Top 275 Directors, with Ranked Filmographies

1. Ingmar Bergman

Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born July 14, 1918, the son of a priest. The film and T.V. series, The Best Intentions (1992) is biographical and shows the early marriage of his parents. The film Sunday's Children (1992) depicts a bicycle journey with his father. In the miniseries Private Confessions (...

Persona (1966) The Seventh Seal (1957) The Serpent's Egg (1977) The Silence (1963) Scenes from a Marriage (1973) The Virgin Spring (1960) Winter Light (1963) Fanny and Alexander (1982) Wild Strawberries (1957) The Passion of Anna (1969) Shame (1968) Prison (1949) Summer Interlude (1951) From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) Cries & Whispers (1972) The Magician (1958) Secrets of Women (1952) Summer with Monika (1953) A Lesson in Love (1954) Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) Three Strange Loves (1949) Through a Glass Darkly (1961) Autumn Sonata (1978) The Rite (1969) Hour of the Wolf (1968) Port of Call (1948) A Ship to India (1947) It Rains on Our Love (1946) The Image Makers (2000) Music in Darkness (1948) Crisis (1946)

2. David Lynch

Writer | Twin Peaks

Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future ...

Blue Velvet (1986) Mulholland Drive (2001) Twin Peaks (1990) Eraserhead (1977) The Elephant Man (1980) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Dune (1984) Absurda (2007) Premonition Following an Evil Deed (1995) Inland Empire (2006) The Straight Story (1999) Lost Highway (1997) Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (2014) The Grandmother (1970) The Cowboy and the Frenchman (1988) The Three Rs (2011) Dream #7 (2009) The Alphabet (1968) Wild at Heart (1990) Lady Blue Shanghai (2010) Darkened Room (2002) Absurd Encounter with Fear (1967) Six Figures Getting Sick (1966) Hotel Room (1993) The Amputee (1974)

3. Werner Herzog

Director | Fitzcarraldo

Director. Writer. Producer. Actor. Poet. He studied history, literature and theatre for some time, but didn't finish it and founded instead his own film production company in 1963. Later in his life, Herzog also staged several operas in Bayreuth, Germany, and at the Milan Scala in Italy. Herzog has...

Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972) Woyzeck (1979) The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) Lessons of Darkness (1992) Fitzcarraldo (1982) Grizzly Man (2005) Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2010) La Soufriere - Warten auf eine unausweichliche Katastrophe (1977) Invincible (2001) Wo die grunen Ameisen traumen (1984) Encounters at the End of the World (2007) The Wild Blue Yonder (2005) Family Romance, LLC. (2019) Lo & Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) Jag Mandir: Das exzentrische Privattheater des Maharadscha von Udaipur (1991) Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1998) Glocken aus der Tiefe - Glaube und Aberglaube in Rußland (1993) God's Angry Man (1981) Die große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner (1974) Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds (2020) The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1985) My Best Fiend (1999) Bad Lieutenant (2009) Wings of Hope (2000) Stroszek (1977) Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) Letzte Worte (1968) Ballade vom kleinen Soldaten (1984) Cobra Verde (1987) Into the Inferno (2016) Into the Abyss (2011) On Death Row (2012) Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) The White Diamond (2004) Echoes From a Sombre Empire (1990) Land of Silence and Darkness (1971) Wheel of Time (2003) Pilgrimage (2001) Rescue Dawn (2006) Heart of Glass (1976) Werner Herzog Filmemacher (1986) Wodaabe: Herdsmen of the Sun (1989) Signs of Life (1968) No One Will Play with Me (1976) Fata Morgana (1971) Meeting Gorbachev (2018) Salt and Fire (2016) Huie's Sermon (1981) Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (2019) Ode to the Dawn of Man (2011) Handicapped Future (1971) Herakles (1962) From One Second to the Next (2013) La Boheme (2009) Queen of the Desert (2015) My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009) Scream of Stone (1991) Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices (1995) Christ and Demons in New Spain (1999) How much Wood would a Woodchuck chuck... - Beobachtungen zu einer neuen Sprache (1978) Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970) Precautions Against Fanatics (1969) The French as Seen By...: Les Gaulois (1988) The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz (1967)

4. Roman Polanski

Director | Chinatown

Roman Polanski is a Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few truly international filmmakers. Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933.

His parents returned to Poland from France in 1936, three years ...

Chinatown (1974) The Tenant (1976) Macbeth (1971) Bitter Moon (1992) Frantic (1988) Repulsion (1965) Rosemary's Baby (1968) The Ninth Gate (1999) Tess (1979) The Lamp (1959) The Ghost (2010) Carnage (2011) Dwaj ludzie z szafa (1958) A Toothful Smile (1957) The Pianist (2002) Oliver Twist (2005) Morderstwo (1957) Venus in Fur (2013) Gdy spadaja anioly (1959) Knife in the Water (1962) Cul-de-sac (1966) Based on a True Story (2017) Break Up the Dance (1957) A Therapy (2012) GREED, a New Fragrance by Francesco Vezzoli (2009) Pirates (1986) Ssaki (1962) The Fat and the Lean (1961)

5. Abbas Kiarostami

Writer | Copie conforme

Abbas Kiarostami was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1940. He graduated from university with a degree in fine arts before starting work as a graphic designer. He then joined the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, where he started a film section, and this started his career ...

Where is the Friend's Home? (1987) Close-Up (1990) The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) Certified Copy (2010) Taste of Cherry (1997) Life and Nothing More... (1992) The Experience (1973) Hamsarayan (1982) Through the Olive Trees (1994) Like Someone in Love (2012) Homework (1989) Ten on 10 (2004) Lebassi Baraye Arossi (1976) The Traveler (1974) Roads of Kiarostami (2006) Ten (2002) Zang-e Tafrih (1972) The Report (1977) Tickets (2005) [Segment] The Bread and Alley (1970) Two Solutions for One Problem (1975) No (2010) So Can I (1975) Orderly or Disorderly (1981) Shirin (2008) Venice 70: Future Reloaded (2013) [Segment] Rangha (1976) Five Dedicated to Ozu (2003)

6. Luis Buñuel

Writer | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education (which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior), and subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the ...

Belle de Jour (1967) Un Chien Andalou (1929) The Young and the Damned (1950) The Young One (1960) The Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) The Exterminating Angel (1962) The Phantom of Liberty (1974) That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) Tristana (1970) Robinson Crusoe (1954) Land Without Bread (1933) Viridiana (1961) Simon of the Desert (1965) L'Age d'Or (1930) Illusion Travels by Streetcar (1954) The Milky Way (1969)

7. Alfred Hitchcock

Director | Psycho

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England. He was the son of Emma Jane (Whelan; 1863 - 1942) and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock (1862 - 1914). His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William Hitchcock (born 1890) and ...

Vertigo (1958) Psycho (1960) North by Northwest (1959) The 39 Steps (1935) Rear Window (1954) Rebecca (1940) Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Rich and Strange (1931) Suspicion (1941) Stage Fright (1950) The Birds (1963) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) Strangers on a Train (1951) Dial M for Murder (1954) The Lady Vanishes (1938) The Wrong Man (1946) Rope (1948) Marnie (1964) Notorious (1946) Young and Innocent (1937) Foreign Correspondent (1940) To Catch a Thief (1955) Spellbound (1945) I Confess (1953) Saboteur (1942) Frenzy (1972) Lifeboat (1944) Family Plot (1976) Torn Curtain (1966) Secret Agent (1936) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) Juno and the Paycock (1930) Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) The Farmer's Wife (1928)

8. Lars von Trier

Writer | Dancer in the Dark

Probably the most ambitious and visually distinctive filmmaker to emerge from Denmark since Carl Theodor Dreyer over 60 years earlier, Lars von Trier studied film at the Danish Film School and attracted international attention with his very first feature, The Element of Crime (1984). A highly ...

Breaking the Waves (1996) Melancholia (2011) Antichrist (2009) Dogville (2003) Nocturne (1980) Medea (1988) The Boss of It All (2006) Nymphomaniac (2013) The House That Jack Built (2018) The Five Obstructions (2003) Befrielsesbilleder (1982) The Element of Crime (1984) Dancer in the Dark (2000) The Idiots (1998) The Trip to Squash Land (1967)

9. Robert Altman

Director | Gosford Park

Robert Altman was born on February 20th, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri, to B.C. (an insurance salesman) and Helen Altman. He entered St. Peters Catholic school at the age six, and spent a short time at a Catholic high school. From there, he went to Rockhurst High School. It was then that he started...

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) The Player (1992) Short Cuts (1993) The Long Goodbye (1973) 3 Women (1977) Gosford Park (2001) Thieves Like Us (1974) Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) Pret-a-Porter (1994) A Prairie Home Companion (2006) MASH (1970) Beyond Therapy (1987) California Split (1974) Fool for Love (1985) The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1988) Dr T and the Women (2000) The Delinquents (1957) Vincent & Theo (1990) The Gingerbread Man (1998) O.C. and Stiggs (1985)

10. Stanley Kubrick

Director | 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Sadie Gertrude (Perveler) and Jacob Leonard Kubrick, a physician. His family were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Romania, and Russia). Stanley was considered intelligent, despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would ...

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) The Shining (1980) Barry Lyndon (1975) Paths of Glory (1956) Eyes Wide Shut (1999) The Killing (1956) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) Full Metal Jacket (1987) Spartacus (1960) Lolita (1962) A Clockwork Orange (1971) Killer's Kiss (1955) Fear and Desire (1953)

11. Michael Haneke

Writer | Caché

A true master of his craft, Michael Haneke is one of the greatest film artists working today and one who challenges his viewers each year and work goes by, with films that reflect real portions of life in realistic, disturbing and unforgettable ways. One of the most genuine filmmakers of the world ...

The Piano Teacher (2001) Hidden (Cache) (2005) The White Ribbon (2009) The Seventh Continent (1989) 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994) Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys (2000) Fraulein (1986) Lemminge, Teil 2 Verletzungen (1979) Lemminge, Teil 1 Arkadien (1979) The Time of the Wolf (2003) Amour (2012) Funny Games U.S. (2007) Benny's Video (1992) Happy End (2017) The Castle (1997)

12. Takeshi Kitano

Actor | Zatôichi

Takeshi Kitano originally studied to become an engineer, but was thrown out of school for rebellious behavior. He learned comedy, singing and dancing from famed comedian Senzaburô Fukami. Working as a lift boy on a nightclub with such features as comic sketches and striptease dancing, Kitano saw ...

Hana-bi (1997) Boiling Point (1990) Sonatine (1993) Violent Cop (1989) Zatoichi (2003) Kikujiro (1999) Dolls (2002) Brother (2000)

13. Jean-Pierre Melville

Writer | Le Samouraï

The name "Melville" is not immediately associated with film. It conjures up images of white whales and crackbrained captains, of naysaying notaries and soup-spilling sailors. It is the countersign to a realm of men and their deeds, both heroic and villainous. It is the American novel, with its ...

Army of Shadows (1969) Le cercle rouge (1970) Le Doulos (1962) Le Silence de la mer (1949) Le Samourai (1967) Un Flic (1972) Bob le Flambeur (1956) Leon Morin, Pretre (1961)

14. Michelangelo Antonioni

Writer | Blow-Up

Together with Fellini, Bergman and Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni is credited with defining the modern art film. And yet Antonioni's cinema is also recognized today for defying any easy categorization, with his films ultimately seeming to belong to their own distinctive genre. Indeed, the ...

The Passenger (1975) Il Grido (1957) Blow Up (1967) L'avventura (1960) Red Desert (1964) Chronicle of a Love (1950) Le amiche (1955) La Signora Senza Camelie (1953) Lies of Love (1949) L'eclisse (1962)

15. Fritz Lang

Actor | Le mépris

Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. ...

Scarlet Street (1945) M (1931) Moonfleet (1955) Clash by Night (1952) Human Desire (1954) You Only Live Once (1937) The Return of Frank James (1940) The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) The Woman in the Window (1944) Metropolis (1927) Hangmen Also Die! (1943) Cloak and Dagger (1946) House by the River (1950) Western Union (1941) Secret Beyond the Door... (1947) Man Hunt (1941) Rancho Notorious (1952) Spies (1928) The Big Heat (1953) Ministry of Fear (1944) I Shall Return (1950) While the City Sleeps (1956) The Blue Gardenia (1953) Fury (1936) You and Me (1938) Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)

16. Andrzej Zulawski

Writer | Possession

Born in Lvov, Ukraine; then he moved with his father Miroslaw Zulawski to Czechoslovakia and later to Poland. In the late 1950s, he studied cinema in France. In the 1960s, he was an assistant of the famous Polish film director Andrzej Wajda. His feature debut The Third Part of the Night (1971) was ...

Possession (1981) Trzecia czesc nocy (1971) On the Silver Globe (1988) L'important c'est d'aimer (1975) Diabel (1972) Szamanka (1996) The Public Woman (1984) The Story of Triumphant Love (1969) Pavoncello (1967) L'amour braque (1985) My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days (1989)

17. Leos Carax

Director | Holy Motors

Leos Carax made several short films and also wrote film criticism, then at the age of 24 years made a very strong first feature Boy Meets Girl (1984). The film played at the 1984 Cannes film festival and was a critical triumph. It paved the way for Carax's second feature Bad Blood (1986) (Bad Blood...

The Night is Young (1986) Pola X (1999) The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) Merde (2008) Sans titre (1997) Holy Motors (2012) Boy Meets Girl (1984) Gradiva (2014) Naked Eyes (2006) My Last Minute (2006) Quelqu’un m’a dit (2003) Tout le monde (2003) Crystal (2005)

18. Carl Theodor Dreyer

Writer | Gertrud

The illegitimate son of a Danish farmer and his Swedish housekeeper, Carl Theodor Dreyer was born in Copenhagen on the 3th of February, 1889. He spent his early years in various foster homes before being adopted by the Dreyers at the age of two. Contrary to popular belief (perhaps nourished by the ...

Vampyr (1932) Day of Wrath (1943) Ordet (1955) The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) The Parson's Widow (1920) Gertrud (1964) Thorvaldsen (1949) Michael (1924) Storstromsbroen (1950)

19. Nicholas Ray

Director | Rebel Without a Cause

Nicholas Ray was born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle in 1911, in small-town Galesville, Wisconsin, to Lena (Toppen) and Raymond Joseph Kienzle, a contractor and builder. He was of German and Norwegian descent. Ray's early experience with film came with some radio broadcasting in high school. He left the ...

Johnny Guitar (1954) Bigger Than Life (1956) Party Girl (1958) Rebel Without a Cause (1955) In a Lonely Place (1950) Bitter Victory (1957) They Live by Night (1948) On Dangerous Ground (1952) King of Kings (1961) The James Brothers (1957) Born to Be Bad (1950) A Woman’s Secret (1949) The Savage Innocents (1960) Knock on Any Door (1949) 55 Days at Peking (1963) The Racket (1951) Run for Cover (1955) The Lusty Men (1952)

20. Artavazd Peleshian

Director | La nature

Creator of the "distance montage," Artavazd Peleshian, one of the key Soviet documentary makers, removed the boundaries of feature and documentary films, editing both sequences as a real poetical unity. His "distance montage" was a new step in the development of film editing.

Even his student works ...

We (1969) End (1994) Inhabitants (1970) Life (1993) The Seasons (1975) Beginning (1967) Our Century (1983) Mardkants yerkire (1966) Mountain Vigil (1964)

21. Akira Kurosawa

Writer | Kakushi-toride no san-akunin

After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943). Within a few years, Kurosawa had achieved sufficient stature to allow him greater...

Seven Samurai (1954) Ran (1985) Throne of Blood (1957) The Hidden Fortress (1958) Ikuru (1952) Rashomon (1950) Sanjuro (1962) Yojimbo (1961) Red Beard (1965) The Bad Sleep Well (1960) The Quiet Duel (1949) Stray Dog (1949) Drunken Angel (1948) Scandal (1950) Kagemusha (1980) The Men who Tread on the Tiger's Tale (1945) No Regrets for Our Youth (1946) One Wonderful Sunday (1947) The Idiot (1951) Sanshiro Sugata Part Two (1945) Sanshiro Sugata (1943)

22. Joel Coen

Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Joel Daniel Coen is an American filmmaker who regularly collaborates with his younger brother Ethan. They made Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail Caesar and other projects. Joel ...

No Country for Old Men (2007) Fargo (1996) True Grit (2010) Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) Raising Arizona (1987) A Serious Man (2009) Barton Fink (1991) The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) Blood Simple. (1984) The Big Lebowski (1998) Hail, Caesar! (2016) O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) Miller's Crossing (1990) Burn After Reading (2009) The Ladykillers (2004) World Cinema (2007) Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

23. Martin Scorsese

Producer | Killers of the Flower Moon

Martin Charles Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942 in Queens, New York City, to Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa) and Charles Scorsese, who both worked in Manhattan's garment district, and whose families both came from Palermo, Sicily. He was raised in the neighborhood of Little Italy, which later ...

Taxi Driver (1976) Goodfellas (1990) The Departed (2006) The Irishman (2019) The Big Shave (1968) Shutter Island (2010) Silence (2016) The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) After Hours (1985) Cape Fear (1991) Kundun (1997) Raging Bull (1980) The King of Comedy (1983) New York, New York (1977) The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) Bringing Out the Dead (1999) Mean Streets (1973) The Color of Money (1986) Casino (1995) The Aviator (2004) Michael Jackson: Bad (1987) Hugo (2011) The Age of Innocence (1993) Gangs of New York (2002) Life Lessons (1989) Shine a Light (2008)

24. Kenji Mizoguchi

Director | Ugetsu monogatari

Coming from a lower class family Mizoguchi entered the production company Nikkatsu as an actor specialized in female roles. Later he became an assistant director and made his first film in 1922. Although he filmed almost 90 movies in the silent era, only his last 12 productions are really known ...

Sansho the Bailiff (1954) Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) Chikamatsu monogatari (1954) A Geisha (1953) The Lady from Musashino (1951) Taira Clan Saga (1955) Miss Oyu (1951) The Woman in the Rumor (1954) Flame of My Love (1949) Joyu Sumako no koi (1947) Women of the Night (1948) Osaka Elegy (1936) Asahi wa kagayaku (1929)

25. Claude Chabrol

Director | Le beau Serge

Claude Chabrol was born on June 24, 1930 in Paris, France. He was a director and writer, known for Le Beau Serge (1958), La Cérémonie (1995) and Story of Women (1988). He was married to Aurore Chabrol, Stéphane Audran and Agnès Goute. He died on September 12, 2010 in Paris, France.

Just avant la nuit (1971) Le Boucher (1970) La Ceremonie (1995) The Unfaithful Wife (1969) Violette Noziere (1978) A Story of Women (1988) Alice ou la derniere fugue (1977) Que la Bete Meure (1969) Les Biches (1968) The Bridesmaid (2004) Wedding in Blood (1973) The Cousins (1959) Madame Bovary (1991) Les bonnes femmes (1960) The Nada Gang (1974) The Flower of Evil (2003) Le Beau Serge (1958) M. le maudit (1982) L'ivresse du pouvoir (2006)

26. Anthony Mann

Director | El Cid

Anthony Mann was born on June 30, 1906 in San Diego, California, USA. He was a director and writer, known for El Cid (1961), Men in War (1957) and The Glenn Miller Story (1954). He was married to Anna, Sara Montiel and Mildred Mann. He died on April 29, 1967 in London, England.

Man of the West (1958) The Man from Laramie (1955) The Naked Spur (1953) The Tin Star (1957) Winchester '73 (1950) Where the River Bends (1952) Raw Deal (1948) The Far Country (1954) The Heroes of Telemark (1965) T-Men (1947) He Walked By Night (1948) El Cid (1961) The Great Flamarion (1945) Railroaded! (1947) The Furies (1950) The Last Frontier (1955) Quo Vadis (1951) The Black Book (1949) The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) Desperate (1947) Thunder Bay (1953) Cimarron (1960) The Glenn Miller Story (1954)

27. Brian De Palma

Director | Body Double

Brian De Palma is one of the well-known directors who spear-headed the new movement in Hollywood during the 1970s. He is known for his many films that go from violent pictures, to Hitchcock-like thrillers. Born on September 11, 1940, De Palma was born in Newark, New Jersey in an Italian-American ...

Carrie (1976) Carlito's Way (1993) Sisters (1973) The Fury (1978) Femme Fatale (2002) Obsession (1976) Scarface (1983) Dressed to Kill (1980) Raising Cain (1992) Body Double (1984) Phantom of the Paradise (1974) Redacted (2007) Snake Eyes (1998) Mission: Impossible (1996) The Untouchables (1987) Casualties of War (1989) Blow Out (1981) The Black Dahlia (2006) Mission to Mars (2000) Domino (2019) Greetings (1968) Passion (2012) The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)

28. Charles Chaplin

Writer | The Great Dictator

Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the ...

The Kid (1921) City Lights (1931) Limelight (1952) The Circus (1928) Monsieur Verdoux (1947) The Gold Rush (1925) Modern Times (1936) The Great Dictator (1940) The Immigrant (1917) A Dog's Life (1918) Easy Street (1917) The Vagabond (1916) One A.M. (1916) A King in New York (1957) A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923) His Musical Career (1914) The Rink (1916) The Rounders (1914) His Trysting Place (1914)

29. Orson Welles

Actor | Citizen Kane

His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was ...

Citizen Kane (1941) Confidential Report (1955) Touch of Evil (1958) Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight (1965) The Lady from Shanghai (1947) F for Fake (1973) The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) The Stranger (1946) The Other Side of the Wind (2018) Journey Into Fear (1943) The Hearts of Age (1934) Lord Mountdrago (1955)

30. Bruno Dumont

Writer | P'tit Quinquin

Bruno Dumont was born on March 14, 1958 in Bailleul, Nord, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. He is a writer and director, known for Li'l Quinquin (2014), The Life of Jesus (1997) and Camille Claudel 1915 (2013).

L'humanite (1999) La vie de Jesus (1997) Hadewijch (2009) Outside Satan (2011) Twentynine Palms (2003) Flanders (2006) Camille Claudel, 1915 (2013)

31. Jordan Belson

Visual_effects | The Right Stuff

Jordan Belson was born on June 6, 1926 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Jordan was a director and producer, known for The Right Stuff (1983), LSD (1962) and Séance (1959). Jordan died on September 6, 2011 in San Francisco, California, USA.

Epilogue (2005) Fountain of Dreams (1984) Samadhi (1967) Allures (1961) Light (1973) Phenomena (1968) Bop-Scotch (1952)

32. Francis Ford Coppola

Producer | Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola was born in 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, but grew up in a New York suburb in a creative, supportive Italian-American family. His father, Carmine Coppola, was a composer and musician. His mother, Italia Coppola (née Pennino), had been an actress. Francis Ford Coppola graduated ...

The Godfather: Part II (1974) Apocalypse Now (1979) The Godfather (1972) The Godfather: Part III (1990) Dracula (1992) Twixt (2011) The Conversation (1974) Youth Without Youth (2007) Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) The Rainmaker (1997) Dementia 13 (1963) Rumble Fish (1983) The Outsiders (1983) Gardens of Stone (1987) The Terror (1963) Jack (1996) Life without Zoe (1989)

33. Wim Wenders

Director | Der Himmel über Berlin

Wim Wenders is an Oscar-nominated German filmmaker who was born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders on August 14, 1945 in Düsseldorf, which then was located in the British Occupation Zone of what became the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany, known colloquially as West Germany until ...

Kings of the Road (1976) Paris, Texas (1984) The American Friend (1977) The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty (1972) Alice in the Cities (1974) Lisbon Story (1994) Buena Vista Social Club (1999) Don't Come Knocking (2005)

34. Peter Tscherkassky

Director | Outer Space

Born in 1958 in Vienna. 1979 - 84 stay in Berlin. Filmmaker since 1979. Studied philosophy. Doctoral thesis: ^ÓFilm as Art. Towards a critical aesthetics of cinematography^Ô (1985/86). 1989 National Art Award for Film. Teaches filmmaking at the Academy of Art, Linz. Founding member of Sixpack Film....

Dream Work (2002) Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine (2005) Outer Space (2000) Manufraktur (1985) L'arrivee (1999) Get Ready (1999)

35. Marcel Carné

Director | Le quai des brumes

Marcel Carné, the son of a cabinet maker, entered the movies as the assistant of Jacques Feyder. At the age of 25 he directed his first movie Jenny (1936). Colaborating with the writer Jacques Prévert, the decorator Alexandre Trauner, the musician and composer Maurice Jaubert and the actor Jean ...

Les Enfants du Paradis (1945) Le Quai des Brumes (1938) Le Jour se Leve (1939) Drole de Drame (1937) Nogent, Eldorado du dimanche (1929)

36. Alain Resnais

Director | Hiroshima mon amour

Alain Resnais was born on June 3, 1922 in Vannes, Morbihan, France. He was a director and editor, known for Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Same Old Song (1997) and My American Uncle (1980). He was married to Sabine Azéma and Florence Malraux. He died on March 1, 2014 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, ...

Last Year at Marienbad (1961) Love Unto Death (1984) Night and Fog (1955) La vie est un roman (1983) Private Fears in Public Places (2006) Providence (1977) Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour (1963) Statues also Die (1953) Le chant du Styrene (1959) Toute la memoire du monde (1956) Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) I Want to Go Home (1989) Guernica (1950) Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968) Melo (1986)

37. Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Producer | Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da

Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in Istanbul on January 26th, 1959. In 1976, he began studying chemical engineering at Istanbul Technical University, in a context of strong student unrest, boycotts and political polarization. In 1978, he switched courses to Electrical Engineering at Bogazici University. ...

Clouds of May (1999) Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) Climates (2006) The Wild Pear Tree (2018) Distant (2002) Three Monkeys (2008) Winter Sleep (2014) Kasaba (1997) Koza (1995)

38. Robert Bresson

Writer | Au hasard Balthazar

Robert Bresson trained as a painter before moving into films as a screenwriter, making a short film (atypically a comedy), Public Affairs (1934) in 1934. After spending more than a year as a German POW during World War II, he made his debut with Angels of Sin (1943) in 1943. His next film, The ...

Mouchette (1967) A Man Escaped (1956) Pickpocket (1959) Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) L’Argent (1983) The Devil, Probably (1977) The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) Angels of Sin (1943) A Gentle Woman (1969) Diary of a Country Priest (1951) Lancelot of the Lake (1974) Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971)

39. Josef von Sternberg

Director | The Devil Is a Woman

Josef von Sternberg split his childhood between Vienna and New York City. His father, a former soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army, could not support his family in either city; Sternberg remembered him only as "an enormously strong man who often used his strength on me." Forced by poverty to drop ...

The Blue Angel (1930) The Docks of New York (1928) Underworld (1927) Blonde Venus (1932) The Scarlet Empress (1934) The Last Command (1928) Shanghai Express (1932) Morocco (1930) The Devil is a Woman (1935) Anatahan (1953) Duel in the Sun (1946) The Shanghai Gesture (1941) Dishonored (1931) Jet Pilot (1957)

40. Hsiao-Hsien Hou

Producer | Cike Nie Yin Niang

Of the ten films that Hsiao-Hsien Hou directed between 1980 and 1989, seven received best film or best director awards from prestigious international films festivals in Venice, Berlin, Hawaii, and the Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes. In a 1988 worldwide critics' poll, Hou was championed ...

Goodbye, South, Goodbye (1996) A Summer at Grandpa's (1984) Three Times (2005) Dust in the Wind (1987) Tong nien wang shi (1985) A City of Sadness (1989) In the Hands of a Puppet Master (1993)

41. David Cronenberg

Actor | The Fly

David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early...

Map to the Stars (2014) The Fly (1986) Videodrome (1983) eXistenZ (1999) Eastern Promises (2007) A History of Violence (2005) The Dead Zone (1983) Scanners (1981) Rabid (1977) Spider (2002) Dead Ringers (1988) The Brood (1979) Camera (2000) Cosmopolis (2012) A Dangerous Method (2011) Shivers (1975) Crash (1996) From the Drain (1967)

42. Ridley Scott

Producer | The Martian

Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom ...

Alien (1979) Blade Runner (1982) Prometheus (2012) Hannibal (2001) Matchstick Men (2003) Legend (1985) Alien: Covenant (2017) The Counsellor (2013) Chanel No. 5: La Star (1990) The Martian (2015) Gladiator (2000) Black Rain (1989) Black Hawk Down (2001) All the Money in the World (2017) Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) American Gangster (2007) Hennessy X.O: The Seven Worlds (2019) Chanel No. 5: L'invitation au rêve/Le jardin (1982) Hovis: Boy on the Bike (1973) Alien: Covenant - Prologue: The Crossing (2017) Kingdom of Heaven (2005) The Duellists (1977) Chanel No. 5: Monuments (1986) Thelma & Louise (1991) Body of Lies (2008) Chanel No. 5: The Swimming Pool (1979) 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) A Good Year (2006) Apple Mac: 1984 (1984) Robin Hood (2010) G.I. Jane (1997) Someone to Watch Over Me (1987) White Squall (1996) Boy and Bicycle (1962) Thunder Perfect Mind (2010) The Journey (2019)

43. Chris Marker

Writer | 12 Monkeys

Chris Marker was born on July 29, 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a writer and director, known for 12 Monkeys (1995), Sans Soleil (1983) and Third Side of the Coin (1960). He died on July 29, 2012 in Paris, France.

Sans Soleil (1983) La Jetee (1962) The Base of the Air Is Red (1977) Le souvenir d’un avenir (2003) Statues also Die (1953) Le mystere koumiko (1967) The Last Bolshevik (1993) Si j'avais quatre dromadaires (1966) 2084 (1984) Kino (2012) Les astronautes (1959) A.K. (1985) Cat Listening to Music (1990) An Owl Is an Owl Is an Owl (1990) Junkopia (1981) Zoo Piece (1990)

44. F.W. Murnau

Director | Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

F.W. Murnau was a German film director. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, and became a friend of director Max Reinhardt. During World War I he served as a company commander at the eastern front and was in the German air ...

Faust (1926) Sunrise (1927) Nosferatu (1922) The Last Laugh (1924) City Girl (1931) Tartuffe (1925) Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)

45. Shôhei Imamura

Director | Kuroi ame

Shohei Imamura's films dig beneath the surface of Japanese society to reveal a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath. Along with his colleagues Nagisa Ôshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Imamura began his serious directorial career as a member of the New Wave movement in Japan....

Vengeance Is Mine (1979) Profound Desires of the Gods (1968) Intentions of Murder (1964) The Pornographers (1966) Black Rain (1989) The Insect Woman (1963) Pigs & Battleships (1961) The Eel (1997) A Man Vanished (1967)

46. Julio Medem

Director | Lucía y el sexo

Julio Medem was born in San Sebastian in northern Spain. As a teenager Medem made short movies with a super-8 camera owned by his father. Some of those films are "El ciego" (1976), "El jueves pasado" (1977) and "Fideos" (1979.) Wanting to know more about the darkest corners of the human mind, Medem...

La ardilla roja (1993) Vacas (1992) Lovers of the Arctic Circle (1998) Sex and Lucia (2001) La pelota vasca. La piel contra la piedra (2003) Martin (1988) Las seis en punta (1987) La Tentación de Cecilia (2012)

47. Jean Renoir

Writer | La règle du jeu

Son of the famous Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste, he had a happy childhood. Pierre Renoir was his brother, and Claude Renoir was his nephew. After the end of World War I, where he won the Croix de Guerre, he moved from scriptwriting to filmmaking. He married Catherine Hessling, for whom he ...

La Regle du Jeu (1939) La Grande Illusion (1937) Experiment in Evil (1959) The Golden Coach (1952) La Bete Humaine (1938) Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) La Chienne (1931) Partie de campagne (1936) Underworld (1936) The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) Charleston Parade (1927) La petite marchande d'allumettes (1928) Swamp Water (1941) The River (1951) The Southerner (1945)

48. Gerald Kargl

Director | Angst

Gerald Kargl born 1953 in Villach, Austria, is a writer and director, famous for the psycho-thriller "Angst" (1983). Kargl started experimenting with the film camera when he was 14. This resulted in a large number of short films. Between 1976 and 1982 he founded and organized the Austrian film ...

Angst (1983)

49. Sam Peckinpah

Writer | The Wild Bunch

"If they move", commands stern-eyed William Holden, "kill 'em". So begins The Wild Bunch (1969), Sam Peckinpah's bloody, high-body-count eulogy to the mythologized Old West. "Pouring new wine into the bottle of the Western, Peckinpah explodes the bottle", observed critic Pauline Kael. That ...

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) The Getaway (1972) The Wild Bunch (1969) Cross of Iron (1977) Guns in the Afternoon (1962) Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) Major Dundee (1965) Noon Wine (1966) The Osterman Weekend (1983) Junior Bonner (1972) The Deadly Companions (1961)

50. Andrei Tarkovsky

Writer | Offret

The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which won the...

The Sacrifice (1986) Solaris (1972) Ivan's Childhood (1962) The Steamroller and the Violin (1961) The Mirror (1975) Ubiytsy (1956)

51. Peter Weir

Director | Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Peter Weir was born on August 21, 1944 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He is a director and writer, known for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), The Way Back (2010) and Witness (1985). He has been married to Wendy Stites since 1966. They have two children.

Witness (1985) Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) Gallipoli (1981) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) The Last Wave (1977) The Truman Show (1998) Fearless (1993) Dead Poets Society (1989) The Way Back (2010) Green Card (1990) The Mosquito Coast (1986)

52. Michael Snow

Director | Wavelength

Central figure of the American avant-garde. An artist who made an isolated animated short, A to Z (1956), Snow concentrated on his painting career until moving to New York in 1963. After attending avant-garde film screenings organized by critic-filmmaker Jonas Mekas and turning out a second film, ...

Wavelength (1967) *Corpus Callosum (2002) Sshtoorrty (2005) Prelude (2000) So Is This (1983)

53. Elio Petri

Writer | Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto

Elio Petri was born on January 29, 1929 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a writer and director, known for Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), We Still Kill the Old Way (1967) and His Days Are Numbered (1962). He was married to Paola Pegoraro. He died on November 10, 1982 in Rome, Lazio,...

Un tranquillo posto di campagna (1968) La classe operaia va in paradiso (1971) Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) The Tenth Victim (1965) I giorni contati (1962) A ciascuno il suo (1967) Property Is No Longer a Theft (1973) Todo modo (1976) L’assassino (1961)

54. Jerzy Skolimowski

Actor | The Avengers

Born in Lódz, Poland, in 1938. Director, playwright, scriptwriter, and actor. Graduated in ethnology, literature and history from Warsaw University in 1959. Graduated from Lódz Film Academy in directing in 1962. Feature debut: _Identification Marks - None_ (Rysopis, 1964, scr., dir, act.), awarded ...

Essential Killing (2010) The Shout (1978) Bariera (1966) Deep End (1970) The Adventures of Gerard (1970) Success Is the Best Revenge (1984) King, Queen, Knave (1972) Erotique (1960) The Menacing Eye (1960)

55. Patrick Bokanowski

Director | Au bord du lac

Patrick Bokanowski was born on June 23, 1943 in Algiers, France. He is a director and writer, known for Au bord du lac (1994), La plage (1992) and L'ange (1982).

The Woman Who Powders Herself (1972) L'ange (1983) Dejeuner du matin (1974) Battements solaires (2008) Le canard au l'orange (2002) The Beach (1992) Au bord du lac (1994)

56. Yimou Zhang

Director | Ying xiong

Yimou Zhang was born on November 14, 1951 in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. He is a director and writer, known for Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Curse of the Golden Flower (2006). He has been married to Ting Chen since December 2011. They have three children. He was previously married to ...

Raise the Red Lantern (1991) Red Sorghum (1987) A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop (2009) Hero (2002) The Flowers of War (2011) House of Flying Daggers (2004)

57. Nicolas Roeg

Director | Don't Look Now

When he made his directorial debut in 1970, Nicolas Roeg was already a 23-year veteran of the British film industry, starting out in 1947 as an editing apprentice and working his way up to cinematographer twelve years later. He first came to attention as part of the second unit on David Lean's ...

Don't Look Now (1973) Performance (1970) Walkabout (1971) Track 29 (1988) Eureka (1983) The Sound of Claudia Schiffer (2000) The Witches (1990) Castaway (1986) AIDS: Iceberg (1987) AIDS: Monolith (1987) The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) Bad Timing (1980) Puffball (2007)

58. François Ozon

Director | Dans la maison

François Ozon was born on November 15, 1967 in Paris, France. He is a director and writer, known for In the House (2012), 8 Women (2002) and Swimming Pool (2003).

Under the Sand (2000) Action verite (1994) 5x2 (2004) Swimming Pool (2003) Criminal Lovers (1999) Sea the Sea (1997) X2000 (1998) In the House (2012) Time to Leave (2005) Sitcom (1998) L'Amant Double (2017) Potiche (2010) Victor (1993) 8 Women (2002) Water Drops on Burning Rocks (2000) Photo de famille (1988)

59. Hiroshi Teshigahara

Director | Suna no onna

Hiroshi Teshigahara was born the son of Sofu Teshigahara who was the founder of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana (flower arrangement). In 1950, he graduated from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in oil painting. In 1958, he became the director of Sogetsu Art Centre and took a ...

The Face of Another (1966) Pitfall (1962) White Morning (1965) Woman of the Dunes (1964) The Man Without a Map (1968)

60. John Boorman

Producer | Hope and Glory

John Boorman attended Catholic school (Salesian Order) although his family was not, in fact, Roman Catholic. His first job was for a dry-cleaner. Later, he worked as a critic for a women's journal and for a radio station until he entered the television business, working for the BBC in Bristol. ...

Excalibur (1981) Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) Deliverance (1972) Point Blank (1967) Hell in the Pacific (1968) The Tailor of Panama (2001) Hope and Glory (1987) The Emerald Forest (1986) Zardoz (1974) The Tiger's Tail (2006)

61. Luigi Bazzoni

Director | Di domenica

Luigi Bazzoni was born on June 25, 1929 in Salsomaggiore Terme, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. He was a director and writer, known for Di domenica (1963), The Possessed (1965) and The Fifth Cord (1971). He died on March 1, 2012 in Salsomaggiore Terme, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.

Giornata near per l’ariete (1971) Le orme (1975) The Possessed (1965)

62. Todd Solondz

Director | Welcome to the Dollhouse

Todd Solondz was born in Newark, New Jersey. One of his earliest jobs in the film industry was when, as a young man, he worked as a messenger for the Writers' Guild of America. During this time, he wrote several screenplays.

Solondz's first color film with sync sound was the short "Schatt's Last ...

Happiness (1998) Wiener-Dog (2016) Storytelling (2001) Life During Wartime (2009) Palindromes (2004) Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) Venice 70: Future Reloaded (2013) [Segment]

63. Pedro Almodóvar

Writer | Hable con ella

The most internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel was born in a small town (Calzada de Calatrava) in the impoverished Spanish region of La Mancha. He arrived in Madrid in 1968, and survived by selling used items in the flea-market called El Rastro. Almodóvar couldn't study ...

Talk to Her (2002) The Skin I Live In (2011) Broken Embraces (2009) Live Flesh (1997) All About My Mother (1999) Tacones lejanos (1991) Volver (2007) Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990) Bad Education (2004) Pain and Glory (2019) Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom (1980) The Cannibalistic Councillor (2009)

64. Michael Curtiz

Director | Casablanca

Curtiz began acting in and then directing films in his native Hungary in 1912. After WWI, he continued his filmmaking career in Austria and Germany and into the early 1920s when he directed films in other countries in Europe. Moving to the US in 1926, he started making films in Hollywood for Warner...

Mildred Pierce (1945) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) Captain Blood (1935) Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) The Comancheros (1961) Casablanca (1942) We're No Angels (1955) The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) The Kennel Murder Case (1933) Doctor X (1932) The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)

65. Takashi Ishii

Writer | Shinde mo ii

Takashi Ishii was born on July 11, 1946 in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. He was a writer and director, known for Original Sin (1992), Hello, My Dolly Girlfriend (2013) and Gonin Saga (2015). He died on May 22, 2022 in Tokyo, Japan.

Gonin (1995) Kuro no tenshi Vol. 1 (1997) A Night in Nude (1993) Gonin 2 (1996)

66. Mikhail Kalatozov

Director | Letyat zhuravli

Mikhail Kalatozov was born on December 28, 1903 in Tiflis, Russian Empire [now Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia]. He was a director and cinematographer, known for The Cranes Are Flying (1957), True Friends (1954) and Zagovor obrechyonnykh (1950). He died on March 27, 1973 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now ...

The Cranes are Flying (1957) Jim Shvante (marili svanets) (1930) I Am Cuba (1964) Letter Never Sent (1959) Nail in the Boot (1931)

67. Rouben Mamoulian

Director | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Rouben Mamoulian was born on October 8, 1897 in Tiflis, Russian Empire [now Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia]. He was a director and writer, known for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Applause (1929) and Becky Sharp (1935). He was married to Catharine Azadia Newman. He died on December 4, 1987 in ...

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) The Mark of Zorro (1940) Queen Christina (1933) Love Me Tonight (1932) Blood and Sand (1941) City Streets (1931) Applause (1929) The Song of Songs (1933) Becky Sharp (1935) Silk Stockings (1957)

68. Jafar Panahi

Director | Taxi

Jafar Panahi (Born 11 July 1960) is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly identified with the Iranian New Wave film movement. After several years of making short films and working as an assistant director for fellow Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi achieved ...

The Circle (2000) Crimson Gold (2003) The Mirror (1997) The White Balloon (1995) Offside (2006) This Is Not a Film (2011) The Accordion (2010)

69. John Duigan

Writer | The Year My Voice Broke

Duigan emigrated to Australia in 1961, having been born to an Australian father. He is related to many Australian performers, being the husband of Nammi Le, brother of novelist Virginia Duigan (wife of director Bruce Beresford) and uncle of Trilby Beresford.

Duigan studied at Melbourne University, ...

Flirting (1991) Lawn Dogs (1997) The Year My Voice Broke (1987) Sirens (1993) The Parole Officer (2001)

70. Charles Laughton

Actor | Witness for the Prosecution

Charles Laughton was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, to Eliza (Conlon) and Robert Laughton, hotel keepers of Irish and English descent, respectively. He was educated at Stonyhurst (a highly esteemed Jesuit college in England) and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (received gold medal). ...

Night of the Hunter (1955)

71. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Writer | Faustrecht der Freiheit

Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Openly homosexual, he married twice; one of his wives acted in his films and the other served as his editor. Accused variously by detractors of being anticommunist, male chauvinist, antiSemitic and...

The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971) Fear Eats the Soul (1974) Fox and His Friends (1975) The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) Gods of the Plague (1970) Love is Colder Than Death (1969) The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) Das kleine Chaos (1966) Der Stadtstreicher (1965) Katzelmacher (1969)

72. Erick Zonca

Writer | La vie rêvée des anges

Erick Zonca was born on September 10, 1956 in Orléans, Loiret, France. He is a writer and director, known for The Dreamlife of Angels (1998), Julia (2008) and Black Tide (2018).

La vie revee des anges (1998) Julia (2008) Le petit voleur (1999)

73. Jacques Tourneur

Director | Cat People

Born in Paris in 1904, Tourneur went to Hollywood with his father, director Maurice Tourneur around 1913. He started out as a script clerk and editor for his father, then graduated to such jobs as directing shorts (often with the pseudonym Jack Turner), both in France and America. He was hired to ...

Out of the Past (1947) Night of the Demon (1957) Days of Glory (1944) I Walked with a Zombie (1943) Berlin Express (1948) Canyon Passage (1946) Experiment Perilous (1944) Cat People (1942) Wichita (1955) The Face Behind the Mask (1938) Stranger on Horseback (1955) Anne of the Indies (1951) City Under the Sea (1965)

74. John Huston

Director | The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

An eccentric rebel of epic proportions, this Hollywood titan reigned supreme as director, screenwriter and character actor in a career that endured over five decades. The ten-time Oscar-nominated legend was born John Marcellus Huston in Nevada, Missouri, on August 5, 1906. His ancestry was English,...

Wise Blood (1979) The Man Who Would Be King (1975) Key Largo (1948) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) The Maltese Falcon (1941) The African Queen (1951) The Asphalt Jungle (1950) Freud (1962) Moby Dick (1956) Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) The Unforgiven (1960) The Dead (1987) The Misfits (1961) Prizzi's Honor (1985) Under the Volcano (1984) The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958) Tunisian Victory (1944) Beat the Devil (1953) Escape to Victory (1981) Report from the Aleutians (1943) Winning Your Wings (1942) San Pietro (1945)

75. Sergio Leone

Writer | Once Upon a Time in America

Sergio Leone was virtually born into the cinema - he was the son of Roberto Roberti (A.K.A. Vincenzo Leone), one of Italy's cinema pioneers, and actress Bice Valerian. Leone entered films in his late teens, working as an assistant director to both Italian directors and U.S. directors working in ...

Once Upon a Time in America (1984) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) A Fistful of Dynamite (1971) For a Few Dollars More (1965) A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

76. Robert Aldrich

Director | Emperor of the North Pole

Robert Aldrich entered the film industry in 1941 when he got a job as a production clerk at RKO Radio Pictures. He soon worked his way up to script clerk, then became an assistant director, a production manager and an associate producer. He began writing and directing for TV series in the early ...

Kiss Me Deadly (1955) The Last Sunset (1961) Too Late the Hero (1970) The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) Apache (1954) Vera Cruz (1954) Sodom and Gomorrah (1962) Autumns Leaves (1956) The Dirty Dozen (1967) Ulzana's Raid (1972) The Big Knife (1955) 4 for Texas (1963) Attack (1956)

77. Henry King

Director | The Song of Bernadette

For more than three decades, Henry King was the most versatile and reliable (not to mention hard-working) contract director on the 20th Century-Fox lot. His tenure lasted from 1930 to 1961, spanning most of Hollywood's "golden" era. King was renowned as a specialist in literary adaptations (A Bell ...

The Gunfighter (1950) Captain from Castile (1947) Jesse James (1939) The Song of Bernadette (1943) The Bravados (1958) The Black Swan (1940) Tol’able David (1921) Twelve O'clock High (1949) Carousel (1956) The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926)

78. Yasujirô Ozu

Writer | Tôkyô monogatari

Tokyo-born Yasujiro Ozu was a movie buff from childhood, often playing hooky from school in order to see Hollywood movies in his local theatre. In 1923 he landed a job as a camera assistant at Shochiku Studios in Tokyo. Three years later, he was made an assistant director and directed his first ...

Late Spring (1949) Tokyo Twilight (1957) Good Morning (1959) The Only Son (1936) Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) A Story of Floating Weeds (1934) I Was Born, But... (1932) Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice (1952) An Inn in Tokyo (1935) A Straightforward Boy (1929) Dekigokoro (1933)

79. Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Writer | Gabbeh

Mohsen Makhmalbaf is known as one of the most influential filmmakers and founders of the new wave of Iranian cinema in the world today.

Many of his films like Salam Cinema, A Moment Of Innocence, Gabbeh, Kandahar and The President have been widely well received across the globe and have brought him ...

A Moment of Innocence (1996) Salaam Cinema (1995) Nassereddin Shah, Actor-e Cinema (1992) The Cyclist (1987) Gabbeh (1996) Kandahar (2001) The Silence (1998)

80. Tsai Ming-liang

Director | Qingshaonian Nuozha

Born in Kuching, Malaysia, he graduated from the Drama and Cinema Department of the Chinese Cultural University of Taiwan and worked as a theatrical producer and TV director. His second feature film, Vive L'Amour (1994), won the Golden Lion (best picture) at the 1994 Venice Film Festival. His ...

Rebels of the Neon God (1992) The Hole (1998) I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006) The River (1997) Vive L'Amour (1994) What Time Is It Over There? (2001) The Skywalk Is Gone (2003) Journey to the West (2014) Walker (2012) Good Bye, Dragon Inn (2003) Fish, Underground (2001)

81. Raoul Walsh

Editor | The Birth of a Nation

Raoul Walsh's 52-year directorial career made him a Hollywood legend. Walsh was also an actor: He appeared in the first version of W. Somerset Maugham's "Rain" renamed Sadie Thompson (1928) opposite Gloria Swanson in the title role. He would have played the Cisco Kid in his own film In Old Arizona ...

White Heat (1949) High Sierra (1941) Distant Drums (1951) The Tall Men (1955) Pursued (1947) Colorado Territory (1949) They Died with Their Boots On (1941) The Roaring Twenties (1939) Sadie Thompson (1928) The Road to Frisco (1940) Dark Command (1940) Murder, Inc. (1951) Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951) Regeneration (1915) Battle Cry (1955) A Distant Trumpet (1962) The Lawless Breed (1952) Sea Devils (1953) Gun Fury (1953)

82. Luchino Visconti

Writer | Il gattopardo

Born in his ancestral palazzo, situated in the same Milanese square as both the opera house La Scala and the Milan Cathedral, Luchino Visconti (1906 - 1976) was raised under the auspices of aristocratic privilege, theater and Catholicism. This triangulation of monuments would create an equally ...

The Leopard (1963) La terra trema (1948) Ludwig (1972) Ossessione (1943) Senso (1954) Death in Venice (1971) La caduta degli dei (Gotterdammmerung) (1969) The Stranger (1967)

83. David Lean

Director | Lawrence of Arabia

An important British filmmaker, David Lean was born in Croydon on March 25, 1908 and brought up in a strict Quaker family (ironically, as a child he wasn't allowed to go to the movies). During the 1920s, he briefly considered the possibility of becoming an accountant like his father before finding ...

Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Great Expectations (1946) Oliver Twist (1948) Doctor Zhivago (1965) Hobson's Choice (1954) In Which We Serve (1942) The Bridge on the River Kwai (1956) Madeleine (1950) Brief Encounter (1945) Blithe Spirit (1945) This Happy Breed (1944) Summertime (1955)

84. Frank Borzage

Director | Bad Girl

Frank Borzage was born on April 23, 1894 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Bad Girl (1931), 7th Heaven (1927) and No Greater Glory (1934). He was married to Juanita Scott, Edna Skelton and Rena Rogers. He died on June 19, 1962 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, ...

A Farewell to Arms (1932) Seventh Heaven (1927) Moonrise (1948) Street Angel (1928) Lucky Star (1929) Three Comrades (1938) We Humans (1932) The River (1929) Mans Castle (1933) Bad Girl (1931) Secrets (1933) The Pilgrim (1916) The Spanish Main (1945) After Tomorrow (1932) Liliom (1930)

85. François Truffaut

Writer | La nuit américaine

French director François Truffaut began to assiduously go to the movies at age seven. He was also a great reader but not a good pupil. He left school at 14 and started working. In 1947, aged 15, he founded a film club and met André Bazin, a French critic, who became his protector. Bazin helped the ...

The Wild Child (1970) The 400 Blows (1959) L'histoire d'Adele H. (1975) Stolen Kissess (1968) Jules and Jim (1962) Shoot the Pianist (1960) Les Mistons (1957) Antoine et Colette (1962) Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

86. Michael Powell

Director | Peeping Tom

The son of Thomas William Powell and Mabel (nee Corbett). Michael Powell was always a self-confessed movie addict. He was brought up partly in Canterbury ("The Garden of England") and partly in the south of France (where his parents ran a hotel). Educated at Kings School, Canterbury and Dulwich ...

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) Black Narcissus (1947) Peeping Tom (1960) A Matter of Life and Death (1946) The Spy in Black (1939) The Thief of Baghdad (1940) Contraband (1940) The Red Shoes (1948) Ill Met by Moonlight (1957) The Battle of the River Plate (1956) 'I Know Where I'm Going!' (1945) Age of Consent (1969) One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942) The Edge of the World (1937)

87. Woody Allen

Writer | Annie Hall

Woody Allen was born on November 30, 1935, as Allen Konigsberg, in The Bronx, NY, the son of Martin Konigsberg and Nettie Konigsberg. He has one younger sister, Letty Aronson. As a young boy, he became intrigued with magic tricks and playing the clarinet, two hobbies that he continues today.

Allen ...

Annie Hall (1977) Zelig (1983) Manhattan (1979) Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) Love and Death (1975) Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) Oedipus Wrecks (1989) Mighty Aphrodite (1995) A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) Take the Money and Run (1969) Stardust Memories (1980) Match Point (2005) Everyone Says I Love You (1996) Alice (1990) Bananas (1971) Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *But Were Afraid to Ask (1972) Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story (1972) The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) Scoop (2006) Interiors (1978) Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) Small Time Crooks (1990) Melinda and Melinda (2004) Midnight in Paris (2011) Cassandra's Dream (2007)

88. Christopher Nolan

Writer | Tenet

Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear, storytelling, acclaimed Academy Award winner writer/director/producer Sir Christopher Nolan CBE was born in London, England. Over the course of more than 25 years of filmmaking, Nolan has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the ...

Tenet (2020) Memento (2002) Insomnia (2002) Inception (2010) The Prestige (2006) The Dark Knight (2008) Batman Begins (2005) Dunkirk (2017) The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Following (1998) Quay (2015) Interstellar (2014) Doodlebug (1997)

89. Satyajit Ray

Writer | Pather Panchali

Satyajit Ray was born in Calcutta on May 2, 1921. His father, Late Sukumar Ray was an eminent poet and writer in the history of Bengali literature. In 1940, after receiving his degree in science and economics from Calcutta University, he attended Tagore's Viswa-Bharati University. His first movie ...

The World of Apu (1959) Pather Panchali (1955) Aparajito (1956) Deliverance (1984) The Big City: Mahanagar (1964) The Music Room (1958) Charulata: The Lonely Wife (1964) The Visitor (1991) Nayak: The Hero (1966) The Coward (1965) The Saint (1965) Two (1965) Sikkim (1971)

90. Michael Mann

Producer | The Insider

As a director, screenwriter, and producer, four-time Academy Award nominee Michael Mann has established himself as one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers in American cinema. After writing and directing the Primetime Emmy Award-winning television movie The Jericho Mile (1979), Mann ...

Heat (1995) Thief (1981) The Insider (1999) The Last of the Mohicans (1992) Miami Vice (2006) Manhunter (1986) Collateral (2004) Ali (2001) Public Enemies (2009) The Keep (1983) Blackhat (2015)

91. Adam Curtis

Director | The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear

Adam Curtis was born on May 26, 1955 in Dartford, Kent, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for The Power of Nightmares (2004), Pandora's Box (1992) and HyperNormalisation (2016).

The Century of the Self (2002) HyperNormalisation (2016) The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear (2004) Bitter Lake (2015) Pandora's Box (1992) An Ocean Apart (1988) Can't Get You Out of My Head (2021) Inside Story: £830,000,000 - Nick Leeson and the Fall of the House of Barings (1996) Inside Story: The Road to Terror (1989) The Great British Housing Disaster (1984)

92. William Friedkin

Director | To Live and Die in L.A.

Friedkin's mother was an operating room nurse. His father was a merchant seaman, semi-pro softball player and ultimately sold clothes in a men's discount chain. Ultimately, his father never earned more than $50/week in his whole life and died indigent. Eventually young Will became infatuated with ...

To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) The French Connection (1971) Killer Joe (2011) Sorcerer (1977) The Exorcist (1973) Bug (2006) The Hunted (2003) Cruising (1980) Rules of Engagement (2000) Rampage (1987) Jade (1995) The Devil and Father Amorth (2017)

93. Roland Joffé

Director | The Mission

Roland Joffé was born on November 17, 1945 in London, England, UK. He is a producer and director, known for The Mission (1986), The Killing Fields (1984) and The Great Hunger.

The Mission (1986) The Killing Fields (1984) Goodbye Lover (1998) Captivity (2007)

94. Krzysztof Kieslowski

Writer | Trois couleurs: Bleu

Krzysztof Kieslowski graduated from Lódz Film School in 1969, and became a documentary, TV and feature film director and scriptwriter. Before making his first film for TV, Przejscie podziemne (1974) (The Underground Passage), he made a number of short documentaries. His next TV title, Personnel (...

Dekalog: The Ten Commandments (1988) Three Colours: Red (1994) Three Colours: White (1994) Blind Chance (1987) A Short Film About Killing (1988) A Short Film About Love (1988) Three Colours: Blue (1993) Camera Buff (1979) The Double Life of Veronique (1991) Talking Heads (1980)

95. Howard Hawks

Director | Red River

What do the classic films Scarface (1932), Twentieth Century (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), Sergeant York (1941), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Red River (1948) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and Rio Bravo (1959) have in...

The Big Sleep (1946) The Big Sky (1952) Rio Bravo (1959) Land of the Pharaohs (1955) Red River (1948) To Have and Have Not (1944) Scarface (1932) Only Angels Have Wings (1939) You Can't Sleep Here (1949) His Girl Friday (1940) Twentieth Century (1934) The Criminal Code (1930) Barbary Coast (1935) Rio Lobo (1970) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) El Dorado (1966) Air Force (1943) Monkey Business (1952) The Outlaw (1943) The Thing from Another World (1951) Hatari! (1962) Bringing Up Baby (1938) A Song Is Born (1948)

96. Bill Morrison

Director | Dawson City: Frozen Time

Bill Morrison was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is a director and editor, known for Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016), The Great Flood (2013), The Miners' Hymns (2011), Spark of Being (2010), Light Is Calling (2004) and Decasia (2002). Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) won a Critics' Choice Award ...

Light Is Calling (2004) Night Highway (1990) Lost Avenues (1991)* Decasia (2002) Film of Her (1997) Photo Op (1992)

97. Ang Lee

Director | Wo hu cang long

Born in 1954 in Pingtung, Taiwan, Ang Lee has become one of today's greatest contemporary filmmakers. Ang graduated from the National Taiwan College of Arts in 1975 and then came to the U.S. to receive a B.F.A. Degree in Theatre/Theater Direction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, ...

The Hulk (2003) Life of Pi (2012) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Lust, Caution (2007) The Ice Storm (1997) Sense and Sensibility (1995) Brokeback Mountain (2005) Gemini Man (2019) Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016)

98. Kaige Chen

Director | Ba wang bie ji

Kaige Chen was born on August 12, 1952 in Beijing, China. He is a producer and director, known for Farewell My Concubine (1993), The Battle at Lake Changjin (2021) and Yellow Earth (1984). He has been married to Hong Chen since 1996. They have two children.

Hai zi wang (1989) Huang tu di (1985) Farewell My Concubine (1993) Together with You (2002) The Promise (2005)

99. Todd Haynes

Director | Far from Heaven

Todd Haynes was always interested in art, and made amateur movies and painted while he was still a child. He attended Brown university and majored in art and semiotics. After he graduated he moved to New York City and made the controversial short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987). ...

Safe (1995) Dottie Gets Spanked (1993) Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1988) Far from Heaven (2002) Wonderstruck (2017) Carol (2015) Dark Waters (2019) Mildred Pierce (2011) Poison (1991)

100. Yuri Ilyenko

Director | Bilyy ptakh z chornoyu oznakoyu

Yuri Ilyenko was born on July 18, 1936 in Cherkassy, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Cherkasy, Ukraine]. He was a director and writer, known for Bilyy ptakh z chornoyu oznakoyu (1971), Swan Lake: The Zone (1990) and Vechir na Ivana Kupala (1968). He was married to Lyudmila Efimenko and Larisa Kadochnikova...

The Eve of Ivan Kupala (1968) A Spring for the Thirsty (1965) Naperekor vsemu (1974)