably his two most well known films, Landscape in the Mist and Eternity and a Day, are also available. He’s probably one of the handful masters left you haven’t gotten into.
@James Trapp- for sure, on my short list– I just finished Michael Mann so was thinking of maybe doing one or two directors between the two from a different genre
He’s not quite a heavy hitter so I can’t say I’m surprised he’s missing from this list, but William A Wellman has a pretty sturdy resume with Wings, The Public Enemy, and The Ox-Bow Incident, all of which are in the top 10 of their respective years. Since he isn’t in the top 250, he surely wouldn’t be that far below the threshold right?
@Declan- I just know he wasn’t in the next 10-15 after 250. The resume is very solid (below)
1927- Wings HR
1931- Public Enemy HR
1933- Wild Boys of the Road R
1937- A Star Is Born R
1937- Nothing Sacred R
1942- The Ox-Box Incident HR
1948- Yellow Sky R
1949- Battle Ground R
1954- The High and the Mighty
1954- Track of the Cat R
1955- Blood Alley R
Also, any thoughts on Claude Chabrol and Koreeda? For interest, were any of Stephen Frears, Neil Jordan or Jim Sheridan close? Shane Meadows or Bruno Dumont? Thanks
I watched a fun podcast on Quentin Tarantino from The Ringer (link below), it’s a site that follows both sports and pop culture including films. In the podcast three of the writers on the site talk Tarantino and make there top 5 lists for him. Around the 8:20 mark (podcast is 65 min) one of the site’s writers, Chris Ryan, says that Tarantino movies always feel like a national holiday. He said they feel like an event in a way that is different from any other filmmaker. This got me thinking, which director do you get the most excited for? I think this is a different question than who is your favorite filmmaker or who do you think is the best; of course it’s possible that you could pick the same director to all 3 of these questions.
For me:
Best Living Director: Martin Scorsese
Favorite Living Director: Martin Scorsese
Director Most Excited For: Quentin Tarantino with Scorsese and Fincher not far behind
@James Douglas- Thank you for visiting the site and the comment. What’s the case for De Toth? I have a few films in the archives but maybe there is something I haven’t seen but should.
@JustPassingBy- That would be a fun exercise. It would take some work. I do have this for a start for the 2010s http://thecinemaarchives.com/2020/01/21/the-10-best-directors-of-the-2010s/. Of course this omits a few that would show up in the conversation for sure like Haneke, WKW, The Dardennes…. but PTA, Wes, Cuaron, Nolan, Fincher, Tarantino also had a strong 2000s as well. Roy Andersson would be there.
@JustPassingBy – I think Nolan might have the strongest case since all of his major work was made in the 21st Century. He has 3 definite MPs with The Dark Knight, Inception, and Dunkirk plus Memento, Interstellar, and Dark Knight Rises which are not quite MPs but still very strong
With PTA you have to exclude 2 of his huge MPS in Boogie Nights and Magnolia.
With Tarantino you take away Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown
With Fincher there is no Seven or Fight Club
JustPassingBy
November 28, 2021 at 6:53 pm - Reply
I am writing down a watchlist of 500 directors, but I need around 20 more names, so if anybody knows any talented obscure or underrated directors, I will be happy to hear about them.
@RK- thank you for reply, but I already put him on the list. It`s funny, I put him on the list yesterday when I was just looking around with which directors work Ugo Tognazzi and then I saw that Ferreri directed The Grand Bouffe so I put him on the list.
What are your thoughts on Lina Wertmüller? I think she was one of italian cinema’s most underrated auteurs. Not sure if you’ve archived any of her work but she is a very interesting and unique artist.
I am a film student and recently took a screenwriting class with the biggest anti-auteurist of them all. He literally started off the class with a powerpoint saying “the auteur theory is a bunch of bullshit”, can you believe that? I understand a screenwriter may take issue with “auteur” as a term (his argument was that such a theory discredits his own work and I guess that makes it more personal to him) but his insistence that films owe so much to their scripts, I simply couldn’t disagree with more.
My interpretation has always been that auteur theory certainly doesn’t apply to all films, only to those select artists that are clearly the ones driving the ship. His continuous discrediting of film style was incredibly frustrating to listen to as well, he often likened it to theater (he said “you never want to leave the theater remembering the costumes”)….as if the visual arts are not a massive part of…..watching a film? It was so frustrating to sit through.
definitely but it says more about his own credibility and taste than anything. keep doing what you’re doing with this fantastic site! I appreciate how much thought is put into your lists and reviews. I really have a feeling this site will have an impact on future young cinephiles in helping them discover the great works and cultivate their own tastes.
@Zane – Andrei Tarkovsky directing a screwball comedy…just kidding
Scorsese directing a Western would be interesting, The Searchers is a huge influence on Taxi Driver. I think the types of themes Scorsese often worked with, characters particularly males seeking various forms of personal redemption would make for an interesting film. Also, Gangs of New York has elements of a Western and even though it’s not my favorite of his films I think it showed promise early on but had some flaws that were hard to overcome (miscast characters being one).
Tarantino making a straight up Horror film would be interesting as he is so effective at taking classic genres and adding his own flavor, he’s done work in so many genres; Samurai, Heist, blaxploitation, gangster, western, and you could argue war with Inglorious even if it is very different from any other war film. A straight up Horror would be exciting.
btw Visconti directed The Leopard which is not exactly a war film per se but takes place during a war and there is some violence in the streets but I assume you mean a more standard war film, I agree that would be interesting.
Senso is set during the Second Italian War of Independence and, while they’re far from the focus of the film, the few battle scenes it has are really something to behold. I’d have adored to have seen Visconti make a Napoleon biopic or something (I know Kubrick was planning one but I’d rather have him still get sidetracked and end up making Barry Lyndon instead while Visconti makes Napoleon).
You make me wonder what a Mikhail Kalatozov screwball comedy would look like with the camera backflipping around in every scene.
@Zane – Another that comes to mind would be Terence Malick making a disaster/apocalypse film. The Tree of Life depicts with absolutely stunning images the birth of the universe and earth. And then after that the beginning of life on earth with dinosaurs. I think Malick making a film like this makes sense not only because of the spectacular imagery but it also fit with Malick’s frequent themes regarding the indifference of nature to mankind or as Nick Nolte’s character in The Thin Red Line tells the Elias Koteas character “nature is cruel Staros”.
Hi Drake. Huge fan of the site. When do you think you will make a Best of 2020 & 2021 list? Are you waiting for more films to make it into the archives before you start on that? Just wondering since I really enjoy your Best of the Year lists.
Also, what did you think of Licorice Pizza? I liked it a lot, as well as the youthful vibe and ’70s California atmosphere, but thought it was far from PTA’s best. Not as stylistic as Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, Punch Drunk, etc.
Though now that I think about it, the arcade scene had great mise en scene. I may need another viewing to fully appreciate it, but I did enjoy a lot of it
@Scott- Thanks for the comment– glad you like the site. So I put up 2016 today and it takes me about a week to do each page so I’m only a few weeks away from doing 2020 and 2021. I had plans to get there already but fell behind. I saw Licorice Pizza in theater a December. I am very excited to get to it again but would agree it seem far from PTA’s best (certainly not an insult) upon first blush.
Did you make this list before you had seen The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? Surprised not to see Robert Wiene with a masterpiece of that caliber (your #56 film of all time) Admittedly I haven’t seen any of his other work, but I know The Hands of Orlac is highly regarded, and surely these fellows at the bottom with zero top 100 films of their respective decades can’t have a better case?
What are some directors that died way too young with maybe just one feature film or two, but they already found their style and had very promising start?
Of course first one should be Jean Vigo, but I would like to mention Sadao Yamanaka- I saw Humanity and Paper Balloons and been pretty blown away (I gave it MS after one viewing), it’s a stunning visual and formal achievement. I wrote in my notes “if Yamanaka didn’t die so young, he would be mentioned in the same sentences as Ozu and Mizoguchi”.
Are there are any directors who you believe stuck too much to one genre, topic, mood, or aesthetic? Perhaps they should have branched out more?
For example, many wish Kalazatov had been able to veer away from Soviet propagandistic messages and stories. Another is Leone. Although the spaghetti western genre served him perfectly, his triumph with Once Upon a Time in America leads me to believe there are other historical periods at which he should have tried his skillful hand.
There are probably better answers to this question than the ones I have given. Does anyone have ideas?
@Graham- my answer is probably Hitchcock- he was always staying in this crime thriller genre (he was doing variations of it with combining elements of romance, comedy and horror). I would really like to see some more straight forward genre films from- imagine how dominant he would be as the best director of all time together with having masterful filmography and wonderful style, he would be a genre master like Kubrick or Hawks- I think that nobody else could even challenge him as the best of all time.
Okay, this is great, thank you very much
Okay this is excellent. Being able to link directly to the individual pages from the master list is a superb feature. Now you just need to bump Kurosawa 10 or 11 spots up the list and it’ll be perfect!
@Matt Harris– haha– yeah the links are a new thing here so bear with me on this continual work in progress. I have a few films to go to finish up the study but it does feel inevitable he’ll jump up when I reappraise the list.
@Matt Harris. Who is the best director of all time in your opinion?
Great list Drake! Is this the exact same list as before (when you used to release singular director pages) or did you make some slight changes? It looks pretty similar. Anyways. Great job!
@Azman– it is the same order– just a master list page with links. Thanks again
Where is Theodoros Angelopoulos?.
Béla Tarr, Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Theodoros Angelopoulos should be higher.
@R- Thank you for visiting the site and the comment here. So unfortunately the works of Angelopoulos have been very hard for me to find over the years. So I wouldn’t think too much of my omission of him here. As for Bela Tarr— I largely used my top 500 list of films as the backbone of my top 250 directors list and I have a 10 year moratorium on all films for that list. So this spot for Tarr really doesn’t include The Turin Horse. So he should climb this list. As far Bergman and Tarkovsky– I mean I have them #3 and #8- that is really the very top tier
@Drake
Is it difficult to set up? Ideally the next level would be to be able to link to your individual film reviews from the director or actor pages, but I have no notion of how much work that would entail.
@Azman
I think I’ve stated here that Kurosawa is my choice for #1. I have no problem with anyone opting for one of Drake’s current top 2 though.
@Matt Harris,
What are some other directors (apart from kurosawa, Kubrick and Hitchockc) that you think very highly of(possible GOAT status)?
Which current directors’ work do you like the most? Which current director’s work do you look forward the most to?
I just like learning about different opinions from other fellow cinephiles. This question is to all readers of the blog.
@Matt Harris– it isn’t difficult once I messed around with it. It’s just busywork– this was just hours today not reading or writing about cinema or looking for screenshots or anything fun like that. I’m going to start linking more often moving forward. There are just 1500 pages now so the idea of going back and doing it doesn’t exactly appeal. I’ll start updating the year by year archives with hyperlinks to the films though as I go.
Haha you need to hire staff.
@Matt Harris- Haha. in the words of John Wayne- That’ll be the day
No love for Tarkovsky?
Actually i thought that the ideal would be, linking in the top 500 reviews them, although i think there are not many, take a look at the top 100 and so far i have found 43.
Is there any other director besides Scorsese and PTA who has reviews for all his filmography?
Everyone he’s done a study of since launching the site. Ozu, Tarantino, Corbucci, etc. Soon Kurosawa and Fuller. Well all the archivable filmography anyway.
Personally I’m planning to do a Tarkovsky deep dive soon.
@Matt Harris- Exciting!
@Aldo– is the Tarkovsky comment for me? There are other directors with their entire filmography covered with reviews here for sure. Some of them just have a lot less films (Steve McQueen for example).
It was actually for @Matt Harris, but i forgot to mention it.
I hope you have seen my comment on Kalazatov’s page, on the YouTube channel where I am cuba is, there are other movies of him, hopefully they are good.
what’s your thoughts about Nuri Bilge Ceylan? he has to be on that list.
also thank you for your immense work. it helped me a lot.
@mehmet- if you’re asking me — I still have work to do on Ceylan. I’ll admit that I’ve seen four of his films to date below- once a piece, and I didn’t find any to be worthy of a spot on the top 10 of their respective year. But I’d like to do a more exhaustive study- maybe I’ll have time for it in 2021.
2002- Distant
2006- Climates
2011- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
2014- Winter Sleep
My list wouldn’t differ tremendously from Drake’s. I think GOAT status can be a little more clearly established for directors than for individual films, so I wouldn’t travel too far down that list before I’d have a problem with ranking someone higher than the three I listed.
As for the current directors… I could list so many put I’ll pare it down to the bare bones. Scorsese is the greatest living. PTA, Tarantino, Cuaron, Nolan are the greatest current. Malick, Lynch, Wong, Tarr, Coens are the greatest to emerge between those two epochs. Chazelle and Aster are the young guns that most excite me going forward. And I’m sure I forgot someone essential that I’ll kick myself for later.
Thank you for your response. You are right. There are so many great directors working currently that listing all of them would take a long time.
Your list includes some great directors.
Amazing! This really is much better than I envisaged. Gosh it puts things into perspective. Despite reading his page, PTA might be the most revelatory of the lot. Still, seeing names like Wong, Malick, the Coens, Jarmusch right alongside or above Dreyer, Ophuls, Visconti and Mizoguchi really shows your objectivity in ranking. Love it!
I feel I should have said this first, but the hyperlinks are fantastic. I’m raring to dive into the 75-150 directors’ pages haha.
Great work !
@KidCharlemagne – thank you very much!
I find the absence of Frank Darabont to be completely inexcusable. To me, The Shawshank Redemption has some really wonderful camerawork. You have it graded as only a Must-See, but there are some cinematically transcendent moments that stand out as masterpiece-worthy to me, such as the scene with the music on the speakers, and the famous escape sequence. Its narrative and screenplay are in the conversation with the best of all time, and Darabont is able to capture all of the necessary emotion.
And that isn’t his only well-acclaimed film: he also did The Green Mile.
@Graham– thanks for the comment. Completely inexcusable huh? I mean Shawshank is superb- and very well directed. Just out of curiosity, who are you moving off this list to make way for Darabont? I had him on my list here- just didn’t quite make the cut in the top 250.
Okay, I will agree “completely inexcusable” was a bit harsh. It was just very surprising for me that I didn’t see his name.
I am not nearly as knowledgeable about film as you, and I have not heard of a lot of the directors on the list, so I cannot say which ones exactly I am moving. I simply feel that of all the good movies I have seen, The Shawshank Redemption seems to stand out as superb filmmaking. I am not the only one who believes this; it is the number one IMDb movie, for starters.
@Graham — thanks again for the comment. Darabont would be somewhere between 250-300 if I kept going (and I do at some point). I’ll have to admit I do not pay much attention to the IMDB list. This is another really good list here worth sharing- http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_top250directors.htm – I’m not saying this is gospel truth (nor is my own list of course) but they also don’t have a spot for Darabont. There are just a lot of great directors out there.
All Time Great lists are a herculean task. And the placement perhaps even more so.
As a collective, we lovers of film often feel a personal favorite didn’t make the cut.
This is certainly a superb, undeniably deserving group of artists!
You know who I missed?
Lina Wertmueller…
Swept Away and Seven Beauties blew my mind despite being quite young upon 1st viewing. Revisiting her work years later the thrill was still there ♡
@Lisa- Thank you for visiting the site and the comment. Hopefully the list and site gets better over time as I correct some things and fix blind spots. I must admit I have not had a chance to catch Swept Away yet.
Hi Drake, I’m a dear fan of your lists. The Lists are very informative & enjoyable. I know no one outside of India heard his name. But, Kasinadhuni Viswanath is a God of South Indian Cinema. His films are aesthetically brilliant & he is one of the few greatest filmmakers who manages style with substance and has very high respect for Arts like Classical Indian Music, Dance & Literature in Telugu Cinema (Not Bollywood). His Greatest Films are (we consider here):
1. Shankarabharanam (1980)
2. Sagara Sangamam (1983)
3. Swathi Muthyam (1986)
4. Swarna Kamalam (1988)
5. Swayam Krushi (1987)
Besides Satyajit Ray, there are many Great Filmmakers in India only if you want know more Indian Culture & Art:
1. K. Balachander (Apoorva Ragangal, Avargal, Maro Charitra & Rudraveena)
2. Guru Dutt (Pyaasa & Kaagaz Ke Phool)
3. Ritwik Ghatak (Meghe Dhaka Tara, )
4. Singeetam Srinivasa Rao (Pushpaka Vimanam, Aditya 369 & Michael Madana Kama Rajan)
5. K. Raghavendra Rao (Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari, Annamayya & Pelli Sandhadi)
6. Shekhar Kapoor (Masoom, Mr. India & Bandit Queen)
7. Maniratnam (Nayakan, Iruvar, Dil Se… & Kannathil Muthamittal)
8. Ram Gopal Varma (Shiva, Kshana Kshanam, Rangeela & Satya)
9. S. S. Rajamouli (Magadheera, Eega & Baahubali 2: The Conclusion)
10. Lijo Jose Pellisery (Angamaly Dairies, Ee Ma Yau & Jallikattu)
{ Majority of our Indian Films are combined with songs, melodrama & comedy. So, if someone gets used to it then, These Great Films are the right place to start in the Whole Wide World }.
@RAVI KIRAN- thank you for the kind works and for sharing this. I’ll keep this here and come back to it– I want to try to catch some of these films and filmmakers. I am actually planning to do a Guru Dutt study in 2021–I’ll be watching as many Guru Dutt films as I can find.
Thanks again for putting this together.
There’s a few in the lower sections of the list that would not make my own. I’d take an Adam McKay, Alex Garland, or Ben Affleck over Tom Hooper, Bennett Miller, or Kenneth Lonergan for instance, but I’m not that interested in arguing at the margins of a tremendous list.
If I were to make any “inexcusible” claims it certainly wouldn’t be for Darabont. Not when Tsai Ming-Liang, Kim Ki-Duk, and Raoul Ruiz are nowhere to be seen. But lists evolve and what we have here is pretty much as good a resource as there is. I’m not about to start making demands… other than Kurosawa jumping up of course. 😉
@Matt Harris- thanks for the comment- appreciate the praise — and I like that you offer some suggestions for those you’d swap. Some I’ve seen the work and they just didn’t quite cut it (like McKay, Garland, Affleck)– McKay and Garland were very close- I hadn’t really considered Affleck but maybe I should (I do love those helicopter shots). And others (Tsai Ming-Liang, Kim Ki-Duk, and Raoul Ruiz) I have work to do yet studying their films before I could put them on.
Since we are with objections haha, i was surprised not to have seen Parajanov have The Color of Pomegranates HR and Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors HR / MS, i have not seen any of them, but the images in the reviews are that exquisite, they certainly have surrealism in common.
What a great list and what a great feature for the site. Can’t even imagine how much work went into this. So many people to check out and get familiar with, so thank you for providing it all in one place.
I have some names I think should have made it though. Except Kusturica who we already talked about, I am surprised to see no Hirokazu Koreeda and Andrey Zvyagintsev on the list. Did they not make it or you didn’t study them yet? Also feel like Claude Chabrol could have made the lower half of the list.
@Chief Keef– thanks for the comment and the note here about the list and site– it means a lot. It was a lot of work– but I enjoyed doing it of course.
Yep- just haven’t caught enough of Kusturica to include him. I’ve seen three films a piece for both Koreeda and Zvyaginstev…. four for Chabrol. In each case just one time viewing of those films a piece. So it is sort of a combination of I didn’t study them enough and they just didn’t make the list. If I had been struck by them or blown away- surely they’d be on the list. But I don’t feel confident saying they definitively shouldn’t be on the list either if that makes sense– not until I’ve had a closer look.
This is great, thank you very much man. I think this is just your best feature on your archives and the most accurate list you have made, objectively speaking. I cannot think of a better list of directors. And each director page has something special. Thank you
@Alejandro- you made me feel great here- thank you for the comment.
I just thought of sort of an odd idea. Who is the equivalent of all these major auteurs as actors and vice-versa? In essence, who has a similar style of performance/direction? Actor-directors such as Welles, Chaplin, and Eastwood would be themselves of course, but besides them it’s interesting to think about. Some ideas to consider:
Kubrick is Daniel Day-Lewis. They don’t make movies very often and their genre/character is always different but they pack quite a powerful punch. Their performance/”cold” direction style is not “friendly” or accessible but quite interesting.
Wes Anderson is Charlie Chaplin (Of course, Chaplin as a director would be himself as an actor). They are whimsical and endlessly entertaining, but also surprisingly emotional, with a one-of-a-kind style/character that they follow every single time.
Fellini is Jack Nicholson. They are very energetic and always doing a version the same clownish worldview/character, but can become quite serious and forthcoming about human nature when it is necessary. Sometimes, narratives/characters finally get their sanity together by the end, while other times they wind up hopeless.
Capra is Henry Fonda. Often noted for moral rigidity, with a sly satirical element in their characters/movies that is not always noticed. Known for being collected and assertive, although they can burst into strong emotion easily as well.
Tarkovsky is Ryan Gosling. Plots/performances are very subtle and don’t quickly shift between events/emotions. Nothing is on the surface, and you must pay attention if you’d like to fully understand the message/character motivation.
Ozu is Ingrid Bergman. A master of subtle emotion, although not so subtle that we don’t understand the feelings portrayed, whose mise-en-scene/face is very beautiful. Foreign audiences may have difficulty grasping the style/voice at first but will become attached to the narrative/character after a short time.
Ophuls is Jimmy Stewart (this is probably not one you expected). The camera/he seem to be always moving and pacing around, making for an energetic ride for the viewer. Although their stylistic/slightly accented voice is very recognizable and unchangeable, they can be comedic, tragic, contemplative, and many other things.
Ingmar Bergman (perhaps David Lynch as well) is Maria Falconetti. Their performance/direction is very expressionistic and surreal. They seem somewhat grim and always obsessed with finding the truth about God. Very meaningful, although you must sift through the unusual character/movies to understand the messages,
Lumet is Leonardo DiCaprio. Prone to sudden bursts of anger, and when they become angry, they are shouting at the audience at loud as they can. Sometimes they have something big to say about the American system (political system, judicial system, corporate system) or about persevering through unexpected events.
Leone is Brad Pitt. Their characters are always trying to look cool, but often slow down for a minute or two at points to analyze their status in the plot/character development. Those who accuse them of constant sameness and being unrealistic can’t seem to notice how well they can adapt to different situations.
John Ford is Humphrey Bogart. They are tough and
Coppola is Gene Hackman. I’m mostly not going with collaborators but they did only one film together. They can be very contemplative but usually have moments of psychologically complex violent events/actions. Their top few movies/performances are all very close in (very high) quality.
Scorsese probably should be De Niro, but for non-collaborators I’d go with Marlon Brando. Their personal voice is very unique and carefully cultivated, but can be altered to whatever they find fits the narrative/character. They can become violent and angry, but are even more often personal and sensitive. Protagonists are often ordinary men who became unusually powerful due to plot circumstances.
Kurosawa probably would be Mifune, but outside of him I’ll say he’s Gloria Swanson. Emotions are heightened to a point of being purposefully urealistic, and characters often grow insane and delusional. They are prepared to show no mercy to people, but feel colorful even when their movies aren’t in color.
Are there any more ideas you’d add? Would any of the ones above work better as an equivalent to a different actor or director?
Wow, I didn’t realize how long that comment was and how many director-actor combinations their were until I posted it. I forgot to finish the Ford/Bogart comparison, though. Here is what I was going to say:
John Ford is Humphrey Bogart. They are tough but sensitive, and characters’ opinions often become clear in a concise shot/line. They claim that their only goal is to entertain, but are being humble about their true artistic merits. Sometimes, characters feel like they might just have to kills others to get what they want
@graham- very good interesting question. first id say that comparing gosling to tarkovsky is an insult to the soviet master. hmm. i’d say spielberg is jack lemmon for his humble gentleness, or ving rhames. dustin hoffman is hitchock for choosing studio films that explore his own personal ideas, howard hawks is harrison ford for making big studio films with great unrealized often films of artistic merit. de palma is jim carrey because they are both misunderstood greats (or adam sandler). marlon brando is orson welles for their poetic genius and tarantino is either robert pattinson or taylor lautner from twilight (maybe even bradley cooper).
Thanks and good additions. Gosling with Tarkovsky is, to me, certainly not an insult. Tarkovsky would certainly be ranked higher among diectors than Gosling among actors, but the later is one of the better subtle, often stone-faced performers in the tradition of Buster Keaton. Drake agrees, putting Gosling as the second-best of the 2010s,
Also, I’ll add another one: Herzog is Joaquin Phoenix. Kinski is the logical option, and there are many parallels between the two actors, but I think Phoenix actually works better. Herzog and Phoenix often explore people going mad, but their films/characters are very different in how they get to that madness. They also heavily deal with the theme of loneliness and feel sort of untouchable and unreachable, but interesting.
Haha this is very interesting @Graham, I wouldn’t put Gosling for Master Tarkovsky, for Lumet it would put Pacino, I will not say that your choices were wrong. some feel strange, but honestly it never would have happened to me.
Yes, I was thinking about Pacino going somewhere and Lumet was my first idea. DiCaprio may not seem very similar to Pacino, but I think he and Lumet work. All three (Al, Leo, Sidney) love to shout.
Who would you put with Tarkovsky, other than Anatoly Sonitsyn, the obvious (and perhaps more correct than Gosling) choice?
Makes no sense after number 5 (remove Hitchcock form 1)
Great list!
I agree with Matt Harris that Kurosawa should be much higher. Really it’s Kubrick, Kurosawa, Hitchcock. Take your pick.
I’d put Tarkovsky higher. He and Bergman are neck and neck.
Not sure about Ozu being so high. “Tokyo Story”, “Late Spring” are great, of course, but something about his static camera which just doesn’t quite work. Kind of like Dreyer’s and Bresson’s asceticism. Cinephiles adore these guys, though, so maybe it’s just not my style.
No love for Herzog? I would place Herzog much higher and Scorsese a bit lower. I think that the two of them are the greatest living, still relevant directors by far. They seem to have a lot in common, too. I’m surprised they don’t get compared much.
But overall, very nice job. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.
I feel like purely as a filmmaker, Herzog is ranked appropriately. However, if documentary work was also considered, Herzog would easily be one of the greatest of all time. Lessons of Darkness is absolutely gorgeous. Absolutely incredible. His other documentary work is also good.
However, based on all his films (Aguirre etc), a top 40 rank (at 40) is perfect for Herzog.
Drake, I’m just wondering; why don’t you mention Pressburger and Gene Kelly for the films they co-directed? I’m curious because Donen and Powell are mentioned on your list. Pressburger and Kelly helped out a bit while directing too.
I’m sorry for being picky Drake. This was something small I noticed.
Your list is mostly incredible and the directors are placed appropriately.
What are some of the best films you know of that are directed by multiple directors? Do you know if there’s a reason why most directors prefer directing on their own?
You’re right here Azman, why do the Coens count together and the others don’t? Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Fargo, the Big Lebowski the credited director is Joel Coen, you still count those movies for both.
@Azman and @Aldo– you’re partially right and partially wrong. I should list them on the individual film pages (as I do here) http://thecinemaarchives.com/2020/04/10/i-know-where-im-going-1945-powell-pressburger/ and on the year by year archives (like I’ve done with some of Buster Keaton’s co-directors as I update the yearly pages. But Donen directed films Kelly didn’t and that’s why he’s on the 250 list and Kelly isn’t. Pressburger is well known as the financial side of the Powell and Pressburger tandem as I explain on the Powell page. http://thecinemaarchives.com/2019/05/14/the-35th-best-director-of-all-time-michael-powell/ . It is also well known that (up until now) the Coen brothers share their writing/acting/producing duties.
@Drake, Gene Kelly co directed Singin in the rain, Its always fair weather and On the Town with Stanley Donen.
Other movies he has directed or co-directed are:
Invitation to the dance
Happy Road
The tunnel of love
Gigot
A guide for the married man
Hello Dolly
The Cheyenne Social club
That’s entertainment part 2.
I don’t know if these ‘non-Donen’ films are archiveable, but Kelly had quite a big role with directing the musicals with Donen. He helped choreograph the dance scenes (especially in SIngin in the rain). Kelly decided some shots too and how to shoot them. Perhaps the most famous dance scene in cinema history was choreographed by Kelly and some shots too
@Azman- Thanks–I’m aware. Happy with how I have things here.
This is crazy stat, I mentioned Lang with Metropolis and M, but we could well declare Anderson the best of all and close the book, the 14 directors in front of him have never given the best movie of the year more than 3 times the exception is Coppola, Anderson gave the best movie of the year 5 times
Hitchcock 3: 1935, 1951, 1958
Kubrick 3: 1968, 1971, 1987
Bergman 2: 1957, 1966
Fellini 2: 1960, 1963
Scorsese 3: 1976, 1980, 1990 although you could also give 2019
Coppola 4: 1972, 1974, 1979, 1983
Welles 1: 1941
Ford 2: 1940, 1956
Kurosawa 2: 1950, 1954
Truffaut 1: 1959
Renoir 2: 1937, 1939
Anderson 5: 1997, 1999, 2002, 2007, 2012
Tarkovsky, Ozu and Antonioni they add up to a total of zero, they never gave the best movie of the year
@Aldo- very interesting. Others are going to have different #1 films of the year (even I am going to make some changes as I update my year by year archives) but this is still fascinating. Thank you for compiling.
Well i did this based on the Archives by year section, taking the movie that appears in the cover, so i don’t know how much it changes when you update it, although i must confess Tarkovsky’s statistics makes me very sad.
What do you think is due to Anderson’s crazy 5 statistic, you mention that there is no one equal to his generation and i agree, do you think it’s because he has no competition? because for example Hitchcock had bad luck, you mention his crazy career 58,59,60 but only in one of those years was he the best, but this is due to the amount of good directors working, in 54 he lost to 7 samurai, very movies good / rare that hardly appear, also Stalker would be the best movie of the year in +90 times, the same Manhattan, but they are unlucky that Apocalypse now came out that year, in the 50s and 60s there were several directors of the same level Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Godard, Fellini, Antonioni, Truffaut, Anderson belongs to that group, but in an era where he is alone
@Aldo- I mean I find it interesting- but it isn’t a declarative statement about which filmmakers are the best. I’m doing 1932 next (after 1931 of course) and there isn’t a film on the level of 1931’s M (which came runner-up so to speak in 1931). I may have had Full Metal Jacket as the best film of 1987 but there are a number of films from 2007 or 1960 (just way stronger years) better.
As for Tarkvosky, I have Stalker in my top 10 of all-time. So don’t feel too sad. haha. And when I update 1983- Nostalgia will be #1 so he’ll have at least one year as #1.
As for PT Anderson- I do think he’s the greatest of his generation. But he has a ton of competition (from Cuaron, Fincher, Tarantino, Wes Anderson for starters) but I’m not sure any generation, before or after, can compare with the late 1950’s and early 1960’s at the top
Drake, i want to apologize sincerely if i made you feel like i don’t appreciate the site. this is specifically in reference to a comment i posted yesterday on your back to the future page where i wrote ‘why aren’t there more images on this review’ and you replied ‘whats wrong with THIS one.’ i apologize, as i did not mean to offend you. i and everyone else who visits this site respects or should the hard work you put into it. all the movies you watch, your knowledge of the art form, allowing civil discourse, it is all very appreciates and as i said i respect what you do. i will take a break from commenting for a long spell and i think just focus on growing, watching more films and such. i don’t want to offend anyone, certainly not anyone who is this dedicated hardworking and passionate.
The Top 250 directors is now a quiz on JetPunk! This time, you have the countries from which the directors came as clues.
https://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/259519/the-cinema-archives-top-250-directors
@Graham– this is so cool. Thank you
A really wonderful list you have put together here, only outdone by the depth of study and focus you have done for each director on it. Any plans for what your next big ranking might be? I have seen a few ideas being tossed around in these comments like screenplays and directors ranked between 251-500, but do you know what you’re drawn to most yet?
@Declan- thanks for the kind words. I’m updating the year by year archives right now (last did it in 2017) and then I’m not sure after that. I do find myself drawn to the auteur/director aspect of things but people do love the actor rankings, too. We’ll see. I’m only on 1939 right now- doing 2-3 a week so this will take me some time to work my way through things and I can think about it
Chaplin directed amazing movies in silent era and after that.. For me, is on my top 5. He touches both eras as no director ever made, and directed great pics (Modern Times, the Great Dictator.. so many..)
Hi @Efren. Who are the other 4?
Interesting, i wonder what Drake would say about this, he calls having Chaplin at #16 ridiculous
You’ve mentioned a small number of films that you think could rightfully be called the single greatest of all time when examined thoroughly. How long do you think the list of directors is that you would accept as number one? How far down the list would it take until you think you could argue against a person’s choice? I know it must be a little farther than twelve, or else you would have parted ways with Matt Harris years ago (Although you’ve implied Kurosawa may be moving up now that you’ve finished your study). What about actors and actresses, or even some other occupations like cinematographers and writers?
@Graham- Interesting. I’m not sure there is a set number But I’d say if you get too far past 25 then either I’m missing something (which can happen- I was wrong or uninformed when it came to Ozu a few years ago) or we’re using different criteria (and at that point I’d disagree with the criteria being used). It may be a little deeper than that for actors and actresses.
I know this website is all about making lists- and hey- I love doing them, debating them— but to it is more about admiring the work from all of them and trying to be as specific as possible (sometimes down to the minute in a film or the frame from the film or a camera movement) as the the reason. Who is worthy of admiration and study and where do you start if you had to prioritize your time? It doesn’t get me too worked up debating Hitchcock vs. Welles or whomever. Why are they in the top tier? Who else is with them? and so on.
I completely agree, and thanks for responding. Admiring and enjoying cinema is much more about just that – enjoyment and admiration – than specificity and analytics. I couldn’t set such a number myself, anyway. Sometimes it is fun to pay attention to the specific moments and superiority of a person’s skills over another, and sometimes I just like to sit back and appreciate the majesty of the movies. That’s “There’s nothing else, just us, and the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark.” And there can also be times of “All right, Mr. (or Ms.) DeMille (or Kubrick, or Coppola, or Hepburn, or Lubezki), I’m ready for my close-up (or filmography study)!”
@Graham- yep we’re on the same page. And I mean if you read my feelings on like director #199 or #228– I’m mean I’m pretty passionate about their work, filmography, style to study and admire. It isn’t like I spend the whole time on the page complaining why they aren’t Kubrick or Tarkovsky. That isn’t the point there. There are so many great directors to discover.
great list, just think Alain Resnais is somehow forgotten there… so sad he is one of my favorites
@Pedro – thanks for visiting the site and for the comment. So Resnais on the list- at #142. But your comment may be saying that he is underrated at #142. I did a quick study of Resnais’ available work in the spring of 2020 so if you search “Resnais” you’ll get my pages for a handful of films. He will be moving up the list the next time I update it based on this study.
Happy to see Hitchcock at the top spot, but why is Rob Reiner so low?
You can click on the director’s name in the list to learn about Drake’s (the creator of the site) opinions. Here is Reiner’s page: http://thecinemaarchives.com/2020/08/08/the-241st-best-director-of-all-time-rob-reiner/. He can explain it better, but Reiner simply does not have the stylistic mastery of cinema to be a top-tier director.
Drake, you’ve always maintained that your best actors lists are different than a “most talented actors” list because a less talented person may have a superb filmography and vice-versa. In theory, how would a most talented directors list for you look? Would that be the same as a list ranking “style-plus” directors? Who might be a rough top five for you on such a list?
@Graham- that’s interesting … The next time I update it I could see whose filmography is rated lowest in comparison with their overall landing spot on the list– that may tell me something. I don’t think I’d get outside of the top 10-20 though to get to those 5 for your list
It would not be something like Tati or Kalatozov that their films are unique but they do not have much depth of work.
Usually the best directors are not the most mediocre.
The ten most talented directors are the top 10.
Usually won’t find low-talented directors like Chaplin being the best, it just doesn’t make sense, to make many of the best movies you need to be the most talented.
You can make a very good movie like many, but you just won’t find the best movies made by untalented directors, just take a look at the top 20, almost all of them are made up of the top 10 directors, it’s called luck in some cases, but luck doesn’t strike many times as you can see with Stanley Donen
Here’s another interesting exercise I just envisioned. What can be considered the signature shot of each of these talented auteurs, or the one that most defines their work? This is not necessarily the same as their greatest shot. I will go in order mentioning the ones for which I have an idea.
Hitchcock – I think the iconic shot of Cary Grant running away from the crop duster epitomizes the master of suspense perfectly.
Kubrick – It is difficult to choose a single image. Perhaps the opening shot of A Clockwork Orange? Semi-symmetrical, unforgiving, and including that famous Kubrickian stare. Another is the pilot riding on the bomb as it falls in Dr. Strangelove.
Bergman – The dance of death is the most memorable, but the choice for Bergman must be some sort of arrangement of faces. I select the beautiful moment in Persona in which the two leads’ silhouetted heads lean together.
Ozu – Every shot in an Ozu film could be regarded as his signature shot. Ebert mentions a simple shot in Tokyo Story where two pairs of shoes are sitting in the hallway of the resort to which the elderly leads traveled to “rest” – perhaps his best “pillow shot.”
I will have more soon.
@Graham- love the exercise. So tough to pick just one. On my 250 individual director pages I’m obviously trying to do this (but I can pick 2, 3 and in some cases can’t help myself and get to 15-20- haha). Of course I could be missing some and some (tough increasing less and less) could be hard to find images of
Continued from the above comment:
Fellini – Any shot that satirizes life as a whole could suffice for this choice. The scene at the end of 8 1/2 where the characters dance around in a circus seems to embody this idea best, but Guido floating away from the sweaty traffic jam in the same film and Marcello wading into the fountain in La Dolce Vita are just as perfect.
Scorsese – The Copa shot in Goodfellas and the one that tracks over to the empty hallway in Taxi Driver are wonderful, but perhaps not the most characteristic of his style. I’ll go with the slow motion (very Scorsesian) moment in the final fight scene of Raging Bull where De Niro leans in waiting on the bars.
Coppola – The superimposed image of Sheen’s upside down head on the exploding forest constitutes my favorite opening sequence in cinema. Effective camera angles, dissolve editing, a contemplative protagonist, and superb openings are characteristic of Coppola.
Tarkovsky – The “candle shot” in Nostalghia of the poet walking back and forth for nine minutes is something absolutely no one but Tarkovsky would have the guts to do, but I think the choice must be the stunning wide shot of the room in Stalker with mounds of sand. Green-gray color scheme and the floor as an element of composition.
Ford – The doorway shot in The Searchers. Duh.
Kurosawa – The image of the swing through the jungle gym in Ikiru is an impeccable one and the old lord walking out of the burning castle in Ran is another, but I will lobby for what may be my favorite closing shot in cinema in Seven Samurai.
Truffaut – It’s pretty obviously the freeze frame that closes The 400 Blows. This gives us three in a row that are the final shot in a movie.
PT Anderson – The Master’s shot of Freddie lying above the sailors on the boat may be Anderson’s most beautiful, but I think Daniel being forced to recount his sins in the church in There Will Be Blood best epitomizes his thematic and visual style.
Ophuls – It must be an energetic tracking shot for Max Ophuls. Perhaps the opening of The Earrings of Madame de…?
Lynch – This one is not as obvious a choice. Perhaps the shot in Mulholland Drive’s Club Silencio where everything becomes dark blue? This incorporates Lynch’s dark, odd and haunting use of color and setting.
Dreyer – The shot to define Dreyer’s work must be a close-up with evocative mise-en-scene. How about the one of Joan praying with the cross behind her in The Passion of Joan of Arc?
Continued again:
Leone – One of Leone’s trademark extreme close-ups might seem better, but I think the frame near the beginning of OUaTitW where Frank’s three duelists square off with Harmonica may be a signature shot for him.
Wong – The saturated orangey image of Cheung and Leung standing by the wall of the hallway beautified by the shadows of bars in ITMFL seems to best illustrate Wong’s mood oriented color design and calm film structuring.
Malick – Any shot in a Malick movie, or at least any focusing on nature (a.k.a. any shot in a Malick movie) would suffice. Perhaps the terrific composition in Days of Heaven where the six silhouetted men are situated in the fields by the mansion watching the locusts rise above is my favorite.
Murnau – Either the shadow of Nosferatu creeping up the stairs or the Man in gazing at the moon by the lake (two in a row shots of silhouette men in fields looking at something above them) in Sunrise is perfect for Murnau. I will select the latter as I believe it includes Murnau’s wonderful gliding camera movement.
Allen – Do I really have to do this (sorry, that’s a reference to a film by the next director :)? It is certainly the iconic photography of Woody and Keaton sitting on a bench by the Queensboro Bridge.
Spielberg – There are many options, but the brilliant silhouette of E.T. and Elliott biking across the moon at night is impossible to resist. Quite Spielbergian.
Beginning here, the number of directors for whom I can decide becomes sparser. I will choose some random ones I can think of quickly for now.
Lean – The beautiful frame of Gasim staggering away into the sunset may be Lean’s most gorgeous shot, but one earlier in Lawrence of Arabia better illustrates his epic scope. It is the extreme wide shot of the dunes with two tiny figures in the distance that introduces us to Arabia.
Altman – Altman is known for his reliance on steady, calm zoom lens usage and his expansive amounts of characters. The shot of Tomlin in the back of the bar in Nashville incorporates both traits.
De Sica – I don’t believe that the moment where Antonio and his son hopelessly sit onto the curb in Bicycle Thieves is the film’s single greatest, but it is certainly the most iconic
Fincher – He is known for dark ligting and subtle color creation, both of which appear in nearly every shot. The final shot of Fight Club watching the effects of Tyler’s scheming may be the epitome of Fincher’s style.
Kieslowski – The choice here must be one with brilliant use of primary colors and fine-tuned formal significance. Any of the shots of the blue mobile in Blue embody these ideas quite well.
Griffith – The crane shot of the massive Babylon gate in Intolerance is the best choice here. Expansive and epic.
Sorry to be flooding the comments, but the site will not allow me to put it all in one entry.
Herzog – Kinski’s speech leaning against the tree in Aguirre is haunting, psychological, and minimalist. Very Herzogian (who says you can’t make an -ian out of every director’s name?).
Bertolucci – The shot of the many-windowed corridor in The Conformist is an immaculate composition and work of lighting like all of Bertolucci’s ouevre.
Mann – De Niro leaning on the post by the window in Heat is a justifiably iconic image. It includes Mann’s trademark use of dark blue as well.
Scott – Blade Runner has Ridley’s famous smoky shadows in all its shots. The one with Rachel holding the cigarette in her hand is a masterful use of lighting.
Peckinpah – Although Peckinpah is mostly known for editing, he slow walk of the four uncaptured members of the group to retrieve their kidnapped comrade is famous for other reasons.
Cuaron – Children of Men and Gravity have many perfect Cuaronian (as I said with Herzog, I’ll make any name an adjective if I like) moments, but the obvious choice is the tracking shot of the family hugging on the beach in Roma. Breathtaking photography and style.
W. Anderson – It must be something symmetrical with bold color design. Perhaps the shot of Monsieur Gustave smiling at the concierge dest of the Grand Budapest?
Tati – There is a composition in Playtime with a man walking down a long hallway in half the frame and two men having a conversation in another. It is a perfect mise-en-scenal (I can make adjectives out of other kinds of nouns, too!) creation.
Gilliam – The fisheye lens shot of the man wearing the baby mask in Brazil’s torture chamber is exactly the absurdism that make his movies so wonderful.
Chaplin – You must have more restraint than any other human on this planet if you have the ability to refrain from laughing at any point in City Lights’ boxing scene.
S. Coppola – The everlasting loneliness of Charlotte sitting next to the window in Lost in Translation is the easy contender here.
Demme – The Silence of the Lambs’ creative close-up shot of Clarice with Hannibal reflected on the glass next to her is the best illustration of Demme’s style.
That’s enough for now. Have I made the correct choices? What may be the signature shot for some of the auteurs I missed?
von Sternberg- the final shot of Morocco as Amy leaves her shoes in the sand and follows the French Legionnaires across the dunes
Rossellini- Shot of Magnani running down the street in Rome, Open City
De Palma- Split diopter of the fish with the ice pick and the Nancy Allen lookalike in Blow Out (alluding to her fate)
Keaton- Charging onward as the Confederate army retreats in the opposite direction in The General (at least epitomizes Keaton’s reluctant heroism)
Stone- the slain Sgt. Elias’ arms outstretched in an obvious allusion to Christ in Platoon
@Graham– man– I am enjoying this. thank you!
Olivier Assayas
Have you seen films from Jean Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet ? If yes, what is your opinion ? I’m looking forward to get to them but I don’t think the films are easy to find.
*I looked again and I was wrong, many of his films are on YouTube. I also found 12 in Grasshopper.
@Cinephile- I have not seen them. I’ve been looking for them but yeah- not easy to find. You and others can probably teach me about finding stuff on YouTube. I know it varies by geography/region but aside from some public domain silent stuff in high quality I’ve stayed away from youtube as a resource. Perhaps I’m missing out
Have you seen Andrzej Zulawski films or specifically On the Silver Globe?
@Cinephile– I have not– I’ve been hunting for Possession for a long time
Thank you for bringing back the comments Drake btw
@Alejandro– thank you to you and everyone else for being patient as I had some issues with the site. I’m hopeful that its fixed.
@Drake – I really hope you manage to view Possession before updating 1981. It is a true game changer. So unique and expressionistic to a fault. I don’t want to get extensively into it, but I’ve watched this and That Most Most Important Thing: Love, and it would be really great to talk about Zulawski on this blog. I’m missing out on On the Silver Globe, which I hear is his most visually and stylistically ambitious effort. @Cinephile, would you recommend it?
@Georg– On The Silver Globe is aesthetically innovative in its visual style but I found the film deeply problematic. Truly overlong, narratively defective, often formally uninteresting (at least to me), maybe it’s “100% unfinished” nature makes it lose some power and if you put there the constant screams of the actors that I really found annoying and exasperating, you can say I didn’t love it. Still, maybe I’d give it a Recommend grade. But to be honest, it felt unwatchable to certain occasions.
@Cinephile- well, I guess you could say Zulawski is somewhat excessive haha. That Most Important Thing: Love didn’t work at all (though both Romy Schneider and Klaus Kinski were tremendous, I’m not even exaggerating, they were amazing here), but his characteristic style is there. Perhaps an R, but even then closer to not being recommended at all. Possession is truly visceral though and has all the trademark traits that one would seek in auteur cinema. I think I’d watch On the Silver Globe out of curiosity, but I take it you don’t think much of it, haha. I can really imagine all those drawbacks you describe.
Watch it bro, i doubt you will be disappointed. Zulawski is a special marvel of European cinema.
I’m sorry friend but Possession it’s on level cult of The Room, meets Suspiria, remake of course. It’s not good cinema. It’s borderline superb though. The screenplay it’s TERRIBLE
The next time you update your list, which directors do you think will move up or down?
@Azman- well first off directors with really strong films between 2009-2020 (and newer) will climb. I used my top 500 as the main skeleton for my top 250 directors list and I have that 10 year moratorium. But beyond that- certainly it feels like Kurosawa will climb, definitely Visconti… I enjoyed the Jarmusch study but he will fall a little (certainly Visconti will go past him)– I’m not sure on others… I haven’t decided what to do next after I update the year by year archives (currently on 1951 so there is a ways to go).
What is your opinion on vulgar auteurism?
@Cinephile- haha interesting- I haven’t heard the term in a few years- it was quite a topic (in cinephile circles) in 2012-2013 I think. I think it is just largely an extension of the normal auteur theory championed by the Cahiers Du Cinema critics and Andrew Sarris— they all saw themselves as finding consistencies throughout a directors work- regardless of genre, budget, popularity and championing those that deserved to be championed— I’d like to think that’s what I’m trying to do in my own little humble way as well (certainly not putting myself in the company of these giants)… what are your thoughts?
@Drake– I find the theory quite interesting. I think many cinephiles, me too when I finally got serious about cinema, have a bias against genres. It’s interesting since many of us cinema lovers, in the before-serious-with-cinema period, we loved the movies that fall into the vulgar auteurism category, then when we finally discover and watch Tarkovsky and Bergman, we become these snobbish pricks that all of a sudden are biased against the films that wouldn’t qualify as “serious” artistic achievements. But then, our cinephilia becomes more mature and we finally appreciate everything. Wow. Quite a journey–haha. I support vulgar auteurism. Especially here in Greece, the local critical community is incredibly skewed on the genres. I’m not saying that every “vulgar” movie must be championed, because many people, in their attempt to be these kinds of controversial or contrarian cinephiles go in the other side and find a masterpiece out of a bad movie. Every film is a craft and must be evaluated as such. To conclude, I’m beginning my journey with the “vulgar” movies, I’ll give them attention probably starting with Paul W.S. Anderson movies and we’ll see from there.
Happy new year guys!
@Cinephile– happy near year to you as well– I agree with you here. But do you see a big difference between “vulgar” auteurism — and the auteur theory in general– I mean if you go back two decades before the phrase with what Tarantino was doing praising genre films, De Palma— or even further back the French critics praising Hitchcock and coining the phrase “noir” for B-movies after WW2? I don’t. I mean I have Refn’s Only God Forgives firmly in my top 100 of the 2010’s as an example— anyways- please report back if you find any films or particular directors worthy of a closer look
@Drake– I fully agree here, you make a great point. Yesterday, I saw The Grey, which I’ve seen people categorize as vulgar auteurism. It’s great, the best film in the Neeson action persona in the last decade or so. Maybe I’ll go in the 2011 page and write more about it.
I Haven’t seen as many films as you’ve seen. But, According to me,
Top 10 Greatest Filmmakers of all Time are:
1. Stanley Kubrick
2. Ingmar Bergman
3. Alfred Hitchcock
4. Kasinadhuni Viswanath
5. Akira Kurosawa
6. Federico Fellini
7. Andrei Tarkovsky
8. Martin Scorsese
9. Jean-Luc Godard
10. Steven Spielberg
@RAVI KIRAN – thanks for visiting the site and for the comment here. This is a great list of filmmakers– I haven’t seen any films from Kasinadhuni Viswanath or heard of him– any particular film to start with if I can locate his films?
If a director were to make a brilliant style-plus film that was the best of all-time or at least on the level of 2001, Apocalypse Now, and such, but then never make another movie at all, where would they land?
I’ve written way too many comments today haha.
@Graham- well it isn’t on the level of 2001 but Andrew Dominik with The Assassination of Jesse James may be the closest example…. he has a couple of other archiveable films (and a new one coming in 2021 that i’m excited about) but the other archiveable films don’t land in the top 20 of their year so this is pretty much it. I have him at 200 here– so certainly if someone made 2001 and that was it– I’d have him/her on the list, and higher than Dominik— I’m not sure how high I’d have to go– Carol Reed at #118?
How much does having a masterpiece or multiple masterpieces, rather than simply a great body of work, impact a director’s placing? If that question is too unspecific, imagine this hypothetical situation (all I seem to ask on this site are hypothetical situations haha): there is a director who has made 20-30 must-see films, but none that rise to the MP level. Using your filmography ranking scale, I would assume this director would land at or near the very top, but the lack work in the very top tier would seem concerning. Roughly where would this director fall on the general list? I know such a director would be unlikely to occur, but it is fascinating to consider.
I’m not Drake, but if you have a shitload of MSs that would mean you’re a great director, a reaaaaaally great director even, but if you don’t have at least 1-2 MPs than can you really be THE best director? Just a thought.
Personally, I’d expect them in the top 20.
@Graham— I think 20-30 Must-See’s is what changes this. I think I have Fassbinder with 5 Must-See’s (I actually think he has at least one masterpiece now but that’s a different conversation) and he’s at #51 on my list. 20-30 is a crazy number– the last time I updated my top 500 Hitchcock had the most total films– so this hypothetical person would pass Hitchcock— even without a masterpiece I don’t see how you could keep them out of the top 10
If you ever get the chance, try to watch Nikos Nikolaidis’s films. One of the best filmmakers to come out of Greece. He makes a truly divergent cinema compared to other Greek movies. They never made films like his in the country.
@Cinephile– thanks— I’ll have to keep an out for his work. I’m not what’s available here.
There are an alarming number of coincidences among the names of cinematic masters. Two of the three greatest French filmmakers are named Jean (Renoir and Godard), and the best actress from France has the female version of the name (Jeanne Moreau). The debut and masterpiece of one of those Jean directors stars an American named Jean (Seberg). The best French director is not named Jean, but one of his muses is (Leaud). The best Swedish director has Bergman as his surname (Ingmar), as does the country’s/world’s greatest actress (Ingrid). Two of the most acclaimed American actress are Hepburns (Katharine and Audrey), and there are at least three notables Keaton actors (Diane, Buster, and Michael). The greatest director of this century and the two greatest mise-en-scene masters of recent times all have the last name Anderson/Andersson (PT, Wes, Roy), as do two of the muses of Bergman (Bibi and Harriet). Leigh is a promising name for actresses (Vivien and Janet), as is Lee for directors (Spike and Ang). None of these people, as far as I know, are related.
There may be many more. I can’t pretend these aren’t common names, but it is fun to explore.
Quite surprised to not see Parajanov on the list.
Definitely a unique style. So i saw his 2 most famous movies (the same ones that you saw and have a review)
I can only assume that you forgot to include it in the final spaces, he should be somewhere near Jodorowsky
@Aldo- I did not forget– I don’t have a big problem if someone wants to make the case for him 201-250 but he just missed the cut
It saddens me that Mikio Naruse is so criminally overlooked in almost every “greatest directors” list I find on the internet. I know I’m in the minority and most people would call it sacrilege, but I personally like him more than Ozu. Now, I know that’s completely subjective and I’m not saying he deserves a top 10 placement, but he should definitely be somewhere in that list.
I would also like to mention Luis García Berlanga and Carlos Saura, two Spanish filmmakers who I think should be included too, especially Berlanga, who somehow managed to avoid Francoist censorship for years and made some of the sharpest satires in European cinema.
That being said, it’s a great list overall. I would make some adjustments in regard to some of the placements, but most of these names I’m 100% on board with.
I can finally comment here.
You did not answer this comment Drake, have you seen any Mikio Naruse movies?
I must admit i had no idea who Mikio Naruse was until @David brought it up.
Definitely the similarities are pretty obvious with Ozu, he even places the camera at ground level, and uses the shoji doors for framing, as well as using Setsuko and Kurosawa actors.
It could be said that he is another disciple of Ozu just like Hsiao-Hsien Hou.
I could see one of his movies “When a woman ascends the stairs”, good movie.
If i remember correctly there are some Naruse movies on Criterion, you should take a look.
@Aldo- yep I missed it- only Floating Clouds- quick mention here in 1955 but no grade as I haven’t seen it in so long http://thecinemaarchives.com/2021/01/12/1955/
It’s been over a year and I would like to backtrack: after revisiting Ozu’s ouvre, I must say that he is a way better director than Naruse, at least from a purely stylistic standpoint, so I was definitely wrong about that. It’s taken me a while to truly appreciate him. That being said, I still think Naruse is better at working with actors, and he elicited some brilliant performances over the course of his career, especially from his muse Hideko Takamine (I would submit films like Yearning, Flowing, A wanderer’s notebook and When a woman ascends the stairs as examples). I still think he deserves some placement on this list for his subtlety, thematic depth and precise editing, even if he’s not as visually startling as some of his contemporaries.
Also, I’m going to take this chance to push for Carlos Saura once more. I strongly recommend that you take a look at some of his work from the 70s because there is a lot to appreciate in them (Raise ravens and Elisa, vida mía are both brilliant films, the latter having tremendous performances from Fernando Rey and Geraldine Chaplin).
Anyway, keep up the good work!
@David- Thanks for the comment- great share. I have much work to do on Naruse – I’m hoping I can do so here later in 2022.
Drake,
Are you familiar with the work of Seijun Suzuki?
He worked a lot in the 60s for Japanese movie studio, Nikkatsu?
He’s clearly an influence on Tarantino and I’m sure a number of other directors.
He currently has 7 movies on the Criterion Channel, I’ve seen 5 of the 7 and was thoroughly impressed by all of them.
I bring him up because I know you’ve said you are a style over substance critic and Seijun Suzuki is certainly style over substance director. Both Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill are candidates for best Yakuza movie of all time in my opinion
@James Trapp- great share– so the answer here is no. I’ve had Branded to Kill sitting here ready to go for years– I just have not got around to it yet. Maybe I’ll slide a Suzuki study in soon. Thank you
Consider yourself lucky cause you’re in for a real treat. If you like Tarantino, Jean Pierre Melville, John Woo, and others cut from that same cloth then you definitely appreciate his style. Here is an article about Branded to Kill
https://asianmoviepulse.com/2020/05/film-analysis-branded-to-kill-1967-by-seijun-suzuki-2/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CBranded%20to%20Kill%E2%80%9D%20is%20an,trouble%20at%20a%20mainstream%20studio.
@James Trapp– I’m excited! thank you again
@Drake and anyone else who’d like to chip in: if you gave all the money in the world to these directors and the message “direct whatever the hell you goddamn please,” how do you think their rankings might change?
Orson Welles
Francis Ford Coppola
Michael Cimino
Andrei Tarkovsky
David Lynch
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Sergio Leone
David Cronenberg
Jim Jarmusch
Andrew Dominik
And perhaps others some might mention.
Great question. I think it is rather difficult to determine what would happen for some but fairly easy for others. Dreyer is perhaps the most instantaneous prediction for me. I would assume that he, who demonstrates supreme talent in all elements of cinema but was unable to make films often, would push past some other directors ranked higher on the list. Welles is one that I’m sure many would expect to exceed his level of greatness if he had been able to obtain more financial backing. However, ego played a role in his slight decline as well, which cannot be eased by simply the access to money. Coppola is a similar case, but I don’t believe he lacked funds or artistic freedom for his later career. I would love if Leone had made more movies, but as far as I know, his small resume was a personal choice rather than a negative financial effect. Would having more money and artistic freedom stop Tarkovsky from dying so early? Perhaps that’s a little insensitive. I don’t think he’d change drastically one way or the other. Lynch and Cronenberg seem to have been successful in crafting their odd nightmares exactly the way they like, so I wouldn’t expect either to rise much (I find each slightly overrated as it is). Dominik is an intriguing case. I think we’ll have to wait and see the future of his career before determining the possible effects. This may be a controversial opinion, but I think your hypothetical situation might actually drop Christopher Nolan in average quality. He seems to have a thorough desire to do all he can to complicate his narratives and special effects. I’m worried that too much support would cause him to go haywire with the complexities and begin to ignore the stylistic prowess he possesses.
It’s often said that with Welles he was probably the single most gifted director of all time (and I think there’s a very compelling argument to be made about that) and that if only he had more money and Hollywood threw themselves at his feet constantly he would’ve made the greatest films of all time. I do feel this is somewhat wish-fulfillment but considering how great Welles’ movies are it is an intriguing idea.
With Coppola I do somewhat disagree with you, he had much difficulty finding funding later in his career. One From the Heart was a box-office catastrophe as was Rumble Fish the following year (not that these aren’t great films), followed by yet another bomb in The Cotton Club after that, though it made substantially more money than the previous two. Despite this, 1983’s The Outsiders was a big hit and he often alternated between hit and bomb the next few years until his financial situation forced him into directing The Godfather Part III in 1990, which he never had truly planned to ever make, since it was almost surely to be a hit, and of course it was. He may have had money and artistic freedom (he kept getting directing jobs even as his films failed not unlike Scorsese in the same decade), but in the end he kept losing money forcing him into a project it never really seemed he actually wanted.
With Leone, I’m not entirely sure, I might have misplaced him here but he only made one film in both the 70s and 80s and it might just be better to think of Leone making more, anyway at the time of his death I believe he secured $100M for a Soviet war film called Leningrad to star Robert de Niro that of course fell apart when he died, a shame he left us so early at 60.
With Tarkovsky, I mean idk, maybe you could have him escape to the West sooner so that he doesn’t have to film Stalker in such a hellish environment that ended his life and those of many others (at least hopefully he still makes a Stalker analogue here; it’s just TOO good to lose). However I do agree that I don’t really think he’d change his style, even after he went West nothing much actually changed.
Cronenberg nowadays has found difficulty finding funding for his films and has considered retiring because of it but I do have a vain hope he makes another Dead Ringers or A History of Violence; maybe in the 80s he shoots bigger after The Fly and “lands it” so to speak in the public mind, though hopefully not dropping the quality of his films which were very good in this period.
Lynch, idek, he’s definitely a maverick from Hollywood especially after Dune so I don’t know what changing his funding or reputation could do but it could get Mulholland Drive as a full miniseries (though I fear it might be worse than the amazing end result), more seasons of Twin Peaks early and probably various other things not coming to me right now. And too with Dominik the main problem I guess is just not working enough. We’ll have to wait for Blonde to see if he can pull off another Jesse James.
I agree with your take on Nolan. He seems pretty hit-and-miss which was clear probably more than ever this year with Tenet and giving him like $400M to make whatever he wants will probably not result in an amazing film, but if he writes a script of the quality of Inception than you might have something great on your hands.
You are probably correct with Coppola. You have a bit more insight than me about his financial and production situation. I agree with everything else you have stated as well.
With Tarkovsky, I suppose in this fantastical situation we perhaps could divert his attention away from radiation areas for Stalker. However, I think that’s getting a bit carried away. Hollywood would probably not welcome his calm and very un-New Wave style at that time anyway.
Who says he’s going to Hollywood? He never did when he fled the Soviets in our timeline. He did Nostalghia in Italy and The Sacrifice in Sweden. I’m not going to deny I can absolutely see him coming to America however if for the experience alone. Aside from that, I’m sure there’s going to be some number of screenwriters battering down his door constantly to have their scripts directed by the great Russian. How many of those he accepts – I expect the number won’t be too far north of 0, if that – is up to debate of course.
Good point. I assumed you meant the United States when referring to the West, but I agree that remaining in Europe would be a more fruitful career move.
You may be correct that screenwriters would be eager for him to direct their films, but he would certainly accept few, if any.
I agree with Graham here.
Dreyer is the option.
Give me that Jesus movie
I would say that almost everyone had financial difficulties, except for Nolan.
You could also add Kurosawa tried to commit suicide and had a hard time getting funded in the 70s.
It also adds Griffith. I was basically broke after making the best movie of its time.
There are countless options. As for the others, I’m not sure they fit.
Good point with Griffith, he’s a good pick. Made two MPs then done because even though the first one made the money to fill Fort Knox and more the second one failed. Kurosawa, I mean he had had an entire career by that point and even made a comeback in the 80s so I’m not sure much would change there.
But yes, I’d probably shoot for Dreyer over Welles. I mean to the point where the average time between your films is close to 10 years because of how bad your funding is, but the movies are that great anyway, the world would do great with a few more of them. But I don’t see how, say, Cimino doesn’t fit. He made two great films but everyone hated the second one at the time and well that was it. If Heaven’s Gate isn’t so hated at the time then maybe Hollywood would keep riding the idea of him as the next great Italian and he’d keep making great films. Welles of course definitely fits too as I said, given his difficulties with Hollywood. Indeed, however, the big one is probably Dreyer.
I thought you guys might enjoy Ben Shapiro’s list of the 10 Most Overrated Directors of All Time:
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2010/01/17/top-10-most-overrated-directors-of-all-time
It’s… pretty bad. Kicks it off with bashing the auteur theory and implying that great writing is the key to making a masterpiece, and, well, like he said about David Lean, “it’s all downhill from there.”
The list would have a bit of credibility, if it weren’t for putting Scorsese and Hitchcock on the list.
Looks more like an underrated directors list, Aronofsky, Mann, Lean overrated? mmm
I saw one the other day that Nolan beat Hitchcock and Lean in a poll of the best British director.
Wow, what a dismal failure that list is. To add onto its atrociousness, I would also like to point out that he has included no non-English language directors. Is it because he loves international cinema and finds it gloriously underrated or because he’s barely seen any and knows nothing at all about foreign directors? Naturally, we will all gravitate toward the second answer.
I wonder if he would benefit from discovering and exploring this site. At best, he might gain an understanding of the fact that directors do, in fact, have tremendous power over the success of their films, and that there are indeed stylistic elements that each auteur he mentioned uses to create brilliant masterpieces. More likely, he’d be too ignorant to discover much or any of this and would criticize Drake’s admirable and skillful work as pretentious (an useless and overused word) and unengaging.
The only thing less interesting than Ben Shapiro pontificating about politics is Ben Shapiro pontificating about cinema.
Hey, Drake! How are you doing? I was wondering what your thoughts are on Chantal Akerman. I love many of her films (especially News from Home, which I think is a MP) but she isn’t on your list. Did she just not make the cut or are you not that familiar with her work? Thanks!
Don’t mean to burst your bubble, but News From Home is a documentary, which Drake doesn’t study. Of course she made fiction films as well, which I cannot comment on.
@pedro- doing well thanks- hopefully you’re doing the same. Good question- it is mostly the latter here– the only film of Akerman’s I’ve seen was Jeanne Dielman and I wasn’t very impressed. I’ve sort of put off seeing any of the others but do have that on my list to hopefully cross off in 2021 here. I don’t do documentaries though (or shorts– so not sure that leaves that much) so I won’t be watching those.
Oh, okay. Thank you, Zane and Drake. If we’re talking just fiction, I really enjoyed Je Tu Il Elle, Toute une nuit and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna. It’s a shame you weren’t impressed with Jeanne Dielman, I loved it. Oh well.
@pedro– are you open to sharing what you loved about Jeanne Dielman? I’ve only seen it once- certainly not willing to write it off.
Certainly. I’m sorry for the delay in my response, I hadn’t seen your question.
I think what is very interesting about Jeanne Dielman is how Akerman crafts (1) a very unique narrative and (2) an extremely distinctive dynamic between the viewer and the film.
(1) Akerman shows us a woman (Jeanne Dielman) who lives in a very robotic way and is controlled/limited by this uneventful routine, and little details here and there are what tie everything together. It’s amazing how, by just showing what actually (and exactly) happens, a narrative can be created. Akerman doesn’t need dramatic events (or even any event at all) to tell us everything we need to know about this character. After all, these are the stories that happen the most in real life.
(2) We, as an audience, are thrown into this impersonal “game” between the camera and the environment, and I love playing it. Akerman challenges us, as an audience, to piece things together for ourselves. We never know for sure, for example, how the rooms in Jeanne’s house are connected. We simply find that out by guessing, by seeing her move from room to room. In a narrative where “””nothing really happens”””, little details become the most important thing. We are at all times looking for something new, a new motion, a new expression, a new scenario, even.
A lot of people call it minimalist, but I, personally, can’t 100% agree with that (it is, at the end of the day, a lengthy movie). I would call it spare. And its obsession with the ordinary (maybe not that ordinary) happenings of an ordinary woman is what turns it into a fascinating film.
My knowledge of film is still very limited, so take this comment with a grain of salt, I’m merely listing what I liked about the movie. Also, I apologize if there are any language mistakes. Thanks!
@pedro- Thank you- appreciate you sharing this here very much
You know, when you update your director’s pages in a few years I was thinking it would be a cool idea if you write about a runner-up, which would be a director’s second best film, especially if they’re two films of the same category (MP, MS, HR). Like La Dolce Vita is as deserving of a mention on Fellini’s page as 8 1/2 and such. Ditto with, say, M and Metropolis, Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet, Seven Samurai and Rashomon, and so forth (and I personally would place Mulholland Drive slightly ahead of Blue Velvet but there’s not much separating them of course; I also probably need to rewatch both this year) And the best film of each director should get their own page going into depth on each film that is then reposted on the full director’s page.
How do you think cinema might change if the Academy Award for Best Unique and Artistic Picture, awarded solely to Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans in 1928 at the 1st Academy Awards and then permanently discarded, were still awarded to this day? Might more avant-garde films receive greater public attention?
@Zane- I like that idea. I have never thought about that before. I’m sort of impressed with the Academy at the moment. I’m choosing to be optomistic- but check out the list of the best director winners: Joon-ho, Cuaron, del Toro, Chazelle, Inarritu, Inarritu, Cuaron… nice streak!
True, but there were three pretty wet farts in the years before that: Tom Hooper over Fincher, Nolan, and Aronofsky, Hazanavicius over Malick, Malick, Malick, Malick, and Malick, and then Ang Lee over the Anderson not-brothers and Tarantino.
That award already exists, it’s called the Palme d’Or and it is the most prestigious award in cinema.
@Aldo- It certainly is in some circles- and there have been some very impressive winners. The Golden Lion is right there as well in Venice. I did this exercise with the Palme and Academy Award Winners once year by year and it came out about even– some years they both get it right, some years one is laughably bad, and vice versa. Of course the Palme is only pulling from those who enter where the Oscars can technically pull from the entire field that year.
Drake, in Cannes reward avant-garde films.
What i’m pointing out is that every cinephile knows that the most prestigious award is Cannes.
As you pointed out, films that are not shown cannot win.
Wild at Heart won in Cannes but was not nominated in the others, can you imagine Wild at Heart will be awarded prizes? not me.
They openly choose to ignore these movies.
For example 1978 where an unspectacular movie won (The Knack …and How to Get). Among the competitors is neither Repulsion, Juliet, Pierrot.
And in the other part they weren’t even nominated, i could go on and on.
To top off the superiority of Cannes, la dolce vita won, in the others only was nominated for director and not for film, despite being better than any other nominated film.
For a while, foreign-language films could not be nominated for Best Picture. It’s stupid, I know, but it explains why they were not nominated for Best Picture. For example, Cries and Whispers (side note: I think there’s a compelling argument this is Bergman’s best work but for me that’s still Persona), was not nominated for best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, since Sweden submitted Scenes From a Marriage that year, but it received a Best Picture nomination. La Dolce Vita too, for example, was not submitted by Italy for Best Foreign Language Film, though it not receiving a Best Picture nomination is a pretty serious misstep.
Also, you mean 1965, not 1978. Can’t think of why you wrote 1978 there.
Lastly, Cannes doesn’t always reward truly avant-garde films, per se. Just 95-98% of the time.
@Aldo- I don’t want to make a big thing of it but I mean that’s just not accurate that “every cinephile knows what the most prestigious award is Cannes”. In 2004 Cannes picked Fahrenheit 9/11 over Oldboy and 2046, in 2016 they picked I, Daniel Blake over American Honey, Paterson, The Handmaiden .. in 2008 another embarrassing year…. In 1965 here the year in question, they would have picked Kwaidan, The Ipcress File, The Hill…. As I said, literally half the time the better film is The Oscar winner.
Have you seen nomadland? It’s expected to win best picture and director. It also did won golden lion.
I have mixed feelings about the movie though , but i mostly liked it.
@M*A*S*H- I have not seen Nomadland. I look forward to it. I should be able to see it here in March
What are some collaborations you would love witness to between two people with different film industry occupations who lived in different eras? Here are some random ideas that drifted into my mind:
Sidney Lumet directing an Aaron Sorkin screenplay
Sven Nykvist shooting a Pawel Pawlikowski film
Buster Keaton starring in a Wes Anderson movie
Thelma Schoonmaker editing a Sam Peckinpah Western
Gregg Toland shooting a Ridley Scott film
John WIlliams scoring a David Lean epic
Juliette Binoche acting in a Carl Theodor Dreyer movie
James Cagney starring as a Martin Scorsese gangster
Paul Thomas Anderson directing a John Huston script
Perhaps I will think of more later.
@Graham– haha I love these- all of them intriguing. Sign me up for Sven shooting a Pawlikowski film if I had to pick just one I think.. but really you can’t go wrong
If you were to expand the top 250 directors list where will Jim Sheridan land?He has the three films that he made with Daniel Day-Lewis and In America as well.And do you actually intend to expand this list?
@Anderson – I certainly plan to expand the list of the top 250 directors. It’ll be some time though. I’m not sure where Sheridan would land. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer. It has been awhile since I’ve had my mind on that project. My guess is it would be between 251-300.
Oscar nominations have been released!
They seem adequate, but there are some issues. First, I’m Thinking of Ending Things acquired absolutely no nominations. That’s awful. It deserves a spot in the races for Best Picture, Director, and Actress at the very least. Mank garnered a sufficient number of nominations, but it bizarrely does not appear in the Editing category. That’s one of its strongest elements.
Nomadland is expected to lead the pack for many of the awards, which is satisfactory to me. It’s a brilliant work.
I wonder if the Academy will ever allow miniseries or anthologies. Small Axe deserves some nominations, but it has been excluded due to its series categorization.
@Graham- I haven’t seen all of the nominees but certainly I agree with you on I’m Thinking of Ending Things— a shame.
Houston 102? LOL Thats crazy. Hes top 10 easy
@eddit richards– thanks for visiting the site and for the comments. Huston? You have him “top 10 easy”? hmmm.
I believe they are referring to John Huston at 102 (this is the directors’ list). I agree that 102 is rather low, but top ten is also rather unthinkable.
Thirded. Huston is a top 50-100 director of all time. Top 10, however, is laughable.
@Zane- yes, certainly many things on the site are up for debate– but John Huston as a top 10 director is not one of them.
@Graham- of course- thank you for clearing that up
Any director with only 2 masterpieces, no matter how good, would have a very tough time cracking the top 10.
No Wes Craven or Ken Russell?
@Rick- I admire both– Craven just missed the cut- he’d be between 251-300 most likely. I have work yet to do on finding and watching Russell’s films. I saw a really crappy copy of The Devils years ago that really shouldn’t count. TBD there. Hopefully I’ll be able to locate a few yet in 2021.
Sad not to see Ken Russell on this list. He revolutionized the British film industry in the 1960s and 70s. A truly visionary artist, one of the last great eccentrics of Britain. But Warren Beatty is deemed worthy? Hmm.
@Gordon Morrice- Thank you for visiting the site and the comment. I still have some work to do with Ken Russell and locating some of his films
Very Interesting. Mario Monicelli should be here
@max- thanks for visiting the site and comment. Any reason why he should be here?
He was one of the masters of the “Commedia all’Italiana” ,Comedy Italian Style, and, got 6 nominations at the Academy Awards. He was very local, and I’ll explain why. He got an incredibile body of work, was very prolific from 1935 to 2006 as a director and screenwriter and influenced a lot of modern italian directors. He was consistent in his themes, with a very distinguished look on the human condition, rich with a bittersweet humor mixing tragedy and comedy, altough his cynism can be lost in translation. The Great War, Amici miei and The Girl with the Pistol are his gems for me. He worked with the best Italian Actors of the golden age (Mastroiani, Sordi, Toto, Gassman, Tognazzi, Monica Vitti etc). Here is my point: Monicelli was a story teller more than a visual artist, by choice : he didn’t want to hide the actors behind the frame, didnt want to “show off” . For him his direction was focused to serve the actors and the story, the dialogues. To show the reality as is, without embellishment. Neorelism without the pedagogic intent. But he was not sloppy or uninterested in visual story telling, that was just his artistic, autorial, choice. So to me he checks all the requirements of being in this excellent list, but mostly, I just want to highlight a great career, to maybe entice some fellow movie students to try his cinema. (Small time crooks by woody allen is to me an homage to Monicelli’s Big Deal on Madonna Street. Also I recommend An Average Little Man)
@max- thank you for sharing the knowledge here and the recommendation. I’ve seen Big Deal on Madonna Street but I’m not sure if I’ve seen anything else from him yet.
I just visited the TSPDT page for Chantal Akerman, where a quote describes her as “arguably the most important European director of the ’70s and ’80s.” Yeah right. Andrei Tarkovsky who??? And what about any of the 3 Kaisers of the New German Cinema?
Great list! I discovered this a few months ago and have been using it as a personal guide for what films I plan to watch next. It is an extremely insightful list and you make some excellent points. I especially enjoy the mise en scene shots you include–they are captivating. As someone who is trying to learn more about film history and directing, this has been a major help.
A couple of questions I had: What do you think of Panos Cosmatos? Have you seen his film Mandy from a couple of years ago? I found it to be entrancing. He is certainly a stylistic and distinctive director, to say the least. I realize he has only made a couple of films so far. I was just wondering if you had an opinion on what you’ve seen.
Also, I noticed you didn’t include Stanley Kramer on your list. He has several great films. However, he is not known as a stylistic director and most of his films are dialogue driven. Opinions?
Keep up the great work. I look forward to seeing updates on active directors.
@Scott- thank you for the kind words regarding the website- I’m happy to hear you’ve found it useful. I’m a big admirer of Mandy. I was lucky enough to catch it in theater in 2018 and have been itching to get back to it since… I have a page for it here with my first impressions: http://thecinemaarchives.com/2018/09/18/mandy-2018-cosmatos/
I’ve had Beyond the Black Rainbow on my list to see for quite some time but just have not got around to it yet.
I have seven Stanley Kramer films in the archives (below) which is an impressive number for any director. I’ve seen them multiple times and these are good films. So it isn’t that I think he’s a bad director. He isn’t. But he was one of those “important” directors, racking up a lot of awards and such because of the serious messages in his films– not necessarily because of artistic merit. I just simply think there were many superior directors during that era.
1958- The Defiant Ones
1959- On The Beach
1960- Inherit The Wind
1961- Judgement at Nuremberg
1963- It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
1965- Ship of Fools
1967- Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Does anyone know any of the most famous “guilty pleasure” movies of directors? PTA’s love of absolute trash films is well documented, hell he even made an Adam Sandler movie (which is not the same as a movie starring Adam Sandler mind you), in addition to once saying the MCU gets too much hate, and I do believe I remember hearing about David Lynch loving some not-so-well-recieved films as well. On top of those, Stanley Kubrick loved White Men Can’t Jump, and so I’ve heard he died with Kingpin in his DVR. Similarly, Ingmar Bergman was known to have owned Beverly Hills Cop and Anger Management, and Terrence Malick is a huge fan of Zookeeper with Ben Stiller.
Are there any others that anybody knows of?
List:
PTA: Anything with Adam Sandler
Stanley Kubrick: White Men Can’t Jump, Kingpin
Ingmar Bergman: Beverly Hills Cop, Anger Management
Terrence Malick: Zookeeper
Tarantino loves many mediocre B-movies, though I don’t know any of their specific names.
Damn, you’re right! How did he not immediately come to mind?
Where is Lina Wertmuller??????
@Joe- I have more work to do here. I do have The Seduction of Mimi and Seven Beauties in the archives but it has been so long since I’ve seen them I don’t have a grade for them. I’d have to see them again and have one or both land in the top 100 of the 1970’s for Wertmuller to have a shot on the top 250 list.
I’m not saying it is gospel- but for what its worth the consensus list doesn’t have her on the top 250 or any of her films on the top 1000 either https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_top250directors.htm
Your pick for the greatest film composer of all time? It pains me to say it, but I’ll have to narrowly go with Herrmann above Morricone.
I have trouble picking between my top four – Williams, Hermann, Morricone, and Steiner. But for sheer quality and depth of work, I have to go Williams. Jaws, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back (which introduced the Imperial March), Indiana Jones, Superman – how can you go past a resume like that?
There is a really fantastic podcast called The Soundtrack Show which dedicates several episodes at a time to breaking down the score for different movies. They have covered a lot of those Williams scores I mentioned, but my personal favourite episodes are those on LOTR. He takes a very formalist approach much like Drake to analysing these pieces of music. Very highly recommended.
@Zane and @Declan– Good stuff here- thanks to both of you for sharing. And thanks for the recommendation on the podcast!
@Zane and Declan- I’ve probably shared this before- and there’s a bit of a recency bias- but this is worth checking out if you haven’t already https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/the-50-best-movie-scores-of-all-time/?page=1
Yeah, I remember reading about Under The Skin getting the #2 spot on its Wikipedia page or elsewhere. Even then, I’d not go quite that far, I mean the #2 film score of all time? Come on, but I wouldn’t argue with anyone who puts it on their top 50, and I wouldn’t surprise myself if I eventually do so myself. That’s an excellent score.
Is anybody else voting in the TSPDT poll? Here’s what I have at the moment:
https://boxd.it/bM0PO
Citizen Kane
Apocalypse Now
Andrei Rublev
8 1/2
Stalker
L’Avventura
Mulholland Drive
Vertigo
Bicycle Thieves
Psycho
Jules and Jim
Breaking the Waves
Barry Lyndon
Seven Samurai
Touch of Evil
The New World
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
Heat
Naked Lunch
Lawrence of Arabia
The Discreet Charm of The Bourgeoisie
Last Year at Marienbad
Wild Strawberries
Chinatown
The Graduate
~~~
Had to remove The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance which sadly leaves this list without a Western. I still have a month before the poll is up so there’s a chance I might decide to put one or both of them back on there (Liberty Valance is more likely).
In case any of you are interested, Declan, Graham and I have started a Discord server that Graham recommended I post here: https://discord.gg/KnWvZkCRYB
@Zane- thank you- I’ll check it out- perhaps when I get caught up on some of the issues here on the site I’ll be able to use it or check it out more.
Out of curiosity, why do you feel the need to place the given name first for Asian directors who do not arrange their names that way? I understand the desire for conformity and don’t find it a huge issue, but Hong Kong’ greatest filmmaker is not named Kar-Wai Wong; he’s Wong Kar-Wai. The same goes for Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Lee Chang-dong, and Zhang Yimou. Most other sites do not refer to them the anglicized way, with the occasional exception of IMDb, a complex database that requires a little more conformity to succeed.
@Graham-Drake uses the iMDB name for these directors. In iMDB he is called Kar-Wai Wong. He also uses in almost all the time the release year for a film according to iMDB. That’s why films like The Assistant and Sound of Metal which feel like 2020 films are listed as 2019 films. I think that is the reason.
@Graham- Yep, I follow IMDB here.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I was on Henry Hathaway’s page on TSPDT when it accidentally glitched out and, instead of giving me just his films, it gave me every single film ever entered into TSPDT! I don’t know if this glitch will work for you, but I was on Google Chrome for iPhones and as I said it was Henry Hathaway’s page.
I know now that the first film on the TSPDT Top 1000 of all time is George Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon, the second and fourth are Louis Feuillade’s Fantômas and Les Vampires (he has the second and fourth films ever on the top 1000 and this guy doesn’t have a page on TSPDT???), the third, fifth and sixth are D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, and Broken Blossoms, and the seventh is Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, followed by such works as Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler and Nosferatu.
The most recent film on the TSPDT All-Time Top 1000 is Toni Erdmann in 2016, but so as not to leave a sour taste in Drake’s mouth I’ll tell him that beyond that are Mad Max: Fury Road, Boyhood, Under the Skin, The Act of Killing, Holy Motors, The Master, Amour, Melancholia, The Tree of Life, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, A Separation, The Turin Horse, Certified Copy, The Social Network, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and Nostalgia for the Light from the preceding decade.
The first film on the TSPDT 21st Century Top 1000 was Devils on the Doorstep in 2000. The first films on the All-Time Top 1000 from the current century are As I was Moving Ahead I Saw a Glimpse of Beauty, accompanied by In Vanda’s Room, Dancer in the Dark, Werckmeister Harmonies, The Gleaners and I, Songs From the Second Floor, In the Mood for Love, Amores perros, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Yi Yi, Code Unknown, Memento, Platform, and Requiem for a Dream in 2000; quite a lineup. The most recent film currently on the TSPDT 21st Century list is City Hall, immediately preceded by Shirley.
Is what you saw the same as the Greatest Films Starting List: https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_startinglist_table.php ? That can be accessed on the 1000 greatest films page. There’s also the Excel version, formatted a little differently: https://www.theyshootpictures.com/resources/StartingList.xls .
No, it was every film in the order of their release. I’m coming back here because I just had the same thing happen on Anthony Mann’s page.
That’s super exciting. And cool !!!
I’m really wondering about some of Cannes’ choices these past few years
https://variety.com/2021/film/global/f9-fast-furious-cannes-film-festival-1234989907/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/cannes-john-travoltas-gotti-screen-competition-1107227/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/grace-monaco-open-cannes-film-673769/
@Zane- I, also, was disappointed about the news of the “big” movie today. I thought Cannes had a big 2019 comeback (obviously no show in 2020) but had been losing ground to the fall festivals (Venice, Toronto) prior to 2019.
I started doing my own version of Director Studies, so far Orson Welles, Wong Kar Wai, and finishing up Vittorio De Sica.
I’m trying to decide next between these 3 choices:
1. Francis Ford Coppola
2. David Fincher
3. Jean Luc Godard
Feel Free to weigh in
I did the same thing myself haha, started with Tarkovsky then did Bergman and WKW, did a belated journey into Godard that I got about 9 films into and just haven’t continued for some reason, and I’ve done brief visits into Welles, Fellini, Hawks, and Kalatozov that I may pick back up, and I’m now considering Bunuel, Renoir, Dreyer, Bresson and a few others (leaning Bunuel but not by much) and I don’t know where to go anymore at this point as I’ll be really busy these next few weeks.
I’d personally recommend you go with Godard, I was really amazed by what I found in his filmography and it changed how I feel about him. I used to judge him mostly by some of his opinions about cinema which are very questionable and by a lot of what he’s been doing from Weekend onwards but his work before that is something truly exceptional and I’d describe A Woman is a Woman, Vivre Sa Vie, Contempt (especially this), Band of Outsiders, Pierrot le Fou, Alphaville, and Weekend as some of my favorite films now, and I even quite like Made in USA which Declan sadly hated. That being said my recent viewing of The Conversation was an absolute stunner, should end up well in the top 100 if nothing changes and there’s a great argument that you should pick Coppola instead.
You really inspire me to study De Sica who alongside Rossellini I’ve been looking at lately. I hate that I’ve only seen Bicycle Thieves so far as it’s so good and 5 months on I’ve seen nothing else.
There aren’t too many who can write dialogue quite like Godard:
Pierrot le Fou: “You speak to me with words and I look at you with feelings”
A Woman is a Woman: “We should boycott women who don’t cry”
Weekend: “Would you rather be screwed by Mao or Johnson?” “Johnson, of course.” “Drive on Jean, he’s a fascist.”
And don’t even get me started on the bit about Dean Martin’s ass in Contempt.
@Zane – thanks for weighing in, yeah I think I’m leaning toward Coppola but will ultimately cover Godard, Fincher, and others.
Yeah, I strongly suggest De Sica, I’ve made a few posts on the De Sica page. Umberto D. is definitely a masterpiece near the level of Bicycle Thieves in my opinion. He’s versatile though and has some lighter comedy material as well which still is in the style of Neorealism. Sophie Loren and Marcello Mastroianni do some great work in the later De Sica films.
Hmm I wouldn’t say I hated Made in USA. I’ve seen it twice now and gave it a Recommend, which may be underrating it compared to Drake’s HR/MS, but still isn’t really hate.
Declam, who are you? I was talking to an individual by the name of Declan, with an n at the end.
Jokes aside, I did not actually see you gave it a second watch. But the first time, which I did notice, you did not archive it, which is what I was talking about here.
Haha all good, I wrote that about 5 minutes after waking up this morning hence the mistake. I’m giving the higher ratings you and Drake gave it the benefit of the doubt since you both watched it as part of Godard studies. I haven’t ruled out moving it higher, hopefully I’ll come round on it (and First Name Carmen) when I do my own proper Godard study.
In fact, Mr. Green and I have participated in an official letter swap; he will henceforth be legally documented as Declam, and I as Grahan. Substituting letters in one’s name with another being of the same species is the first step instrumental in reaching the evolutionary state necessary for consideration by the Monolith to evolve a life form into the Star Child heavenly form.
I recently completed a Roy Andersson study comprising Songs from the Second Floor; You, the Living; A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence; and About Endlessness. It was my first real “study,” and I would highly recommend that you venture through it as well if you haven’t seen any of his films. It’s a relatively short investment of time and I think those four movies probably work best when placed together.
I just checked him on TSPDT (I’ve been to his page here a few times) and I must say he has great taste with his favorite films being Amarcord, Andrei Rublev, Barry Lyndon, Bicycle Thieves, and Rashomon. I’ve been interested in his films for a little while due to the interesting look of his films so he’s an idea I might try, but I’ll put him on the list for now.
The Jonathan Glazer page has the issue.
@Graham- and @Malith- thank you again for your help here
@Drake
Also? there is an issue with Howard Hawks page
@Mad Mike- your help is much appreciated here. Yes- and it should be fixed now.
Also an issue with the Tim Burton page
@Harry- thanks- should be good to go now. Thank you for the heads up
After finishing my second viewing of every wes Anderson film (i have seen grand Budapest 10+ times) I was thinking about great filmmakers with great visual style who are also equally great writers with specific style of writing. Here’s my take (I’m not including Kubrick, Coppola and Welles. They are excellent writers but are even better filmmakers)
1. Coen brothers
2. Wes Anderson
3. Paul Thomas Anderson
4. Woody Allen
5. Tarantino
What are your thoughts on it? Am I missing someone? I would love everyone to participate.
Great collection – you have included many I would include. I think Bergman is a clear omission. His visual style is obviously great (faces, tight close-ups, stark imagery, strict color design), and his thematic screenwriting (thoughtful monologues interspersed with silences, internal crises, spiritual uncertainties) is masterful too. Godard is a possible choice as well. His storywriting and plot construction are not necessarily perfect, but he is a master of clever, subversive dialogue and a style that seems both brilliantly conscientious and nonchalantly careless.
Wilder is arguably an even greater screenwriter than any of these people, but his cinematic style is not as rigid. Antonioni has the opposite strength. Due to recent events (a.k.a. I’m Thinking of Ending Things), I’d say Kaufman is a worthy choice, but perhaps he has not done enough direction to solidify a particular visual style.
It is difficult to determine the eligibility of filmmakers whose greatest scripts were co-written by other people, such as Welles, Coppola, Fellini, Kubrick, and more.
That’s great that you’ve seen Grand Budapest more than ten times haha; it is an all-time favorite of mine.
Bergman and godard are excellent. I was also thinking Mike Leigh, baumbach and gerwig.
Agreed about wilder. Kaufman and Schrader are 2 of the writer turned filmmakers who are navigating excellently (unlike Sorkin).
Agreed on these guys as well.
Grand Budapest is one of my favorite as well.
God we are on same page about everything.
@Drake
There is an issue on Bigelow page.
Are there any directors you’d prefer to transplant to another place or time? Perhaps a contemporary director who could create greater cinema in the silent era, or an old director who would benefit from the advent of current technology and more elaborate special effects and sets? How about an American who would succeed better in the international cinema world, or a foreign director who would be better off in high-profile Hollywood? Is there a director from the black and white era or digital cinema age who deserves large-format Technicolor, or vice versa?
@Graham- I’d certainly like to see Welles today. I think he’d have an easier time getting at least a little bit of money for his passion projects. This is where my head goes immediately with this question. Guys like Sam Fuller. Perhaps I’m wrong though. What do you think? I’d love to see Kalatozov with less political restrictions and just an unlimited budget too.
Welles is a great suggestion, and Kalatozov perhaps an even better one. The weightless camera movement, crane shot, and canted-angle close-up loving Russian master was certainly able to push beyond his propagandist obligations to become a stylistically free and untethered auteur. Nonetheless, one must wonder what he could craft without the hindrance of political duties. I bet he’d make a formidable competitor to Cuaron as far as rapid movement long-shot/creative mise-en-scenists go.
One has to wonder how Griffith might fare in more recent times. Of course, I wouldn’t want to remove the massive influence he had on cinema’s future in the 1910s, so let’s assume there’s someone else to carry that duty in the hypothetical. If Griffith could clean up his racial opinions or change them entirely, I think he’d benefit from fewer budget constraints, better sets, the possibility of sound, and a larger audience appetite for massive scale and scope within the age of epics (1955-65 or so).
Eisenstein is a possibility for time period boosting whose reasons lay almost halfway between Kalatozov and Griffith: the possibility for more elaborate film production like D.W., and the necessity to escape Leninist political ideals like Mikhail.
We could try to move around some of the directors who died early, such as Tarkovsky, Murnau, and Fassbinder, to see if modern lifestyle or life in a different country could keep them alive for a bit longer, but perhaps that wouldn’t have much effect.
Controversial directors would be more comfortable in a more recent time where their subjects would not be so touchy. Perhaps Pasolini a few decades later would help? Powell may seem old-timey by today’s standards, but the taboo undertones of Black Narcissus and Peeping Tom would be better understood in a less restrained time.
Some directors would be nice to see in the 1940s-50s noir period, though I’m not sure they necessarily need to move. I’m referring to people like David Fincher, Fritz Lang, or Jean-Pierre Melville. Perhaps Damien Chazelle would be a little happier living in the 1950s Technicolor time? I’m not sure.
Kurosawa was more respected in the United States than in Japan, so I wonder if he could succeed better working here. Perhaps we’d have more fruitful work from him during the 1970s period in which he nearly ended his life.
At first glance, Roy Andersson seems a prime choice for transplanting to some earlier time: he does not need modern technology like digital cameras or a Steadicam; people in the past were more tolerant of slower films and physical comedy; his production design does not include especially modern looking props or design; and his characters toil through timeless struggles. However, for a certain reason, I think Andersson is actually living at precisely the right time. I wrote a comment that no one saw on his page describing differences between Roy and comparable auteurs, and I will reiterate what I said about Tati’s primary difference: Tati’s movies were about the birth of modernism, and the resulting frenetic confusion, while Andersson’s are about the death of modernism, and the resulting melancholic stagnancy. That wouldn’t have the same devastating effect in the past.
There are some directors who seem essentially timeless, and could succeed at any time. Hitchcock lands squarely in the category, as there have always been people with a ravenous appetite for intelligent thrillers. Wes Anderson in some ways seems very modern and groundbreaking, but a part of me would love to walk into a theater in 1920 and see a double feature of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and a version of The Grand Budapest Hotel. One half of the brain could comment on clear similarities such as great set design, seminal composition, and entertaining and twisted narrrative, while the other half could notice large differences, such as the lopsided world vs the symmetricality, the oblique angles vs the crisp parallel lines, and the dramatic thriller vs the deadpan comedy. Bela Tarr is completely timeless in terms of his themes, but I wonder if he’d suffer without the modern Steadicam. He might replace the role of Murnau back in the twenties; I wonder if it would actually be advantageous to swap their places so Murnau was current and Tarr a silent film master.
In some ways, it’s actually more interesting to discuss the people that shouldn’t be transplanted. For example, Christopher Nolan seems so fervorously modern, so inextricably linked to special effects, the Hollywood blockbuster structure, and contemporary complexity. How would he fare as a silent 1920s Polish indie director? Could he successfully adapt to such a circumstance, or would we lose his greatness?
@Graham Well thought out. Especially liked your points about Wes, Nolan and Roy Andersson. I think that maybe John Frankenhaimer would have thrived if he stared later (although this way he wouldn’t have extensive tv experience and if I remember correctly he had a lot of personal problems in the 70’s and 80’s). And maybe Tod Browning? If I understand correctly, he suffered due to censorship.
Soviet directors are an interesting case. Because sure, I would love to see what they can do without ideological constrains, but on the other hand Hollywood would put another set of limitations on them. Like, I really cannot imagine Hollywood making Come and See in the form we received(maybe Europe could be great artistic/commercial compromise, especially in the 60s).
Also, many Soviet directors found interesting and creative ways to subvert these restrictions, which is precisely what made their movies great.
Oh, I remembered another one, Jules Dassin. I wish he wasn’t blacklisted. He was on such a roll in the second half of forties. And as far critical opinion goes, he wasn’t great after Rififi (I haven’t seen myself movies after Rififi yet). On the other hand, we lose Rififi and maybe Night and the City, which hurts.)))
The Zhang Yimou page is devoid of text.
@Graham- thank you- should be fixed now
@Drake Hi, there are issues with Bava,Joe Wright, Schrader and Cukor pages.
@Mad Mike- ugh– thank you so much for this. And sorry for the issues on the site. Should be fixed now
No problem. Hope we will catch them all very soon.)
where is Tsai Ming-liang?
@Drake Kiarostami page is broken
@Mad Mike- thank you, should be fixed
Do you know Glauber Rocha??
@Gustavo Mello- Not really well enough. I have seen Black God, White Devil- but it has been 15 years or so and the copy of the version I saw wasn’t ideal
If you have time to check out his movies.
He is the greatest director in Brazil and has been highly praised by directors such as Scorsese, Pasolini and Bong Joon-ho.
I would like to know if he would have a space on that list.
@Gustavo Mello- Absolutely- he and his work are very well respected. I do have a poor transfer dvd copy of Black God, White Devil but as I said have been holding out to find something better.
Drake, if there was a scenario where “Mr. Y” had directed The Searchers (currently number one on your all-time films list) and it’s the only film he had ever directed, and “Mr. X” had directed Nosferatu The Vampyre (currently number 500 on your all-time films list) and it’s the only film he had ever directed. About where would “Mr. Y” rank on the list and where would “Mr. X” rank?
@RK- interesting hypothetical. So the Mr. X question is easy to answer- Mr. X wouldn’t be one of the top 250 directors on the list. Mr. Y is more difficult. I’d say between 80-100 maybe? There would be other small factors so it’s hard to determine. It wouldn’t be the same as like Falconetti on the female list (#27)
@RK – I asked a similar question on the Francis Ford Coppola page, only I asked where would he would be ranked if he had only directed 3 films, The 1st and 2nd Godfather and Apocalypse Now and Drake said somewhere between 20-35, so around 27 would be the middle of that range. Woody Allen is number 27 and he has 33 archivable films including several MPs so that shows the power of huge MPs like Godfather level films.
Why Thomas Vinterberg isn`t part of the list?
Because he is much better then, for example Tom Hopper or Jeff Nichols.
He wouldn`t be in top 100, but he should be in top 250.
Archivable movies:
The Celebration
The Hunt
Another Round
@RujK- Well for one this page was written before Another Round was released. I think Vinterberg has an argument over Tom Hooper or Jeff Nichols- but they’re in the same class, even with Another Round. “Much better” feels like a reach.
Well Pedro Costa is better than all of them😉
@Drake – There is an issue with Preston Sturges page.
@Mad Mike- appreciate the help and sorry about that. Should be fixed now
Hi, Drake. Following Mad Mike’s comment… maybe it’s just for me, but I think there are issues with both Bi Gan pages you have (Kaili Blues and Long Day’s Journey Into Night). On my phone it works fine, but on desktop there’s no content for some reason.
@Pedro- Thank you for pointing these out. Sorry- and they should be fixed now.
I’ve mentioned this before but you have to see Angelopoulos. The Travelling Players is available in the Stremio app with subtitles, so is Alexander the Great in the best quality you can find them. Probably his two most well known films, Landscape in the Mist and Eternity and a Day, are also available. He’s probably one of the handful masters left you haven’t gotten into.
Drake,
Curious if you’re planning to do a Seijun Suzuki study? I know I mentioned it at some point.
@James Trapp- for sure, on my short list– I just finished Michael Mann so was thinking of maybe doing one or two directors between the two from a different genre
He’s not quite a heavy hitter so I can’t say I’m surprised he’s missing from this list, but William A Wellman has a pretty sturdy resume with Wings, The Public Enemy, and The Ox-Bow Incident, all of which are in the top 10 of their respective years. Since he isn’t in the top 250, he surely wouldn’t be that far below the threshold right?
@Declan- I just know he wasn’t in the next 10-15 after 250. The resume is very solid (below)
1927- Wings HR
1931- Public Enemy HR
1933- Wild Boys of the Road R
1937- A Star Is Born R
1937- Nothing Sacred R
1942- The Ox-Box Incident HR
1948- Yellow Sky R
1949- Battle Ground R
1954- The High and the Mighty
1954- Track of the Cat R
1955- Blood Alley R
I am just finishing up on a Terence Malick study (1 film left)
Next I am considering the following directors in no particular order
– Roman Polanski
– Oliver Stone
– Jean-Pierre Melville
Any thoughts? All are welcome to weigh in
Bresson is about 50 places low and Au Hasard Balthazar is among the ten best films ever made, let alone 500.
Would include Audiard and Vinterberg. How is Ari Aster included (for 2 interesting, but imperfect films)? Bresson should be higher.
@Leroux- thank you for visiting the site and sharing your thoughts here.
Also, any thoughts on Claude Chabrol and Koreeda? For interest, were any of Stephen Frears, Neil Jordan or Jim Sheridan close? Shane Meadows or Bruno Dumont? Thanks
How far off the list would successful, prolific, yet less stylistically adept directors such as Ron Howard and Stanley Kramer land?
@Graham- I think I’d get to 300 before them. I do plan on expanding the list at some point.
I watched a fun podcast on Quentin Tarantino from The Ringer (link below), it’s a site that follows both sports and pop culture including films. In the podcast three of the writers on the site talk Tarantino and make there top 5 lists for him. Around the 8:20 mark (podcast is 65 min) one of the site’s writers, Chris Ryan, says that Tarantino movies always feel like a national holiday. He said they feel like an event in a way that is different from any other filmmaker. This got me thinking, which director do you get the most excited for? I think this is a different question than who is your favorite filmmaker or who do you think is the best; of course it’s possible that you could pick the same director to all 3 of these questions.
For me:
Best Living Director: Martin Scorsese
Favorite Living Director: Martin Scorsese
Director Most Excited For: Quentin Tarantino with Scorsese and Fincher not far behind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6__dKWSWjK0&t=862s
Andre De Toth?
@James Douglas- Thank you for visiting the site and the comment. What’s the case for De Toth? I have a few films in the archives but maybe there is something I haven’t seen but should.
Great list! I was surprised not to see, Frederick Wiseman. He’s 91 and still making documentaries.
@Christian H- Thank you for the comment and for visiting the site. I do not watch or study documentaries so that is not part of this.
Who would be your top directors if you only counted films from the 21st century?
@JustPassingBy- That would be a fun exercise. It would take some work. I do have this for a start for the 2010s http://thecinemaarchives.com/2020/01/21/the-10-best-directors-of-the-2010s/. Of course this omits a few that would show up in the conversation for sure like Haneke, WKW, The Dardennes…. but PTA, Wes, Cuaron, Nolan, Fincher, Tarantino also had a strong 2000s as well. Roy Andersson would be there.
@JustPassingBy – I think Nolan might have the strongest case since all of his major work was made in the 21st Century. He has 3 definite MPs with The Dark Knight, Inception, and Dunkirk plus Memento, Interstellar, and Dark Knight Rises which are not quite MPs but still very strong
With PTA you have to exclude 2 of his huge MPS in Boogie Nights and Magnolia.
With Tarantino you take away Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown
With Fincher there is no Seven or Fight Club
Thanks for the reply!
I am writing down a watchlist of 500 directors, but I need around 20 more names, so if anybody knows any talented obscure or underrated directors, I will be happy to hear about them.
@RujK- id say add Jerry Schatzberg (Scarecrow, Puzzle of a downfall child) if you haven’t already.
@RujK Nanni Moretti
@RujK – Late reply but Marco Ferreri if you haven’t already put him on the list.
@RK- thank you for reply, but I already put him on the list. It`s funny, I put him on the list yesterday when I was just looking around with which directors work Ugo Tognazzi and then I saw that Ferreri directed The Grand Bouffe so I put him on the list.
What are your thoughts on Lina Wertmüller? I think she was one of italian cinema’s most underrated auteurs. Not sure if you’ve archived any of her work but she is a very interesting and unique artist.
Ce- I have The Seduction of Mimi (1972) and Seven Beauties (1975) in with a page for the latter here http://thecinemaarchives.com/2021/08/27/seven-beauties-1975-wertmuller/
I am a film student and recently took a screenwriting class with the biggest anti-auteurist of them all. He literally started off the class with a powerpoint saying “the auteur theory is a bunch of bullshit”, can you believe that? I understand a screenwriter may take issue with “auteur” as a term (his argument was that such a theory discredits his own work and I guess that makes it more personal to him) but his insistence that films owe so much to their scripts, I simply couldn’t disagree with more.
My interpretation has always been that auteur theory certainly doesn’t apply to all films, only to those select artists that are clearly the ones driving the ship. His continuous discrediting of film style was incredibly frustrating to listen to as well, he often likened it to theater (he said “you never want to leave the theater remembering the costumes”)….as if the visual arts are not a massive part of…..watching a film? It was so frustrating to sit through.
@Ce- Oh wow- thanks for sharing this. Sounds like this teacher would hate my website.
definitely but it says more about his own credibility and taste than anything. keep doing what you’re doing with this fantastic site! I appreciate how much thought is put into your lists and reviews. I really have a feeling this site will have an impact on future young cinephiles in helping them discover the great works and cultivate their own tastes.
@Ce- thank you- appreciate the kind words here
Give the same screenplay to two differents directors (say Wes Anderson & Quentin Tarantino).
Not the same movie.
Name any Director you would’ve loved to work in a genre they never made a film in. My pick is Luchino Visconti directing a war film.
@Zane – Andrei Tarkovsky directing a screwball comedy…just kidding
Scorsese directing a Western would be interesting, The Searchers is a huge influence on Taxi Driver. I think the types of themes Scorsese often worked with, characters particularly males seeking various forms of personal redemption would make for an interesting film. Also, Gangs of New York has elements of a Western and even though it’s not my favorite of his films I think it showed promise early on but had some flaws that were hard to overcome (miscast characters being one).
Tarantino making a straight up Horror film would be interesting as he is so effective at taking classic genres and adding his own flavor, he’s done work in so many genres; Samurai, Heist, blaxploitation, gangster, western, and you could argue war with Inglorious even if it is very different from any other war film. A straight up Horror would be exciting.
btw Visconti directed The Leopard which is not exactly a war film per se but takes place during a war and there is some violence in the streets but I assume you mean a more standard war film, I agree that would be interesting.
Senso is set during the Second Italian War of Independence and, while they’re far from the focus of the film, the few battle scenes it has are really something to behold. I’d have adored to have seen Visconti make a Napoleon biopic or something (I know Kubrick was planning one but I’d rather have him still get sidetracked and end up making Barry Lyndon instead while Visconti makes Napoleon).
You make me wonder what a Mikhail Kalatozov screwball comedy would look like with the camera backflipping around in every scene.
@Zane – Another that comes to mind would be Terence Malick making a disaster/apocalypse film. The Tree of Life depicts with absolutely stunning images the birth of the universe and earth. And then after that the beginning of life on earth with dinosaurs. I think Malick making a film like this makes sense not only because of the spectacular imagery but it also fit with Malick’s frequent themes regarding the indifference of nature to mankind or as Nick Nolte’s character in The Thin Red Line tells the Elias Koteas character “nature is cruel Staros”.
Hi Drake. Huge fan of the site. When do you think you will make a Best of 2020 & 2021 list? Are you waiting for more films to make it into the archives before you start on that? Just wondering since I really enjoy your Best of the Year lists.
Also, what did you think of Licorice Pizza? I liked it a lot, as well as the youthful vibe and ’70s California atmosphere, but thought it was far from PTA’s best. Not as stylistic as Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, Punch Drunk, etc.
Though now that I think about it, the arcade scene had great mise en scene. I may need another viewing to fully appreciate it, but I did enjoy a lot of it
@Scott- Thanks for the comment– glad you like the site. So I put up 2016 today and it takes me about a week to do each page so I’m only a few weeks away from doing 2020 and 2021. I had plans to get there already but fell behind. I saw Licorice Pizza in theater a December. I am very excited to get to it again but would agree it seem far from PTA’s best (certainly not an insult) upon first blush.
@Harry- very much appreciate your help here
Did you make this list before you had seen The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari? Surprised not to see Robert Wiene with a masterpiece of that caliber (your #56 film of all time) Admittedly I haven’t seen any of his other work, but I know The Hands of Orlac is highly regarded, and surely these fellows at the bottom with zero top 100 films of their respective decades can’t have a better case?
@Max- Nope, I had already seen The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari when I created and completed this list. Good food for thought here.
What are some directors that died way too young with maybe just one feature film or two, but they already found their style and had very promising start?
Of course first one should be Jean Vigo, but I would like to mention Sadao Yamanaka- I saw Humanity and Paper Balloons and been pretty blown away (I gave it MS after one viewing), it’s a stunning visual and formal achievement. I wrote in my notes “if Yamanaka didn’t die so young, he would be mentioned in the same sentences as Ozu and Mizoguchi”.
@RujK – film comment and taste of cinema have these lists- not quite the same thing for all of them: http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2014/10-great-film-directors-who-died-early-in-their-careers/ and https://www.filmcomment.com/article/film-comments-trivial-top-20-expanded-to-40-best-directors-who-died-young/
Bo Hu fits this description though http://thecinemaarchives.com/2020/01/11/an-elephant-sitting-still-2018-bo-hu/
I’ll have to add Humanity and Paper Balloons to my queue- I have not had the chance to catch this one yet
Are there are any directors who you believe stuck too much to one genre, topic, mood, or aesthetic? Perhaps they should have branched out more?
For example, many wish Kalazatov had been able to veer away from Soviet propagandistic messages and stories. Another is Leone. Although the spaghetti western genre served him perfectly, his triumph with Once Upon a Time in America leads me to believe there are other historical periods at which he should have tried his skillful hand.
There are probably better answers to this question than the ones I have given. Does anyone have ideas?
@Graham- my answer is probably Hitchcock- he was always staying in this crime thriller genre (he was doing variations of it with combining elements of romance, comedy and horror). I would really like to see some more straight forward genre films from- imagine how dominant he would be as the best director of all time together with having masterful filmography and wonderful style, he would be a genre master like Kubrick or Hawks- I think that nobody else could even challenge him as the best of all time.