Cocteau. Cocteau may be the most inventive mind in an arftorm filled with geniuses-- some of the 20th and 21st century’s greatest artists. His case is those top two films—both on the top 100 of their respective decade—and his influence. In many ways he’s the godfather of fantasy. The case against Cocteau is the lack of body of work here- Cocteau wasn’t just a filmmaker- he was a poet and the depth here in the filmography is telling (3 total archiveable films). Best film: Beauty and the Beast. I wouldn’t have a big problem if someone wanted to argue

DeMille. Griffith and von Stroheim made better, early, epics but DeMille is no hack—he put together a strong collective body of work through these eight films (and I’m sure I’m missing a few that belong in the archives that I just haven’t caught yet). The case for DeMille here is the three films that land in the top 100 of their respective decade (basically as many as anyone left to add to this list) and the remarkable consistency between the films. It doesn’t matter the decade, whether it was in color, black and white or silent—such uniformity. That’s very

Loach.  With multiple decades of documentary and television work (neither of which I really study) it’s a testament to Loach’s impact (especially with Kes) that he’s this high on the list. Loach’s case is Kes and his Loach’s devotion to sociopolitical realism. The case against him is that it is a pretty steep dive off in quality after Kes and he actually only has one film in the top 100 of its respective decade Best film: Kes is the one film Loach has made that would rank among the best (maybe even the single greatest) work of the Dardenne

Schlesinger. Don’t let the one film in the top 100 of its decade fool you below- Schlesinger’s top 5 films (up to Day of the Locust all have high artistic value). Still, Schlesinger falls much further down the list without Midnight Cowboy—a top 200 all-time film and masterpiece. Schlesinger could produce some striking imagery but he is first and foremost an editor—I’ll get into more detail below. an inspired shot from Schlesinger's Darling Best film: Midnight Cowboy is many things—a great narrative with top-notch acting from Hoffman and Voight. It is also a true triumph of editing in cinema.

Joe Wright. Wright burst onto the scene in 2005 with sweeping camera movements in Pride in Prejudice. What a surprise-  who wanted another Pride and Prejudice adaptation starring Keira Knightley at the time?  At age 33 it is one of the better debut films of the 21st century. Two years later with his sophomore effort (another big-time literary adaptation)— Wright gave us the stylistically muscular, highly ambitious, Atonement. I’d argue that only Steve McQueen and Ari Aster have had potentially better 1-2 punch to start their career since we turned the page on the century in 1999. Wright’s work

Wise. Robert Wise’s case looks like this: he has 14 archiveable films (wow), he’s an absolute master of genre, and has West Side Story which is one of the best 300 movies ever made. The cast against him would be the high volume of just normal “recommend” films (10 of those). symmetry, silhouette work and framing done to perfection in The Sound of Music Best film: West Side Story. I sort of understand the eye-rolling when someone brings up The Sound of Music—but West Side Story is just flat-out beautiful to look at. Wise boldly infuses color, framing and

Dassin. So I haven’t seen 1949’s Thieves’ Highway from Dassin yet— it has been on my list for awhile. Dassin is known for his superb three early noirs, being blacklisted in Hollywood, and for making Rififi abroad in 1955. For the purposes of this list there are fewer and fewer auteurs that had two films that landed in the top 100 of their respective decade (Rififi, Brute Force) and had some visual consistency in their work like Dassin did. His weakness would be the complete lack of top 500 films of all-time. Best film: Brute Force. One of the

Campion. Jane Campion doesn’t make uninteresting films. The New Zealand auteur has made a total of seven films as of 2020 and five have landed solidly in the archives. The Piano is the main reason she lands in the top 150 here but it isn’t a one-off feat--- her other four films here in the archives compliment it quite well. Best film: The Piano The high-water mark from auteur Jane Campion (her third film- Sweetie and Angel At My Table) thus far—an almost bafflingly original love story shot with stark beauty off the coast in New Zealand.The most striking shots in the

Rohmer. Rohmer is a significant figure in the French New Wave, Rohmer really picked up when frankly the best of Godard had come and gone in 1967. Rohmer’s camera style is straightforward, but the placement of objects in the frame and entire mise-en-scene is essential to him. He made the Moral Tales series in the 1960’s and 1970’s and the Comedies and Proverbs series in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Rohmer may not be a  world-builder like Lynch, Leone or Wes Anderson—but you know a Rohmer film when you see it with the smart dialogue (often involving love and men

George Miller. I view Miller completely different now since Fury Road and I am racking my brain for another example of an auteur with a career peak this late (70 at the time of his best film). There are auteurs who bloom early and fizzle out early (Godard, Bertolucci), those that die early (Murnau, Fassbinder and too many others to count), those that take forever between movies (Malick’s 20 year gap, Kubrick, Tati, late Cameron), and lastly those that take a long time to get started but once they do, they take off (Haneke, Hogg, Dardenne, Altman (sort of

Mankiewicz.  Mankiewicz was no visual master but he has four films that land in the top 100 of their respective decade and there’s a consistency in the writing and structure of his films that cannot be denied. The deep filmography (15 archiveable films) certainly helps and although it has been fading on me for years—All About Eve is still a film that I respect and lands in my top 500 of all-time. Mankiewicz won back to back screenwriter and director Academy Awards in 1949 and 1950 (A Letter To Three Wives, All About Eve) and was a major force

Ramsay.  Ramsay works so infrequently but she’s four for four here with films that landed in the top 100 of their respective decade. That’s extremely rare. She’s made four films in 20+ years (releasing in 1999, 2002, 2011, 2017). If you were to watch all four (including her most recent- the brilliant You Were Never Really Here) in a row, and then take about a week to just let them sink in, you’d be hard pressed to find more than a handful of directors you’d take over her on the planet since her debut in 1999. They’re uncompromisingly similar and