Greatest Directors

"Here is someone … who has an enormous, inordinate, neurotic fear of disorder. And that's from which he makes his art. He always has his people in a moment of disorder. They think they're in control, they think they have power, they think they have order, and then he just slips the rug out from under them to see what they're going to do." ~ Drew Casper

TSPDT Directors (1)

Influenced: John Frankenheimer; Steven Spielberg; Brian De Palma; John Carpenter; Sam Raimi; M. Night Shyamalan; Martin Scorsese; George A. Romero; Peter Bogdanovich; Dario Argento; William Friedkin; David Cronenberg; Quentin Tarantino; William Girdler; François Truffaut; David Lynch

Greats: The Lodger (1927); The Manxman (1929); The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934); The 39 Steps (1935)✦; Sabotage (1936); The Lady Vanishes (1938)✦; Rebecca (1940)✦; Suspicion (1941); Shadow of a Doubt (1943)✦; Lifeboat (1944); Spellbound (1945); Notorious (1946)✦; Rope (1948)✦; Strangers on a Train (1951)✦; I Confess (1953); Dial M for Murder (1954); Rear Window (1954)✦; To Catch a Thief (1955); The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956); The Wrong Man (1956)✖; Vertigo (1958)✦; North by Northwest (1959)✦; Psycho (1960)✦; The Birds (1963)✦; Marnie (1964)✦; Frenzy (1972)

Give It a Shot: Blackmail (1929); Murder! (1930); Rich and Strange (1931); Torn Curtain (1966)

Caution: The Pleasure Garden (1925); Number Seventeen (1932); Secret Agent (1936); Young and Innocent (1937); The Trouble with Harry (1955)✖; Topaz (1969); Family Plot (1976)

Other Notable Film(s): The Ring (1927); Downhill (1927); The Farmer's Wife (1928); Easy Virtue (1928); Champagne (1928); Juno and the Paycock (1930); Mary (1931); The Skin Game (1931); Waltzes from Vienna (1934); Jamaica Inn (1939); Foreign Correspondent (1940); Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941); Saboteur (1942); The Paradine Case (1947); Under Capricorn (1949); Stage Fright (1950)

"I always admired Stanley Kubrick for the fact that he managed to beat the system somehow. I think he kind of had it all figured out." ~ Joel Coen

"One of his films... is equivalent to ten of somebody else's. Watching a Kubrick film is like gazing up at a mountain top. You look up and wonder, "How could anyone have climbed that high?" ~ Martin Scorsese

Probably the biggest risk taking director of all-time. Whether it was controversial movies (A Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut, Lolita) movies that at first looked like a dud (2001: A Space Odyssey) and a film (The Shining) that was panned by critics and the novel writer when the film was first released but is now a horror classic.

TSPDT Directors (3)

Influenced: Martin Scorsese; Steven Spielberg; James Cameron; Woody Allen; Terry Gilliam; Ridley Scott; Christopher Nolan; David Fincher; Guillermo del Toro; David Lynch; Lars von Trier; Michael Mann; George A. Romero; Coen brothers; Quentin Tarantino; Gaspar Noé; Tim Burton; Paul Thomas Anderson; Darren Aronofsky; Michael Moore

Greats: Killer's Kiss (1955); The Killing (1956)✦; Paths of Glory (1957)✦; Spartacus (1960)✦; Lolita (1962)✦; Dr. Strangelove (1964)✦; 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)✦; A Clockwork Orange (1971)✦; Barry Lyndon (1975)✦; The Shining (1980)✦; Full Metal Jacket (1987)✦

Give It a Shot: Eyes Wide Shut (1999)✦

Caution: Fear and Desire (1953)

"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." ~ Martin Scorsese

"Most directors have one masterpiece by which they are known, or possibly two. Kurosawa has at least eight or nine." ~ Francis Ford Coppola

The most important man in Japanese cinema by far. He's mainly influenced by John Ford and Sergei Eisenstein. He was a major influence on many legendary directors. Also legendary directors around the world such as Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and Satyajit Ray acknowledged Kurosawa's greatness.

TSPDT Directors (10)

Influenced: Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, John Woo, Walter Hill, John Milius, Federico Fellini

Greats: Stray Dog (1949)✖; Rashomon (1950)✦; Ikiru (1952)✦; Seven Samurai (1954)✦; The Hidden Fortress (1958)✖; Yojimbo (1961)✦; Sanjuro (1962); High and Low (1963)✦; Kagemusha (1980)✦; Ran (1985)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Sanshiro Sugata (1943); The Most Beautiful (1944); The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945); No Regrets for Our Youth (1946); Drunken Angel (1948); The Quiet Duel (1949); Scandal (1950); The Idiots (1951); I Live in Fear (1955); The Lower Depths (1957); Throne of Blood (1957)✦; The Bad Sleep Well (1960); Red Beard (1965)✦; Dodes'ka-den (1970)✦; Dersu Uzala (1975)✦; Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990)✖; Rhapsody in August (1991); Mâdadayo (1993)

"In Goodfellas they have this one scene where the camera goes down some steps and walks through a kitchen into a restaurant and the critics were all over this as evidence of the genius of Scorsese and Scorsese is a genius." ~ Alex Cox

"I would wish for any one of my colleagues to have the experience of working with Martin Scorsese once in their lifetime." ~ Daniel Day-Lewis

Legendary directors such as Ingmar Bergman, Frank Capra, Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Elia Kazan, Akira Kurosawa, David Lean, Michael Powell, Satyajit Ray, and François Truffaut acknowledged Scorsese's greatness.

TSPDT All-Time Directors (11) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (14)

Influenced: Steven Spielberg; Quentin Tarantino; Paul Thomas Anderson; David Yates; John Woo; Wen Jiang; Martin McDonagh

Greats: Mean Streets (1973)✦; Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974); Taxi Driver (1976)✦; The Last Waltz [doc] (1978)✖; Raging Bull (1980)✦; The King of Comedy (1983)✦; The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)✦; Goodfellas (1990)✦; Casino (1995)✦; Gangs of New York (2002)✧; The Aviator (2004)✧; The Departed (2006)✧; Hugo (2011)✧; The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)✧; Silence (2016)✧; The Irishman (2019)✧; Killers of the Flower Moon (2022)

Give It a Shot: The Big Shave [short] (1967); Boxcar Bertha (1972); After Hours (1985); The Color of Money (1986); Michael Jackson: Bad [short] (1987); Cape Fear (1991); The Age of Innocence (1993)✦; Kundun (1997); Bringing Out the Dead (1999); Shutter Island (2010)✧

Other Notable Film(s): Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967); Italianamerican [doc] (1974); New York, New York (1977)✦; New York Stories [co-director] (1989); My Voyage to Italy [doc] (1999); No Direction Home: Bob Dylan [doc] (2005); Shine a Light [doc] (2008); George Harrison: Living in the Material World [doc] (2011)

"probably the greatest film artist, all things considered, since the invention of the motion picture camera." ~ Woody Allen

Influenced: Francis Ford Coppola; Woody Allen; Robert Altman; Pedro Almodóvar; Olivier Assayas; Federico Fellini; Todd Field; Krzysztof Kieslowski; Stanley Kubrick; Ang Lee; David Lynch; François Ozon; Chan-wook Park; Eric Rohmer; Marjane Satrapi; Mamoru Oshii; Paul Schrader; Martin Scorsese; Steven Spielberg; Andrei Tarkovsky; André Téchiné; Liv Ullmann

TSPDT All-Time Directors (7)

Classics: The Seventh Seal (1957)✦; Wild Strawberries (1957)✦; Persona (1966)✦; Hour of the Wolf (1968)✦; The Passion of Anna (1969)✖; Fanny and Alexander (1982)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Crisis (1946); It Rains on Our Love (1946); A Ship Bound for India (1947); Music in Darkness (1948); Port of Call (1948); Prison (1949); Thirst (1949); To Joy (1950); This Can't Happen Here (1950); Summer Interlude (1951); Secrets of Woman (1952); Summer with Monika (1953); Sawdust and Tinsel (1954)✦; A Lesson in Love (1954); Dreams (1955); Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)✦; The Magician (1958); Brink of Life (1958); The Devil's Eye (1960); The Virgin Spring (1960)✦; Through a Glass Darkly (1961); Winter Light (1963)✦; The Silence (1963)✦; All These Women (1964); Shame (1968)✖; The Touch (1971); Cries and Whispers (1972)✦; Scenes from a Marriage (1973)✦; The Magic Flute [TV] (1975)✖; Face to Face (1976); The Serpent's Egg (1977); Autumn Sonata (1978); In the Presence of a Clown [TV] (1997); Saraband (2003)✦✧

"Tarkovsky is for me the greatest, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." ~ Ingmar Bergman

TSPDT All-Time Directors (14)

Classics: Andrei Rublev (1966)✦; Solaris (1972)✦; The Mirror (1975)✦; Stalker (1979)✦; The Sacrifice (1986)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Killers [co-director/short] (1956); There Will Be No Leave Today [co-director] (1959); The Steamroller and the Violin (1961); Ivan's Childhood (1962)✦; Nostalgia (1983)✦; Voyage in Time [doc] (1983)

"His camera is invisible; his staging is perfect; he maintains a smoothness of surface in which no one scene is allowed to become more important than any other. Such mastery is possible only after one has made an enormous number of films. Questions of quality aside, John Ford is the Georges Simenon of directors." ~ François Truffaut

Many legendary directors acknowledged his greatness such as Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Bergman, Howard Hawks, Jean Renoir, Federico Fellini, Satyajit Ray, Frank Capra, Elia Kazan, David Lean, Peter Bogdanovich, Wim Wenders, Lloyd Kaufman. Directors Capra and Bergman stated that Ford is the greatest director.

Influenced: Orson Welles; Akira Kurosawa; Sergio Leone; Clint Eastwood; Martin Scorsese; Steven Spielberg; Bernardo Bertolucci; Jean-Luc Godard; François Truffaut; Federico Fellini; David Lynch

TSPDT All-Time Directors (9)

Greats: The Grapes of Wrath (1940)✦; How Green Was My Valley (1941)✦; My Darling Clementine (1946)✦; The Searchers (1956)✦; The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)✦

Give It a Shot: Stagecoach (1939)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Informer (1935)✖; Drums Along the Mohawk (1939); Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)✦; The Long Voyage Home (1940)✖; Tobacco Road (1941)✖; The Battle of Midway [doc] (1942); December 7th [Co-director] (1943); They Were Expendable (1945)✦; The Fugitive (1947); Fort Apache (1948)✦; 3 Godfathers (1948); She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)✦; Rio Grande (1950)✖; Wagon Master (1950)✦; When Willie Comes Marching Home (1950); The Quiet Man (1952)✦; What Price Glory (1952); Mogambo (1953); The Sun Shines Bright (1953)✦; The Long Gray Line (1955); Mister Roberts [Co-director] (1955); The Rising of the Moon (1957); The Wings of Eagles (1957)✖; Gideon's Day (1958); The Last Hurrah (1958); The Horse Soldiers (1959); Sergeant Rutledge (1960); Two Rode Together (1961)✖; How the West Won [Co-director] (1962); Donovan's Reef (1963); Cheyenne Autumn (1964); 7 Women (1966)✦

"Wilder touches all the bases... in some kind of shorthand way. Now that's art." ~ James Naughton

TSPDT All-Time Directors (16)

Greats: Double Indemnity (1944)✦; The Lost Weekend (1945)✖; Sunset Blvd. (1950)✦; Ace in the Hole (1951)✦; Stalag 17 (1953); Sabrina (1954); Witness for the Prosecution (1957); Some Like It Hot (1959)✦; The Apartment (1960)✦; The Fortune Cookie (1966)

Give It a Shot: The Seven Year Itch (1955); Avanti! (1972)✖; The Front Page (1974)

Other Notable Film(s): The Major and the Minor (1942); Five Graves to Cairo (1943); The Emperor Waltz (1948); A Foreign Affair (1948); The Spirit of St. Louis (1957); Love in the Afternoon (1957); One, Two, Three (1961)✖; Irma la Douce (1963); Kiss Me, Stupid (1964); The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)✖; Fedora (1978); Buddy Buddy (1981)

"His reputation has fallen a good deal as a filmmaker in the years since Apocalypse Now. But no American career has had such endless, entertaining turmoil, or says as much about making movies in America now. No one retains so many jubilant traits of the kid moviemaker, or has inspired darker comments." ~ David Thomson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (6)

Greats: The Godfather (1972)✦; The Godfather: Pt. II (1974)✦; The Conversation (1974)✦; Apocalypse Now (1979)✦; The Godfather: Pt. III (1990)•

Give It a Shot: Rumble Fish (1983)✖; Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Caution: The Outsiders (1983); Peggy Sue Got Married (1986); Jack (1996)

Flops: One from the Heart (1982)

Other Notable Film(s): Dementia 13 (1963); You're a Big Boy Now (1966); Finian's Rainbow (1968); The Rain People (1969); The Cotton Club (1984); Gardens of Stone (1987); Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988); New York Stories [Co-director] (1989); The Rainmaker (1997); Youth Without Youth (2007); Tetro (2009); Twixt (2011); Distant Vision (2015)

"I think today there are too many directors taking themselves seriously; the only one capable of saying anything really new and interesting is Luis Bunuel. He's a very great director." ~ Luchino Visconti

"My master in film, Buñuel, was a far greater storyteller than I. It was just that in my films miracles occur on the screen." ~ Michael Powell

Alfred Hitchcock stated that Bunuel is the all-time greatest director.

Influenced: David Lynch; David Cronenberg; Michael Powell; Federico Fellini

TSPDT All-Time Directors (13)

Greats: Un Chien Andalou [short] (1929)✦; Viridiana (1961)✦; The Exterminating Angel (1962)✦; Belle de Jour (1967)✦; The Phantom of Liberty (1974)✦

Other Notable Film(s): L'Age d'Or (1930)✦; Land Without Bread [short] (1933)✦; Los Olvidados (1950)✦; El (1953)✦; Robinson Crusoe (1954); The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955)✦; Nazarín (1959)✦; The Young One (1960); Diary of a Chambermaid (1964); Simon of the Desert (1965)✦; The Milky Way (1969)✖; Tristana (1970)✦; The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)✦; That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)✦

"I'm a big fan of David Lean. I think David Lean is the only example of a filmmaker who made super-productions that were auteur super-productions. They're extremely personal. And I don't think anyone's making films like that, and I really miss a personality like David Lean's in Hollywood." ~ Pedro Almodóvar

"We were doing it under the most extraordinary circumstances, but the first out of the tent in the morning would be David Lean. He said to me on the very first day of shooting, Pete, this is the beginning of a great adventure." ~ Peter O'Toole

Influenced: George Lucas, Sergio Leone, Mel Brooks, Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Sydney Pollack, Joe Wright, Baz Luhrmann, John Milius

TSPDT All-Time Directors (32)

Greats: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)✦; Lawrence of Arabia (1962)✦; Doctor Zhivago (1965)✦

Give It a Shot: Brief Encounter (1945)✦

Other Notable Film(s): In Which We Serve (1942); This Happy Breed (1944); Blithe Spirit (1945); Great Expectations (1946)✦; Oliver Twist (1948)✖; The Passionate Friends (1949); Madeleine (1950); The Sound Barrier (1952); Hobson's Choice (1954); Summertime (1955); Ryan's Daughter (1970)✖; A Passage to India (1984)✖

"Sergio Leone was a big influence on me because of the spaghetti westerns." ~ Quentin Tarantino

Influenced: Quentin Tarantino; Clint Eastwood; Antoine Fuqua; John Woo

TSPDT All-Time Directors (38)

Greats: A Fistful of Dollars (1964); For a Few Dollars More (1965); The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)✦; Once Upon a Time in West (1968)✦; Once Upon a Time in America (1984)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Colossus of Rhodes (1961); A Fistful of Dynamite (1971)✖

"All of us will always owe him everything." ~ Jean-Luc Godard

"To me, Orson is so much like a destitute king. A ‘destitute’ king, not because he was thrown away from the kingdom, but [because] on this earth, the way the world is, there is no kingdom good enough for Orson Welles." ~ Jeanne Moreau

Influenced: William Friedkin; Paul Thomas Anderson; Stanley Kubrick; Peter Bogdanovich; David Lynch

TSPDT All-Time Directors (2)

Greats: Citizen Kane (1941)✦; The Stranger (1946); The Lady from Shanghai (1947)✦; Touch of Evil (1958)✦

Give It a Shot: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)✦; Macbeth (1948); Othello (1952)✦; Mr. Arkadin (1955)✖; The Trial (1962)✦; Chimes at Midnight (1965)✦; F for Fake [doc] (1973)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Immortal Story (1968); The Other Side of the Wind (2018)✧

”each shot has a functional beauty, like a neck or an ankle. The smooth, orderly succession of shots has a rhythm like the pulsing of blood, and the whole film is like a beautiful body, kept alive by deep, resilient breathing.” ~ Jacques Rivette

Many legendary directors acknowledged his greatness such as Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, and Jacques Rivette. Is Tarantino's favorite all-time director.

Influenced: Robert Altman; John Carpenter; Quentin Tarantino; Walter Hill

TSPDT All-Time Directors (21)

Greats: Scarface (1932)✦; Bringing Up Baby (1938)✦; Only Angels Have Wings (1939)✦; His Girl Friday (1940)✦; Sergeant York (1941); The Big Sleep (1946)✦; Red River (1948)✦; Rio Bravo (1959)✦; El Dorado (1966)✦

Give It a Shot: Monkey Business (1952)

Other Notable Film(s): A Girl in Every Port (1928); The Dawn Patrol (1930); The Criminal Code (1931); The Crowd Roars (1932); Tiger Shark (1932); Today We Live [Co-director] (1933); Twentieth Century (1934); Barbary Coast (1935); Come and Get It (1936); Ceiling Zero (1936); Ball of Fire (1941); Air Force (1943); To Have and Have Not (1944)✦; A Song Is Born (1948); I Was a Male War Bride (1949); The Thing from Another World [Co-director] (1951)✦; The Big Sky (1952); Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)✦; Land of the Pharaohs (1955); Hatari! (1962)✦; Man's Favorite Sport? (1964); Red Line 7000 (1965); Rio Lobo (1970)

"I believe Ingmar Bergman, Vittorio De Sica and Federico Fellini are the only three filmmakers in the world who are not just artistic opportunists. By this I mean they don't just sit and wait for a good story to come along and then make it. They have a point of view which is expressed over and over and over again in their films, and they themselves write or have original material written for them." ~ Stanley Kubrick

Influenced: Stanley Kubrick; Rainer Werner Fassbinder; Pedro Almodóvar; Martin Scorsese; David Lynch; Woody Allen; Dariush Mehrjui; Terry Gilliam; Robert Altman

TSPDT All-Time Directors (4)

Greats: La Strada (1954)✦; La Dolce Vita (1960)✦; 8½ (1963)✦; Amarcord (1973)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Variety Lights [Co-director] (1950); The White Shiek (1952); I Vitelloni (1953)✦; Il Bidone (1955)✖; Nights of Cabiria (1957)✦; Juliet of the Spirits (1965)✦; Fellini Satyricon (1969)✦; The Clowns [TV] (1970)✖; Fellini's Roma (1972)✦; Fellini's Casanova (1976)✦; Orchestra Rehearsal (1978)✖; City of Women (1980); And the Ship Sails On (1983)✖; Ginger and Fred (1986); Fellini's Intervista (1987)✖; The Voice of the Moon (1990)

Influenced: Luis Buñuel; Alfred Hitchcock; Stanley Kubrick; Orson Welles

TSPDT All-Time Directors (22)

Greats: Metropolis (1927)✦; M (1931)✦; Fury (1936)✖; The Woman in the Window (1944)✖; Scarlet Street (1945)✖

Other Notable Film(s): Spiders (1919); Destiny (1921)✖; Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922)✦; Siegfried (1924)✖; Kriemhild's Revenge (1924); Spies (1928)✦; By Rocket to the Moon (1929); The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)✦; The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse (1933); Liliom (1934); You Only Live Once (1937)✖; You and Me (1938); The Return of Frank James (1940); Man Hunt (1941); Western Union (1941); Hangmen Also Die? (1943); Ministry of Fear (1944); Cloak and Dagger (1946); Secret Beyond the Door... (1947); House by the River (1950); American Guerrilla in the Philippines (1950); Rancho Notorious (1952); Clash by Night (1952); The Blue Gardenia (1953); The Big Heat (1953)✦; Human Desire (1954)✖; Moonfleet (1955)✦; While the City Sleeps (1956)✖; Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)✖; The Indian Tomb (1958)✖; The Tiger of Eschnapur (1959)✦; The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960); Journey to the Lost City (1960)✖

"The world's greatest film-maker." ~ François Truffaut

Orson Welles frequently cited him as the greatest film director of all time.

Influenced: Satyajit Ray; James Ivory; Robert Altman

TSPDT All-Time Directors (8)

Greats: La Grand Illusion (1937)✦; The Rules of the Game (1939)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Whirlpool of Fate (1925); Nana (1926); Charleston Parade [short] (1927); The Little Match Girl [Co-director] (1928); La Chienne (1931)✦; La Nuit du carrefour (1931)✦; Boudu Save from Drowning (1932)✦; Madame Bovary (1933); Toni (1935)✖; Partie de campagne (1936)✦; The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936)✦; The Lower Depths (1936); La Marseillaise (1938); La Bête Humaine (1938)✦; Swamp Water (1941); This Land is Mine (1943); The Southerner (1945); The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946); The Woman on the Beach (1947); The River (1951)✦; The Golden Coach (1952)✦; French Cancan (1955)✦; Elena and Her Men (1956); Experiment in Evil [TV] (1959); Picnic on the Grass (1959); The Elusive Corporal (1962)

"Shakespeare wrote great plays that we're still watching all these years later. Charlie Chaplin made great comedies and they are still as funny today as they ever were." ~ Leonard Maltin

Influenced: Federico Fellini

TSPDT All-Time Directors (15)

Greats: The Kid (1921)✦; The Gold Rush (1925)✦; City Lights (1931)✦; Modern Times (1936)✦; The Great Dictator (1940)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Tramp (1915); A Burlesque on Carmen (1915); The Floorwalker (1916); Police (1916); The Vagabond (1916); The Fireman (1916); The Rink (1916); Behind the Screen (1916); The Pawnshop (1916); The Count (1916); One A.M. (1916); Easy Street (1917); The Cure (1917); The Adventurer (1917); The Immigrant (1917); A Dog's Life (1918); The Bond (1918); Shoulder Arms (1918); Sunnyside (1919); A Day's Pleasure (1919); The Idle Class (1921); Pay Day [short] (1922); The Pilgrim (1923)✖; A Woman in Paris (1923)✦; The Circus (1928)✦; Monsieur Vordoux (1947)✦; Limelight (1952)✦; A King in New York (1957)✖; The Chaplin Revue (1959); A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)

"There's something in the way Bresson makes films which puts me in mind of a certain French tradition that comes from Racine. I don't really think that I was influenced by Bresson, but I would say that I wish I had been." ~ Louis Malle

"Bresson is to French cinema what Mozart is to German music and Dostoyevsky is to Russian literature." ~ Jean-Luc Godard

Influenced: Andrei Tarkovsky; Michael Haneke; Jim Jarmusch; Dardenne brothers; Paul Schrader; Aki Kaurismäki

TSPDT All-Time Directors (17)

Greats: A Man Escaped (1956)✦; Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)✦; L'Argent (1983)✦

Give It a Shot: Pickpocket (1959)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne (1945)✦; Diary of a Country Priest (1951)✦; The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962); Mouchette (1967)✦; A Gentle Woman (1969)✖; Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971)✖; Lancelot of the Lake (1974)✦; The Devil Probably (1977)✦

"The idea of working with Steven Spielberg was very attractive. He's such a master. He knows the language of the camera and of filmmaking, which gives him a great freedom." ~ Max von Sydow

"Steven Spielberg is unique. I feel that the kinds of movies he loves are the same kinds of movies that the big mass audience loves. He's very fortunate because he can do the things he naturally likes the best, and he's been very successful." ~ Francis Ford Coppola

Many legendary directors acknowledged his greatness such as Robert Aldrich, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, David Lean, Sidney Lumet, Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese, François Truffaut, Yimou Zhang

Influenced: Paul Thomas Anderson, Neill Blomkamp, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Roland Emmerich, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, Robert Rodriguez, John Sayles, Ridley Scott, John Singleton, Kevin Smith, Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino

TSPDT All-Time Directors (24) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (25)

Greats: Jaws (1975)✦; Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)✦; Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)✦; E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)✦; The Color Purple (1985)✖; Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989); Schindler's List (1993)✦; Jurassic Park (1993)✦; Saving Private Ryan (1998)✦; Catch Me If You Can (2002)✧; Munich (2005)✧; Lincoln (2012)✧; Wide Side Story (2021)

Give It a Shot: Duel (1971)✖; The Sugarland Express (1974); Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984); Empire of the Sun (1987)✖; Amistad (1997); Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)✦✧; Minority Report (2002)✧; The Terminal (2004); Bridge of Spies (2015)☒; The Post (2017)✧

Caution: Hook (1991); The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997); War of the Worlds (2005)✧; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008); War Horse (2011)☒; Ready Player One (2018)

Flops: 1941 (1979)

Other Notable Film(s): Always (1989); The Adventures of Tintin (2011); The BFG (2016)

“If in our century, something sacred still existed, if there were something like a sacred treasure of the cinema, then for me that would have to be the work of the Japanese director Yasujirô Ozu… For me never before and never again since has the cinema been so close to its essence and its purpose: to present an image of man in our century, a usable, true and valid image in which he not only recognises himself, but from which, above all, he may learn about himself.” ~ Wim Wenders

TSPDT All-Time Directors (12)

Greats: Late Spring (1949)✦; Tokyo Story (1953)✦; Good Morning (1959)✦

Other Notable Film(s): I Was Born. But... (1932)✦; The Only Son (1936)✖; There Was a Father (1942); Early Summer (1951)✦; Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952)✖; Early Spring (1956); Tokyo Twilight (1957); Equinox Flower (1958)✖; Floating Weeds (1959)✦; Late Autumn (1960)✖; An Autumn Afternoon (1961)✦; The End of Summer (1961)✦

"The greatest of Japanese filmmakers. Or, quite simply, one of the greatest of filmmakers." ~ Jean-Luc Godard

"If Mizoguchi captivates us, it is because he never sets out deliberately to do so and never takes sides with the spectator. He seems to be the only Japanese director who is completely Japanese and yet is also the only one that achieves a true universality, that of an individual." - Jacques Rivette

TSPDT All-Time Directors (26)

Greats: Ugetsu (1953)✦; Sansho the Bailiff (1954)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Osaka Elegy (1936); Sisters of the Gion (1936); The Straits of Love and Hate (1937)✖; The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939)✦; The 47 Ronin (1941)✦; Utamaro and His Five Women (1946)✖; Women of the Night (1948); Flame of My Love (1949)✖; Miss Oyu (1951)✖; The Life of Oharu (1952)✦; A Geisha (1953)✖; The Crucified Lovers (1954)✦; The Woman in the Rumor (1954); Princess Yang Kwei-fei (1955)✖; Taira Clan Saga (1955)✖; Street of Shame (1956)✦

TSPDT All-Time Directors (27) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (2)

Greats: Eraserhead (1977)✦; The Elephant Man (1980)✦; Blue Velvet (1986)✦; Twin Peaks [TV series] (1990-1991); Mulholland Dr. (2001)✦✧

Give It a Shot: Dune (1984)✖; Wild at Heart (1990)✦; Lost Highway (1997)✦; The Straight Story (1999)✖

Caution: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Inland Empire (2006)✦✧; Twin Peaks [TV series] (2017)✧

"Roman Polanski is a man who cares deeply about his art and its place in this world. What happened to him on his incredible path is filled with tragedy, and most men would have collapsed. Instead, he became a great artist and continues to make great films." ~ Harvey Weinstein

Influenced: David Lynch; Coen Brothers, Atom Egoyan, Darren Aronofsky, Chan-wook Park, Abel Ferrara, Wes Craven

TSPDT All-Time Directors (34)

Greats: Repulsion (1965)✦; Cul-de-sac (1966)✦; Rosemary's Baby (1968)✦; Chinatown (1974)✦; The Tenant (1976)✦; The Pianist (2002)✧

Give It a Shot: Knife in the Water (1962)✦; Carnage (2011)

Caution: The Ninth Gate (1999)

Other Notable Film(s): The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967); Macbeth (1971); What? (1972); Tess (1979); Pirates (1986); Frantic (1988); Bitter Moon (1992); Death and the Maiden (1994); Oliver Twist (2005); The Ghost Writer (2010)✧; Venus in Fur (2013); Based on a True Story (2017); An Officer and a Spy (2019)

"The only folk I can judge are people like Woody Allen who I think is a genius, largely because I think he has beaten the system. He has his own company, and his films are all his own ideas. It's his direction, and so it comes out the way he imagined it." ~ Nigel Kneale

TSPDT All-Time Directors (29)

Greats: Take the Money and Run (1969); Sleeper (1973)✖; Love and Death (1975)✦; Annie Hall (1977)✦; Manhattan (1979)✦; Stardust Memories (1980)✖; Broadway Danny Rose (1984)✖; The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)✦; Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)✦; Radio Days (1987)✖; Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)✦; Match Point (2005)✧

Give It a Shot: Bananas (1971); Bullets Over Broadway (1994); Mighty Aphrodite (1995); Deconstructing Harry (1997); Sweet and Lowdown (1999); Small Time Crooks (2000); Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)✧; Midnight in Paris (2011)✧; Blue Jasmine (2013)✧

Caution: Zelig (1983)✦; The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)

Flops: Whatever Works (2009)

Other Notable Film(s): What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966); Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (1972); Interiors (1978); A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982); September (1987); Another Woman (1988); Alice (1990); Shadows and Fog (1991); Husbands and Wives (1992)✖; Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993); Everyone Says I Love You (1996); Celebrity (1998); Hollywood Ending (2002); Anything Else (2003); Melinda and Melinda (2004); Scoop (2006); Cassandra's Dream (2007); You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010); To Rome with Love (2012); Magic in the Moonlight (2014); Irrational Man (2015); Café Society (2016); Wonder Wheel (2017); A Rainy Day in New York (2018); Rifkin's Festival (2020)

Representing himself and Ethan Coen

"Look at the Coen brothers. All their minor characters are as interesting as their protagonists. If the smaller characters are well-written, the whole world of the film becomes enriched. It's not the size of the thing, but the detail." ~ Brendan Gleeson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (50) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (9)

Greats: Blood Simple (1984)✦; Miller's Crossing (1990)✦; Fargo (1996)✦; No Country for Old Men (2007)✦✧; A Serious Man (2009)✧; Inside Llweyn Davis (2013)✧; The Tragedy of Macbeth [solo] (2021)

Give It a Shot: Raising Arizona (1987)✦; Barton Fink (1991)✦; The Hudsucker Proxy (1994); The Big Lebowski (1998)✦; O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)✖✧; The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)✧; True Grit (2010)✧

Caution: Intolerable Cruelty (2003); Burn After Reading (2008)✧; Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Other Notable Film(s): The Ladykillers (2004); The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

"I think Ingmar Bergman, Francoise Truffaut - all these people created images in my mind, beautiful pictures, I loved what was known at that time as the foreign film." ~ Jackie DeShannon

TSPDT All-Time Directors (23)

Greats: The 400 Blows (1959)✦; Jules and Jim (1962)✦; Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

Other Notable Film(s): Shoot the Piano Player (1960)✦; Antoine and Colette (1962); The Soft Skin (1964)✖; Stolen Kisses (1968)✖; The Bride Wore Black (1968); Mississippi Mermaid (1969); The Wild Child (1970)✦; Bed & Board (1970); Two English Girls (1971)✦; A Gorgeous Girl Like Me (1972); Day for Night (1973)✦; The Story of Adele H (1975); Small Change (1976); The Man Who Loved Women (1977); The Green Room (1978)✖; Love on the Run (1979); The Last Metro (1980); The Woman Next Door (1981)✦; Confidentially Yours (1983)

"John Huston was a superb master. He knew how to make good films. I did three things with him. One is called Independence. It plays in Philadelphia, for free. It's been playing there for 25 years." ~ Eli Wallach

"cinema's Ernest Hemingway"—a filmmaker who was "never afraid to tackle tough issues head on." ~ Ian Freer

Influenced: Robert Altman

TSPDT All-Time Directors (54)

Greats: The Maltese Falcon (1941)✦; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)✦; The African Queen (1951)✦; The Man Who Would Be King (1975)✦; Prizzi's Honor (1985)

Give It a Shot: Fat City (1972)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Across the Pacific (1942); In This Our Life (1942); Key Largo (1948); The Asphalt Jungle (1950)✦; The Red Badge of Courage (1951); Moulin Rouge (1952); Beat the Devil (1953); Moby Dick (1956); Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957); The Unforgiven (1960); The Misfits (1961)✦; Freud (1962); The List of Adrian Messenger (1963); The Night of the Iguana (1964); The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966); The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972); The MacKintosh Man (1973); Wise Blood (1979); Victory (1981); Annie (1982); Under the Volcano (1984)✖; The Dead (1987)✦

"He had created feelgood entertainments before the phrase was invented, and his influence on culture—from Steven Spielberg to David Lynch, and from television soap operas to greeting-card sentiments—is simply too huge to calculate." ~ Ian Freer

Influenced: Robert Altman, Ron Howard, Masaki Kobayashi, Akira Kurosawa, John Lasseter, David Lynch, John Milius, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, François Truffaut

TSPDT All-Time Directors (66)

Greats: It Happened One Night (1934)✦; Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)✖; You Can't Take It with You (1938)✖; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)✦; Meet John Doe (1941); Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)✖; It's a Wonderful Life (1946)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Strong Man (1926); Long Pants (1927)✖; Ladies of Leisure (1930); Platinum Blondes (1931); The Miracle Woman (1931); Forbidden (1932); American Madness (1932); The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)✖; Lady for a Day (1933); Broadway Bill (1934); Lost Horizon (1937)✖; State of the Union (1948); Riding High (1950); Here Comes the Groom (1951); A Hole in the Head (1959); Pocketful of Miracles (1961)

"one of the finest craftsmen and warmest humanitarians among all film directors." ~ Roger Ebert

Many legendary directors acknowledged his greatness such as Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Spike Lee.

TSPDT All-Time Directors (101)

Greats: 12 Angry Men (1957)✦; Serpico (1973); Dog Day Afternoon (1975)✦; Network (1976)✦; The Verdict (1982)✖

Give It a Shot: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)✧

Caution: Murder on the Orient Express (1974); Equus (1977); The Morning After (1986)

Flops: Power (1986)

Other Notable Film(s): The Fugitive Kind (1960); Long Day's Journey Into the Night (1962); Fail Safe (1964); The Pawnbroker (1964); The Hill (1965); The Anderson Tapes (1971); The Offence (1972); The Wiz (1978); Prince of the City (1981); Deathtrap (1982); Daniel (1983); Garbo Talks (1984); Running on Empty (1988); Family Business (1989); A Stranger Among Us (1992); Guilty as Sin (1993); Night Falls on Manhattan (1996); Critical Care (1997); Gloria (1999); Find Me Guilty (2005)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (81)

Greats: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)✦; Amadeus (1984)✦; The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)

Give It a Shot: Man on the Moon (1999)

Other Notable Film(s): Loves of a Blonde (1965)✦; The Firemen's Ball (1967)✦; Taking Off (1971); Hair (1979); Ragtime (1981); Valmont (1989); Goya's Ghost (2006)

"bona fide perfectionist" ~ Ian Freer

TSPDT All-Time Directors (109)

Greats: Dodsworth (1936)✖; Jezebel (1938); Wuthering Heights (1939); The Letter (1940); The Little Foxes (1941)✖; The Best Year of Our Lives (1946)✦; Roman Holiday (1953)✦; Ben-Hur (1959)✦; Funny Girl (1968)

Give It a Shot: Mrs. Miniver (1942); The Children's Hour (1961)

Other Notable Film(s): These Three (1936); Dead End (1937); The Westerner (1940); The Heiress (1949)✖; Detective Story (1951); Carrie (1952); The Desperate Hours (1955); Friendly Persuasion (1956); The Big Country (1958); The Collector (1965); How to Steal a Million (1966); The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)

"Clint Eastwood is an extraordinary director because he knows the value of a buck. He knows where it will show on the screen." ~ Angela Lansbury

TSPDT All-Time Directors (86) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (18)

Greats: High Plains Drifter (1973); The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)✦; Unforgiven (1992)✦; A Perfect World (1993); The Bridges of Madison County (1995)✦; Mystic River (2003)✧; Million Dollar Baby (2004)✦✧; Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)✧; Gran Torino (2008)✧

Give It a Shot: Play Misty for Me (1971); The Gauntlet (1977); Pale Rider (1985); White Hunter Black Heart (1990)✖; Absolute Power (1997); True Crime (1999); Space Cowboys (2000); Blood Work (2002); Flags of Our Fathers (2006)✧; Changeling (2008); American Sniper (2014)☒; Sully (2016)

Caution: The Eiger Sanction (1975); The Rookie (1990); J. Edgar (2011)

Other Notable Film(s): Breezy (1973); Bronco Billy (1980); Firefox (1982); Honkytonk Man (1982); Sudden Impact (1983); Heartbreak Ridge (1986); Bird (1988); Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997); Invictus (2009); Hereafter (2010); Jersey Boys (2014); The 15:17 to Paris (2018); The Mule (2018); Richard Jewell (2019); Cry Macho (2021)

"Kazan was the best actors' director by far of any I've worked for... the only one who ever really stimulated me, got into a part with me and virtually acted it with me... he chose good actors, encouraged them to improvise, and then improvised on the improvisation... He gave his cast freedom and ... was always emotionally involved in the process and his instincts were perfect... I've never seen a director who became as deeply and emotionally involved in a scene as Gadg... he got so wrought up that he started chewing on his hat.

He was an arch-manipulator of actors' feelings, and he was extraordinarily talented; perhaps we will never see his like again." ~ Marlon Brando

TSPDT All-Time Directors (78)

Influenced: Martin Scorsese; Sidney Lumet; John Cassavetes; Arthur Penn; Woody Allen

Greats: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)✦; On the Waterfront (1954)✦; East of Eden (1955)✦; A Face in the Crowd (1957)✖; Splendor in the Grass (1961)✦

Give It a Shot: Gentleman's Agreement (1947); Viva Zapata! (1952)

Other Notable Film(s): A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945); The Sea of Grass (1947); Boomerang! (1947); Pinky (1949); Panic in the Streets (1950); Man on a Tightrope (1953); Baby Doll (1956)✖; Wild River (1960)✖; America America (1963)✖; The Arrangement (1969); The Visitors (1972); The Last Tycoon (1976)

"I learned more about acting from George Stevens in a few months than I had in my entire life up until then." ~ Alan Ladd

TSPDT All-Time Directors (179)

Greats: Swing Time (1936)✖; Woman of the Year (1942); A Place in the Sun (1951)✦; Shane (1953)✦; Giant (1956)✖

Give It a Shot: Penny Serenade (1941); The More the Merrier (1943)

Other Notable Film(s): Alice Adams (1935); Vivacious Lady (1938); Gunga Din (1939)✖; The Talk of the Town (1942); I Remember Mama (1948); The Diary of Anne Frank (1959); The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)

Legendary directors acknowledged his greatness such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick, and Akira Kurosawa.

Influenced: Miklós Jancsó; Martin Scorsese

TSPDT All-Time Directors (20)

Greats: L'Avventura (1960)✦; Blow-Up (1966)✦; The Passenger (1975)✦

Give It a Shot: Red Desert (1964)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Story of a Love Affair (1950); Le Amiche (1955); Il Grido (1957)✦; La Notte (1961)✦; L'Eclisse (1962)✦; Zabriskie Point (1970)✦; The Mystery of Oberwald (1981); Identification of a Woman (1982)✖; Beyond the Clouds [w/Wim Wenders] (1995)

"Carl Dreyer's art begins to unfold just at the point where most directors give up." ~ Pauline Kael

TSPDT All-Time Directors (18)

Classics: The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)✦; Ordet (1955)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Parson's Widow (1920); Leaves Out of the Book of Satan (1921); Michael (1924); Master of the House (1925); Vampyr (1932)✦; Day of Wrath (1943)✦; Gertrud (1964)✦

"Murnau's influence on the cinema has proved to be more lasting than Eisenstein's. Murnau's moving camera seems a more suitable style for exploring the world than does Eisenstein's dialectical montage, and the trend in modern movies has been towards escaping studio sets so as to discover the real world." ~ Andrew Sarris

Influenced: Alfred Hitchcock

TSPDT All-Time Directors (19)

Classics: Nosferatu (1922)✦; The Last Laugh (1924)✦; Sunrise (1927)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Phantom (1922); Tartuffe (1925); Faust (1926)✦; City Girl (1930)✖; Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)✦

"Godard is incredibly brilliant, the things he says. Apparently here in France, the most interesting thing when a new film of his is going to come out are his press conferences, because he's so brilliant." ~ Brian De Palma

Influenced: Quentin Tarantino

TSPDT All-Time Directors (5) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (27)

Greats: Breathless (1960)✦; Contempt (1963)✦

Give It a Shot: A Woman Is a Woman (1961)✖; Vivre Sa Vie (1962)✦; Pierrot le Fou (1965)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Le Petit Soldat (1963); The Carabineers (1963); Band of Outsiders (1964)✦; Une Femme Mariée (1964); Alphaville (1965)✦; Masculin Féminin (1966)✦; Made in U.S.A. (1966); 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)✦; La Chinoise (1967); Week End (1967)✦; Sympathy for the Devil [doc] (1968); Wind from the East (1969)✖; Tout Va Bien (1972)✖; Numero duex (1975)✦; Every Man for Himself (1980)✦; Godard's Passion (1982)✦; Scenario for a Film Called Passion (1982)✖; First Name: Carmen (1983); Détective (1985); Hail Mary (1985)✖; King Lear (1987)✖; Nouvelle vague (1990)✦; Histoire(s) du cinéma (1998)✦; Origins of the 21st Century (2000)✧; In Praise of Love (2001)✦✧; Notre musique (2004)✧; Film socialisme (2010)✧; Goodbye to Language (2014)✧, The Image Book (2018)✧

"The man with the cynical, delightful touch created an aristocratic world of yesteryear, then poked fun at it. Lubitsch could say volumes by implication and innuendo." ~ William R. Meyer

Influenced: Billy Wilder; David Lynch

TSPDT All-Time Directors (37)

Classics: The Shop Around the Corner (1940)✦; To Be or Not to Be (1942)✦

Give It a Shot: Trouble in Paradise (1932)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Marriage Circle (1924)✖; The Love Parade (1929); The Smiling Lieutenant (1931); One Hour with You (1932); Design for Living (1933)✦; The Merry Widow (1934); Angel (1937)✖; Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938); Ninotchka (1939)✦; That Uncertain Feeling (1941); Heaven Can Wait (1943)✖; Cluny Brown (1946)✖; That Lady in Ermine (1948)

"I believe Ingmar Bergman, Vittorio De Sica and Federico Fellini are the only three filmmakers in the world who are not just artistic opportunists. By this I mean they don't just sit and wait for a good story to come along and then make it. They have a point of view which is expressed over and over and over again in their films, and they themselves write or have original material written for them." ~ Stanley Kubrick

Influenced: Satyajit Ray

TSPDT All-Time Directors (33)

Classics: Bicycle Thieves (1948)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Shoeshine (1946)✖; Miracle in Milan (1951)✦; Umberto D. (1952)✦; Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953); Two Women (1960); Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963); Marriage Italian Style (1964); The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)

"The master of montage, Eisenstein created a series of classic Soviet films which speak of the faith, optimism, and willpower of the Russian people." ~ William R. Meyer

TSPDT All-Time Directors (25)

Greats: Battleship Potemkin (1925)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Strike (1925)✦; October (1928)✦; The General Line (1929)✖; Que Viva Mexico (1932*)✖; Alexander Nevsky (1938)✦; Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1944)✦; Ivan the Terrible, Part II (1958)✦

TSPDT All-Time Directors (45) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (10)

Greats: Badlands (1973)✦; Days of Heaven (1978)✦; The Thin Red Line (1998)✦

Give It a Shot: The New World (2005)✦✧; The Tree of Life (2011)✦✧

Caution: To the Wonder (2013)✧

Other Notable Film(s): Knight of Cups (2015)☒; Voyage of Time: Life's Journey (2016); Song to Song (2017); A Hidden Life (2019)✧

"the single most influential director of his generation." ~ Peter Bogdanovich

TSPDT All-Time Directors (56) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (16)

Greats: Reservoir Dogs (1992)✦; Pulp Fiction (1994)✦; Jackie Brown (1997); Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)✦✧; Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)✧; Inglourious Basterds (2009)✦✧

Give It a Shot: Django Unchained (2012)✧; The Hateful Eight (2015)✧; Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)✧

Caution: Death Proof (2007)✧

"I have always been a huge fan of Ridley Scott and certainly when I was a kid. 'Alien,' 'Blade Runner' just blew me away because they created these extraordinary worlds that were just completely immersive. I was also an enormous Stanley Kubrick fan for similar reasons." ~ Christopher Nolan

Influenced: Christopher Nolan

TSPDT All-Time Directors (41)

Greats: Alien (1979)✦; Blade Runner (1982)✦; Thelma & Louise (1991)✦; Gladiator (2000)✧; Black Hawk Down (2001)✧

Give It a Shot: Matchstick Men (2003); American Gangster (2007); Body of Lies (2008); The Martian (2015)✧; The Last Duel (2021)

Caution: Hannibal (2001); Prometheus (2012)

Other Notable Film(s): The Duellists (1977)✖; Legend (1985); Someone to Watch Over Me (1987); Black Rain (1989); 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992); White Squall (1996); G.I. Jane (1997); Kingdom of Heaven (2005); A Good Year (2006); Robin Hood (2010); The Counselor (2013); Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014); Alien: Covenant (2017); All the Money in the World (2017); House of Gucci (2021); Napoleon (2022)

"Extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, [when] he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies." ~ Roger Ebert

TSPDT All-Time Directors (51)

Greats: The Navigator [w/Donald Crisp] (1924)✦; Sherlock Jr. (1924)✦; The General [w/Clyde Bruckman] (1926)✦; Steamboat Bill, Jr. [w/Charles Reisner] (1928)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Cops [w/Edward F. Cline (1922)✖; Three Ages [w/Edward F. Cline (1923); Our Hospitality [w/John G. Blystone (1923)✦; Seven Chances (1925)✦; Go West (1925); Battling Butler (1926); The Cameraman [w/Edward Sedgwick] (1928)✦

"If he has a fatal flaw as an artist, it his his naïve belief that style can invariably transcend substance and that our way of looking at the world is more important than the world itself. Critic-film-makers like Godard and Truffaut pay lip service to these doctrines, but they don't really believe them. Only Minnelli believes implicitly in the power of his camera to transform trash into art, and corn into caviar. Minnelli believes more in beauty than art." ~ Andrew Sarris

TSPDT All-Time Directors (67)

Greats: Father of the Bride (1950); An American in Paris (1951)✦; The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)✦; Lust for Life (1956)

Give It a Shot: The Band Wagon (1953)✦; Gigi (1958)

Other Notable Film(s): Cabin in the Sky (1943); Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)✦; The Clock (1945); Undercurrent (1946); The Pirate (1948); Madame Bovary (1949); Father's Little Dividend (1951); The Long, Long Trailer (1953); Brigadoon (1954); Designing Woman (1957); Some Came Running (1958)✦; Home from the Hill (1960)✖; Bells Are Ringing (1960); The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962)✖; The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963); The Sandpiper (1965)

Michael Curtiz is the classic example of a studio director in that he could turn his hand to almost anything. He could go from any genre to another, and somehow this Hungarian knew exactly how those genres worked. Like there was some innate storytelling skill in this man. ~ David Thomson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (61) Greats: Captain Blood (1935); Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)✖; Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942); Casablanca (1943)✦; Mildred Pierce (1945)✦

Give It a Shot: White Christmas (1954)

Other Notable Film(s): Noah's Ark (1928); Doctor X (1932); The Cabin in the Cotton (1932); 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932); Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933); The Kennel Murder Case (1933); Female (1933); Jimmy the Gent (1934); Black Fury (1935); The Case of the Curious Bride (1935); Front Page Woman (1935); The Walking Dead (1936); The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936); Kid Galahad (1937); Four's a Crowd (1938); Four Daughters (1938); The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)✦; The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939); Dodge City (1939); Four Wives (1939); Virginia City (1940); Santa Fe Trail (1940); The Sea Hawk (1940); The Sea Wolf (1941); Dive Bomber (1941); Captains of the Clouds (1942); Mission to Moscow (1943); Passage to Marseille (1944); Roughly Speaking (1945); Night and Day (1946); Life with Father (1947); The Unsuspected (1947); Romance on the High Seas (1948); My Dream Is Yours (1949); Flamingo Road (1949); Bright Leaf (1950); Young Man with a Horn (1950); The Breaking Point (1950); Jim Thorpe -- All-American (1951); I'll See You in My Dreams (1951); The Jazz Singer (1952); Trouble Along the Way (1953); The Egyptian (1954); We're No Angels (1955); The Best Things in Life Are Free (1956); The Helen Morgan Story (1957); The Proud Rebel (1958); King Creole (1958); The Hangman (1959); The Man in the Net (1959); A Breath of Scandal (1960); The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1960); Francis of Assisi (1961); The Comancheros (1961)

"When a director has provided polished, tasteful entertainments of a high order consistently over a period of 30 years, it is clear that said director is much more than a mere entertainer." ~ Andrew Sarris

TSPDT All-Time Directors (100)

Greats: The Philadelphia Story (1940)✦; Gaslight (1944)✖; Adam's Rib (1949); My Fair Lady (1964)✖

Give It a Shot: Dinner at Eight (1933)✖; Holiday (1938)✦; A Double Life (1947); Born Yesterday (1950)

Other Notable Film(s): Little Women (1933); David Copperfield (1935); Romeo and Juliet (1936); Camille (1936)✖; The Women (1939)✖; A Woman's Face (1941); Keeper of the Flame (1942); Edward, My Son (1949); Pat and Mike (1952); The Actress (1953); A Star Is Born (1954)✦; It Should Happen to You (1954); Les Girls (1957); Wild Is the Wind (1957); Let's Make Love (1960); Travels with My Aunt (1972)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (142)

Greats: The Captive City (1952); Odds Against Tomorrow (1959); West Side Story (1961)✦; The Haunting (1963)✖; The Sound of Music (1965)✦

Give It a Shot: The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)✦; Run Silent Run Deep (1958); The Andromeda Strain (1971)

Caution: Two for the Seesaw (1962)

Other Notable Film(s): Mademoiselle Fifi (1944); The Curse of the Cat People (1944); The Body Snatcher (1945); A Game of Death (1946); Criminal Court (1946); Born to Kill (1947); Mystery in Mexico (1948); Blood on the Moon (1948); The Set-Up (1949)✖; Two Flags West (1950); Three Secrets (1950); The House on Telegraph Hill (1951); Something for the Birds (1952); Destination Gobi (1953); The Desert Rats (1953); So Big (1953); Executive Suite (1954); Helen of Troy (1956); Tribute to a Bad Man (1956); Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956); This Could Be the Night (1957); Until They Sail (1957); I Want to Live! (1958); The Sand Pebbles (1966); Star! (1968); Two People (1973); The Hindenburg (1975); Audrey Rose (1977); Star Trek (1979); Rooftops (1989)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (60)

Greats: Last Tango in Paris (1973)✦; The Last Emperor (1987)✦

Give It a Shot: The Conformist (1971)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Grim Reaper (1962); Before the Revolution (1964)✖; The Spider's Stratagem (1970)✖; 1900 (1976)✦; Luna (1979)✖; The Sheltering Sky (1990)✖; Little Buddha (1993); Stealing Beauty (1996); Besieged (1998); The Dreamers (2003)☒; Me and You (2012)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (195)

Greats: High Noon (1952)✦; From Here to Eternity (1953)✖; A Man for All Seasons (1966)✖

Give It a Shot: The Men (1950); Oklahoma! (1955)

Other Notable Film(s): The Seventh Cross (1944); The Search (1948); Act of Violence (1948); The Member of the Wedding (1952); A Hatful of Rain (1957); The Nun's Story (1959); The Sundowners (1960); Behold a Pale Horse (1964); The Day of the Jackal (1973); Julia (1977)

Representing himself and his collaboration with Emeric Pressburger

TSPDT All-Time Directors (40)

Greats: Black Narcissus (1947)✦; The Red Shoes (1948)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Co-directed with Pressburger: One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942); The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)✦; A Canterbury Tale (1944)✦; I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)✦; Stairway to Heaven (1946)✦; The Small Back Room (1949); The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)✖

Without Pressburger:

"Next to Alfred Hitchcock (for whom he once worked as an assistant), Powell may be the most talented and important film director to come out of the English cinema… His visual technique, particularly his bold use of color and composition, has inspired many younger directors, including Martin Scorsese, Ken Russell, and Nicolas Roeg." ~ Leonard Maltin

TSPDT All-Time Directors (175)

Greats: Peeping Tom (1960)✦

Give It a Shot: 49th Parallel (1941)

Other Notable Film(s): The Edge of the World (1937); The Thief of Bagdad (1940) [Co-director]✦; They're a Weird Mob (1966)

"To have not seen the films of Ray is to have lived in the world without ever having seen the moon and the sun." ~ Akira Kurosawa

TSPDT All-Time Directors (44)

Influenced: Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Kazan, François Truffaut, Carlos Saura, Isao Takahata, Danny Boyle, Wes Anderson

Greats: Pather Panchali (1955)✦; The Music Room (1958)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Aparajito (1956)✦; The World of Apu (1959)✦; The Goddess (1960); The Big City: Mahanagar (1964)✖; Charulata: The Lonely Wife (1964)✦; Days and Nights in the Forest (1970)✖; The Chess Players (1977); The Visitor (1991)

"One of the best of the new wave of German filmmakers, Herzog has already mastered themes of illusion, delusion, alienation, and hypocrisy." ~ William R. Meyer, 1978

"the most important film director alive." ~ François Truffaut

"has never created a single film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons or uninteresting. Even his failures are spectacular." ~ Roger Ebert

Only feature-film director to have made a film on every continent.

TSPDT All-Time Directors (47) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (42)

Greats: Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972)✦; Grizzly Man [doc] (2005)✦✧

Give It a Shot: Rescue Dawn (2006)☒

Other Notable Film(s): Signs of Life (1968)✖; Even Dwarks Satrted Small (1970); Fata Morgana (1971)✦; Land of Silence and Dark (1971)✖; The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)✖; The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)✦; Heart of Glass [doc] (1976); Stroszek (1977); Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)✖; Woyzeck (1979); Fitzcarraldo (1982)✦; Cobra Verde (1987); Lessons of Darkness [doc] (1992)✦; Little Dieter Needs to Fly [doc] (1998); My Best Friend [doc] (1999); Invincible (2001); The White Diamond [doc] (2004)☒; The Wild Blue Yonder (2005); Encounters at the End of the World [doc] (2007)✧; Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)✧; My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009); Cave of Forgotten Dreams [doc] (2010)✧; Into the Abyss [doc] (2011); On Death Row [TV series] (2012); Queen of the Desert (2015); Salt and Fire (2016); Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World [doc] (2016); Into the Inferno [doc] (2016); Meeting Gorbachev [doc] (2018); Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin [doc] (2019); Family Romance, LLC (2019)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (36)

Greats: A Woman Under the Influence (1974)✦; The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)✦

Faces (1968)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Shadows (1959)✦; Too Late Blues (1961); A Child Is Waiting (1963); Husbands (1970)✦; Minnie and Moskowitz (1971); Opening Night (1977)✦; Gloria (1980)✖; Love Streams (1984)✦; Big Trouble (1986)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (69)

"There was theatre (Griffith), poetry (Murnau), painting (Rossellini), dance (Eisenstein), music (Renoir). Henceforth there is cinema. And the cinema is Nicholas Ray." ~ Jean-Luc Godard

Influenced: Jean-Luc Godard; Wim Wenders

Greats: In a Lonely Place (1950)✦; Johnny Guitar (1954)✦; Rebel Without a Cause (1955)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Knock on Any Door (1949); They Live by Night (1949)✦; Flying Leathernecks (1951)✦; On Dangerous Ground (1952)✖; Bigger Than Life (1956)✦; Bitter Victory (1957)✖; Party Girl (1958)✖; The Savage Innocents (1960); King of Kings (1961); 55 Days at Peking (1963)

"He was really good at not committing himself too early to something. He didn't impose his will early. He loved to work with people. He loved to see what they came up with. He would give things time to settle, to rise or to fall, and watching him do that was a great lesson in patience. Because at the end of the day, he invited everybody in to work on this film, but he ended up getting exactly what he wanted, and everyone else felt that they had been part of it, because they had. They really made the film with Bob. How he did that was a lesson to me." ~ Paul Thomas Anderson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (46)

Greats: MASH (1970)✦

Give It a Shot: The Long Goodbye (1973)✦; The Player (1992)✖; Gosford Park (2001)✧

Caution: Nashville (1975)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Countdown (1968); Brewster McCloud (1970); McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)✦; Images (1972); Thieves Like Us (1974)✖; California Split (1974)✖; Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976); 3 Women (1977)✦; A Wedding (1978)✖; Quintet (1979); Popeye (1980); Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)✖; Streamers (1983); Secret Honor (1984); Fool for Love (1985); Vincent & Theo (1990); Short Cuts (1993)✦; Ready to Wear (1994); Kansas City (1996); The Gingerbread Man (1998); Cookie's Fortune (1999); Dr. T & the Women (2000); The Company (2003)☒; A Prairie Home Companion (2006)✧

TSPDT All-Time Directors (28)

Greats: Germany Year Zero (1948)✦; Journey to Italy (1954)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Rome, Open City (1945)✦; Paisan (1946)✦; L'Amore (1948); The Flowers of St. Francis (1950)✦; Stromboli (1950)✦; Europa '51 (1952)✦; The Greatest Love (1952); Il General della Rovere (1959)✖; India: Matri Bhumi (1959)✖; The Rise to Power of Louis XIV (1966)✦

"If all the dollies and cranes in the world snap to attention when his name is mentioned, it is because he gave camera movement its finest hours in the history of cinema." ~ Andrew Sarris

Influenced: Stanley Kubrick; Vincente Minnelli

TSPDT All-Time Directors (43)

Greats: The Earrings of Madame de... (1953)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Liebelei (1932)✖; La Signora di Tutti (1934)✖; There's No Tomorrow (1940)✖; Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)✦; The Reckless Moment (1949)✦; Caught (1949); La Ronde (1950)✖; Le Plaisir (1952)✦; Lola Montès (1955)✦

TSPDT All-Time Directors (63) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (3)

Greats: Boogie Nights (1997)✦; Magnolia (1999)✦; Punch-Drunk Love (2002)✦✧; There Will Be Blood (2007)✦✧; The Master (2012)✧; Phantom Thread (2017)✧

Give It a Shot: Hard Eight (1996); Inherent Vice (2014)✧; Licorice Pizza (2021)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (30)

Greats: Rocco and His Brothers (1960)✦

Caution: Death in Venice (1971)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Ossessione (1943)✦; La Terra Trema (1948)✦; Bellissima (1951)✖; Senso (1954)✦; Le Notti Bianche (1957)✖; The Leopard (1963)✦; Sandra (1965)✖; The Stranger (1967); The Damned (1969)✦; Ludwig (1972)✦; Conversation Piece (1974)✖; L'Innocente (1976)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (246)

Greats: The Manchurian Candidate (1962)✦; Birdman of Alcatraz (1962); The Train (1964)

Give It a Shot: Grand Prix (1966); Ronin (1997)

Other Notable Film(s): All Fall Down (1962); Seven Days in May (1964); Seconds (1966)✖; The Fixer (1968); The Iceman Cometh (1973); French Connection II (1975); Black Sunday (1977); 52 Pick-Up (1986); Reindeer Games (2000)

"There is no doubting his feeling for things seen and heard; there is no question but that he is a filmmaker, and one following in the steps of Bresson. But, for me, Kieslowski frequently runs the risk of being precious, mannered, and so cold as to forbid touching." ~ David Thomson

Considered one of the greatest Polish directors.

TSPDT All-Time Directors (58)

Greats: Three Colors: Blue (1993)✦

Give It a Shot: Three Colors: White (1994)✖

Other Notable Film(s): The Scar (1976); Camera Buff (1979)✖; Blind Chance (1981)✖; No End (1985)✖; Dekalog (1988)✦; A Short Film About Killing (1988)✦; A Short Film About Love (1988)✖; The Double Life of Veronique (1991)✦; Three Colors: Red (1994)✦

Influenced: Pedro Almodóvar; Béla Tarr; Todd Haynes; Kathryn Bigelow; John Waters; François Ozon; Richard Linklater; Harmony Korine; Gus Van Sant

TSPDT All-Time Directors (53)

Greats: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Love is Colder Than Death (1969); Katzelmacher (1969); Gods of the Plague (1970); Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1970); The American Soldier (1970); Whity (1971); Beware of a Holy Whore (1971); The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971); The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)✦; Effi Briest (1974); Fox and His Friends (1975)✖; Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven (1975); Satan's Brew (1976); Chinese Roulette (1976); In a Year with 13 Moons (1978)✦; Despair (1978); The Third Generation (1979); The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)✦; Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)✦; Lili Marleen (1981); Lola (1981); Veronika Voss (1982)✦; Querelle (1982)

"A remarkable director -- a great loss to Italian culture. It was as if he was discovering cinema from scratch." ~ Bernardo Bertolucci on Pier's death

TSPDT All-Time Directors (52)

Greats: Arabian Nights (1974)✦

Give It a Shot: The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964)✦

Flops: Teorema (1968)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Accattone! (1961)✦; Mamma Roma (1962)✦; The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966)✦; Oedipus Rex (1967)✖; Pigpen (1969); Medea (1969); The Decameron (1971); The Canterbury Tales (1972)✖; Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)✦

"could put a film together like a watchmaker puts together a watch". ~ Michael Powell Influenced: Steven Spielberg

TSPDT All-Time Directors (73)

Greats: The Third Man (1949)✦; Oliver! (1968)

Other Notable Film(s): Night Train to Munich (1940); The Way Ahead (1944); Odd Man Out (1947)✦; The Fallen Idol (1948)✖; Outcast of the Islands (1951)✖; Trapeze (1956); The Key (1958); Our Man in Havana (1959); The Running Man (1963); The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)

"Even for the most difficult scenes, and there are difficult scenes in the film, and because Michael Haneke is such a great film-maker - I think a great film-maker is not only being inspired, but how to do it, how to make it as real as possible, knowing that it's not real." ~ Isabelle Huppert

TSPDT All-Time Directors (77) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (4)

Greats: The Piano Teacher (2001)✦✧; Caché (Hidden) (2005)✦✧; Amour (2012)✦✧

Give It a Shot: Funny Games (1997)✦; Code Unknown (2000)✦✧

Flops: Funny Games (2007)

Other Notable Film(s): The Seventh Continent (1989); Benny's Video (1992); 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994); The Castle (1997); Time of the Wolf (2003)☒; The White Ribbon (2009)✦✧; Happy End (2017)

"Horror for Cronenberg is not a game or a meal ticket; it is, rather, the natural expression for one of the best directors working today. For Cronenberg's subject is the intensity of human frailty and decay: in short, the boy and its many accelerated mutations, whether out of disease, anger, dread, or hope. These are not easy films to take. But how can horror be easy? Anyone born and reckoning on dying needs to confront Cronenberg." ~ David Thomson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (76) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (33)

Greats: The Fly (1986)✦; Dead Ringers (1988)✦; Crash (1996)✦; A History of Violence (2005)✦✧; Eastern Promises (2007)✧

Give It a Shot: The Dead Zone (1983); Videodrome (1983)✦; A Dangerous Method (2011)✧

Caution: Naked Lunch (1991)✖

Other Notable Film(s): They Came from Within (1975); Rabid (1977); Fast Company (1979); The Brood (1979); Scanners (1981); M. Butterfly (1993); eXistenZ (1999); Spider (2002)✧; Cosmopolis (2012)✧; Map to the Stars (2014)✧; Crimes of the Future (2022)

"I love his films. I study his films. I watch his films when I'm looking for inspiration." - John Lasseter

The Walt Disney of Japan could possibly be the greatest animated director of all-time.

TSPDT All-Time Directors (84) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (19)

Greats: My Neighbor Totoro (1988)✦; Spirited Away (2001)✦✧

Give It a Shot: Ponyo (2008)✧

Other Notable Film(s): Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979); Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984); Castle in the Sky (1986); Kiki's Delivery Service (1989); Porco Rosso (1992); Princess Mononoke (1997)✦; Howl's Moving Castle (2004)✧; The Wind Rises (2013)✧; How Do You Live? (filming)

"I could never make a good film without a good writer, but neither could Preston Sturges. Only he had one with him all the time. He was a true auteur, the complete creator of his own films." ~ William Wyler

TSPDT All-Time Directors (74)

Greats: Sullivan's Travels (1941)✦; The Lady Eve (1941)✦; The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)✦; Hail of the Conquering Hero (1944); Unfaithfully Yours (1948)✖

Give It a Shot: The Palm Beach Story (1942)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Great McGinty (1940); Christmas in July (1940); The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947); The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949)

"The whole industry owes its existence to him." ~ Charles Chaplin

Considered one of the pioneers of directing. Legendary directors acknowledged Griffith's greatness such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles and Charlie Chaplin.

TSPDT All-Time Directors (55)

Influenced: John Ford; Erich von Stroheim; Sergei M. Eisenstein

Give It a Shot: The Birth of a Nation (1915)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Lady Helen's Escapade [short] (1909); A Corner in Wheat [short] (1909); The Musketeers of Pig Alley [short] (1912); Intolerance (1916)✦; Broken Blossoms (1919)✦; True Heart Susie (1919)✖; Way Down East (1920)✖; Orphans of the Storm (1921); Dream Street (1921)✖; It's Life Wonderful (1924)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (64)

Greats: The Wild Bunch (1969)✦; The Getaway (1972)✖

Give It a Shot: Straw Dogs (1971)✖

Other Notable Film(s): The Deadly Companions (1961); Ride the High Country (1962)✦; Major Dundee (1965); The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)✖; Junior Bonner (1972); Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)✦; Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)✦; The Killer Elite (1975); Cross of Iron (1977); Convoy (1978); The Osterman Weekend (1983)

Influenced: Steven Soderbergh, Tony Scott, Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan, François Ozon, Danny Boyle

TSPDT All-Time Directors (90)

Greats: Don't Look Now (1973)✦; The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)✦; Bad Timing (1980)✦

Give It a Shot: Walkabout (1971)✦

Caution: Performance [w/Donald Cammell] (1970)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Eureka (1983); Insignificance (1985); Castaway (1986); Track 29 (1988); The Witches (1990); Cold Heaven (1991); Two Deaths (1995); Puffball (2007)

"Creating a universe is daunting. I'm glad Jim is doing it - there are only a few people in the world who are nuts enough to. I did it with Star Wars, and now he's trying to challenge that. It's a lot of work. I do believe Jim will take this further out than anyone's ever conceived of." ~ George Lucas

TSPDT All-Time Directors (102)

Greats: The Terminator (1984)✦; Aliens (1986)✦; Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)✦; Titanic (1997)✦; Avatar (2009)✦✧

Give It a Shot: The Abyss (1989); True Lies (1994)

Other Notable Film(s): Piranha II: The Spawning (1981); Ghosts of the Abyss [doc] (2003); Avatar 2 (2022)

"Truly a poet of the cinema, Vigo's early death ended what probably would have been a brilliant career. He made only four films, but they stand as a valuable body of work which reflects a profound, if cynical, humanism and a complex sense of fantasy." ~ William R. Meyer

Only director on this list that didn't reach 30 years of age.

TSPDT All-Time Directors (42)

Greats: L'Atalante (1934)✦

Other Notable Film(s): À Propos de Nice [doc/short] (1930); Taris [doc/short] (1931); Zero for Conduct (1933)✦

TSPDT All-Time Directors (68) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (7)

Greats: Breaking the Waves (1996)✦; Dancer in the Dark (2000)✦✧; Dogville (2003)✦✧

Give It a Shot: Melancholia (2011)✦✧

Caution: Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2014)

Other Notable Film(s): The Element of Crime (1984); Medea (1988); Epidemic (1987); Europa (1991)✖; The Kingdom [TV series] (1994); The Kingdom II [TV series] (1997); The Idiots (1998)✦; The Five Obstructions [w/ Jørgen Leth] (2003)✧; Manderlay (2005)☒; The Boss of It All (2006); Antichrist (2009)✧; Nymphomaniac: Vol. II (2014); The House That Jack Built (2018)

"Wong Kar-Wai is a really great inspiration. He's always referred to as the Jimi Hendrix of filmmaking." ~ Gus Van Sant

TSPDT All-Time Directors (35) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (1)

Greats: Days of Being Wild (1990)✦; Chungking Express (1994)✦; In the Mood for Love (2000)✦✧

Other Notable Film(s): As Tears Go By (1988); Ashes of Time (1994)✖; Fallen Angels (1995)✖; Happy Together (1997)✦; 2046 (2004)✦✧; My Blueberry Nights (2007); The Grandmasters (2013)✧

"The cinema of Joseph L. Mankiewicz is a cinema of intelligence without inspiration. His best films - All About Eve and The Barefoot Contessa - bear the signature of a genuine auteur... Mankiewicz's cranky liberalism sometimes gets the better of him, particularly when he wrenches scenes out of their context to inveigh against the evils of farm subsidies (People Will Talk) and oil-depletion allowances (The Barefoot Contessa)." ~ Andrew Sarris

TSPDT All-Time Directors (99)

Greats: All About Eve (1950)✦; Suddenly, Last Summer (1959); Sleuth (1972)

Give It a Shot: Julius Caesar (1953)

Other Notable Film(s): Dragonwyck (1946); Somewhere in the Night (1946); The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)✦; A Letter to Three Wives (1949)✖; House of Strangers (1949); No Way Out (1950); People Will Talk (1951); 5 Fingers (1952); The Barefoot Contessa (1954)✖; Guys and Dolls (1955)✖; The Quiet American (1958); Cleopatra (1963); The Honey Pot (1967); There Was a Crooked Man... (1970)

"De Palma deserves more honor as a director. Consider also these titles: Sisters, Blow Out, The Fury, Dressed to Kill, Carrie, Scarface, Wise Guys, Casualties of War, Carlito's Way, Mission: Impossible. Yes, there are a few failures along the way (Snake Eyes, Mission to Mars, The Bonfire of the Vanities), but look at the range here, and reflect that these movies contain treasure for those who admire the craft as well as the story, who sense the glee with which De Palma manipulates images and characters for the simple joy of being good at it. It's not just that he sometimes works in the style of Hitchcock, but that he has the nerve to." ~ Roger Ebert

Influenced: Quentin Tarantino

TSPDT All-Time Directors (96)

Greats: Blow Out (1981)✦; Scarface (1983)✦; The Untouchables (1987); Carlito's Way (1993)✖

Give It a Shot: Sisters (1973); Phantom of the Paradise (1974)✦; Carrie (1976)✦; Mission: Impossible (1996)

Caution: Snake Eyes (1998); The Black Dahlia (2006)

Flops: Body Double (1984)

Other Notable Film(s): Greetings (1968); Hi, Mom! (1970); Obsession (1976); The Fury (1978); Home Movies (1980); Dressed to Kill (1980); Wise Guys (1986); Casualties of War (1989); The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990); Raising Cain (1992); Mission to Mars (2000)☒; Femme Fatale (2002)✧; Redacted (2007); Passion (2013); Domino (2019)

Influenced: John Woo; Aki Kaurismäki

TSPDT All-Time Directors (88)

Greats: Le Samouraï (1967)✦; Le Cercle Rouge (1970)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Les Enfants Terribles (1950)✖; Bob le Flambeur (1956)✖; Two Men in Manhattan (1959); Léon Morin, Priest (1961); Le Doulos (1962); Magnet of Doom (1963); Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966)✦; Army of Shadows (1969)✦; Un Flic (1972)

One of the most promising film directors that has been making great movies in the past two decades.

TSPDT All-Time Directors (114) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (20)

Greats: Se7en (1995)✦; Fight Club (1999)✦; The Social Network (2010)✧; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)☒; Gone Girl (2014)✧

Give It a Shot: Alien³ (1992); The Game (1997); Panic Room (2002); Zodiac (2007)✦✧; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)✧; Mank (2020)

Other Notable Film(s): The Killer (2022)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (70)

Greats: The American Friend (1977)✖; Paris, Texas (1984)✦; Wings of Desire (1987)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Scarlet Letter (1973); Alice in the Cities (1974)✦; False Movement (1975); Kings of the Road (1976)✦; Lightning Over Water [co-director/doc] (1980); Hammett (1982); The State of Things (1982); Until the End of the World (1991); Faraway, So Close! (1993); Lisbon Story (1994); Beyond the Clouds [Co-director] (1995); The End of Violence (1997); Buena Vista Social Club [doc] (1999); The Million Dollar Hotel (2000); Land of Plenty (2004); Don't Come Knocking (2005); Palermo Shooting (2008); Pina (2011)✧; The Salt of the Earth (2014) [doc]; Everything Will Be Fine (2015); The Beautiful Days of Aranjuez (2016); Submergence (2017)

"More than just a gag man, McCarey developed a fine storytelling sense. He also had a flair for sentimental stories, as proved by the wrenching portrait of old age, Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), the touching romance Love Affair (1939), and Going My Way (1944, for which he won his second Best Director Oscar, and snagged another for his screenplay)." ~ Leonard Maltin

TSPDT All-Time Directors (71)

Greats: The Awful Truth (1937)✦; Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)✦; An Affair to Remember (1957)✦

Give It a Shot: Going My Way (1944); The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)✖

Caution: Duck Soup (1933)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)✖; The Milky Way (1936); Love Affair (1939)✖; Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942); Good Sam (1948); My Son John (1952); Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958); Satan Never Sleeps (1962)

"No one has done more to uphold, extend, and enrich the film noir genre in recent years than Michael Mann. He is a director and producer, an organizer of TV series, a visionary of modern style who somehow integrates the fluency of Max Ophuls with the iconic poise of the most hip TV commercials. His theatrical movies come years apart, but his work for television has filled the time and been just as vital an creative a part of what he does... By the late nineties, Mann had clearly moved further ahead. Heat, it seems to me, was one of the best-made films of the decade, by which I mean that the need to look and listen closely was constantly rewarded." ~ David Thomson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (155)

Greats: Manhunter (1986)✖; The Last of the Mohicans (1992)✖; Heat (1995)✦; The Insider (1999)✖

Give It a Shot: Thief (1981); Ali (2001)✧; Collateral (2004)✧; Public Enemies (2009)✧

Caution: Miami Vice (2006)✧

Other Notable Film(s): The Jericho Mile [TV movie] (1979); The Keep (1983); L.A. Takedown [TV movie] (1989); Blackhat (2015)

Director that focuses on political and war issues. All his films have a dark approach on presenting the story.

TSPDT All-Time Directors (217)

Greats: Platoon (1986)✖; Salvador (1986); Wall Street (1987); Talk Radio (1988); Born on the Fourth of July (1989); JFK (1991)✦

Give It a Shot: The Doors (1991); Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

Caution: Natural Born Killers (1994)✖; Any Given Sunday (1999); W. (2008)

Flops: Alexander (2004)

Other Notable Film(s): The Hand (1981); Heaven & Earth (1993); Nixon (1995); U Turn (1997); Comandante [doc] (2003); World Trade Center (2006); South of the Border [doc] (2009); Savages (2012); Snowden (2016)

"Yes, actually ever since I saw his films and tried to write about them, Sirk's been in everything I've done. Not Sirk himself, but what I've learned from his work." ~ R.W. Fassbinder

"Whereas with Sirk, everything is always filmed. No matter what the script, he's always a real director." ~ Jacques Rivette

Influenced: John Waters

TSPDT All-Time Directors (83)

Greats: All That Heaven Allows (1955)✦; Written on the Wind (1956)✦; Imitation of Life (1959)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Lured (1947); Sleep, My Love (1948); Shockproof (1949); Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952); All I Desire (1953); Magnificent Obsession (1954); There's Always Tomorrow (1956)✖; The Tarnished Angels (1957)✖; A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)✖

Cinema begins with D.W. Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami." ~ Jean-Luc Godard

TSPDT All-Time Directors (39) TSPDT 21st Century Directors (39)

Greats: Close-Up (1990)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Where is the Friend's Home? (1987)✦; Homework (1989)✖; Life, and Nothing More... (1992)✦; Through the Olive Trees (1994)✦; Taste of Cherry (1997)✦; The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)✦; Ten (2002)✦✧; Five Dedicated to Ozu (2003)✧; Shirin (2008)✧; Certified Copy (2010)✧; Like Someone in Love (2012)✧; 24 Frames (2017)

"There is no doubt that if Clouzot had worked for Hollywood and applied the formulas of U.S. studios, today he would be lauded by the very critics who choose to ignore him." ~ Philipe Pilard

TSPDT All-Time Directors (149)

Greats: The Wages of Fear (1953)✦; Les Diaboliques (1955)✦

Other Notable Film(s): Le Corbeau: The Raven (1943)✖; Quai des Orfèvres (1947)✖; The Mystery of Picasso [doc] (1956); The Spies (1957); The Truth (1960); Woman in Chains (1968)

"In my opinion, there were only two directors in Hollywood who made films without regard to box-office success: Von Stroheim and myself." ~ Fritz Lang

TSPDT All-Time Directors (85)

Other Notable Film(s): Blind Husbands (1919); Foolish Wives (1922)✦; Greed (1924)✦; The Merry Widow (1925); The Wedding March (1928)✦; Queen Kelly (1929)✖

TSPDT All-Time Directors (98)

Other Notable Film(s): Underworld (1927); The Last Command (1928); The Docks of New York (1928)✖; Thunderbolt (1929); The Case of Lena Smith (1929); The Blue Angel (1930)✦; Morocco (1930)✦; An American Tragedy (1931); Dishonored (1931); Blonde Venus (1932); Shanghai Express (1932)✦; The Scarlet Empress (1934)✦; The Devil Is a Woman (1935)✖; Crime and Punishment (1935); The King Step Out (1936); Sergeant Madden (1939); The Shanghai Gesture (1941)✖; Macao (1952); Anatahan (1953)✦; Jet Pilot (1957)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (130)

Greats: White Heat (1949)✦

Other Notable Film(s): The Thief of Bagdad (1924); The Big Trail (1930); The Roaring Twenties (1939)✖; They Drive by Night (1940); High Sierra (1941); The Strawberry Blonde (1941); They Died with Their Boots On (1941)✖; Gentleman Jim (1942); Objective, Burma! (1945); Pursued (1947)✖; The Naked and the Dead (1958)✖

"King Vidor is a director for anthologies. He has created more great moments and fewer great films than any director of his rank. Vidor's is an unusually intuitive talent, less grounded than most in theory. The classics of his humanistic museum period - The Big Parade, The Crowd, Hallelujah - are no less uneven or more impressive than the classics of his delirious modern period - Duel in the Sun, The Fountainhead, Ruby Gentry." ~ Andrew Sarris

TSPDT All-Time Directors (110)

Greats: The Big Parade (1925)✖

Give It a Shot: The Champ (1931)

Other Notable Film(s): Wild Oranges (1924); La Bohème (1926); Bardelys the Magnificent (1926); The Crowd (1928)✦; Show People (1928)✖; The Patsy (1928); Hallelujah (1929)✖; Not So Dumb (1930); Street Scene (1931); Bird of Paradise (1932); Cynara (1932); Our Daily Bread (1934)✖; The Wedding Night (1935); The Texas Rangers (1936); Stella Dallas (1937)✖; The Citadel (1938); Comrade X (1940); H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941); An American Romance (1944); Duel in the Sun (1946)✦; On Our Merry Way (1948); The Fountainhead (1949)✖; Beyond the Forest (1949); Ruby Gentry (1952)✖; Lightning Strikes Twice (1952); Man Without a Star (1955); War and Peace (1956)✖; Solomon and Sheba (1959)

It's Nichols's style—he walks that edge of really going as far as he can without falling over the cliff, into disbelief. It's not caricature. That's the highest compliment for satire. ~ Dustin Hoffman

TSPDT All-Time Directors (156)

Greats: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)✦; The Graduate (1967)✦

Give It a Shot: Working Girl (1988)

Caution: The Birdcage (1996); Charlie Wilson's War (2007)

Other Notable Film(s): Catch-22 (1970); Carnal Knowledge (1971); The Day of the Dolphin (1973); The Fortune (1975)✖; Silkwood (1983); Heartburn (1986); Biloxi Blues (1988); Postcards from the Edge (1990); Regarding Henry (1991); Wolf (1994); Primary Colors (1998); What Planet Are You From? (2000); Angels in America [TV] (2003)☒; Closer (2004)☒

TSPDT All-Time Directors (119)

Greats: The French Connection (1971)✦; The Exorcist (1973)✦; To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

Give It a Shot: Sorcerer (1977)✖

Caution: Cruising (1980); Bug (2006)☒; Killer Joe (2012)☒

Other Notable Film(s): The Boys in the Band (1970); The Brink's Job (1978); Deal of the Century (1983); Rampage (1987); The Guardian (1990); Blue Chips (1994); Jade (1995); 12 Angry Men [TV movie] (1997); Rules of Engagement (2000); The Hunted (2003)

"No other contemporary director has used special effects to more dramatic and narrative purpose." ~ David Thomson

TSPDT All-Time Directors (135)

Greats: Back to the Future (1985)✦; Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)✖; Forrest Gump (1994)✦

Give It a Shot: Romancing the Stone (1984); Back to the Future Part II (1989); Cast Away (2000)☒; Flight (2012)☒

Caution: Back to the Future Part III (1990); Contact (1997)✖; What Lies Beneath (2000); Beowulf (2007)

Flops: A Christmas Carol (2009)

Other Notable Film(s): I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978); Used Cars (1980); Death Becomes Her (1992); The Polar Express (2004)☒; The Walk (2015); Allied (2016); Welcome to Marwen (2018); The Witches (2020); Pinocchio (2022)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (75)

Greats: Captains Courageous (1937); Gone with the Wind (1939)✦; The Wizard of Oz (1939)✦; A Guy Named Joe (1943)

Give It a Shot: Test Pilot (1938); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

Caution: Tortilla Flat (1942)

Other Notable Film(s): The Wet Parade (1932); Red Dust (1932); The White Sister (1933); Bombshell (1933); Treasure Island (1934); Reckless (1935); The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935); Adventure (1945); Joan of Arc (1948)

"John Carpenter created the idea of Halloween, so his vision remains the most focused and intelligently directed of the series. The directors that have followed have kept the original intent of the concept." ~ Donald Pleasence

TSPDT All-Time Directors (104)

Greats: Halloween (1978)✦; The Thing (1982)✦

Give It a Shot: Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)✦; The Fog (1980); Escape from New York (1981); Starman (1984); They Live (1988)✦

Caution: Big Trouble in Little China (1986); Prince of Darkness (1987); Escape from L.A. (1996)

Flops: In the Mouth of Madness (1994); Ghosts of Mars (2001)

Other Notable Film(s): Dark Star (1974); Elvis [TV] (1979); Christine (1983); Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992); Village of the Damned (1995); Vampires (1998); The Ward (2010)

"As the cresting new wave battered at the restrictions of conventional narrative technique, Malle created a personal style, sexual and emotional which was to sustain him while flashier colleagues failed. Of the new wave survivors, he is the most old-fashioned, the most erotic, and arguably, the most widely successful... If Truffaut turned into the René Clair of the new French cinema, Malle may yet become its Max Ophüls." ~ John Baxter

TSPDT All-Time Directors (162)

Greats: Atlantic City (1980)✖

Other Notable Film(s): The Silent World [doc/co-director] (1956); The Lovers (1958)✖; Elevator to the Gallows (1958); Zazie dans le Métro (1960); A Very Private Affair (1962); The Fire Within (1963)✖; Viva Maria! (1965); The Thief of Paris (1967); Murmur of the Heart (1971); Lacombe, Lucien (1974)✖; Black Moon (1975); My Dinner with Andre (1981)✖; Crackers (1984); Alamo Bay (1985); Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)✦; May Fools (1990); Damage (1992); Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)

TSPDT All-Time Directors (-)

Greats: In the Heat of the Night (1967)✖; Fiddler on the Roof (1970); Moonstruck (1987)

Give It a Shot: The Cincinnati Kid (1965); Jesus Christ Superstar (1973); And Justice for All (1979); A Soldier's Story (1984)

Caution: The Hurricane (1999)

Other Notable Film(s): The Thrill of It All (1963); Send Me No Flowers (1964); The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966); The Thomas Crown Affair (1968); Rollerball (1975); F.I.S.T (1978); Best Friends (1982); Agnes of God (1985); In Country (1989); Other People's Money (1991); Only You (1994); Bogus (1996); The Statement (2003)