Nearing end of Coen Brothers Study and one of the things that really jumped out at me was how amazing their casts are for almost every single one of their films other than A Serious Man (2009) and I think that one was by design.
Got me curious though which auteur has the best, or your favorite, regular casts? And I’m talking about ensemble casts so someone who may have had some great pairings like Hitchcock with James Steward or Cary Grant wouldn’t qualify. For me a few come to mind In no particular order:
Coen Brothers
PT Anderson
Quentin Tarantino
Wes Anderson
Martin Scorsese
Thank you so much! To answer your question I am currently 15 years of age. (10th grade) For about two years I have looked at your lists for inspiration, often watching films that you HR-MP. Really appreciate your hard work and dedication meant to this amazing page. Though just one major question… Just wondering, why are Pasolini, Malle, Rohmer, and Wazjda ranked so low on your list?
@Theo- well congratulations to you for getting into cinema seriously at such a young age! I am happy to hear you’ve enjoyed visiting these pages here. Hmmm- so for the four auteurs in question I’ll take them on a case by case basis. Before I do though, I will say that my goal is to constantly be improving the site and pages with future updates. I finished my top 250 rankings almost 3 years ago now and I can see all sorts of problems with it. My next update should remedy most of the problems I hope. Ok- so for Pasolini, I was able to do a study of his work (12 films from 2020-2022) so we should see him shoot up this list with the next update. For Malle, I guess I’d ask “ranked so low” compared to what? If you visit the They Shoot Pictures Don’t They consensus list- https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_top250directors.htm Malle is at #162 and I have him at #125. So I actually think more highly of him than the consensus. For Rohmer and Wajda, certainly the consensus has them ranked higher than I do. There is no real reason here, I have seen 3 Rohmer films in the last 6 years (not a high number) and 0 Wajda films during that stretch- so another study of both is probably overdue. I take it you think they should be closer to the top?
@Theo- well congratulations to you for getting into cinema seriously at such a young age! I am happy to hear you’ve enjoyed visiting these pages here. Hmmm- so for the four auteurs in question I’ll take them on a case by case basis. Before I do though, I will say that my goal is to constantly be improving the site and pages with future updates. I finished my top 250 rankings almost 3 years ago now and I can see all sorts of problems with it. My next update should remedy most of the problems I hope. Ok- so for Pasolini, I was able to do a study of his work (12 films from 2020-2022) so we should see him shoot up this list with the next update. For Malle, I guess I’d ask “ranked so low” compared to what? If you visit the They Shoot Pictures Don’t They consensus list- https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_top250directors.htm Malle is at #162 and I have him at #125. So I actually think more highly of him than the consensus. For Rohmer and Wajda, certainly the consensus has them ranked higher than I do. There is no real reason here, I have seen 3 Rohmer films in the last 6 years (not a high number) and 0 Wajda films during that stretch- so another study of both is probably overdue. I take it you think they should be closer to the top?
@Theo Thank you for visiting the site and the comment. This is an impressive collection. 15 as in you’ve been a cinephile for 15 years? Or 15 as in you are 15 years old? When I was 15 I had not seen a single film by these filmmakers (and if I did, it was by accident).
Are there any Kiyoshi Kurosawa films in the archive? I recently watched Cure (1997) and Pulse (2001) and was really impressed, particularly by the former.
He makes pretty good atmospheric, horror films.
Also what do you think of Sion Sono, I have not watched any of his films but planning to do so, any recommendations?
@Alt Mash- Thank you for the comment- There are not – on Kiyoshi Kurosawa question here – at least currently. I’ve seen both above but would love to revisit. I want to see Wife of a Spy, too.
I’m not nearly as much of a film buff like some of you guys, but here’s my top 10 anyway, probably very subjective.
1. Martin Scorsese
2. Wong Kar-Wai
3. Alejandro González Iñárritu
4. Christopher Nolan
5. Peter Jackson
6. Akira Kurosawa
7. Quentin Tarantino
8. Francis Ford Coppola
9. Park Chan-Wook
10. Bong Joon-ho
Honorable mentions to: Sofia Coppola, Ang Lee, Hayao Miyazaki, Michael Mann, Brian De Palma,
Denis Villeneuve, James Cameron.
@Oliver – I love that you have Park Chan-Wook and Bong Joon-ho. South Korean cinema has become a powerhouse in the 21st century. Given that you have Park Chan-Wook, Bong Joon-ho, WKW, Tarantino, Michael Mann and a mention for De Palma I am curious as to whether or not you have seen any films from the following:
Seijun Sezucki
Jean Pierre Melville
John Woo
If you have not checked these directors out yet, I think you would love their work
Hiya James, I havn’t heard of the first two, Sezucki and Melville, will definitely check them out!
I saw Face/Off not too long ago, and besides of Cage doing his antics I actually liked it a lot, lots of cool action scenes and good pacing.
I’ve also seen his western cut of Red Cliff which was ultimately ok, a bit of a disappointment since I love that era and I regard The Three Kingdoms (2010) tv series very highly.
But I know these aren’t the works he is known for, it’s his action flicks from the early 90s and I will see them one day, they’re just a bit hard to find.
It was funny seeing John Woo mentioned as the best current film director in Olivier Assanyas Irma Vep.
@Oliver – check the link below for John Woo’s best work, particularly The Killer (1989) and A Better Tomorrow (1986). I need to see Faceoff again but I think The Killer (1989) is a masterpiece with its relentless pace, and amazingly choreographed shootouts. It’s got style in spades,and is one of the great cops vs criminal films in my opinion. Its not clear good guys and bad guys here, but shades of gray to use a cliche.
Some people think Woo goes a little overboard at times, especially the assassins using the double guns and there is undoubtedly some unintensional comedy here and there, Woo similar to De Palma and Tarantino doesn’t do subtle. I for one love over the top for certain films.
As for Melville and and Sezucki:
Criterion Channel currently has 7 Sezucki films and for the most part they are glorious. Melville is probably one of the most influential on many of the auteurs on your top 10 and the honorable mentions. John Woo loves Melville and even wrote the essay for the Criterion blu ray of Le Samouraï (1967)
#1. Stanley Kubrick
#2. Martin Scorsese
#3. Akira Kurosawa
#4. Paul Thomas Anderson
#5. Francis Ford Coppola
#6. Andrei Tarkovsky
#7. Sergio Leone
#8. Terrance Malick
#9. David Lean
#10. Werner Herzog
HM: Hitchcock, Tarantino, Bertolucci, Roeg,Lynch, Kar Wai, Kalatozov
@James – I don’t include them but they wouldn’t impact his place here at all if I didn’t count them (I’ve seen My Best Fiend (good), Grizzly Man (disliked) and Lessons of Darkness which I thought was also decent.) It’s the Kinski films and Heart of Glass that lets him slip in.
KidCharlemagne
December 19, 2022 at 11:36 am - Reply
1/ Stanley Kubrick
2/ Martin Scorsese
3/ Alfred Hitchcock
4/ John Ford
5/ Akira Kurosawa
6/ Federico Fellini
7/ Andrei Tarkovsky
8/ Francis Ford Coppola
9/ Orson Welles
10/ Ingmar Bergman
# 1 Stanley Kubrick
# 2 Alfred Hitchcock
# 3 Martin Scorsese – My personal favorite, I think Scorsese may overtake the #2 spot
# 4 Akira Kurosawa
# 5 Orson Welles
# 6 Francis Ford Copolla – only Scorsese can match his top 3
# 7 Terence Malick – Badlands is merely his 5th best film
# 8 Francois Truffaut – probably not here without the glorious Antoine Doinel series
# 9 Andrei Tarkovsky
# 10 PT Anderson (recent rewatches of The Master have put him into top 10)
I need to do a more in depth viewing for Fellini and Bergman but I am fairly comfortable with this for now
@James Trapp- Fun study- I was able to catch seven of his films from late August to late September and added all seven the the archives. Certainly seven films is not exhaustive- always on the lookout for more.
@James Trapp- sorry- must have missed this- yes, three films: Gate of Flesh, Tokyo Drifter, and Branded to Kill
James Trapp
December 21, 2022 at 5:31 pm
@Drake – no worries, I just looked over my grades and can’t believe I saw most of them in 2019, time flies! But I’ve seen his two best multiple times, roughly I have:
Branded to Kill – MP
Tokyo Drifter – MS
Youth of the Beast – HR
Take Aim at the Police Van – HR
Gate of Flesh – R/HR
Fighting Elegy – R
Everything Goes Wrong – R
Drake
December 21, 2022 at 5:54 pm
@James Trapp- Great work here- and yes, time flies indeed. How are you doing on your 2022 viewing? Anything outside of the usual suspects I should be seeking out to see that caught your eye so far this year?
James Trapp
December 21, 2022 at 6:32 pm
I think I need some time to absorb the shock wave, but I just watched Barbarian (2022) from Zach Cregger last night. Someone on this site, I think Matthew, mentioned it so I decided to check it out and it is wild. I think I will need a 2nd viewing to better gage the quality of the filmmaking, will probably do that tonight since I only rented it from Amazon, but I was blown away by the suspense and story. Speak no Evil from Danish director and screenwriter Christian Tafdrup is a Danish 2022 film I watched a couple months ago that is worth checking out. Park Chan Wook Decision to Leave is finally on MUBI and I’ve watched twice in last couple weeks, its phenomenal. Other than that I have not seen a ton from 2022 aside from the obvious ones like Blonde. Been mainly going through the director studies. After Hawks I’m going to do a (mini) study for Robert Siodmak focusing on his American Noirs then Speilberg and after that not sure.
Drake
December 21, 2022 at 7:53 pm
@James Trapp- Good stuff here- I just wasn’t sure how much you mixed in the new stuff with your director studies. Thanks for sharing.
Now that Akerman has the #1 film on the Sight & Sound list, would love to see her represented in your top-250 directors. Maybe a re-evaluation of Jeanne Dielman too? She’s a top-100 director by my methodology, and the 2nd highest ranked director who is unranked on your list.
@Kyle B- Thank you for the comment. Always looking to see if there is something I’ve missed- Akerman and Jeanne Dielman included. Perhaps an Akerman study in 2023 is a good idea.
@Harry Oh, I saw it 10 or 12 years ago. Have you had a chance to see it? My decision not to archive it has as much to do with the category it belongs in as anything else – perhaps “experimental”. It certainly is not a documentary film- but if you’ve seen it I mean it uses duration as a tool as much or more than any film (at least that I’ve seen I’ve seen- and I have not seen any of the Andy Warhol experiments where he just shoots at static for hours on end). Anyways, I’m up for revisiting it- and if if the film warrants it- reevaluating- but needless to say I did not find much to praise – artistically – when I caught it the first time.
To the people, what does a list of the best cinematographers look like?
Vittio Storaro
Emanuel Lubezki
Giuseppe Rotunno
Gordon Willis
Christopher Doyle
Nicolas Roeg
Asakazu Nakai
Sergei Urusevsky
Sven Nykvist
Roger Deakins
Robert Richardson
Larry Smith
WIth some of those names, I’m not sure how much credit they deserve, they might just be in the right place at the right time – but regardless they do have an incredible catalog. Certainly the best went on to do great work with multiple directors which is clear proof of their prowess.
I’ve started tracking the best cinematography, writing, editing, and music scoring of each year which has been enlightening in seeing which names keep coming up. You’ve got a solid list there already but I feel that you have to add Emmanuel Lubezki to that list, and maybe Hoyte van Hoytema if we’re talking about more modern cinematographers. Kieslowski’s DOP Slawomir Idziak deserves a shoutout too, and the recent retrospective of James Wong Howe films on the criterion channel has really made me realise how distinctive of a style he has with his deep focus cinematography (Sweet Smell of Success, Seconds, Hud, Yankee Doodle Dandy). I may start publishing a list like yours once I’ve covered a broad enough range.
When I first started grading films and documenting it on a spreadsheet (about 3 1/2 years ago) I posted a
column for grades by viewing # with a grade for each time I watched before just deciding to post my most updated score instead. I think there is a potential benefit in documenting grades by viewing but it starts to get a little overwhelming. What I have noticed however, is that generally speaking most films improve or stay the same with each additional viewing. If I had to guess I would say only like 1 of every 15 or of every 20 movies goes down, just my experience so far.
@Matt – so this is a few years old- August of 2020. I have a few other projects I want to get to first before updating the directors list and pages. In the past I have not kept the original list up after I make the updates.
Gotcha, I look forward to the next update. It would be cool if you archived past iterations of you list so people can see how it’s changes through the years.
@Matt- It is a good idea- but part of me doesn’t really want to showcase how wrong I was in the past- haha. Once it is fixed, I’d rather just focus on the updated list.
Matt
November 1, 2022 at 6:39 pm
I get that. Lol. It might just be me, but I kind of use this site as a road map to exploring the directors that I haven’t gotten to. So I really appreciate all the hard work you’ve put into this. I also think the other parts of this website are brilliant as well. It’s awesome to have a reference like this to help access areas of cinema that I’m unfamiliar with.
Drake
November 1, 2022 at 9:45 pm
@Matt- My pleasure- really appreciate you coming to the site, commenting, and the kind words here. Thank you.
Excellent list. I’d put Kurosawa right at the top (1, 2, or 3). But other than that the only omission that struck me as odd was Hirokazu Koreeda not making the list at all. He’s one of the best directors working today.
@Logan Thank you for visiting the site and for the comment here. Many cinephiles and critics would agree with you on Hirokazu Koreeda. I’ve missed things and been wrong before- so it certainly could be happening here- but I have not found the evidence in his films to support putting Hirokazu Koreeda on this list.
I watched two Joseph Losey films today and definitely feel like he should be on this list around the 100-130 range.
The Servant – MP
Mr. Klein – MS
Mr. Klein is so excellent and completely by mood and atmosphere above all else, I do think it could be a masterpiece at 90-100 minutes but as it is it is a very worthy film that carries its mystery throughout and packs many very impressive shots. The overall tone is so haunting. Alain Delon has lost his looks but shows that isn’t all that made him a legendary actor in the first place, he’s great for this icy but deep down terrified character.
The Servant impressed me even more. It’s my favourite creepy London apartment film of the 1960s. Losey pulls off many creative and inspired compositions and everything in the narrative is so well setup formally. Bogarde blew me away too, one of the most talented actors ever to my mind.
Consistent sense of dread, mystery and dark atmosphere between these two so I can see a consistent style.
Would like to see more from him, he has a few more collaborations with Dirk Bogarde I will track down but for now I am very impressed with Losey and this is my case.
@Harry – I have posted about Mr. Klein on the 1970s page and the 1976 page. Very impressive indeed, to me it’s a MP. I just noticed the Servant on this months additions to the Criterion Channel so very excited to get to that. You are absolutely correct on the mood and atmosphere carrying the film. It reminds me Polanski’s The Tenant which interestingly came out the same year, 1976. It is kafkaesque in mood and plot.
It is also another monster performance from Delon who by my count plays the lead in 3 MPs
1. Le Samurai
2. Le Cercle Rouge
3. Mr. Klein
He’s also a main character in 2 other MPs
1. Rocco and His Brothers
2. The Leopard
@James – Good to hear. I do think the Tenant is quite stronger but I feel like Mr. Klein would get better with each viewing too.
Have also started a mini Melville study this week so should be getting to Le Cercle Rouge and rewatching Le Samourai (caught this when I was younger and thought it was very boring but ready to be completely wrong now).
@Harry- thanks for sharing- especially how specific you are in the praise of these films. I’ll have to knock The Servant nearer to the front of my list for a revisit.
@Matthew- haha- tough. He’s at least lower than Ridley Scott. I have my eyes on that 115-119 Peter Jackson, James Whale, King Vidor, Carol Reed, Victory Fleming area. That’s a big range- but that’s just eyeballing it here without breaking out all my old metrics and charts.
I figured that Reed would kind of be the floor here and he’s #118. Now, The Searchers isn’t my #1 (that would go to Space Odyssey) but using the guise of Ford having the #1 film ever, I think I would give him the edge over Reed. The Third Man is obviously a mega Masterpiece, but it’s not THE greatest film ever. And I’m not sure 2 HRs and several Rs would make up for that gap. Also, for what it’s worth (and I do think this is worth something) I think The Searchers’ brilliance is due larger in part to Ford than The Third Man is to Reed, if that makes sense.
On the other hand I’m not exactly sure what the ceiling is. Ridley Scott is certainly a hard stop for this hypothetical Ford, like you said. Looking at the grades for the backend of the top 100, I definitely think a strong argument can be made for this Ford to be in that range. But I haven’t gotten into those directors filmography’s yet, so I could be wrong, just eye balling it based off of your grades. Thanks for the response
Sorry for the late(r) response. And no problem, you’ve put an absolutely incredible amount into this website, you should know how helpful the work you’ve put it has been.
Hey Drake, wanted to let you know how much I appreciate this site. I started getting into film pretty heavily close to 3 years (right around when I discovered this site) and I can confidently say that there is no way I would be anywhere near as into it as I am right now without this site. It’s my passion and could be the career path I take. Not only for opening my eyes to the more nuanced and technical side of filmmaking, but also for essentially being my cinema tour guide, haha. Whenever I’m in the mood to watch something I’ll open this website and pick something off of your top 500, or use your director/actor rankings to explore the works of the very best. It’s specifically led me to doing studies of directors/actors that I would have otherwise likely never found. Usually how it works is I’ll pick a film in your top 500, love it and want more of it, then look up your director page for whoever directed that film and use that to guide me through their filmography (and subsequently love the performances of actors in those films, look up their actor page and then explore their other films). This site is super conventional and doing great things for the film community. It’s clear a lot of love, time and passion goes into this website so just wanted to let you know the impact it’s had on me, and I’m sure many others. I hope more and more discover it. I’ve always lurked and observed discussions but never got around to participating. I plan on changing that as there are always some really great discussions going on.
@Harry – Thank you- feels good to hear this so thanks. I look at some of the earlier pages on the site and I cringe at times- but I have enjoyed working on the site and thank you for the kind words, your comments and for visiting the site.
@Matthew – this blog runs off WordPress and I believe they take profile pictures from Gravatar which I signed into with on another wordpress site after setting a Gravatar profile picture.
I only have a Gravatar account in the first place because when I signed up for letterboxd years ago it was the only way to get a profile picture on that site.
@Matthew- Wow- how nice of you Matthew- thank you. I certainly appreciate the comment here and you visiting the site. I look forward to see your comments and hear your thoughts in the future.
@Joshua- Not sure when on anything yet on this point. Hit a bit of a slowdown here this summer. But my guess is the updating will come faster this fall. I am not sure I’ll ever go back to individual film reviews/pages- but my project will be to finish the acting updates, then update the top 500 films and make it top 1000 films– and then only after that would updating the director 250 take place. So that feels like it’ll be some time yet.
“but my project will be to finish the acting updates“ is that for just the female side or will you update the male side of things after you’re done with the females?
@Matthew- Yes- the plan would be to do them in tandem, or one after the other and sort of the original plan was it would be fun to update them every five years- and that’s just about how it is going to end up I think.
Have you watched films of Wojciech Has and what do you think about him?
I just watched The Saragossa Manuscript and The Hourglass Sanatorium and like them very much. Compared to the directors on your list I had watched, I think he was similar to and at the same level of Jodorowsky.
2022 is one of the years where you have two directors of the top 250 making and releasing the same film. Zemeckis and Del Toro with Pinocchio.It’s strange though considering Zemeckis is the one with the background in animation that he isn’t the one making the animating one though.
I would switch Tarkovsky and Kubrick, put Scorsese, Truffaut, Renoir, Ford 10-15 spots down. I think Woody Allen is criminally overrated, 0 style all talk in his films. I would switch Rossellini and Visconti. Kieslowski continues to be criminally underrated in most places, he is easily top 10. Bresson should be at least top 20. Chaplin at 80 is way to low although he is overrated in most places, you just went too far. Aronofsky is way too high. Huston and Forman are too low. Resnais and Rohmer should both be at least 100 spots higher.
What are your thoughts on William Dieterle? I think he is a style-minus director worthy of being somewhere in top 500.
This is what I have seen of his filmography for now:
The Story of Louis Pasteur- R
The Life of Emile Zola- R
The Hunchback of Notre Dame- R
The Devil and Daniel Webster- HR
Portrait of Jeanne- HR
Sounds about right- I didn’t make it all the way to 500 on my list- but there was never a real consideration in the top 250 (or about the 50 names I had kicking around putting those together) and style minus is correct. Below is what I have so far.
1935- A Midnight Summer’s Dream R
1937- The Life of Emile Zola
1939- Juarez R
1939- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
1948- Portrait of Jennie HR
1950- Dark City R
@Drake- on you 1936 page you have The Story of Louis Pasteur as HR level film. What are the reasons for that? I have it as a very solid R with one great Muni performance.
@RujK- Thank you for the help here. It has been 15-20 years since my last viewing so I would have to confirm- but I believe just superior acting and writing
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.
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”.
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?
Nearing end of Coen Brothers Study and one of the things that really jumped out at me was how amazing their casts are for almost every single one of their films other than A Serious Man (2009) and I think that one was by design.
Got me curious though which auteur has the best, or your favorite, regular casts? And I’m talking about ensemble casts so someone who may have had some great pairings like Hitchcock with James Steward or Cary Grant wouldn’t qualify. For me a few come to mind In no particular order:
Coen Brothers
PT Anderson
Quentin Tarantino
Wes Anderson
Martin Scorsese
@James Trapp- You’ll like this read http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2017/10-great-movie-directors-who-always-use-the-same-cast/
@Drake – thanks, great list. I like that they have Coen Brothers at # 1. Surprised that PT Anderson is not on the list
Thank you so much! To answer your question I am currently 15 years of age. (10th grade) For about two years I have looked at your lists for inspiration, often watching films that you HR-MP. Really appreciate your hard work and dedication meant to this amazing page. Though just one major question… Just wondering, why are Pasolini, Malle, Rohmer, and Wazjda ranked so low on your list?
@Theo- well congratulations to you for getting into cinema seriously at such a young age! I am happy to hear you’ve enjoyed visiting these pages here. Hmmm- so for the four auteurs in question I’ll take them on a case by case basis. Before I do though, I will say that my goal is to constantly be improving the site and pages with future updates. I finished my top 250 rankings almost 3 years ago now and I can see all sorts of problems with it. My next update should remedy most of the problems I hope. Ok- so for Pasolini, I was able to do a study of his work (12 films from 2020-2022) so we should see him shoot up this list with the next update. For Malle, I guess I’d ask “ranked so low” compared to what? If you visit the They Shoot Pictures Don’t They consensus list- https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_top250directors.htm Malle is at #162 and I have him at #125. So I actually think more highly of him than the consensus. For Rohmer and Wajda, certainly the consensus has them ranked higher than I do. There is no real reason here, I have seen 3 Rohmer films in the last 6 years (not a high number) and 0 Wajda films during that stretch- so another study of both is probably overdue. I take it you think they should be closer to the top?
@Theo- well congratulations to you for getting into cinema seriously at such a young age! I am happy to hear you’ve enjoyed visiting these pages here. Hmmm- so for the four auteurs in question I’ll take them on a case by case basis. Before I do though, I will say that my goal is to constantly be improving the site and pages with future updates. I finished my top 250 rankings almost 3 years ago now and I can see all sorts of problems with it. My next update should remedy most of the problems I hope. Ok- so for Pasolini, I was able to do a study of his work (12 films from 2020-2022) so we should see him shoot up this list with the next update. For Malle, I guess I’d ask “ranked so low” compared to what? If you visit the They Shoot Pictures Don’t They consensus list- https://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_top250directors.htm Malle is at #162 and I have him at #125. So I actually think more highly of him than the consensus. For Rohmer and Wajda, certainly the consensus has them ranked higher than I do. There is no real reason here, I have seen 3 Rohmer films in the last 6 years (not a high number) and 0 Wajda films during that stretch- so another study of both is probably overdue. I take it you think they should be closer to the top?
1. Antonioni
2. Fellini
3. Kieslowski
4. Godard
5. Malle
6. Bergman
7. Pasolini
8. Kubrick
9. Bunuel
10. Visconti
15 year old cinephile
@Theo Thank you for visiting the site and the comment. This is an impressive collection. 15 as in you’ve been a cinephile for 15 years? Or 15 as in you are 15 years old? When I was 15 I had not seen a single film by these filmmakers (and if I did, it was by accident).
Are there any Kiyoshi Kurosawa films in the archive? I recently watched Cure (1997) and Pulse (2001) and was really impressed, particularly by the former.
He makes pretty good atmospheric, horror films.
Also what do you think of Sion Sono, I have not watched any of his films but planning to do so, any recommendations?
@Alt Mash- Thank you for the comment- There are not – on Kiyoshi Kurosawa question here – at least currently. I’ve seen both above but would love to revisit. I want to see Wife of a Spy, too.
I’m not nearly as much of a film buff like some of you guys, but here’s my top 10 anyway, probably very subjective.
1. Martin Scorsese
2. Wong Kar-Wai
3. Alejandro González Iñárritu
4. Christopher Nolan
5. Peter Jackson
6. Akira Kurosawa
7. Quentin Tarantino
8. Francis Ford Coppola
9. Park Chan-Wook
10. Bong Joon-ho
Honorable mentions to: Sofia Coppola, Ang Lee, Hayao Miyazaki, Michael Mann, Brian De Palma,
Denis Villeneuve, James Cameron.
How could I forget David Fincher, he would def take room in the top 10. This is what happens when you create a list after 5-10 min of thinking
@Oliver- Thank you for sharing this- impressive list- and happy to see Fincher make it- he too often gets overlooked
@Oliver – I love that you have Park Chan-Wook and Bong Joon-ho. South Korean cinema has become a powerhouse in the 21st century. Given that you have Park Chan-Wook, Bong Joon-ho, WKW, Tarantino, Michael Mann and a mention for De Palma I am curious as to whether or not you have seen any films from the following:
Seijun Sezucki
Jean Pierre Melville
John Woo
If you have not checked these directors out yet, I think you would love their work
Hiya James, I havn’t heard of the first two, Sezucki and Melville, will definitely check them out!
I saw Face/Off not too long ago, and besides of Cage doing his antics I actually liked it a lot, lots of cool action scenes and good pacing.
I’ve also seen his western cut of Red Cliff which was ultimately ok, a bit of a disappointment since I love that era and I regard The Three Kingdoms (2010) tv series very highly.
But I know these aren’t the works he is known for, it’s his action flicks from the early 90s and I will see them one day, they’re just a bit hard to find.
It was funny seeing John Woo mentioned as the best current film director in Olivier Assanyas Irma Vep.
@Oliver – check the link below for John Woo’s best work, particularly The Killer (1989) and A Better Tomorrow (1986). I need to see Faceoff again but I think The Killer (1989) is a masterpiece with its relentless pace, and amazingly choreographed shootouts. It’s got style in spades,and is one of the great cops vs criminal films in my opinion. Its not clear good guys and bad guys here, but shades of gray to use a cliche.
Some people think Woo goes a little overboard at times, especially the assassins using the double guns and there is undoubtedly some unintensional comedy here and there, Woo similar to De Palma and Tarantino doesn’t do subtle. I for one love over the top for certain films.
https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2022/11/the-essential-films-of-john-woo/
As for Melville and and Sezucki:
Criterion Channel currently has 7 Sezucki films and for the most part they are glorious. Melville is probably one of the most influential on many of the auteurs on your top 10 and the honorable mentions. John Woo loves Melville and even wrote the essay for the Criterion blu ray of Le Samouraï (1967)
Nice, right now I’ve got
#1. Stanley Kubrick
#2. Martin Scorsese
#3. Akira Kurosawa
#4. Paul Thomas Anderson
#5. Francis Ford Coppola
#6. Andrei Tarkovsky
#7. Sergio Leone
#8. Terrance Malick
#9. David Lean
#10. Werner Herzog
HM: Hitchcock, Tarantino, Bertolucci, Roeg,Lynch, Kar Wai, Kalatozov
@Harry – great list I have 7 of the same in my top 10, just curious for Herzog, do you include his documentaries?
@James – I don’t include them but they wouldn’t impact his place here at all if I didn’t count them (I’ve seen My Best Fiend (good), Grizzly Man (disliked) and Lessons of Darkness which I thought was also decent.) It’s the Kinski films and Heart of Glass that lets him slip in.
1/ Stanley Kubrick
2/ Martin Scorsese
3/ Alfred Hitchcock
4/ John Ford
5/ Akira Kurosawa
6/ Federico Fellini
7/ Andrei Tarkovsky
8/ Francis Ford Coppola
9/ Orson Welles
10/ Ingmar Bergman
My top 10 of the greatest directors ever
@KidCharlemagne- Hard to argue with this- great list
@KidCharlemagne – very similar to mine
# 1 Stanley Kubrick
# 2 Alfred Hitchcock
# 3 Martin Scorsese – My personal favorite, I think Scorsese may overtake the #2 spot
# 4 Akira Kurosawa
# 5 Orson Welles
# 6 Francis Ford Copolla – only Scorsese can match his top 3
# 7 Terence Malick – Badlands is merely his 5th best film
# 8 Francois Truffaut – probably not here without the glorious Antoine Doinel series
# 9 Andrei Tarkovsky
# 10 PT Anderson (recent rewatches of The Master have put him into top 10)
I need to do a more in depth viewing for Fellini and Bergman but I am fairly comfortable with this for now
Drake,
How is Seijun Sezucki study going?
@James Trapp- Fun study- I was able to catch seven of his films from late August to late September and added all seven the the archives. Certainly seven films is not exhaustive- always on the lookout for more.
@Drake – that’s great, would you put any of them HR or higher?
@James Trapp- sorry- must have missed this- yes, three films: Gate of Flesh, Tokyo Drifter, and Branded to Kill
@Drake – no worries, I just looked over my grades and can’t believe I saw most of them in 2019, time flies! But I’ve seen his two best multiple times, roughly I have:
Branded to Kill – MP
Tokyo Drifter – MS
Youth of the Beast – HR
Take Aim at the Police Van – HR
Gate of Flesh – R/HR
Fighting Elegy – R
Everything Goes Wrong – R
@James Trapp- Great work here- and yes, time flies indeed. How are you doing on your 2022 viewing? Anything outside of the usual suspects I should be seeking out to see that caught your eye so far this year?
I think I need some time to absorb the shock wave, but I just watched Barbarian (2022) from Zach Cregger last night. Someone on this site, I think Matthew, mentioned it so I decided to check it out and it is wild. I think I will need a 2nd viewing to better gage the quality of the filmmaking, will probably do that tonight since I only rented it from Amazon, but I was blown away by the suspense and story. Speak no Evil from Danish director and screenwriter Christian Tafdrup is a Danish 2022 film I watched a couple months ago that is worth checking out. Park Chan Wook Decision to Leave is finally on MUBI and I’ve watched twice in last couple weeks, its phenomenal. Other than that I have not seen a ton from 2022 aside from the obvious ones like Blonde. Been mainly going through the director studies. After Hawks I’m going to do a (mini) study for Robert Siodmak focusing on his American Noirs then Speilberg and after that not sure.
@James Trapp- Good stuff here- I just wasn’t sure how much you mixed in the new stuff with your director studies. Thanks for sharing.
@James – when are you getting on letterboxd?
Now that Akerman has the #1 film on the Sight & Sound list, would love to see her represented in your top-250 directors. Maybe a re-evaluation of Jeanne Dielman too? She’s a top-100 director by my methodology, and the 2nd highest ranked director who is unranked on your list.
@Kyle B- Thank you for the comment. Always looking to see if there is something I’ve missed- Akerman and Jeanne Dielman included. Perhaps an Akerman study in 2023 is a good idea.
@Drake – did you watch Jeanne Dielman before getting to the recent-ish 1975 page? Or did you watch it before and find it not archivable yet
@Harry Oh, I saw it 10 or 12 years ago. Have you had a chance to see it? My decision not to archive it has as much to do with the category it belongs in as anything else – perhaps “experimental”. It certainly is not a documentary film- but if you’ve seen it I mean it uses duration as a tool as much or more than any film (at least that I’ve seen I’ve seen- and I have not seen any of the Andy Warhol experiments where he just shoots at static for hours on end). Anyways, I’m up for revisiting it- and if if the film warrants it- reevaluating- but needless to say I did not find much to praise – artistically – when I caught it the first time.
To the people, what does a list of the best cinematographers look like?
Vittio Storaro
Emanuel Lubezki
Giuseppe Rotunno
Gordon Willis
Christopher Doyle
Nicolas Roeg
Asakazu Nakai
Sergei Urusevsky
Sven Nykvist
Roger Deakins
Robert Richardson
Larry Smith
WIth some of those names, I’m not sure how much credit they deserve, they might just be in the right place at the right time – but regardless they do have an incredible catalog. Certainly the best went on to do great work with multiple directors which is clear proof of their prowess.
Any names to add / remove?
@Harry- Great list. I’d add Gregg Toland. Michael Ballhaus, Conrad Hall, Raoul Coutard, Vilmos Zsigmond, Freddie Young-
Taste of Cinema has their list as well. http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2015/the-30-greatest-cinematographers/ – can’t argue with many of these
I’ve started tracking the best cinematography, writing, editing, and music scoring of each year which has been enlightening in seeing which names keep coming up. You’ve got a solid list there already but I feel that you have to add Emmanuel Lubezki to that list, and maybe Hoyte van Hoytema if we’re talking about more modern cinematographers. Kieslowski’s DOP Slawomir Idziak deserves a shoutout too, and the recent retrospective of James Wong Howe films on the criterion channel has really made me realise how distinctive of a style he has with his deep focus cinematography (Sweet Smell of Success, Seconds, Hud, Yankee Doodle Dandy). I may start publishing a list like yours once I’ve covered a broad enough range.
@Matt@Drake
When I first started grading films and documenting it on a spreadsheet (about 3 1/2 years ago) I posted a
column for grades by viewing # with a grade for each time I watched before just deciding to post my most updated score instead. I think there is a potential benefit in documenting grades by viewing but it starts to get a little overwhelming. What I have noticed however, is that generally speaking most films improve or stay the same with each additional viewing. If I had to guess I would say only like 1 of every 15 or of every 20 movies goes down, just my experience so far.
I was wondering how often you update your top 250 directors list? And if you make changes will the original list still be available?
@Matt – so this is a few years old- August of 2020. I have a few other projects I want to get to first before updating the directors list and pages. In the past I have not kept the original list up after I make the updates.
Gotcha, I look forward to the next update. It would be cool if you archived past iterations of you list so people can see how it’s changes through the years.
@Matt- It is a good idea- but part of me doesn’t really want to showcase how wrong I was in the past- haha. Once it is fixed, I’d rather just focus on the updated list.
I get that. Lol. It might just be me, but I kind of use this site as a road map to exploring the directors that I haven’t gotten to. So I really appreciate all the hard work you’ve put into this. I also think the other parts of this website are brilliant as well. It’s awesome to have a reference like this to help access areas of cinema that I’m unfamiliar with.
@Matt- My pleasure- really appreciate you coming to the site, commenting, and the kind words here. Thank you.
Excellent list. I’d put Kurosawa right at the top (1, 2, or 3). But other than that the only omission that struck me as odd was Hirokazu Koreeda not making the list at all. He’s one of the best directors working today.
@Logan Thank you for visiting the site and for the comment here. Many cinephiles and critics would agree with you on Hirokazu Koreeda. I’ve missed things and been wrong before- so it certainly could be happening here- but I have not found the evidence in his films to support putting Hirokazu Koreeda on this list.
I watched two Joseph Losey films today and definitely feel like he should be on this list around the 100-130 range.
The Servant – MP
Mr. Klein – MS
Mr. Klein is so excellent and completely by mood and atmosphere above all else, I do think it could be a masterpiece at 90-100 minutes but as it is it is a very worthy film that carries its mystery throughout and packs many very impressive shots. The overall tone is so haunting. Alain Delon has lost his looks but shows that isn’t all that made him a legendary actor in the first place, he’s great for this icy but deep down terrified character.
The Servant impressed me even more. It’s my favourite creepy London apartment film of the 1960s. Losey pulls off many creative and inspired compositions and everything in the narrative is so well setup formally. Bogarde blew me away too, one of the most talented actors ever to my mind.
Consistent sense of dread, mystery and dark atmosphere between these two so I can see a consistent style.
Would like to see more from him, he has a few more collaborations with Dirk Bogarde I will track down but for now I am very impressed with Losey and this is my case.
@Harry – I have posted about Mr. Klein on the 1970s page and the 1976 page. Very impressive indeed, to me it’s a MP. I just noticed the Servant on this months additions to the Criterion Channel so very excited to get to that. You are absolutely correct on the mood and atmosphere carrying the film. It reminds me Polanski’s The Tenant which interestingly came out the same year, 1976. It is kafkaesque in mood and plot.
It is also another monster performance from Delon who by my count plays the lead in 3 MPs
1. Le Samurai
2. Le Cercle Rouge
3. Mr. Klein
He’s also a main character in 2 other MPs
1. Rocco and His Brothers
2. The Leopard
@James – Good to hear. I do think the Tenant is quite stronger but I feel like Mr. Klein would get better with each viewing too.
Have also started a mini Melville study this week so should be getting to Le Cercle Rouge and rewatching Le Samourai (caught this when I was younger and thought it was very boring but ready to be completely wrong now).
@Harry – I did a full on Melville study, posted all the notes on The Melville page. Look forward to hearing your thoughts
@James – yup already read it, impressed with your writing as always.
@Harry- thanks for sharing- especially how specific you are in the praise of these films. I’ll have to knock The Servant nearer to the front of my list for a revisit.
Funny hypothetical, Ford makes The Searchers and nothing else. Where does he rank lol?
@Matthew- haha- tough. He’s at least lower than Ridley Scott. I have my eyes on that 115-119 Peter Jackson, James Whale, King Vidor, Carol Reed, Victory Fleming area. That’s a big range- but that’s just eyeballing it here without breaking out all my old metrics and charts.
I figured that Reed would kind of be the floor here and he’s #118. Now, The Searchers isn’t my #1 (that would go to Space Odyssey) but using the guise of Ford having the #1 film ever, I think I would give him the edge over Reed. The Third Man is obviously a mega Masterpiece, but it’s not THE greatest film ever. And I’m not sure 2 HRs and several Rs would make up for that gap. Also, for what it’s worth (and I do think this is worth something) I think The Searchers’ brilliance is due larger in part to Ford than The Third Man is to Reed, if that makes sense.
On the other hand I’m not exactly sure what the ceiling is. Ridley Scott is certainly a hard stop for this hypothetical Ford, like you said. Looking at the grades for the backend of the top 100, I definitely think a strong argument can be made for this Ford to be in that range. But I haven’t gotten into those directors filmography’s yet, so I could be wrong, just eye balling it based off of your grades. Thanks for the response
@Matthew- “I think The Searchers’ brilliance is due larger in part to Ford than The Third Man is to Reed, if that makes sense”- agreed here
Sorry for the late(r) response. And no problem, you’ve put an absolutely incredible amount into this website, you should know how helpful the work you’ve put it has been.
Hey Drake, wanted to let you know how much I appreciate this site. I started getting into film pretty heavily close to 3 years (right around when I discovered this site) and I can confidently say that there is no way I would be anywhere near as into it as I am right now without this site. It’s my passion and could be the career path I take. Not only for opening my eyes to the more nuanced and technical side of filmmaking, but also for essentially being my cinema tour guide, haha. Whenever I’m in the mood to watch something I’ll open this website and pick something off of your top 500, or use your director/actor rankings to explore the works of the very best. It’s specifically led me to doing studies of directors/actors that I would have otherwise likely never found. Usually how it works is I’ll pick a film in your top 500, love it and want more of it, then look up your director page for whoever directed that film and use that to guide me through their filmography (and subsequently love the performances of actors in those films, look up their actor page and then explore their other films). This site is super conventional and doing great things for the film community. It’s clear a lot of love, time and passion goes into this website so just wanted to let you know the impact it’s had on me, and I’m sure many others. I hope more and more discover it. I’ve always lurked and observed discussions but never got around to participating. I plan on changing that as there are always some really great discussions going on.
@Matthew agree with everything, this the best film resource/site I have come across.
@Harry – Thank you- feels good to hear this so thanks. I look at some of the earlier pages on the site and I cringe at times- but I have enjoyed working on the site and thank you for the kind words, your comments and for visiting the site.
100%. Such an incredible site. Question – how did you change your profile picture by the way?
@Matthew – this blog runs off WordPress and I believe they take profile pictures from Gravatar which I signed into with on another wordpress site after setting a Gravatar profile picture.
I only have a Gravatar account in the first place because when I signed up for letterboxd years ago it was the only way to get a profile picture on that site.
Thanks. Might give it a shot soon
@Matthew- Wow- how nice of you Matthew- thank you. I certainly appreciate the comment here and you visiting the site. I look forward to see your comments and hear your thoughts in the future.
@Joshua- Not sure when on anything yet on this point. Hit a bit of a slowdown here this summer. But my guess is the updating will come faster this fall. I am not sure I’ll ever go back to individual film reviews/pages- but my project will be to finish the acting updates, then update the top 500 films and make it top 1000 films– and then only after that would updating the director 250 take place. So that feels like it’ll be some time yet.
Do you expect to keep doing year archives for current years moving into the future?
@DeclanG- Yes, I do. I should have the 2022 page in February 2023.
“but my project will be to finish the acting updates“ is that for just the female side or will you update the male side of things after you’re done with the females?
@Matthew- Yes- the plan would be to do them in tandem, or one after the other and sort of the original plan was it would be fun to update them every five years- and that’s just about how it is going to end up I think.
Well that’s awesome to hear. Looking forward to it
Im sure you already have it in the works but do you know when you’ll re rank the top 250 now that 10 years have passed?
Have you watched films of Wojciech Has and what do you think about him?
I just watched The Saragossa Manuscript and The Hourglass Sanatorium and like them very much. Compared to the directors on your list I had watched, I think he was similar to and at the same level of Jodorowsky.
@Chiu- Not on my radar at all- thanks for sharing. I don’t see them available on my normal avenues- so will have to keep an eye out.
2022 is one of the years where you have two directors of the top 250 making and releasing the same film. Zemeckis and Del Toro with Pinocchio.It’s strange though considering Zemeckis is the one with the background in animation that he isn’t the one making the animating one though.
@Harry- Interesting- had not thought about this— honestly both of these films were flying a little under the radar for me.
I would switch Tarkovsky and Kubrick, put Scorsese, Truffaut, Renoir, Ford 10-15 spots down. I think Woody Allen is criminally overrated, 0 style all talk in his films. I would switch Rossellini and Visconti. Kieslowski continues to be criminally underrated in most places, he is easily top 10. Bresson should be at least top 20. Chaplin at 80 is way to low although he is overrated in most places, you just went too far. Aronofsky is way too high. Huston and Forman are too low. Resnais and Rohmer should both be at least 100 spots higher.
@maria- Thank you for visiting the site and the comment. However, you are quite wrong here.
What are your thoughts on William Dieterle? I think he is a style-minus director worthy of being somewhere in top 500.
This is what I have seen of his filmography for now:
The Story of Louis Pasteur- R
The Life of Emile Zola- R
The Hunchback of Notre Dame- R
The Devil and Daniel Webster- HR
Portrait of Jeanne- HR
@RujK
Sounds about right- I didn’t make it all the way to 500 on my list- but there was never a real consideration in the top 250 (or about the 50 names I had kicking around putting those together) and style minus is correct. Below is what I have so far.
1935- A Midnight Summer’s Dream R
1937- The Life of Emile Zola
1939- Juarez R
1939- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
1948- Portrait of Jennie HR
1950- Dark City R
@Drake- on you 1936 page you have The Story of Louis Pasteur as HR level film. What are the reasons for that? I have it as a very solid R with one great Muni performance.
@RujK- Thank you for the help here. It has been 15-20 years since my last viewing so I would have to confirm- but I believe just superior acting and writing
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.
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 https://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
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.