Greatest Directors

"Jacques Tourneur, son of the late Maurice Tourneur, brings a certain French gentility to the American cinema...Tourneur's first films for Val Lewton - Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie - possessed a subtler dramatic force than those of Wise and Robson. Out of the Past is still Tourneur's masterpiece, a civilized treatment of an annihilating melodrama... All in all, Tourneur's career represents a triumph of taste over force." ~ Andrew Sarris

TSPDT All-Time Directors (97)

Greats: Cat People (1942)✦; Out of the Past (1947)✦; Night of the Demon (1957)✦

Give It a Shot: I Walked with a Zombie (1943)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Leopard Man (1943); Experiment Perilous (1944); Days of Glory (1944); Canyon Passage (1946)✖; The Flame and the Arrow (1950); Wichita (1955); Great Day in the Morning (1956); Nightfall (1957); The Comedy of Terrors (1963)

Influenced: Judd Apatow

TSPDT All-Time Directors (138)

Greats: Harold and Maude (1971)✦; The Last Detail (1973)✦; Being There (1979)✦

Give It a Shot: Coming Home (1978)

Other Notable Film(s): The Landlord (1970); Shampoo (1975); Bound for Glory (1976); Second-Hand Hearts (1981); Lookin' to Get Out (1982); Let's Spend the Night Together [doc] (1982); The Slugger's Wife (1985); 8 Million Ways to Die (1986)

"It is hard to get on a London bus or listen to the people at the next table in a cafeteria without thinking of Mike Leigh. Like other wholly original artists, he has staked out his own territory. Leigh's London is as distinctive as Fellini's Rome or Ozu's Tokyo." ~ Ian Buruma

TSPDT All-Time Directors (118) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (74)

Give It a Shot: Naked (1993)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Bleak Moments (1972); Meantime (1983)✖; High Hopes (1988); Life Is Sweet (1990); Secret & Lies (1996)✦; Career Girls (1997); Topsy-Turvy (1999)✦; All or Nothing (2002)✧; Vera Drake (2004)✧; Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)✧; Another Year (2010)✧; Mr. Turner (2014)✧; Peterloo (2018)

"Beyond Westerns and war films, Aldrich's films have a generic breadth matched by few other filmmakers. Aldrich's work ranges widely from the self-described "classy soap opera" Autumn Leaves (1956) to the "sex and sand epic" Sodom and Gomorrah (1963) to the "desperately important" political thriller Twilight's Last Gleaming. In between, there are a few comedies and several noir films, as well as the occasional psychological melodrama and the neo-Gothic. There are prison pictures, cop pictures, sports pictures, and pictures about people who make pictures. The interior consistency of theme and style in Aldrich's films resists classification according to genre." ~ Alain Silver

TSPDT All-Time Directors (139)

Greats: The Big Knife (1955); Kiss Me Deadly (1955)✦; What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Caution: The Longest Yard (1974)

Other Notable Film(s): Apache (1954); Vera Cruz (1954); Autumn Leaves (1956); Attack (1956); The Last Sunset (1961); Sodom and Gomorrah (1962); 4 for Texas (1963); Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964); The Flight of the Phoenix (1965); The Dirty Dozen (1967); The Killing of Sister George (1968); Too Late the Hero (1970); Ulzana's Raid (1972)✖; Emperor of the North Pole (1973); Hustle (1975); Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977); The Frisco Kid (1979); ...All the Marbles (1981)

"I feel safe in saying this, and that is that Peter Weir is without a doubt one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. I'd open a door in a movie for him if he asked me to." ~ Paul Bettany

TSPDT All-Time Directors (144)

Greats: Witness (1985)✖; Dead Poets Society (1989)✖; The Truman Show (1998)✖

Give It a Shot: Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)✦; The Year of Living Dangerously (1981)✖; Gallipoli (1982); Fearless (1993)

Caution: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)✧

Other Notable Film(s): The Cars That Ate Paris (1974); The Last Wave (1977); The Mosquito Coast (1986); Green Card (1990); The Way Back (2010)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (189)

Greats: Cabaret (1972)✦; Lenny (1974); All That Jazz (1979)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Sweet Charity (1969); Star 80 (1983)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (132)

Greats: Laura (1944)✦; The Man with the Golden Arm (1955); Anatomy of a Murder (1959)✦

Caution: River of No Return (1954)

Other Notable Film(s): Fallen Angel (1945); Forever Amber (1947)✖; Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950); Angel Face (1952)✖; The Moon Is Blue (1953); Carmen Jones (1954); The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955); Bonjour Tristesse (1958); Porgy and Bess (1959); Exodus (1960); Advise & Consent (1962); The Cardinal (1963); In Harm's Way (1965); Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (123) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (15)

Greats: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)✦✧; Brokeback Mountain (2005)✦✧

Give It a Shot: Life of Pi (2012)✧

Flops: Hulk (2003)

Other Notable Film(s): Pushing Hands (1992); The Wedding Banquet (1993); Eat Drink Man Woman (1994); Sense and Sensibility (1995); The Ice Storm (1997)✖; Ride with the Devil (1999); Lust, Caution (2007)✧; Taking Woodstock (2009); Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016); Gemini Man (2019)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (180)

Greats: The Last Picture Show (1971)✦; Paper Moon (1973)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Targets (1968); Directed by John Ford [doc] (1971); What's Up, Doc? (1972); Daisy Miller (1974); At Long Last Love (1975); Nickelodeon (1976); Saint Jack (1979); Mask (1985); Illegally Yours (1988); Texasville (1990); They All Laughed (1991); Noises Off... (1992); The Thing Called Love (1993); The Cat's Meow (2001); Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream [doc] (2007); She's Funny That Way (2014)

"Resnais is a cubist. I mean that he is the first modern filmmaker of the sound film." ~ Eric Rohmer

TSPDT All-Time Directors (31)

Greats: Night and Fog [doc] (1955)✦

Give It a Shot: Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Last Year at Marienbad (1961)✦; Muriel (1963)✦; The War Is Over (1966); Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968); Stavisky... (1974)✖; Providence (1977)✦; Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980)✦; Life Is a Bed of Roses (1983); Love Unto Death (1984); Mélo (1986)✖; I Want to Go Home (1989); Smoking/No Smoking (1993); Same Old Song (1997); Not on the Lips (2003); Private Fears in Public Places (2006)✧; Wild Grass (2009)✧; You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (2012)✧; Life of Riley (2014)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (148)

Greats: Sweet Smell of Success (1957)✦

Give It a Shot: The Ladykillers (1955)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Whisky Galore (1949); The Man in the White Suit (1951)✖; The 'Maggie' (1954); A High Wind in Jamaica (1965); Don't Make Waves (1967)

"the King of the Hollywood musicals". ~ David Quinlan

TSPDT All-Time Directors (48) [w/Gene Kelly] TSPDT All-Time Directors (-) [formerly 228]

Greats: Singin' in the Rain [w/Gene Kelly] (1952)✦; Charade (1963)✖

Give It a Shot: On the Town [w/Gene Kelly] (1949)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Royal Wedding (1951); Love Is Better Than Ever (1952); Give a Girl a Break (1953); Deep in My Heart (1954); Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)✖; It's Always Fair Weather [w/Gene Kelly] (1955); Funny Face (1957)✖; The Pajama Game (1957); Kiss Them for Me (1957); Indiscreet (1958); Damn Yankees [Co-director] (1958); The Grass Is Greener (1960); Arabesque (1966); Two for the Road (1967)✖; Bedazzled (1967); The Little Prince (1974); Lucky Lady (1975); Movie Movie (1978); Saturn 3 [Co-director] (1980); Blame It on Rio (1984)

"Few directors' films deserve the term "character-driven" more than Anderson's. His films are also casting-, music-, mood- and even production design-driven (he works with more or less the same key production personnel every time), but whatever powers their engines, action and plot are but trace elements in the fuel." ~ Leslie Felperin

TSPDT All-Time Directors (141) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (13)

Greats: Rushmore (1998)✦; The Royal Tenebaums (2001)✦✧; Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)✧; Moonrise Kingdom (2012)✧; The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)✧

Give It a Shot: Bottle Rocket (1996); The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)✧; The Darjeeling Limited (2007)✧; Hotel Chevalier [short] (2007)

Other Notable Film(s): Isle of Dogs (2018)✧; The French Dispatch (2021)

"I think that George Lucas's 'Star Wars' films are fantastic. What he's done, which I admire, is he has taken all the money and profit from those films and poured it into developing digital sound and surround sound, which we are using today. He got ILM started and they developed all the computer technology we use. George Lucas is incredible. He has made a huge difference to the way films are made now. And he has used his money on things that benefit every filmmaker who gets films produced. I respect that a lot." ~ Peter Jackson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (120)

Greats: American Graffiti (1973)✦; Star Wars (1977)✦

Caution: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999); Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

Other Notable Film(s): THX 1138 (1971); Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

"He is one of the handful of film artists - the others would include Griffith, Eisenstein, Murnau, Bresson - who can be said to have transformed the medium at its most basic level, to have found a new way of seeing... Five films in 25 years is not an impressive record in a medium where stature is often measured by prolificity, but Playtime alone is a lifetime's achievement - a film that liberates and revitalizes the act of looking at the world." ~ Dave Kehr

TSPDT All-Time Directors (57)

Caution: Playtime (1967)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Jour de Fête (1949)✖; Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953)✦; Mon Oncle (1958)✦; Traffic (1971); Parade [TV] (1974)✖

TSPDT All-Time Directors (121)

Greats: The Deer Hunter (1978)✦; Heaven's Gate (1980)✦

Give It a Shot: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

Caution: Desperate Hours (1990)

Other Notable Film(s): Year of the Dragon (1985); The Sicilian (1987); The Sunchaser (1996)

"I like Spike Lee a lot. He's incredibly gifted and I don't think he gets the credit he deserves as a filmmaker." ~ Tim Robbins

TSPDT All-Time Directors (108) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (75)

Greats: Do the Right Thing (1989)✦; Malcolm X (1992)✖; BlacKkKlansman (2018)✧

Give It a Shot: Clockers (1995); 25th Hour (2002)✧; Inside Man (2006)✧

Other Notable Film(s): She's Gotta Have It (1986); School Daze (1988); Mo' Better Blues (1990); Jungle Fever (1991); Crooklyn (1994); Girl 6 (1996); Get on the Bus (1996); 4 Little Girls (1997); He Got Game (1998); Summer of Sam (1999); Bamboozled (2000)✧; The Original Kings of Comedy [doc] (2000); Jim Brown: All American [doc] (2002); She Hate Me (2004); When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts [TV] (2006)✧; Miracle at St. Anna (2008); Kobe Doin' Work [doc] (2009); Red Hook Summer (2012); Bad 25 [doc] (2012); Oldboy (2013); Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014); Chi-Raq (2015)☒; Rodney King (2017); Pass Over (2018); Da 5 Bloods (2020)

"Siegel's style does not encompass the demonic distortions of Fuller's, Aldrich's, Losey's, and, to a lesser extent, Karlson's. Siegel declines to implicate the world at large in the anarchic causes of his heroes. Nor does he adjust his compositions to their psychological quirks. The moral architecture of his universe is never undermined by the editing, however frenzied. Nevertheless, the final car chase in The Lineup and the final shoot-up in Madigan are among the most stunning displays of action montage in the history of the American cinema." ~ Andrew Sarris

Influenced: Clint Eastwood

TSPDT All-Time Directors (183)

Green: Dirty Harry (1971)✦

Give It a Shot: The Beguiled (1971); Escape from Alcatraz (1979)

Caution: Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)

Other Notable Film(s): The Verdict (1946); The Big Steal (1949); Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954); Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)✦; The Lineup (1958); Flaming Star (1960); Hell Is for Heroes (1962); The Killers (1964)✖; Madigan (1968); Coogan's Bluff (1968); Death of a Gunfighter [Co-director] (1969); Charley Varrick (1973)✖; The Black Windmill (1974); The Shootist (1976); Telefon (1977); Rough Cut (1980); Jinxed! (1982)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (152)

Greats: Frankenstein (1931)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Waterloo Bridge (1931); The Old Dark House (1932); The Invisible Man (1933); Bride of Frankenstein (1935)✦; Show Boat (1936); The Man in the Iron Mask (1939)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (147)

Greats: The Miracle Worker (1962); Bonnie and Clyde (1967)✦; Night Moves (1975)✖

Caution: The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Other Notable Film(s): The Left Handed Gun (1958); Mickey One (1965); The Chase (1966); Alice's Restaurant (1969); Little Big Man (1970); Four Friends (1981)✖; Target (1985); Dead of Winter (1987); Penn & Teller Get Killed (1989)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (164)

Greats: Point Blank (1967)✦; Deliverance (1972)✦

Flops: Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

Other Notable Film(s): Having a Wild Weekend (1965); Hell in the Pacific (1968); Leo the Last (1970)✖; Zardoz (1974); Excalibur (1981)✦; The Emerald Forest (1985); Hope and Glory (1987)✖; Where the Heart Is (1990); Beyond Rangoon (1995); The General (1998); The Tailer of Panama (2001)☒; In My Country (2004); The Tiger's Tail (2006); Queen & Country (2014)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (133)

Greats: Shock Corridor (1963)✦; White Dog (1982)

Other Notable Film(s): I Shot Jesse James (1949); The Baron of Arizona (1950); Fixed Bayonets! (1951); The Steel Helmet (1951); Pickup on South Street (1953)✦; Hell and High Water (1954); House of Bamboo (1955); Forty Guns (1957)✖; Run of the Arrow (1957); Verboten! (1959); The Crimson Kimono (1959); Underworld, U.S.A. (1961); Merrill's Marauders (1962); The Naked Kiss (1964); Shark! (1969); The Big Red One (1980)✖; Street of No Return (1989)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (49) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (31)

Other Notable Film(s): All the Youthful Days (1983); A Summer at Grandpa's (1984); A Time to Live and a Time to Die (1986)✦; Dust in the Wind (1987)✦; A City of Sadness (1989)✦; The Puppetmaster (1993)✦; Good Men, Good Women (1995); Goodbye, South, Goodbye (1996)✖; Flowers of Shanghai (1998)✦; Millennium Mambo (2001)✧; Café Lumière (2003)✧; Three Times (2005)✧; Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)✧; The Assassin (2015)✧

"Zhang Yimou tried to use martial arts to talk about Chinese culture, Chinese people. What do they think, what do they want and what do they hope." ~ Jet Li

TSPDT All-Time Directors (128)

Other Notable Film(s): Red Sorghum (1987)✦; Ju Dou (1990)✖; Raise the Red Lantern (1991)✦; The Story of Qiu Ju (1992)✖; To Live (1994)✦; Shanghai Triad (1995); Keep Cool (1997); Not One Less (1999); Happy Times (2000); The Road Home (2000); Hero (2002)✧; House of Flying Daggers (2004)✧; Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005); Curse of the Golden Flower (2006); A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop (2009); Under the Hawthorn Tree (2010); The Flowers of War (2011); Coming Home (2014); The Great Wall (2016); Shadow (2018); Under the Light (2020)

"Eric Rohmer... was one of the founding figures of the French New Wave and the director of more than 50 films, including the Oscar-nominated My Night at Maud’s... In opposition both to the intensely personal, confessional tone of much of the work of Truffaut and to the politically provocative films of Godard, Mr. Rohmer remained true to a restrained, rationalist aesthetic, close to the principles of the 18th-century thinkers whose words he frequently cited in his movies. And yet Mr. Rohmer’s work was warmed by an undercurrent of romanticism and erotic yearning, made perhaps all the more affecting for never quite breaking through the surface of his elegant, orderly films." ~ Dave Kehr

TSPDT All-Time Directors (80)

Greats: My Night at Maud's (1969)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Sign of Leo (1962)✖; Suzanne's Career (1963); La Collectionneuse (1967)✖; Claire's Knee (1970)✦; Love in the Afternoon (1972)✖; The Marquise of O (1976)✖; Perceval (1978)✖; The Aviator's Wife (1981); A Good Marriage (1982); Pauline at the Beach (1983); Full Moon in Paris (1984); Summer (1986)✦; Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (1987); Boyfriends and Girlfriends (1987)✖; A Tale of Springtime (1990); A Tale of Winter (1992); The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque (1993); Rendezvous in Paris (1995); A Summer's Tale (1996); Autumn Tale (1998); The Lady and the Duke (2001)✧; Triple Agent (2004)✧; The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (2007)✧

TSPDT All-Time Directors (79)

Greats: Children of Paradise (1945)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Drole de Drame (1937); Port of Shadows (1938)✦; Hotel du Nord (1938)✖; Le Jour se Leve (1939)✦; The Devil's Envoys (1942)✖; Gates of the Night (1946); The Adultress (1953)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (65)

Greats: Yi Yi (2000)✦✧

Other Notable Film(s): That Day, on the Beach (1983); Taipei Story (1985)✦; The Terrorizers (1986); A Brighter Summer Day (1991)✦; A Confucian Confusion (1994); Mahjong (1996)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (198) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (23)

Greats: Memories of Murder (2003)✦✧; The Host (2006)✦✧; Parasite (2019)✧

Give It a Shot: Snowpiercer (2013)✧

Other Notable Film(s): Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000)☒; Tokyo! [Co-director] (2008); Mother (2009)✧; Okja (2017)✧

TSPDT All-Time Directors (154) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (12)

Greats: Memento (2000)✦✧; Insomnia (2002); The Prestige (2006)✧

Give It a Shot: Following (1998); Batman Begins (2005)✧; The Dark Knight (2008)✦✧; Inception (2010)✧; The Dark Knight Rises (2012)✧; Interstellar (2014)✧; Dunkirk (2017)✧

Other Notable Film(s): Tenet (2020); Oppenheimer (2023)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (220)

Greats: They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)✖; Tootsie (1982)✦

Caution: Out of Africa (1985)✖; The Interpreter (2005)

Other Notable Film(s): The Slender Thread (1965); This Property Is Condemned (1966); The Scalphunters (1968); Castle Keep (1969); Jeremiah Johnson (1972)✖; The Way We Were (1973)✖; The Yakuza (1974); Three Days of the Condor (1975); Bobby Deerfield (1977); The Electric Horseman (1979); Absence of Malice (1981); Havana (1990); The Firm (1993); Sabrina (1995); Random Hearts (1999)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (--)

Greats: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958); Elmer Gantry (1960); In Cold Blood (1967)✖

Give It a Shot: Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)

Other Notable Film(s): Blackboard Jungle (1955); The Brothers Karamazov (1958); The Professionals (1966); Bite the Bullet (1975); Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (111) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (97)

Give It a Shot: Dead Man (1995)✦; Broken Flowers (2005)✧

Other Notable Film(s): Permanent Vacation (1980); Stranger than Paradise (1984)✦; Down by Law (1986)✦; Mystery Train (1989); Night on Earth (1991); Year of the Horse [doc] (1997); Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999); Coffee and Cigarettes (2003); The Limits of Control (2009)☒; Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)✧; Paterson (2016)✧; Gimme Danger (2016); The Dead Don't Die (2019)

"A real master: he invented his own Paris, which is better than recording it." ~ Orson Welles

TSPDT All-Time Directors (202)

Greats: Le Million (1931)✦; And Then There Were None (1945)

Other Notable Film(s): Paris qui dort (1923)✖; Entr'acte (1924)✖; The Italian Straw Hat (1928)✖; Under the Roofs of Paris (1930)✖; À Nous la Liberté (1931)✖; The Ghost Goes West (1935); The Flame of New Orleans (1941); I Married a Witch (1942); It Happened Tomorrow (1944); Beauty and the Devil (1950); The Grand Maneuver (1955); The Gates of Paris (1957)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (43)

Greats: Requiem for a Dream (2000)✦✧; The Wrestler (2008)✧; Black Swan (2010)✧

Give It a Shot: Pi (1998)

Flops: Mother! (2017)✧

Other Notable Film(s): The Fountain (2006)✧; Noah (2014)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (47)

Greats: Election (1999)✖; About Schmidt (2002)✧; Sideways (2004)✦✧; The Descendants (2011)✧; Nebraska (2013)✧

Other Notable Film(s): Citizen Ruth (1996); Downsizing (2017)

"one of our great filmmakers, not just for the art and passion he put on screen, but for the impact he has made on the conscience of the world." ~ Steven Spielberg

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-)

Greats: The Defiant Ones (1958); Inherit the Wind (1960); Judgment at Nuremberg (1961); Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

Give It a Shot: It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)

Other Notable Film(s): Not as a Stranger (1955); The Pride and the Passion (1957); On the Beach (1959); Ship of Fools (1965); The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969); Bless the Beasts & Children (1971)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (186)

Greats: Dracula (1931)✖; Freaks (1932)✦

Other Notable Film(s): London After Midnight (1927); The Unknown (1927)✖; West of Zanzibar (1928); Mark of the Vampire (1935); The Devil-Doll (1936)

Cocteau is someone who has made such a profound impression on me that there's no doubt he's influenced every one of my films." ~ Jacques Rivette

Influenced: Jacques Rivette

TSPDT All-Time Directors (131)

Greats: Beauty and the Beast (1946)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Blood of a Poet (1932)✖; Les Parents Terribles (1948); Orpheus (1950)✦; Testament of Orpheus (1960)✖

TSPDT All-Time Directors (92) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (21)

Other Notable Film(s): Pepi, Luci, Born and Other Girls Like Mom (1980); Labyrinth of Passion (1982); Dark Habits (1983); What Have I Done to Deserve This? (1984)✖; Matador (1986); Law of Desire (1987)✖; Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)✦; Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990); High Heels (1991); Kika (1993); The Flower of My Secret (1995); Live Flesh (1997); All About My Mother (1999)✦; Talk to Her (2002)✦✧; Bad Education (2004)✧; Volver (2006)✧; Broken Embraces (2009)☒; The Skin I Live In (2011)✧; I'm So Excited! (2013); Julieta (2016)☒; Pain and Glory (2019)✧

TSPDT All-Time Directors (140)

Greats: This Is Spinal Tap (1984)✦; The Princess Bride (1987)✦; When Harry Met Sally... (1989)✦

Give It a Shot: Stand by Me (1986)✦; Misery (1990); The American President (1995)

Caution: A Few Good Men (1992); The Bucket List (2007)

Other Notable Film(s): The Sure Thing (1985); North (1994); Ghosts of Mississippi (1996); The Story of Us (1999); Alex & Emma (2003); Rumor Has It... (2005); Flipped (2010); The Magic of Belle Isle (2012); And So It Goes (2014); Being Charlie (2015); LBJ (2016); Shock and Awe (2017)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (168)

Other Notable Film(s): The Great Flamarion (1945); Desperate (1947); Railroaded! (1947); T-Men (1947); Raw Deal (1948); Reign of Terror (1949); Border Incident (1949); Winchester '73 (1950)✖; The Furies (1950); Devil's Doorway (1950); Side Street (1950); The Tall Target (1951); Bend of the River (1952)✖; The Naked Spur (1953)✖; Thunder Bay (1953); The Far Country (1954); The Glenn Miller Story (1954); Strategic Air Command (1955); The Man from Laramie (1955)✖; The Far Country (1955)✖; The Tin Star (1957); Men in War (1957); God's Little Acre (1958); Man of the West (1958)✦; Cimarron (1960); El Cid (1961)✖; The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964); The Heroes of Telemark (1965); A Dandy in Aspic (1968)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (129)

Greats: Katyn (2007)

Other Notable Film(s): A Generation (1955)✖; Kanal (1957)✖; Ashes and Diamonds (1958)✦; Speed (1959); Landscape After Battle (1970); The Promised Land (1975); Man of Marble (1977)✖; The Maids of Wilko (1979); The Conductor (1980); Man of Iron (1981); Danton (1983); Korczak (1990); Pan Tadeusz: The Last Foray in Lithuania (1999); The Revenge (2002); Tatarak (2009); Walesa: Man of Hope (2013); Afterimage (2016)

"I think Ken Loach is an extraordinary filmmaker. It is so effortless what he does. The effortlessness with which he can get some stuff is just extraordinary. You may not like his concerns as a filmmaker, that they are political or whatever, and you may actually think that the films should be more exciting, they should have more dramatic climaxes, but he is extraordinary." ~ Danny Boyle

TSPDT All-Time Directors (115)

Other Notable Film(s): Up the Junction [TV] (1965)✖; Poor Cow (1967); Kes (1969)✦; Family Life (1971); Hidden Agenda (1990); Riff-Raff (1991)✖; Raining Stones (1993)✖; Ladybird Ladybird (1994); Land and Freedom (1995); Carla's Song (1996); My Name Is Joe (1998); Bread and Roses (2000)☒; The Navigators (2001); Sweet Sixteen (2002)✧; A Fond Kiss (2004); Tickets [Co-director] (2005); The Wind that Shakes Barley (2006)✧; It's a Free World... (2007); Looking for Eric (2009); Route Irish (2010); The Angel's Share (2012); Jimmy's Hall (2014); I, Daniel Blake (2016)✧; Sorry We Missed You (2019)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (146) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (28)

Greats: Drugstore Cowboy (1989); Good Will Hunting (1997); Milk (2008)✧

Give It a Shot: My Own Private Idaho (1991)✦ Finding Forrester (2000); Elephant (2003)✦✧

Other Notable Film(s): Mala Noche (1986); Even the Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993); To Die For (1995); Psycho (1998); Gerry (2002)✧; Last Days (2005)✧; Paranoid Park (2007)✧; Restless (2011); Promised Land (2012); The Sea of Trees (2015); Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (204)

Greats: Midnight Cowboy (1969)✦; Marathon Man (1976)

Give It a Shot: Darling (1965); Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)

Other Notable Film(s): A Kind of Loving (1962); Billy Liar (1963); Far from the Madding Crowd (1967); The Day of the Locust (1975); Yanks (1979); The Falcon and the Snowman (1985); The Believers (1987); Madame Sousatzka (1988); Pacific Heights (1990); The Innocents (1993); Eye for an Eye (1996); The Next Best Thing (2000)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (233)

Greats: Klute (1971)✖; All the President's Men (1977)✦; Sophie's Choice (1982)

Caution: The Parallax View (1974)✖

Other Notable Film(s): The Sterile Cuckoo (1969); Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973); Comes a Horseman (1978); Starting Over (1979); Rollover (1981); Dream Lover (1986); Orphans (1987); See You In the Morning (1989); Presumed Innocent (1990); Consenting Adults (1992); The Pelican Brief (1993); The Devil's Own (1997)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (151)

Other Notable Film(s): Cruel Story of Youth (1960); The Sun's Burial (1960); Pleasures of the Flesh (1965); Violence at Noon (1966); A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs (1967); Death by Hanging (1968); Sinner in Paradise (1968); Boy (1969)✖; The Ceremony (1971)✖; In the Realm of the Senses (1976)✦; Empire of Passion (1978); Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983); Taboo (1999)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (197) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (34)

Greats: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)✦✧; The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)✖✧; The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)✦✧

Give It a Shot: Dead Alive (1992); Heavenly Creatures (1994)✖; The Frighteners (1996); King Kong (2005)✧

Other Notable Film(s): Bad Taste (1987); Meet the Feebles (1989); The Lovely Bones (2009); The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012); The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013); The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (222)

Greats: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)✦

Give It a Shot: Days of Wine and Roses (1962); A Shot in the Dark (1964); Victor Victoria (1982)

Other Notable Film(s): Operation Petticoat (1959); The Pink Panther (1963); The Great Race (1965); The Party (1968)✦; Return of the Pink Panther (1975); The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976); 10 (1979); S.O.B. (1981); Micki + Maude (1984); That's Life! (1986); Sunset (1988)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-)

Greats: Little Caesar (1931); I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)✖

Other Notable Film(s): Five Star Final (1931); Tonight or Never (1931); Three on a Match (1932); Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)✖; Anthony Adverse (1936); Waterloo Bridge (1940); Blossoms in the Dust (1941); Johnny Eager (1941); Random Harvest (1942); Madame Curie (1943); Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944); Little Women (1949); Quo Vadis (1951); Mister Roberts [Co-director] (1955); The Bad Seed (1956); Gypsy (1962)

"the two most successful comedy directors in the world today ... America's two funniest filmmakers." ~ Siskel and Ebert [referring to Mel Brooks and Woody Allen (1980).]

TSPDT All-Time Directors (227)

Greats:The Producers (1968)✦; Blazing Saddles (1974)✦

Give It a Shot: Young Frankenstein (1974)✦; Silent Movie (1976); History of the World: Part I (1981); Spaceballs (1987)

Caution: Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)

Other Notable Film(s): The Twelve Chairs (1970); High Anxiety (1977); Life Stinks (1991); Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-)

Greats: Diner (1982)✖; Rain Man (1988)✖; Bugsy (1991)

Give It a Shot: The Natural (1984); Good Morning, Vietnam (1987); Avalon (1990); Sleepers (1996); Wag the Dog (1997)

Caution: Sphere (1998); Man of the Year (2006)

Other Notable Film(s): Young Sherlock Holmes (1985); Tin Men (1987); Toys (1992); Jimmy Hollywood (1994)✖; Disclosure (1994); Liberty Heights (1999); An Everlasting Piece (2000); Bandits (2001); Envy (2004); What Just Happened (2008); You Don't Know Jack [TV] (2010); The Bay (2012); The Humbling (2014); Rock the Kasbah (2015); The Wizard of Lies [TV film] (2017); Paterno [TV film] (2018); Harry Haft (2020)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-)

Greats: The Naked City (1948); Rififi (1955)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Reunion in France (1942); The Canterville Ghost (1944); Brute Force (1947); Thieves' Highway (1949); Night and the City (1950)✖; He Who Must Die (1957); The Law (1959); Never on Sunday (1960); Phaedra (1962); Topkapi (1964); 10:30 P.M. Summer (1966); A Dream of Passion (1978); Circle of Two (1981)

"He manipulated Hollywood's fantasy apparatus with taste and intelligence. ~ Andrew Sarris

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-)

Other Notable Film(s): People on Sunday [Co-director] (1930)✖; Son of Dracula (1943); Christmas Holiday (1944); The Suspect (1944); Phantom Lady (1944); The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945); The Spiral Staircase (1945); The Killers (1946)✖; The Dark Mirror (1946); Cry of the City (1948); Criss Cross (1949); The Crimson Pirate (1952); The Devil Strikes at Night (1957)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-)

Greats: Sounder (1972)

Give It a Shot: The Long, Hot Summer (1958); Hud (1963); The Great White Hope (1970)

Other Notable Film(s): Edge of the City (1957); Paris Blues (1961); The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965); Hombre (1967); The Molly Maguires (1970); Pete 'n' Tillie (1972); The Front (1976)✖; Norma Rae (1979); Cross Creek (1983); Murphy's Romance (1985); Stanley & Iris (1989)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (176)

Other Notable Film(s): The Boy with Green Hair (1948); The Prowler (1951); Time Without Pity (1957); Concrete Jungle (1960); Eva (1962); The Damned (1963); The Servant (1963)✦; King & Country (1964); Modesty Blaise (1966); Accident (1967)✖; Boom (1968); Secret Ceremony (1968); The Go-Between (1970)✖; The Assassination of Trotsky (1972); The Romantic Englishwoman (1975); Mr. Klein (1976)✖; Don Giovanni (1979)

Representing the Dardenne brothers

TSPDT All-Time Directors (169) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (35)

Greats: The Kid with a Bike (2011)✧

Other Notable Film(s): La Promesse (1996); Rosetta (1999)✦; The Son (2002)✦✧; The Child (2005)✧; Lorna's Silence (2008)✧; Two Days, One Night (2014)✧; The Unknown Girl (2016); Young Ahmed (2019)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (112)

Greats: The Piano (1993)✦

Give It a Shot: The Power of the Dog (2021)

Other Notable Film(s): A Girl's Own Story [short] (1983)✖; Sweetie (1989)✖; An Angel at My Table (1990)✦; The Portrait of a Lady (1996); Holy Smoke (1999); In the Cut (2003)✧; Bright Star (2009)✧; Top of the Lake [TV series] (2013-2017)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (106)

Other Notable Film(s): Reconstruction (1970); Days of 36 (1972); The Travelling Players (1975)✦; The Hunters (1977); Alexander the Great (1980); Voyage to Cythera (1984); The Beekeeper (1986); Landscape in the Mist (1988)✦; The Suspended Step of the Stork (1991)✖; Ulysses' Gaze (1995)✖; Eternity and a Day (1998)✖; Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow (2004)✧; The Dust of Time (2008)

Influenced: Gus Van Sant

TSPDT All-Time Directors (82) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (24)

Other Notable Film(s): Damnation (1988); Satantango (1994)✦; Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)✦✧; The Man from London (2007); The Turin Horse (2011)✦✧

"There were zombie films prior to George, but he pretty much invented the cannibalistic aspect. What we now think of as zombies really are Romero zombies." ~ Edgar Wright

TSPDT All-Time Directors (117)

Greats: Night of the Living Dead (1968)✦; Dawn of the Dead (1978)✦; Day of the Dead (1985)✖

Caution: The Crazies (1973); Creepshow (1982); Land of the Dead (2005)✧

Other Notable Film(s): There's Always Vanilla (1971); Hungry Wives (1972); Martin (1976); Knightriders (1981); Monkey Shines (1988); The Dark Half (1993); Bruiser (2000); Diary of the Dead (2007); Survival of the Dead (2009)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-) [formerly 215]

Greats: Bad Day at Black Rock (1955); The Magnificent Seven (1960)✖; The Great Escape (1963)✦

Caution: Joe Kidd (1972)

Other Notable Film(s): Mystery Street (1950); Jeopardy (1953); Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957); The Old Man and the Sea (1958); The Law and Jake Wade (1958); Last Train from Gun Hill (1959); Marooned (1969)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (49)

Greats: Amores Perros (2000)✦✧; 21 Grams (2003)✧; Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)✧

Give It a Shot: Babel (2006)✧; The Revenant (2015)✧

Other Notable Film(s): Biutiful (2010)☒

TSPDT All-Time Directors (231) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (54)

Greats: Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989); Out of Sight (1998); Traffic (2000)✧

Give It a Shot: Ocean's Eleven (2001)✧; Ocean's Twelve (2004); Ocean's Thirteen (2007)

Caution: Contagion (2011)☒

Flops: The Girlfriend Experience (2009)☒

Other Notable Film(s): Kafka (1991); King of the Hill (1993); Underneath (1995); Gray's Anatomy (1996); The Limey (1999); Erin Brockovich (2000)✧; Full Frontal (2002); Solaris (2002)✧; Bubble (2005); The Good German (2006); Che (Pt. 1, Pt. 2) (2008)✧; The Informant! (2009)☒; And Everything Is Going Fine [doc] (2010); Haywire (2011); Magic Mike (2012)☒; Side Effects (2013); Behind the Candelabra [TV] (2013); Logan Lucky (2017); Unsane (2018); High Flying Bird (2019); The Laundromat (2019)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (213)

Other Notable Film(s): This Sporting Life (1963); If.... (1968)✦; O Lucky Man! (1973)✦; In Celebration (1975); Britannia Hospital (1982); The Whales of August (1987)

"the only filmmaker of the ex-New Wave—along with Godard—who keeps making truly personal work on the level of film, while his colleagues from the early days have long rejoined the ranks of the qualité française [mainstream French films]" ~ Raphaël Bassan

TSPDT All-Time Directors (94)

Other Notable Film(s): Paris Belongs to Us (1961); The Nun (1966); L'Amour fou (1969)✖; Out 1 (1971)✦; Out 1: Spectre (1974)✖; Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)✦; Noroît (1976); Duelle (1976)✖; Le Pont du Nord (1981); Merry-Go-Round (1981); Love on the Ground (1984); Wuthering Heights (1985); The Gang of Four (1989); La Belle noiseuse (1991)✦; Jeanne la Pucelle I (1994); Jeanne la Pucelle II (1994); Up, Down, Fragile (1995); Secret Defense (1998); Va Savoir (Who Knows?) (2001)✧; The Story of Marie and Julien (2003); The Duchess of Langeais (2007)✧; Around a Small Mountain (2009)

"With Wellman, crudity is too often mistaken for sincerity. What is at issue here is not the large number of bad films he has made, but a fundamental deficiency in his direction of good projects. On parallel subjects, he runs a poorer second to good directors than he should... Wellman, like Wyler, Huston, and Zinnemann, is a recessive director, one whose images tend to recede from the foreground to the background in the absence of s strong point of view." ~ Andrew Sarris

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-) [formerly 195]

Greats: The Public Enemy (1931)✖

Other Notable Film(s): Wings (1927); Wild Boys of the Road (1933); Heroes for Sale (1933); Nothing Sacred (1937); A Star Is Born (1937); Beau Geste (1939); The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)✖; Lady of Burlesque (1943); Story of G.I. Joe (1945); Yellow Sky (1948); Battleground (1949); Island in the Sky (1953); The High and the Mighty (1954)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-) [formerly 250]

Greats: All the King's Men (1949); The Hustler (1961)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Johnny O'Clock (1947); Body and Soul (1947); Alexander the Great (1956); Island in the Sun (1957); They Came to Cordura (1959); Lilith (1964)✖

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-)

Greats: Planet of the Apes (1968)✖; Patton (1970)✖; Papillon (1973)

Give It a Shot: The Boys from Brazil (1978)

Other Notable Film(s): The Stripper (1963); The Best Man (1964); The War Lord (1965); The Double Man (1967); Nicholas and Alexandra (1971); Islands in the Stream (1977); Sphinx (1981); Yes, Giorgio (1982); Lionheart (1987); Welcome Home (1989)

"Naruse's Method consists of staging one very brief shot after another; but when we look at them placed end-to-end in the finished film, they give the impression of one long single take. The fluidity is so perfect that the cuts are invisible . . . A flow of shots that looks calm and ordinary at first glance reveals itself to be like a deep river with a quiet surface disguising a fast-raging current." ~ Akira Kurosawa

TSPDT All-Time Directors (125)

Other Notable Film(s): Meshi (1951); The Thunder of the Mountain (1954); Late Chrysanthemums (1954)✖; Floating Clouds (1955)✦; Nagareru (1956); When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)✖

Influenced: Kevin Smith

TSPDT All-Time Directors (116) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (6)

Greats: Before Sunrise (1995)✦; Before Sunset (2004)✦✧; Boyhood (2014)✧

Give It a Shot: Slacker (1991); Dazed and Confused (1993)✦; Bernie (2012)✧

Caution: The School of Rock (2003)✧

Other Notable Film(s): SubUrbia (1996); The Newton Boys (1998); Waking Life (2001)✖✧; Tape (2001); Bad News Bears (2005); A Scanner Darkly (2006)✧; Fast Food Nation (2006); Me and Orson Welles (2008); Before Midnight (2013)✧; Everybody Wants Some!! (2015)✧; Last Flag Flying (2017); Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2018)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (95)

Other Notable Film(s): Lola (1961)✦; Bay of Angels (1963)✖; The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)✦; The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)✦; Model Shop (1969); Donkey Skin (1970); The Pied Piper (1972); A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973); Lady Oscar (1979); A Room in Town (1982)

"Always with huge gratitude and pleasure I remember the films of Sergei Parajanov which I love very much. His way of thinking, his paradoxical, poetical . . . ability to love the beauty and the ability to be absolutely free within his own vision. ~ Andrei Tarkovsky

TSPDT All-Time Directors (157)

Other Notable Film(s): Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)✦; The Color of Pomegranates (1968)✦; The Legend of Suram Fortress [Co-director] (1986); Ashik Kerib [Co-director] (1988)

"This is a very tricky career to judge, for A Little Princess was as good and intriguing as Great Expectations was portentous and hollow. How can this be? How can the former stir up immense atmosphere, while the latter (a sitting duck) has none? Love in the Time of Hysteria was a very promising comedy about confusion over AIDS, and Y Tu Mamá También deserves its high crowd-pleasing reputation." ~ David Thomson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (172) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (11)

Greats: Y Tu Mamá También (2001)✦✧; Children of Men (2006)✦✧; Roma (2018)✧

Give It a Shot: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)✧; Gravity (2013)✧

Other Notable Film(s): Love in the Time of Hysteria (1991); A Little Princess (1995); Great Expectations (1998)

Influenced: Paul Thomas Anderson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (200)

Greats: Stop Making Sense [doc] (1984); The Silence of the Lambs (1991)✦; Philadelphia (1993)

Other Notable Film(s): Caged Heat (1974); Crazy Mama (1975); Fighting Mad (1976); Citizens Band (1977); Last Embrace (1979); Melvin and Howard (1980); Swing Shift (1984); Something Wild (1986); Swimming to Cambodia (1987); Married to the Mob (1988); Beloved (1998); The Truth About Charlie (2002); The Agronomist [doc] (2003); The Manchurian Candidate (2004); Neil Young: Heart of Gold [doc] (2006); Jimmy Carter Man from Plains [doc] (2007); Rachel Getting Married (2008)✧; A Master Builder (2013); Ricki and the Flash (2015); Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids [doc] (2016)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (182)

Greats: Ed Wood (1994)✦; Sleepy Hollow (1999); Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)✧

Give It a Shot: Beetlejuice (1988); Batman (1989); Edward Scissorhands (1990)✦; Batman Returns (1992); Big Fish (2003)✧; Corpse Bride [Co-director] (2005); Frankenweenie (2012)

Caution: Mars Attacks! (1996); Alice in Wonderland (2010); Dark Shadows (2012); Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

Flops: Planet of the Apes (2001)

Other Notable Film(s): Vincent [short] (1982); Frankenweenie [short] (1984); Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985); Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005); Big Eyes (2014); Dumbo (2019)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (127)

Greats: Monty Python and the Holy Grail [w/Terry Jones] (1974)✦; Twelve Monkeys (1995)

Give It a Shot: The Fisher King (1991)✖

Caution: Brazil (1985)✦; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Other Notable Film(s): Jabberwocky (1977); Time Bandits (1981); The Adventurea of Baron Munchausen (1988); The Brothers Grimm (2005); Tideland (2005); The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2010); The Zero Theorem (2013); The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (181) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (50)

Greats: The Hurt Locker (2009)✧; Zero Dark Thirty (2012)✧

Give It a Shot: Near Dark (1987)✦; Point Break (1991)✦

Caution: Strange Days (1995)

Other Notable Film(s): The Loveless [Co-director] (1982); Blue Steel (1989); The Weight of Water (2000); K-19: The Widowmaker (2002); Detroit (2017)

"Basically, my stuff is just John Hughes films with four-letter words. I feel like a part of my childhood has died. Nobody made me laugh harder or more often than John Hughes." ~ Judd Apatow

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-) [formerly 232]

Greats: The Breakfast Club (1985)✦; Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)✦; Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

Give It a Shot: Uncle Buck (1989)

Other Notable Film(s): Sixteen Candles (1984); Weird Science (1985); She's Having a Baby (1988); Curly Sue (1991)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (187)

Greats: Elle (2016)✧

Give It a Shot: Robocop (1987)✦; Starship Troopers (1997)✦

Caution: Total Recall (1990); Basic Instinct (1992); Hollow Man (2000)

Other Notable Film(s): Diary of a Hooker (1971); Turkish Delight (1973); Katie Tippel (1975); Soldier of Orange (1977); Spetters (1981); The Fourth Man (1983); Flesh+Blood (1985); Showgirls (1995); Black Book (2006)✧; Tricked (2013)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-) [formerly 249]

Greats: Harakiri (1962)✦; Kwaidan (1964)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Human Condition I (1959); The Human Condition II (1959); The Human Condition III (1961); Samurai Rebellion (1967)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (230)

Greats: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)✦; The Sting (1973)✖

Other Notable Film(s): Period of Adjustment (1962); Toys in the Attic (1963); The World of Henry Orient (1964); Hawaii (1966); Thoroughly Modern Milliee (1967); Slaughterhouse-Five (1972); The Great Waldo Pepper (1975); Slap Shot (1977); A Little Romance (1979); The World According to Garp (1982)✖; The Little Drummer Girl (1984); Funny Farm (1988)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (107)

Give It a Shot: The Battle of Algiers (1966)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Wild Blue Road [Co-director] (1957); Kapo (1960); Burn! (1969)

"So its clear, I think, how far certain running ideas in French cinema - evident in the thirties and hurried forward in the New Wave - are still being pursued. Claire Denis reminds one not just of the wonder of French cinema, but of its sense of history." ~ David Thomson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (87) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (22)

Other Notable Film(s): Chocolate (1988); No Fear, No Die (1990); I Can't Sleep (1994); Nenette and Boni (1996); Beau Travail (1999)✦; Trouble Every Day (2001)✧; Friday Night (2002)✧; The Intruder (2004)✦✧; 35 Shots of Rum (2008)✧; White Material (2009)✧; Bastards (2013)✧; Let the Sun Shine In (2017)✧; High Life (2018)✧

Influenced: Judd Apatow

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-)

Greats: Terms of Endearment (1983); Broadcast News (1987)✦; As Good as It Gets (1997)

Caution: Spanglish (2004)

Other Notable Film(s): I'll Do Anything (1994); How Do You Know (2010)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (167)

Greats: The Thin Blue Line [doc] (1988)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Gates of Heaven (1978); Vernon, Florida (1981); The Dark Wind (1991); A Brief History of Time (1991); Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997); Mr. Death [doc] (1999); The Fog of War [doc] (2003)✧; Standard Operating Procedure [doc] (2008)☒; Tabloid [doc] (2010); The Unknown Known [doc] (2013); The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography [doc] (2016); American Dharma [doc] (2018)

"Marker is unclassifiable because he is unique...The French Cinema has its dramatists and its poets, its technicians, and its autobiographers, but only has one true essayist: Chris Marker." ~ Roy Armes

TSPDT All-Time Directors (62)

Greats: La Jetée (1962)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Letter from Siberia (1957)✖; Grin Without a Cat (1977)✦; San Soleil (1983)✦; The Last Bolshevik (1993)✦

TSPDT All-Time Directors (93) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (48)

Other Notable Film(s): La Pointe Courte (1955); Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)✦; Le Bonheur (1965)✦; Vagabond (1985)✦; Jacquot (1991); The Gleaners & I [doc] (2000)✦✧; The Beaches of Agnès [doc] (2008)✧; Faces Places [co-director] (2017)✧; Varda by Agnès (2019)

"[Mike] Leigh is arguably Britain’s greatest director, but for pure film making, Davies is in another class." ~ J. Hoberman

TSPDT All-Time Directors (160) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (80)

Give It a Shot: The Deep Blue Sea (2011)✧

Other Notable Film(s): The Terence Davies Trilogy (1983); Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)✦; The Long Day Closes (1992)✦; The Neon Bible (1995); The House of Mirth (2000)✧; Of Time and the City [doc] (2008)✧; Sunset Song (2015); A Quiet Passion (2016)✧

TSPDT All-Time Directors (--) [formerly 242] TSPDT 21st Century Directors (96)

Greats: Trainspotting (1996)✦; Slumdog Millionaire (2008)✧; Steve Jobs (2015)☒

Give It a Shot: 28 Days Later... (2002)✧; 127 Hours (2010)✧

Other Notable Film(s): Shallow Grave (1994); A Life Less Ordinary (1997); The Beach (2000); Millions (2004)☒; Sunshine (2007); Trance (2013); T2 Trainspotting (2017); Yesterday (2019)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (196)

Other Notable Film(s): The Joyless Street (1925); The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927); Pandora's Box (1929)✦; Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)✖; White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929); Westfront 1918 (1930); The 3 Penny Opera (1931)✖; Comradeship (1931)✖

"British director who, after being near the forefront of several 'new waves' in British cinema, has unexpectedly carved himself an international career in the past ten years. Although his output has been uneven, it has also proved extraordinarily wide-ranging while rarely failing to highlight his ability to obtain crowd-pleasing performances from his principal players." ~ David Quinlan

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-) [formerly 249]

Greats: My Beautiful Laundrette (1985); The Grifters (1991)

Give It a Shot: The Hit (1984); High Fidelity (2000)✖✧; Philomena (2013)

Other Notable Film(s): Gumshoe (1971); Bloody Kids (1979); Prick Up Your Ears (1987); Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987); Dangerous Liaisons (1988)✖; Hero (1992); Mary Reilly (1996); The Van (1996); The Hi-Lo Country (1998); Liam (2000); Fail Safe [TV] (2000); Dirty Pretty Things (2002)✧; The Deal [TV] (2003); Mrs Henderson Presents (2005); The Queen (2006)✧; Chéri (2009); Tamara Drewe (2010); Lay the Favorite (2012); Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight (2013); The Program (2015); Florence Foster Jenkins (2016); Victoria & Abdul (2017)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (170)

Greats: Underground (1995)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981)✖; When Father Was Away on Business (1985); Time of the Gypsies (1988)✦; Arizona Dream (1992); Black Cat, White Cat (1998); Life is a Miracle (2004)☒; Promise Me This (2007); On the Milky Road (2016)

"Kaurismäki's ironic sense of humour lends his best work a wacky, off-the-wall quality. Forming a production company in 1981 with brother Mika (who has also directed several films), he quickly made a name for himself with witty, irreverent, almost comic-strip-style adventures, comedies and melodramas, plus one or two revisionist versions of famous dramas (Crime and Punishment, Hamlet Goes Business), which paid a little, if not much more attention to the story." ~ David Quinlan

TSPDT All-Time Directors (211) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (89)

Other Notable Film(s): Crimes and Punishment (1983); Calamari Union (1985); Shadows in Paradise (1986); Hamlet Goes Business (1987); Ariel (1988); Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989); The Match Factory Girl (1990)✦; I Hired a Contract Killer (1990); The Bohemian Life (1992); Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana (1994); Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (1994); Total Balalaika Show [doc] (1994); Drifting Clouds (1996); Juha (1999); The Man Without a Past (2002)✧; Lights in the Dusk (2006); Le Havre (2011)✧; The Other Side of Hope (2017)✧

TSPDT All-Time Directors (226)

Other Notable Film(s): 7th Heaven (1927)✦; Street Angel (1928); Bad Girl (1931); A Farewell to Arms (1932); Man's Castle (1933)✖; Desire (1936); History Is Made at Night (1937); Three Comrades (1938); The Shining Hour (1938)✖; Strange Cargo (1940); The Mortal Storm (1940); Strange Door Canteen (1943); The Spanish Main (1945); Moonrise (1948)✖

TSPDT All-Time Directors (214)

Other Notable Film(s): Le Beau Serge (1958); Leda (1959); The Cousins (1959); The Good Time Girls (1960); Who's Got the Black Box? (1967); Les Biches (1968); This Man Must Die (1969); The Unfaithful Wife (1969)✖; The Breach (1970); Le Boucher (1970)✦; Just Before Nightfall (1971); Ten Days Wonder (1971)✖; High Heels (1972); Wedding in Blood (1973); The Nada Gang (1974); Pleasure Party (1975); Dirty Hands (1975); Alice or the Last Escapade (1977); Blood Relatives (1978); Violette (1978); The Horse of Pride (1980); The Hatter's Ghost (1982); The Blood of Others (1984); Chicken with Vinegar (1985); Inspecteur Lavardin (1986); Masks (1987); The Cry of the Owl (1987); Story of Women (1988); Quiet Days in Clichy (1990); Dr. M (1990); Madame Bovary (1991); Betty (1992); The Eye of Vichy (1993); Hell (1994); La Cérémonie (1995); The Swindle (1997); The Color of Lies (1999); Merci Pour le Chocolat (2000)☒; The Flower of Evil (2003); The Bridesmaid (2004); Comedy of Power (2006); The Girl Cut in Two (2007); Inspector Bellamy (2009)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (-)

Greats: American Beauty (1999)✦; Road to Perdition (2002)✧; Skyfall (2012)✧

Give It a Shot: Revolutionary Road (2008)✧; 1917 (2019)

Caution: Jarhead (2005)

Other Notable Film(s): Away We Go (2009); Spectre (2015)

"Becker was interested in what the cinema could do just as he was interested in what men and women do. Never searching for the extraordinary, he would go to endless lengths to bring out not some abstract rhythm in the lives of people (as René Clair) did but the true style and rhythm of their sensibilities." ~ Dudley Andrew

"Becker was a humane, observant, and inventive director who seemed willed into films by his apprenticeship with Jean Renoir...He lacked the master's innate passion for cinema, and he never properly discovered either a style or a subject matter in which he could immerse himself." ~ David Thomson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (203)

Other Notable Film(s): Casque d'Or (1952)✦; Touchez Pas au Grisbi (1954)✦; Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1954); Modigliani of Montparnasse (1958); Le Trou (1960)✦

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-)

Greats: Ordinary People (1980)✖; Quiz Show (1994)

Give It a Shot: A River Runs Through It (1992)

Flops: Lion for Lambs (2007)

Other Notable Film(s): The Milagro Beanfield War (1988); The Horse Whisperer (1998); The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000); The Conspirator (2010); The Company You Keep (2012)

"There are Russian films that we will never see, and nobody made (or supervised) as many of them as Dziga Vertov. For that reason alone, we should be cautious about defining him. Nevertheless, he seems not only the director most engaged with the Constructivist enthusiasm to make a new art for a newly conscious people, but also the most appealing. The Man with a Movie Camera is more touching, more historically informative and comic than any Russian film of the period...Like Godard, Vertov had an instinctive love of cinema and a relentless need to intellectualize and politicize his enthusiasm." ~ David Thomson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (59)

Greats: Man with a Movie Camera (1929)✦

Other Notable Film(s): One-Sixth of the World (1926); Enthusiasm (1931); Three Songs of Lenin (1934)