20 Best Directors Working Today.
by Ali_Mandi | created - 24 Sep 2010 | updated - 10 Jan 2012 | PublicThe list is based on their recent work, last decade mostly, but the entire body of work and the continuing quality and artistry of film-making delivered is also considered.
1. Martin Scorsese
Producer | Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Charles Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942 in Queens, New York City, to Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa) and Charles Scorsese, who both worked in Manhattan's garment district, and whose families both came from Palermo, Sicily. He was raised in the neighborhood of Little Italy, which later ...
A maestro in a league of his own, as great as the other directors on the list might be.
Best Recent Films: The Departed, Shutter Island, Hugo.
Best Film: GoodFellas.
Next Film: Silence.
2. Christopher Nolan
Writer | Tenet
Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear, storytelling, acclaimed Academy Award winner writer/director/producer Sir Christopher Nolan CBE was born in London, England. Over the course of more than 25 years of filmmaking, Nolan has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the ...
- Best Recent Films: Inception, the Dark Knight, Memento. Best Film: Inception, Memento. Next Film: The Dark Knight Rises.
3. Quentin Tarantino
Writer | Reservoir Dogs
Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.
In January of...
- Best Recent Films: Inglourious Basterds, Kill Bill vol. 1 & 2. Best Film: Pulp Fiction. Next Film: Django Unchained.
4. Clint Eastwood
Actor | Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in ...
- Best Recent Films: Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River. Best Film: Unforgiven. Next Film: TBA.
5. David Fincher
Director | Se7en
David Fincher was born in 1962 in Denver, Colorado, and was raised in Marin County, California. When he was 18 years old he went to work for John Korty at Korty Films in Mill Valley. He subsequently worked at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) from 1981-1983. Fincher left ILM to direct TV commercials...
- Best Recent Films: Benjamin Button, Zodiac, the Social Network. Best Film: Fight Club. Next Film: TBA.
6. Joel Coen
Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Joel Daniel Coen is an American filmmaker who regularly collaborates with his younger brother Ethan. They made Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail Caesar and other projects. Joel ...
The Coen Brothers, Ethan and Joel Coen.
Best Recent Films: No Country for Old Men, True Grit.
Best Film: No Country for Old Men.
Next Film: Inside Llewyn Davis.
7. Béla Tarr
Producer | Werckmeister harmóniák
Béla Tarr was born on July 21, 1955 in Pécs, Hungary. He is a producer and director, known for Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), The Turin Horse (2011) and Satantango (1994). He is married to Ágnes Hranitzky.
- Best Recent Films: The Man from London, Werckmeister Harmonies. Best Film: Satantango. Next Film: The Turin Horse.
8. David Lynch
Writer | Twin Peaks
Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future ...
- Best Recent Films: Mulholland Dr., Inland Empire Best Film: Mulholland Dr. Next Film: TBA.
9. Michael Haneke
Writer | Caché
A true master of his craft, Michael Haneke is one of the greatest film artists working today and one who challenges his viewers each year and work goes by, with films that reflect real portions of life in realistic, disturbing and unforgettable ways. One of the most genuine filmmakers of the world ...
- Best Recent Films: The White Ribbon, Cache. Best Film: Cache. Next Film: Love (Amour).
10. Paul Thomas Anderson
Director | Punch-Drunk Love
Anderson was born in 1970. He was one of the first of the "video store" generation of film-makers. His father was the first man on his block to own a V.C.R., and from a very early age Anderson had an infinite number of titles available to him. While film-makers like Spielberg cut their teeth making...
- Best Recent Films: There Will Be Blood, Punch-Drunk Love. Best Film: There Will Be Blood. Next Film: The Master.
11. Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Director | Biutiful
Alejandro González Iñárritu (ih-nyar-ee-too), born August 15th, 1963, is a Mexican film director.
González Iñárritu is the first Mexican director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and by the Directors Guild of America for Best Director. He is also the first Mexican-born ...
- Best Recent Films: 21 Grams, Babel, Biutiful. Best Film: Biutiful. Next Film: TBA.
12. Sam Mendes
Producer | 1917
Samuel Alexander Mendes was born on August 1, 1965 in Reading, England, UK to parents James Peter Mendes, a retired university lecturer, and Valerie Helene Mendes, an author who writes children's books. Their marriage didn't last long, James divorced Sam's mother in 1970 when Sam was just 5-...
- Best Recent Films: Revolutionary Road. Best Film: American Beauty. Next Film: Skyfall.
13. Steven Soderbergh
Director | Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Steven Andrew Soderbergh was born on January 14, 1963 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, the second of six children of Mary Ann (Bernard) and Peter Soderbergh. His father was of Swedish and Irish descent, and his mother was of Italian ancestry. While he was still at a very young age, his family moved to ...
- Best Recent Films: Che, Traffic, Ocean's Eleven. Best Film: Che. Next Film: Haywire.
14. Darren Aronofsky
Writer | Pi
Darren Aronofsky was born February 12, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Darren was always artistic: he loved classic movies and, as a teenager, he even spent time doing graffiti art. After high school, Darren went to Harvard University to study film (both live-action and animation). He won ...
- Best Recent Films: The Wrestler, Black Swan. Best Film: Black Swan. Next Film: TBA.
15. Wes Anderson
Director | Fantastic Mr. Fox
Wesley Wales Anderson was born in Houston, Texas. His mother, Texas Ann (Burroughs), is an archaeologist turned real estate agent, and his father, Melver Leonard Anderson, worked in advertising and PR. He has two brothers, Eric and Mel. Anderson's parents divorced when he was a young child, an ...
- Best Recent Films: The Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox. Best Film: The Royal Tenenbaums. Next Film: Moonrise Kingdom.
16. Steven Spielberg
Producer | Schindler's List
One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, ...
- Best Recent Films: Munich, Minority Report. Best Film: Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List. Next Film: Lincolin.
17. Ron Howard
Producer | Arrested Development
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard is one of this generation's most popular directors. From the critically acclaimed dramas A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Apollo 13 (1995) to the hit comedies Parenthood (1989) and Splash (1983), he has created some of Hollywood's most memorable films.
Howard ...
- Best Recent Films: A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man. Best Film: Cinderella Man. Next Film: Rush.
18. Ridley Scott
Producer | The Martian
Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom ...
- Best Recent Films: Body of Lies, American Gangster. Best Film: Blade Runner. Next Film: Prometheus.
19. Paul Greengrass
Director | United 93
Paul Greengrass started his filmmaking career with a super 8 camera he found in his art room in secondary school. Those short movies were animation horror films he made using old dolls, artist dummies, and the general art room clutter.
After studying in Cambridge University he got into Granada ...
- Best Recent Films: Green Zone, The Bourne Ultimatum. Best Film: The Bourne Ultimatum. Next Film: TBA.
20. Mel Gibson
Actor | Braveheart
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born January 3, 1956 in Peekskill, New York, USA, as the sixth of eleven children of Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Anne Patricia (Reilly) Gibson (who died in December of 1990). His mother was Irish, from County Longford, while his American-born father is ...
- Best Recent Films: The Passion of the Christ, Apocalypto. Best Film: Braveheart, the Passion of the Christ. Next Film: TBA. (sadly, not anytime soon)
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