Kurosawa. Kurosawa has two films that many cinephiles triumph as the best, or one of the 5 or so best, of all-time. He has a consistent narrative worldview, is a dynamic editor- specifically in action sequences, and boasts a filmography of great depth. From Scorsese: "The term 'giant' is used too often to describe artists. But in the case of Akira Kurosawa, we have one of the rare instances where the term fits." a brilliant display of depth of field in Rashomon Best film:  Seven Samurai. This is actually fairly close with Rashomon. They are both magnificent films- one

Antonioni. Antonioni has three films in the top 100, five films essentially in the top 250 (#253 with Blow Up).  His films demonstrate a rigid formal structure (both within each film and as a collective oeuvre) and jaw-dropping photographic beauty.  During this streak from 1960-1966--- L’Avventura to Blow-Up, he made five 5 in 7 years that are either masterpieces or right on the fringe. It’s there with Fellini, Godard, and Truffaut during that stretch and out of those 4 auteurs (2 Italian, 2 French) it’s Antonioni who has the best film outside of the very late 1950s and 1960s (The Passenger in 1975).

Ford. Ford’s case is both the depth of the filmography (his 29 archiveable films trail only Hitchcock and Woody Allen) and The Searchers- the best film of all-time.  14 of those films end up in their respective decades top 100 and that’s second to only Hitchcock. For all practical purposes Ford invented both the western genre (made roughly 4 of the best 8 of all-time) and John Wayne (14 films together). His work is remarkably consistent, there are multiple masterpieces (across four decades). There are even those who ride for How Green Was My Valley over Kane and as

Welles. He’s undoubtedly a better director than the resulting filmography if that makes sense. TSPDT has him 2nd (behind Hitchcock) on the all-time director list based on a composite list. I have good reasons for Welles to be behind my previous 8 mentions here and I’ll try to explain. I get why people want to pick Welles. The first reason is that many consider Citizen Kane the very best film of all-time and therefore Welles is their greatest film artist. I don’t and I don’t– not that complicated. I had Kane 5th on my top 500 list. Welles, also, was clearly a

Tarkovsky. The soviet’s answer to Kubrick until he defected in 1979 amid controversy surrounding The First Day (an unmade movie with allegories critical of the USSR (apparently more overt than the others throughout his career)). Tarkovsky joins (and perhaps leads) the list of great auteurs to die way too young (54)—maybe from radiation exposure while shooting Stalker. Tarkvosky completed 7 feature fiction films.  He went MS, MP, MS, MS, MP, MP, MS so I’m sorry Kubrick, Malick or PT Anderson he has the best per-film average. 3 of those 7 are many intelligent people’s choice for the best film of all

Francis Ford Coppola. I have to go full-name here with the rise of Sofia in the last twenty years. There are only a total of 10 archiveable films for Coppola (which is low for this ranking) and 3 are simple “recommends” (not top 10 of the year worthy).  So, the case for Coppola isn’t his depth- the case for Coppola is his masterpieces, in particular, having freaking The Godfather Part II (my #24 of all-time) as his 3rd best film. Coppola owns the 70’s—the most artistically fertile decade for American films (the 60’s being that for foreign films). He

Scorsese. He’s the highest rated living (and active) director on the list! In some ways Scorsese is the easiest to discuss (I’ve seen each of his fiction films twice (aside from Silence) and I’ve written about him and discussed him so often. On the other hand, in some ways, he’s one of the toughest because he is still working and therefore hasn’t been a lot of time to reflect. He’s made 24 feature fiction films by my count and the last 22 have been archievable- prolific and consistent. Remarkable.  Scorsese’s case is really two fold—1. Those trio of films at

Fellini. Perhaps only Coppola has a 1-2 that can match 8 ½ and La Dolce Vita which come out as #2 and #3 film of the 1960’s behind 2001. The 1960’s is the strongest decade and this means that Fellini’s second best film, is superior to anything by Kurosawa, Truffaut, Godard, Renoir, Bergman and many other great auteurs- that’s his case. Fellini’s roots are in neo-realism (co-writing Rossellini’s Rome, Open City and Paisan– two staples of early Italian neo-realism) and though I Vitelloni (Fellini’s breakout Mean Streets film – or vice versa) is based on some real-life experiences (and

Ozu. When I did this ranking five years ago I had Ozu ranked as the 55th best director of all-time but acknowledged the lack of study and discrepancy with the critics’ rankings. Well, in 2018 I watched 30 Ozu films and yeah--- I was just flat wrong. Ozu’s case for the best director of all-time is as strong as anyone He may be the single greatest auteur working with film mise-en-scene—a pretty important virtue to say the least. He’s amongst the five greatest editors (Eisenstein may be the only the only auteur more aligned with the aesthetic). He has

Bergman. Bergman’s case is incredibly strong. I have him graded out with 6 masterpieces (in 4 separate decades) which is tied for the most of any director all-time, has north of 20 archiveable films and had a clearly, unique auteur voice (if you’re easily parodied like Bergman -think Wes Anderson SNL skit- or in this case Woody Allen doing his Bergman impression in many films) it’s a sign you have your own cinematic universe and style. He’s both an amazing visual director (The Silence is a superb film with very little dialogue, Cries and Whispers is breathtaking with its

Kubrick. Kubrick is a behemoth. By every metric it is Hitchcock and Kubrick as #1 and #2. Kubrick has the most top 100 all-time film (5) which I think is as good as any metric to use. If you’re talking volume—he’s behind Hitchcock and maybe Ford or Bergman but on a per film basis, and as a stylist, there’s no one superior to Kubrick. The only non-masterpiece he made from 1964 to 1999 was Full Metal Jacket and even that ended up as my #1 film of 1987 (an admittedly weak year at the top). If boiled down I

Hitchcock. He has a top 10 film, 10 films in the top 500 (the most) of all-time. Hitchcock is as good a candidate as any for the greatest artist of the 20th century (given cinema was one of the dominant art forms). I admire his craft as a technician, his filmography is second to none, and there is a consistency to his work that any non-auteur theory subscriber would have a hard time answering for. He’s clearly the artist.  His archiveable career spanned over 45 years but the run he went on from 1958-1960 won’t be topped. He went