Im sure i am ignorant on this but why is Malick so high? It seems he has done a number of strong films but not more than a couple great ones. While Lumick for me has for me directed a few masterpieces. I guess that’s a matter of subjectivity or perspective but what are you going on?
@Steve – His work is visually stunning. Check out these screen shots from the link below. These are from Days of Heaven (1978) which I think is his best with The Tree of Life (2011) not far behind. You can check out great individual frames for his other films and many great artists on Film Grab
@Steve — I actually think Malick’s position on this list underrates him (not massively, but by a few spaces). I think Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World, and the Tree of Life are all inarguable masterpieces. (Personally, I would count all of those among the 100 best films of all time; Drake has rated two of them that highly on his best-1000 list.) Days of Heaven is on a very short list of films regarded as “the most beautiful ever made” (Barry Lyndon probably edges it out, but I’m not sure what else would). Both Badlands and A Hidden Life are at least borderline-great. I also happen to think very highly of Knight of Cups (though I acknowledge that opinion is much more controversial).
Aside from the case that can be made by rating his films individually, Malick is also an artistic visionary, which comes through clearly in his body of work taken as a whole. His later style (especially when it comes to editing) is one of the very few instances I’ve seen in my lifetime that I would regard as genuine and substantial innovation to the cinematic form itself. For what it’s worth, I think the mature cinematographic style of Emmanuel Lubezki, evident in his work for Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant), was also clearly forged in collaboration with Malick.
@Steve – The rankings on this site greatly value quality over quantity, something I certainly would second. There is know magical formula of course; but a director who only directed say 3 films but all 3 are masterpieces, would undoubtably be viewed by this site (and myself) as superior to a dircted who made say 15 films, which are all solid, but with nothing even approaching a masterpiece
Updated my own personal list of best directors (work-in progress)
:
1) Martin Scorsese
2) Francois Truffaut
3) Akira Kurosawa
4) Robert Bresson
5) Stanley Kubrick
6) Francis Ford Coppola
7) Ingmar Bergman
8) Fritz Lang
9) Alfred Hitchcock
10) Yasujiro Ozu
11) Jean Renoir
12) David Lean
13) Billy Wilder
14) John Ford
15) Roberto Rossellini
16) Krysztof Kieslowski
17) Andrei Tarkovsky
18) Eric Rohmer
19) Jean-Pierre Melville
20) Federico Fellini
21) Carl Theodor Dreyer
22) Orson Welles
23) Michael Haneke
24) Roman Polanski
25) Woody Allen
26) Paul Thomas Anderson
27) Pedro Almodovar
28) Charlie Chaplin
29) Wong-Kar Wai
30) Jean-Luc Godard
31) Luis Bunuel
32) Robert Altman
33) Michelangelo Antonioni
34) Park-Chan Wook
35) The Coen Brothers
36) Max Ophuls
37) Quentin Tarantino
38) David Lynch
39) Marcel Carné
40) Howard Hawks
41) Frank Capra
42) Nicholas Ray
43) Luchino Visconti
44) Kenji Mizoguchi
45) Edward Yang
46) David Cronenberg
47) Louis Malle
48) Elia Kazan
49) Otto Preminger
50) Sidney Lumet
51) Vittoria de Sica
52) Terence Mallick
53) Buster Keaton
54) Sergio Leone
55) William Wyler
56) John Huston
57) Hal Ashby
58) Brian de Palma
59) Michael Powell
60) Maurice Pialat
61) Sam Peckinpah
62) Preston Sturges
63) Ernst Lubitsch
64) Masaki Kobayashi
65) Bernardo Bertolucci
66) Wim Wenders
67) Abbas Kiarostami
68) Jim Jarmusch
69) George Cukor
70) Wes Anderson
71) Mike Leigh
72) Agnes Varda
73) Jacques Demy
74) Zhang Yimou
75) Hayao Miyazaki
76) Mikio Naruse
77) The Dardenne Brothers
78) Oliver Stone
79) Steven Spielberg
80) Michael Mann
81) Shohei Imamura
82) David Fincher
83) Alejandro G Inarritu
84) Spike Lee
85) Sergei Eisenstein
86) Milos Forman
87) Jacques Tati
88) Michael Curtiz
89) Henri Georges Clouzot
90) Rainer Werner Fassbinder
91) Ang Lee
92) Alexander Payne
93) Douglas Sirk
94) Raoul Walsh
95) Werner Herzog
96) Satyajit Ray
97) Jean Eustache
98) Alain Resnais
99) John Cassavettes
100) Hirazo Kore-eda
101) Claude Chabrol
102) Clint Eastwood
103) Hsiao-Hsien Hou
104) Pier Paolo Pasolini
105) Bong Joon Ho
106) Alan Pakula
107) Lars von Trier
108) Mike Nichols
109) Emir Kusturica
110) Claire Denis
111) Jacques Rivette
112) Nuri Bilge Ceylan
113) Lee Chang-dong
114) Bela Tarr
115) Joseph L Mankiewicz
116) Victor Erice
117) Mikhail Kalatazov
118) Carol Reed
119) Michael Cimino
120) Denis Villeneuve
121) Christopher Nolan
122) Jacques Becker
123) Samuel Fuller
124) Leo McCarey
125) Peter Weir
126) Christian Mungiu
127) Ridley Scott
128) Aki Kaurismaki
129) Thomas Vinterberg
130) Asgar Farhadi
131) Jane Campion
132) Peter Bogdanovich
133) Jonathan Demme
134) Peter Jackson
135) Richard Linklater
136) Tim Burton
137) John Schlesinger
138) Darren Aronofsky
139) Sam Mendes
140) Vincente Minelli
141) Anthony Mann
142) Julien Duvivier
143) Pablo Larrain
144) Arthur Penn
145) Jules Dassin
146) Fred Zinneman
147) Ettore Scola
148) Ryusuke Hamaguchi
149) Noah Baumbach
150) Warren Beatty
151) Bertrand Tavernier
152) Nicholas Roeg
153) Yorgas Lanthimos
154) Sofia Coppola
155) William Friedkin
156) Spike Jonze
157) Celine Sciamma
158) Alan Clarke
159) John Sturges
160) Paul Schrader
161) Kelly Reichardt
162) Terry Gilliam
163) Joachim Trier
164) George Stevens
165) Jacques Audiard
166) Nicholas Winding Refn
167) Carlos Saura
168) Jean Vigo
169) George Lucas
170) Joseph Losey
171) Gus van Sant
172) Jacques Tourneur
173) Alfonso Cuaron
174) Guillermo del Toro
175) Jia Zhangke
176) Kenneth Lonergan
177) Oliver Assayas
178) Jean Gremillon
179) Tsai Ming-liang
180) Jean Cocteau
181) Rene Clair
182) Lina Wertmuller
183) Sam Mendes
184) Lynne Ramsay
185) James Gray
186) Todd Haynes
187) John Carpenter
188) Takeshi Kitano
189) Jean Pierre Jeunet
190) David O Russell
191) Alan Parker
192) Paolo Sorrentino
193) Lawrence Kasdan
194) Steven Soderbergh
195) Anthony Minghella
196) Marco Ferreri
197) John Hughes
198) Stephen Frears
199) Stanley Donen
200) Jeff Nichols
201) John Frankenheimer
202) Bruno Dumont
203) Christian Petzold
204) Ken Loach
205) Sydney Pollack
206) James Cameron
207) Pawel Pawlikowski
208) Gaspar Noe
209) Andrzej Wajda
210) Shane Meadows
211) Mia Hansen-Love
212) Jonathan Glazer
213) Cameron Crowe
214) Lucrecia Martel
215) Rene Clement
216) Alexander Mackendrick
217) Mario Monicelli
218) Dino Risi
219) Ruben Ostland
220) Costas Gavras
221) Larisa Shepitko
222) Michael Winterbottom
223) Francois Ozon
224) George Miller
225) Steve McQueen
226) Leos Carax
227) Elem Klimov
228) Masahiro Shinoda
229) Victor Fleming
230) Robert Aldrich
231) Peter Greenaway
232) James Whale
233) George Roy Hill
234) Stanley Kramer
235) Luis Garcia Berlanga
236) Blake Edwards
237) Curtis Hanson
238) Damian Chazelle
239) Jerry Schatzberg
240) Barry Levinson
241) Frank Borzage
242) Baz Lurhmann
243) Sean Penn
244) Abel Ferrara
245) Ronald Neame
246) Seijun Suzuki
247) John Boorman
248) Danny Boyle
249) Neil Jordan
250) Fernando Mereilles
251) Walter Salles
252) John Woo
253) Roy Andersson
254) Rob Reiner
255) Robert Wise
256) Paul Verhoeven
257) Jafar Panahi
258) Aleksey Balabanov
259) Mel Brooks
260) Fatih Akin
261) Frank Darabont
262) Atom Egoyan
263) Nagisa Oshima
264) Chen Kaige
265) Greta Gerwig
266) James L Brooks
267) Monte Hellman
268) Philip Kaufman
269) Tengiz Abuladze
270) G Pontecorvo
271) Raul Ruiz
272) Robert Zemeckis
273) George A Romero
274) Barry Jenkins
275) Edgar Wright
276) Dario Argento
277) Catherine Breillat
278) Carlos Reygadas
279) Kathryn Bigelow
280) Andrea Arnold
281) Alice Rohrwacher
282) Nani Moretti
283) Kiyoshi Kurosawa
284) Michel Gondry
285) Francesco Rosi
286) Hong Sang Soo
287) Yinan Diao
288) Terence Davies
289) Mario Bava
290) Ken Russel
291) Jim Sheridan
292) Mel Gibson
293) Martin McDonagh
294) John Boorman
295) Arnaud Desplechin
296) Ron Howard
297) Bertrand Bonello
298) Alejandro Amenabar
299) Claude Berri
300) Derek Cianfrance
Blind spots: FW Murnau, Abel Gance, V Sjostrom, J von Sternberg, GW Pabst, DW Griffith, A Weerasethakul, T Angelopoulos, C Akerman, John Sayles, Pedro Costa, S Bondarchuk. Andrey Zvyagintsev, Bertrand Blier, Claude Sautet, E von Stroheim, B Fosse, Sion Sono, E Olmi, W Wellman, King Hu, A Sokurov, G Rocha, B Dearden,
@LeRoi – quite a list. I love seeing Fritz Lang in the top 10 and Jean-Pierre Melville in the top 20.
François Truffaut Antoinel Doinel Series was released in 4K recently. I just got them a few weeks ago, very excited to rewatch, I love the entire series
@JamesTrapp. Thanks. Yes, Lang and Melville are both right up there for me. Saw the Le deuxieme souffle this year for the first time and the atmosphere/environment he crafts is just so immersive with meticulous attention to detail. Coincidentally watched Heat again recently and the influence of Melville is very apparent. Enjoy rewatching the Antoine Doinel series – I’m a big fan as well. If you enjoy that, you may like Jean Eustache’s the Mother and the Whore with Jean-Pierre Leaud if you have not seen it yet (long but worth it).
@LeRoi – Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966) is his most overlooked film. So many of the best autueurs who focus on crime/gangster films owe a debt to Melville; John Woo, Michael Mann, Tarantino amongst others. Have you seen Bob le flambeur or english translation Bob the Gambler?
Le Roi
August 14, 2025 at 9:49 am
@JamesTrapp. Not yet, hoping it comes onto the Criterion Channel or Mubi soon. Have seen Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge, Le Doulos, Army of Shadows, Le Deuxieme Souffle and Le Silence de la Mer. Leon Morin, Priest is next on my watchlist. Which one is your favourite?
James Trapp
August 15, 2025 at 12:56 am
@LeRoi – I have Le Samourai and Army of the Shadows as his two best films and would say Le Samourai is my personal favorite
However, Bob the Gambler (1956) might be his most rewatchable, it has the same atmospheric elements as his other gangster/crime films although the tone is a bit lighter
@AP. Thanks for picking up the error. I would probably slot Sam Mendes around the 150 spot. On the plus side, it means there is an extra spot at 300, which I’ll give to one of Bob Rafelson, Norman Jewison, Georges Franju, Cristi Puiu or Ida Lupino for now.
Yes, I do rate Innaritu at a tier above Cuaron (perhaps also because I do no rate Gravity or Children of Men as high as some do). In a combined film ranking, I would probably rank their combined output as follows:
1) Amores Perros
2) Birdman
3) Roma
4) Y Tu Mama Tambien
5) 21 Grams
6) Babel
7) The Revenant
8) Children of Men
9) Biutiful
10) Gravity
11) Bardo
12) Great Expectations
13) Prizoner of Azkaban
@Drake- What’s your thoughts on 3 of your top 250 directors (Spike Jonze, Bennett Miller and Kenneth Lonergan) not directing anything for 12, 11, and 9 years and counting? Nothing in production either. They are all under 70 and their last films were Her, Foxcatcher and Manchester by the Sea respectively.
@Lionel- ahh- gestation periods really vary by director. Look at Todd Fields. Malick has 20 years in there at 1 point. I don’t know enough about their individual reasons. But certainly we’re all missing out
@Lionel – unvetted- but fifteen (15) I think. I’m not sure about the answer the the second question
1931- Little Caesar
1932- I Am A Fugitive from a Chain Gang
1932- Three on a Match
1933- Gold Diggers of 33′
1933- The World Changes
1937- They Won’t Forget
1940- Waterloo Bridge
1942- Random Harvest
1943- Madame Curie
1944- Thiry Seconds Over Tokeyo
1949- Little Women
1951- Quo Vadis
1955- Mister Roberts
1956- The Bad Seed
1959- The FBI Story
@Lionel – unvetted – but eleven (11) films I think :
1957- Eight Hours of Terror
1960- Take Aim at the Police Van
1961- The Man with a Shotgun
1963- Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!
1963- Youth of the Beast
1964- Gate of Flesh
1965- Story of a Prostittue
1966- Fighting Elegy
1966- Tokyo Drifter
1967- Branded to Kill
1991- Yumeji
@Drake-Is there a reason the Japanese Film Industry suddenly collapsed in the mid to late 1960’s? There is a lot of directors who were churning out a ton of films in consecutive years like Kurosawa, Kobayashi, Imamura, Suzuki etc. then they basically disappeared for large gaps. Could the change to color films played a part in this?
@Lionel- superb question – I really don’t know. I took courses in film school and have read a book or two on Ozu and Kurosawa but don’t know much specifically about the japanese industry
@Lionel – The rise in TV had a lot to do with it as people were not going to the Cinemas nearly as often. At the peak of their powers, the various studios were film making machines like Golden Age Hollywood or Hong Kong in the 1980s. I am far from an expert but I looked up this question myself back when I did my Seijun Suzuki Study. Ironically Seijun Suzuki was fired by Nikkatsu Studios after releasing Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill. Both of these films are abstract and without conventional plots. Now these are his two most revered films. And btw I would high recommend seeing as many Suzuki films as possible
Hi Drake, I’ve been working on my own director’s list for the past year, as well as a few others. Thought I might post them here in case you or anyone else was interested in checking them out.
@Drake-What are they? Have you seen other films from him apart from these? He made close to 30 films I believe and a lot of them are very unknown. I’m curious about his work after watching The Servant.
This is a wonderful list and I look forward to exploring the works of some of the directors I don’t on here. Not sure if this was asked in previous comment, but is Chantal Akerman left off the list? Maybe I missed her name, but I was a little surprised.
@Brian Murdock- thank you for visiting the site and the kind words about the list. The page here was published in 2020. I have been able to watch or rewatch several (six to be exact) Akerman films since 2020. Two appear on the updated top 1000 list in 2023 https://thecinemaarchives.com/2023/10/17/thebest1000filmsofalltime/
At a quick glance, it seems like Park Chan Wook will see the biggest improvement. He is languishing close to the bottom here at 220. I believe he now has 4 Masterpiece level films to his name. A Top 100 entry seems like a mere formality.
Now, there might be others that are not present in the 250 that will make their presence felt in the updated list. Cannot say anything about them.
As far as who is moving down, i think the new list won’t be kind to Cameron and Miyazaki.
@Drake – I like @Harry’s idea. A short list like that would also be very interesting and helpful, to say the least. Also, do you think Nolan could be a top 20 director by the end of his career?
@Drake – I’m sure your sick of being asked about the updated lists multiple times a week – but – have you considered making an isolated best directors list – just names and rankings? As users of the site we already have your thoughts on directors styles and their ranking of best films from the new top 1000 list. So I think a best directors lists with just the names and rankings would be cool as that’s what we are missing at the moment (it’s not like every film in the top 1000 has an attached page so I don’t think it needs to be a big project with 250-500 pages written up which is a lot of work).
As a daily browser of this site for years I was also excited when you say a director will shoot up the list after a recent study but we didn’t get to see that come to fruition. It would definitely be a nice update if you do have the time to commit
@Harry – that’s an interesting idea. I keep hoping the director’s update is going to happen soon- the time just hasn’t opened up to do it. If it turns out that I end up not doing it and sort of throw in the towel – I’ll share the updated list here. I pretty much have it.
@Drake – You could just share the list here now because I’m sure an actual update might take some time. Till then, a short list to go through like that might suffice I think
@Drake-If you have the updated directors’ list may I ask who are the biggest movers up this updated list and who fell down the most? Who are the new additions and removals?
I think Nolan and Inarritu will make a big jump and others like Sturges, Capra and Huston might fall off. Villeneuve will also jump considerably in the coming years.
@Lionel – If I end up not updating the site at all- I’ll share the full list here. If not, I’d rather not bury it in the comments section.
Lionel
October 30, 2024 at 12:35 pm
@Drake-That’s fine. But at a glance who do you think are the director/s that will make a big jump in the update and which director/s will make a big falldown?
@Drake – I’m sure you’re tied up with some other work at the moment but if you could just give an idea of when you would start work on this and how long you would take to complete it? Just an estimate, nothing more.
@Drake – I have been going through this list over the past 2 weeks and it is very impressive! I’m just wondering when will you update it because I see many directors going up and many going down?
@Alex Appreciate your comment and interest. Thank you for the kind words on the list. I would love to have the time to dedicate to the best directors update – but just have not had the time. There’s no ill health or medical issues thankfully or anything- I just have had other commitments keeping me from dedicating the time needed to post and update.
@Drake – Just watched Persona for the 4th time and I think I agree with the consensus that Andersson gives the slightly better performance than Ullman. Why do you think that Ullman is better?
@Drake – I think his best feature for me might be Gangs of Wasseypur from 2012. It’s his magnum opus gangster epic and I think right now it is #9 or 10 of 2012 on TSPDT and 2000 overall. It also won the Directors Fortnight prize at Cannes I believe. Scorcese himself loved the movie and called up Kashyap to talk about it. They’ve been friends ever since and follow each other on Instagram.
@Drake – I hope you do check out his features whenever you’re free or any other Indian movies out there that are great for that matter. The abundance of trashy Indian movies over the past 2 decades has overshadowed the films that are actually good and this is the reason why most international critics don’t check out most Indian movies these days. I did a study last year of many classics of Indian cinema and found a great deal of them to be surprisingly great. It’s just that you have to research a bit more and find the good films yourself.
Others are fixed. But the Derek Cianfrance page is still not working.
@Drake- These pages are not working.
* David Lynch
* F.W. Murnau
* Mikhail Kalatozov
* Agnes Varda
* Jacques Demy
* Sidney Lumet
* Sofia Coppola
* The Dardenne Brothers
* Richard Linklater
* Steven Soderbergh
* Milos Forman
* Sam Mendes
* Abbas Kiarostami
* Tod Browning
* George Miller
* Anthony Mann
* Pawel Pawlikowski
* Denis Villeneuve
* Derek Cianfrance
@Malith- thank you for your help
Drake, love the site. How much did Sam Raimi miss the list by, and are you planning on coming back to do new reviews / rankings?
Im sure i am ignorant on this but why is Malick so high? It seems he has done a number of strong films but not more than a couple great ones. While Lumick for me has for me directed a few masterpieces. I guess that’s a matter of subjectivity or perspective but what are you going on?
@Steve – His work is visually stunning. Check out these screen shots from the link below. These are from Days of Heaven (1978) which I think is his best with The Tree of Life (2011) not far behind. You can check out great individual frames for his other films and many great artists on Film Grab
https://film-grab.com/2010/07/21/days-of-heaven/
@Steve — I actually think Malick’s position on this list underrates him (not massively, but by a few spaces). I think Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World, and the Tree of Life are all inarguable masterpieces. (Personally, I would count all of those among the 100 best films of all time; Drake has rated two of them that highly on his best-1000 list.) Days of Heaven is on a very short list of films regarded as “the most beautiful ever made” (Barry Lyndon probably edges it out, but I’m not sure what else would). Both Badlands and A Hidden Life are at least borderline-great. I also happen to think very highly of Knight of Cups (though I acknowledge that opinion is much more controversial).
Aside from the case that can be made by rating his films individually, Malick is also an artistic visionary, which comes through clearly in his body of work taken as a whole. His later style (especially when it comes to editing) is one of the very few instances I’ve seen in my lifetime that I would regard as genuine and substantial innovation to the cinematic form itself. For what it’s worth, I think the mature cinematographic style of Emmanuel Lubezki, evident in his work for Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant), was also clearly forged in collaboration with Malick.
@Steve – The rankings on this site greatly value quality over quantity, something I certainly would second. There is know magical formula of course; but a director who only directed say 3 films but all 3 are masterpieces, would undoubtably be viewed by this site (and myself) as superior to a dircted who made say 15 films, which are all solid, but with nothing even approaching a masterpiece
Updated my own personal list of best directors (work-in progress)
:
1) Martin Scorsese
2) Francois Truffaut
3) Akira Kurosawa
4) Robert Bresson
5) Stanley Kubrick
6) Francis Ford Coppola
7) Ingmar Bergman
8) Fritz Lang
9) Alfred Hitchcock
10) Yasujiro Ozu
11) Jean Renoir
12) David Lean
13) Billy Wilder
14) John Ford
15) Roberto Rossellini
16) Krysztof Kieslowski
17) Andrei Tarkovsky
18) Eric Rohmer
19) Jean-Pierre Melville
20) Federico Fellini
21) Carl Theodor Dreyer
22) Orson Welles
23) Michael Haneke
24) Roman Polanski
25) Woody Allen
26) Paul Thomas Anderson
27) Pedro Almodovar
28) Charlie Chaplin
29) Wong-Kar Wai
30) Jean-Luc Godard
31) Luis Bunuel
32) Robert Altman
33) Michelangelo Antonioni
34) Park-Chan Wook
35) The Coen Brothers
36) Max Ophuls
37) Quentin Tarantino
38) David Lynch
39) Marcel Carné
40) Howard Hawks
41) Frank Capra
42) Nicholas Ray
43) Luchino Visconti
44) Kenji Mizoguchi
45) Edward Yang
46) David Cronenberg
47) Louis Malle
48) Elia Kazan
49) Otto Preminger
50) Sidney Lumet
51) Vittoria de Sica
52) Terence Mallick
53) Buster Keaton
54) Sergio Leone
55) William Wyler
56) John Huston
57) Hal Ashby
58) Brian de Palma
59) Michael Powell
60) Maurice Pialat
61) Sam Peckinpah
62) Preston Sturges
63) Ernst Lubitsch
64) Masaki Kobayashi
65) Bernardo Bertolucci
66) Wim Wenders
67) Abbas Kiarostami
68) Jim Jarmusch
69) George Cukor
70) Wes Anderson
71) Mike Leigh
72) Agnes Varda
73) Jacques Demy
74) Zhang Yimou
75) Hayao Miyazaki
76) Mikio Naruse
77) The Dardenne Brothers
78) Oliver Stone
79) Steven Spielberg
80) Michael Mann
81) Shohei Imamura
82) David Fincher
83) Alejandro G Inarritu
84) Spike Lee
85) Sergei Eisenstein
86) Milos Forman
87) Jacques Tati
88) Michael Curtiz
89) Henri Georges Clouzot
90) Rainer Werner Fassbinder
91) Ang Lee
92) Alexander Payne
93) Douglas Sirk
94) Raoul Walsh
95) Werner Herzog
96) Satyajit Ray
97) Jean Eustache
98) Alain Resnais
99) John Cassavettes
100) Hirazo Kore-eda
101) Claude Chabrol
102) Clint Eastwood
103) Hsiao-Hsien Hou
104) Pier Paolo Pasolini
105) Bong Joon Ho
106) Alan Pakula
107) Lars von Trier
108) Mike Nichols
109) Emir Kusturica
110) Claire Denis
111) Jacques Rivette
112) Nuri Bilge Ceylan
113) Lee Chang-dong
114) Bela Tarr
115) Joseph L Mankiewicz
116) Victor Erice
117) Mikhail Kalatazov
118) Carol Reed
119) Michael Cimino
120) Denis Villeneuve
121) Christopher Nolan
122) Jacques Becker
123) Samuel Fuller
124) Leo McCarey
125) Peter Weir
126) Christian Mungiu
127) Ridley Scott
128) Aki Kaurismaki
129) Thomas Vinterberg
130) Asgar Farhadi
131) Jane Campion
132) Peter Bogdanovich
133) Jonathan Demme
134) Peter Jackson
135) Richard Linklater
136) Tim Burton
137) John Schlesinger
138) Darren Aronofsky
139) Sam Mendes
140) Vincente Minelli
141) Anthony Mann
142) Julien Duvivier
143) Pablo Larrain
144) Arthur Penn
145) Jules Dassin
146) Fred Zinneman
147) Ettore Scola
148) Ryusuke Hamaguchi
149) Noah Baumbach
150) Warren Beatty
151) Bertrand Tavernier
152) Nicholas Roeg
153) Yorgas Lanthimos
154) Sofia Coppola
155) William Friedkin
156) Spike Jonze
157) Celine Sciamma
158) Alan Clarke
159) John Sturges
160) Paul Schrader
161) Kelly Reichardt
162) Terry Gilliam
163) Joachim Trier
164) George Stevens
165) Jacques Audiard
166) Nicholas Winding Refn
167) Carlos Saura
168) Jean Vigo
169) George Lucas
170) Joseph Losey
171) Gus van Sant
172) Jacques Tourneur
173) Alfonso Cuaron
174) Guillermo del Toro
175) Jia Zhangke
176) Kenneth Lonergan
177) Oliver Assayas
178) Jean Gremillon
179) Tsai Ming-liang
180) Jean Cocteau
181) Rene Clair
182) Lina Wertmuller
183) Sam Mendes
184) Lynne Ramsay
185) James Gray
186) Todd Haynes
187) John Carpenter
188) Takeshi Kitano
189) Jean Pierre Jeunet
190) David O Russell
191) Alan Parker
192) Paolo Sorrentino
193) Lawrence Kasdan
194) Steven Soderbergh
195) Anthony Minghella
196) Marco Ferreri
197) John Hughes
198) Stephen Frears
199) Stanley Donen
200) Jeff Nichols
201) John Frankenheimer
202) Bruno Dumont
203) Christian Petzold
204) Ken Loach
205) Sydney Pollack
206) James Cameron
207) Pawel Pawlikowski
208) Gaspar Noe
209) Andrzej Wajda
210) Shane Meadows
211) Mia Hansen-Love
212) Jonathan Glazer
213) Cameron Crowe
214) Lucrecia Martel
215) Rene Clement
216) Alexander Mackendrick
217) Mario Monicelli
218) Dino Risi
219) Ruben Ostland
220) Costas Gavras
221) Larisa Shepitko
222) Michael Winterbottom
223) Francois Ozon
224) George Miller
225) Steve McQueen
226) Leos Carax
227) Elem Klimov
228) Masahiro Shinoda
229) Victor Fleming
230) Robert Aldrich
231) Peter Greenaway
232) James Whale
233) George Roy Hill
234) Stanley Kramer
235) Luis Garcia Berlanga
236) Blake Edwards
237) Curtis Hanson
238) Damian Chazelle
239) Jerry Schatzberg
240) Barry Levinson
241) Frank Borzage
242) Baz Lurhmann
243) Sean Penn
244) Abel Ferrara
245) Ronald Neame
246) Seijun Suzuki
247) John Boorman
248) Danny Boyle
249) Neil Jordan
250) Fernando Mereilles
251) Walter Salles
252) John Woo
253) Roy Andersson
254) Rob Reiner
255) Robert Wise
256) Paul Verhoeven
257) Jafar Panahi
258) Aleksey Balabanov
259) Mel Brooks
260) Fatih Akin
261) Frank Darabont
262) Atom Egoyan
263) Nagisa Oshima
264) Chen Kaige
265) Greta Gerwig
266) James L Brooks
267) Monte Hellman
268) Philip Kaufman
269) Tengiz Abuladze
270) G Pontecorvo
271) Raul Ruiz
272) Robert Zemeckis
273) George A Romero
274) Barry Jenkins
275) Edgar Wright
276) Dario Argento
277) Catherine Breillat
278) Carlos Reygadas
279) Kathryn Bigelow
280) Andrea Arnold
281) Alice Rohrwacher
282) Nani Moretti
283) Kiyoshi Kurosawa
284) Michel Gondry
285) Francesco Rosi
286) Hong Sang Soo
287) Yinan Diao
288) Terence Davies
289) Mario Bava
290) Ken Russel
291) Jim Sheridan
292) Mel Gibson
293) Martin McDonagh
294) John Boorman
295) Arnaud Desplechin
296) Ron Howard
297) Bertrand Bonello
298) Alejandro Amenabar
299) Claude Berri
300) Derek Cianfrance
Blind spots: FW Murnau, Abel Gance, V Sjostrom, J von Sternberg, GW Pabst, DW Griffith, A Weerasethakul, T Angelopoulos, C Akerman, John Sayles, Pedro Costa, S Bondarchuk. Andrey Zvyagintsev, Bertrand Blier, Claude Sautet, E von Stroheim, B Fosse, Sion Sono, E Olmi, W Wellman, King Hu, A Sokurov, G Rocha, B Dearden,
@LeRoi – quite a list. I love seeing Fritz Lang in the top 10 and Jean-Pierre Melville in the top 20.
François Truffaut Antoinel Doinel Series was released in 4K recently. I just got them a few weeks ago, very excited to rewatch, I love the entire series
@JamesTrapp. Thanks. Yes, Lang and Melville are both right up there for me. Saw the Le deuxieme souffle this year for the first time and the atmosphere/environment he crafts is just so immersive with meticulous attention to detail. Coincidentally watched Heat again recently and the influence of Melville is very apparent. Enjoy rewatching the Antoine Doinel series – I’m a big fan as well. If you enjoy that, you may like Jean Eustache’s the Mother and the Whore with Jean-Pierre Leaud if you have not seen it yet (long but worth it).
@LeRoi – Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966) is his most overlooked film. So many of the best autueurs who focus on crime/gangster films owe a debt to Melville; John Woo, Michael Mann, Tarantino amongst others. Have you seen Bob le flambeur or english translation Bob the Gambler?
@JamesTrapp. Not yet, hoping it comes onto the Criterion Channel or Mubi soon. Have seen Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge, Le Doulos, Army of Shadows, Le Deuxieme Souffle and Le Silence de la Mer. Leon Morin, Priest is next on my watchlist. Which one is your favourite?
@LeRoi – I have Le Samourai and Army of the Shadows as his two best films and would say Le Samourai is my personal favorite
However, Bob the Gambler (1956) might be his most rewatchable, it has the same atmospheric elements as his other gangster/crime films although the tone is a bit lighter
@LeRoi: Sam Mendes is included twice.139 and 183.
Curious about the difference between Innaritu and Cuaron. 100 spots between them?
@AP. Thanks for picking up the error. I would probably slot Sam Mendes around the 150 spot. On the plus side, it means there is an extra spot at 300, which I’ll give to one of Bob Rafelson, Norman Jewison, Georges Franju, Cristi Puiu or Ida Lupino for now.
Yes, I do rate Innaritu at a tier above Cuaron (perhaps also because I do no rate Gravity or Children of Men as high as some do). In a combined film ranking, I would probably rank their combined output as follows:
1) Amores Perros
2) Birdman
3) Roma
4) Y Tu Mama Tambien
5) 21 Grams
6) Babel
7) The Revenant
8) Children of Men
9) Biutiful
10) Gravity
11) Bardo
12) Great Expectations
13) Prizoner of Azkaban
@LeRoi: Thanks for the detailed reply. Great work.
@Drake- What’s your thoughts on 3 of your top 250 directors (Spike Jonze, Bennett Miller and Kenneth Lonergan) not directing anything for 12, 11, and 9 years and counting? Nothing in production either. They are all under 70 and their last films were Her, Foxcatcher and Manchester by the Sea respectively.
@Lionel- ahh- gestation periods really vary by director. Look at Todd Fields. Malick has 20 years in there at 1 point. I don’t know enough about their individual reasons. But certainly we’re all missing out
@Drake-What are the archivable films do you have for Mervyn LeRoy? Isn’t he the director with the most archivable films not included in this top 250?
@Lionel – unvetted- but fifteen (15) I think. I’m not sure about the answer the the second question
1931- Little Caesar
1932- I Am A Fugitive from a Chain Gang
1932- Three on a Match
1933- Gold Diggers of 33′
1933- The World Changes
1937- They Won’t Forget
1940- Waterloo Bridge
1942- Random Harvest
1943- Madame Curie
1944- Thiry Seconds Over Tokeyo
1949- Little Women
1951- Quo Vadis
1955- Mister Roberts
1956- The Bad Seed
1959- The FBI Story
@Drake-Have you seen Johnny Eager (1941) with Robert Taylor?
@Lionel- I don’t believe so
Are there any Seijun Suzuki films in the archives?
@Lionel – unvetted – but eleven (11) films I think :
1957- Eight Hours of Terror
1960- Take Aim at the Police Van
1961- The Man with a Shotgun
1963- Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!
1963- Youth of the Beast
1964- Gate of Flesh
1965- Story of a Prostittue
1966- Fighting Elegy
1966- Tokyo Drifter
1967- Branded to Kill
1991- Yumeji
@Drake-Is there a reason the Japanese Film Industry suddenly collapsed in the mid to late 1960’s? There is a lot of directors who were churning out a ton of films in consecutive years like Kurosawa, Kobayashi, Imamura, Suzuki etc. then they basically disappeared for large gaps. Could the change to color films played a part in this?
@Lionel- superb question – I really don’t know. I took courses in film school and have read a book or two on Ozu and Kurosawa but don’t know much specifically about the japanese industry
@Lionel – The rise in TV had a lot to do with it as people were not going to the Cinemas nearly as often. At the peak of their powers, the various studios were film making machines like Golden Age Hollywood or Hong Kong in the 1980s. I am far from an expert but I looked up this question myself back when I did my Seijun Suzuki Study. Ironically Seijun Suzuki was fired by Nikkatsu Studios after releasing Tokyo Drifter and Branded to Kill. Both of these films are abstract and without conventional plots. Now these are his two most revered films. And btw I would high recommend seeing as many Suzuki films as possible
Hi Drake, I’ve been working on my own director’s list for the past year, as well as a few others. Thought I might post them here in case you or anyone else was interested in checking them out.
Best Directors: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/03/30/the-50-best-directors-of-all-time/
Best Male Actors: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/01/08/the-50-best-male-actors-of-all-time/
Best Male Performances: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/01/02/top-100-male-performances-of-all-time/
Best Female Actors: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/01/14/the-100-best-female-performances-of-all-time/
Best Female Performances: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/01/20/the-50-best-female-actors-of-all-time/
Best Screenwriters: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/02/01/the-50-best-screenwriters-of-all-time/
Best Screenplays: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/01/26/the-100-best-screenplays-of-all-time/
Best Film Editors: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/02/13/the-50-best-film-editors-of-all-time/
Best Film Editing: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/02/07/the-100-best-edited-films-of-all-time/
Best Cinematographers: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/02/25/the-50-best-cinematographers-of-all-time/
Best Cinematography: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/02/19/the-100-best-shot-films-of-all-time/
Best Film Composers: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/03/15/the-50-best-film-composers-of-all-time/
Best Film Scores: https://scenebygreen.com/2025/03/09/the-100-best-film-scores-of-all-time/
@Drake – How many Pablo Larrain films in the archives and would he make this list now after Maria ?
@Parmeet- 5 films in the archives now- and yes would be the answer on making the list now after the female biopic trilogy
@Drake-What is the grade for Maria? How does it compare to Spencer and Jackie?
@Anderson- Still processing a little. How about you?
@Drake-I didn’t see Maria yet.
he may not be the best, but Steven S Spielberg is not 28.
@Drake-No Joseph Losey? How many of his films do you have in the archives? He was a very prolific director.
@Anderson- Nine (9) Losey films in the archives I believe.
@Drake-What are they? Have you seen other films from him apart from these? He made close to 30 films I believe and a lot of them are very unknown. I’m curious about his work after watching The Servant.
This is a wonderful list and I look forward to exploring the works of some of the directors I don’t on here. Not sure if this was asked in previous comment, but is Chantal Akerman left off the list? Maybe I missed her name, but I was a little surprised.
@Brian Murdock- thank you for visiting the site and the kind words about the list. The page here was published in 2020. I have been able to watch or rewatch several (six to be exact) Akerman films since 2020. Two appear on the updated top 1000 list in 2023 https://thecinemaarchives.com/2023/10/17/thebest1000filmsofalltime/
No Roger Corman?
@Anderson- No Corman on the list – The Masque of the Red Death is special though and six (6) total films in the archives I think
@Drake – Shouldn’t Kurosawa be in top 3 or 5, seeing as you have 4 of his films in the top 100?
@Drake-Btw, what are the Director Studies you have done in the past year or so?
@Lionel – quite a few- M. Night Shyamalan is recent, Sirk and De Sica come to mind.
@Drake-Did you add any Shyamalan film other than Signs, Sixth Sense and Split into the archives?
At a quick glance, it seems like Park Chan Wook will see the biggest improvement. He is languishing close to the bottom here at 220. I believe he now has 4 Masterpiece level films to his name. A Top 100 entry seems like a mere formality.
Now, there might be others that are not present in the 250 that will make their presence felt in the updated list. Cannot say anything about them.
As far as who is moving down, i think the new list won’t be kind to Cameron and Miyazaki.
@Drake – Shouldn’t Guru Dutt be on this list?
@Alex- good catch, my Guru Dutt study was not until after this page was published here in 2020
@Drake – I like @Harry’s idea. A short list like that would also be very interesting and helpful, to say the least. Also, do you think Nolan could be a top 20 director by the end of his career?
@Alex- top 20 is tough- but another Dunkirk/Oppenheimer or two would make things interesting
@Drake – I’m sure your sick of being asked about the updated lists multiple times a week – but – have you considered making an isolated best directors list – just names and rankings? As users of the site we already have your thoughts on directors styles and their ranking of best films from the new top 1000 list. So I think a best directors lists with just the names and rankings would be cool as that’s what we are missing at the moment (it’s not like every film in the top 1000 has an attached page so I don’t think it needs to be a big project with 250-500 pages written up which is a lot of work).
As a daily browser of this site for years I was also excited when you say a director will shoot up the list after a recent study but we didn’t get to see that come to fruition. It would definitely be a nice update if you do have the time to commit
@Harry – that’s an interesting idea. I keep hoping the director’s update is going to happen soon- the time just hasn’t opened up to do it. If it turns out that I end up not doing it and sort of throw in the towel – I’ll share the updated list here. I pretty much have it.
@Drake – You could just share the list here now because I’m sure an actual update might take some time. Till then, a short list to go through like that might suffice I think
@Drake-If you have the updated directors’ list may I ask who are the biggest movers up this updated list and who fell down the most? Who are the new additions and removals?
I think Nolan and Inarritu will make a big jump and others like Sturges, Capra and Huston might fall off. Villeneuve will also jump considerably in the coming years.
@Lionel – If I end up not updating the site at all- I’ll share the full list here. If not, I’d rather not bury it in the comments section.
@Drake-That’s fine. But at a glance who do you think are the director/s that will make a big jump in the update and which director/s will make a big falldown?
@Drake – I’m sure you’re tied up with some other work at the moment but if you could just give an idea of when you would start work on this and how long you would take to complete it? Just an estimate, nothing more.
@Alex- I really don’t have an idea right now- sorry. Currently, I’m just maintaining my normal viewing pace.
@Drake – I have been going through this list over the past 2 weeks and it is very impressive! I’m just wondering when will you update it because I see many directors going up and many going down?
@Alex Appreciate your comment and interest. Thank you for the kind words on the list. I would love to have the time to dedicate to the best directors update – but just have not had the time. There’s no ill health or medical issues thankfully or anything- I just have had other commitments keeping me from dedicating the time needed to post and update.
@Drake – Just watched Persona for the 4th time and I think I agree with the consensus that Andersson gives the slightly better performance than Ullman. Why do you think that Ullman is better?
@Alex- I don’t think there’s necessarily a wrong answer here- Ullmann is just able to give just slightly more subtext to her role- even when silent
@Drake – I think his best feature for me might be Gangs of Wasseypur from 2012. It’s his magnum opus gangster epic and I think right now it is #9 or 10 of 2012 on TSPDT and 2000 overall. It also won the Directors Fortnight prize at Cannes I believe. Scorcese himself loved the movie and called up Kashyap to talk about it. They’ve been friends ever since and follow each other on Instagram.
@Alex- Thanks for sharing- I see its on MUBI and added it to my favorites. Looks like a long one.
@Drake – I hope you do check out his features whenever you’re free or any other Indian movies out there that are great for that matter. The abundance of trashy Indian movies over the past 2 decades has overshadowed the films that are actually good and this is the reason why most international critics don’t check out most Indian movies these days. I did a study last year of many classics of Indian cinema and found a great deal of them to be surprisingly great. It’s just that you have to research a bit more and find the good films yourself.
@Alex- do you have one specifically from Kashyap I can look out for?