Visionary Filmmakers
by manuelweiher | created - 09 Feb 2018 | updated - 04 Mar 2023 | Public1. Aaron Sorkin
Writer | The West Wing
Aaron Sorkin grew up in Scarsdale, a suburb of New York City where he was very involved in his high school drama and theater club. After graduating from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater, Sorkin intended to pursue a career in acting. It took him only a short time to ...
The Trial of the Chicago 7
2. Adam McKay
Producer | The Other Guys
Adam McKay (born April 17, 1968) is an American screenwriter, director, comedian, and actor. McKay has a comedy partnership with Will Ferrell, with whom he co-wrote the films Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and The Other Guys. Ferrell and McKay also founded their comedy website Funny or Die through ...
Don't Look Up
3. Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Director | Biutiful
Alejandro González Iñárritu (ih-nyar-ee-too), born August 15th, 1963, is a Mexican film director.
González Iñárritu is the first Mexican director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and by the Directors Guild of America for Best Director. He is also the first Mexican-born ...
The Revenant
4. Alexander Payne
Director | Nebraska
Director, producer and screenwriter Alexander Payne was born in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents, Peggy (Constantine) and George Payne, ran a Greek restaurant. His father is of Greek and German ancestry, and his mother is of Greek descent; the family name was originally Papadopoulos. He is the youngest...
The Descendants
5. Alex Garland
Writer | Ex Machina
Alex Garland is an English novelist, screenwriter, film producer and director. He is best known for the films Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018).
Garland's others works as a writer includes The Beach (2000), 28 Days Later (2002), Sunshine (2007), Never Let Me Go (2011) and Dredd (2012).
He is ...
Ex Machina
6. Alfonso Cuarón
Producer | Gravity
Alfonso Cuarón Orozco was born on November 28th 1961 in Mexico City, Mexico. From an early age, he yearned to be either a film director or an astronaut. However, he did not want to enter the army, so he settled for directing. He didn't receive his first camera until his twelfth birthday, and then ...
Roma
7. 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, ...
Life of Pi
8. Anton Corbijn
Director | Control
Anton Corbijn was born on May 20, 1955 in Strijen, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands. He is a director and actor, known for Control (2007), A Most Wanted Man (2014) and The American (2010).
Control
9. Barry Jenkins
Producer | If Beale Street Could Talk
Barry Jenkins was born on November 19, 1979 in Miami, Florida, USA. He is a producer and director, known for If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), Moonlight (2016) and Aftersun (2022).
Moonlight
10. Ben Affleck
Producer | Argo
Benjamin Géza "Ben" Affleck-Boldt was born on August 15, 1972 in Berkeley, California and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to mother Chris Anne (Boldt), a school teacher, and father Timothy Byers "Tim" Affleck, a social worker. Ben has a younger brother, actor Casey Affleck, who was born in 1975...
Argo
11. Bennett Miller
Director | Foxcatcher
Bennett Miller is an American film director, best known for Capote (2005), Moneyball (2011), and Foxcatcher (2014). He began his film career directing the 1998 documentary The Cruise.
In 2006 Miller directed the Bob Dylan music video "When the Deal Goes Down" starring Scarlett Johansson.
Miller has ...
Foxcatcher
12. Benny Safdie
Actor | Good Time
Born and raised in New York City: in both Queens & Manhattan. He attended the school of Communication at Boston University. He often collaborates with his brother Josh Safdie. He is a director, writer, editor and actor known for Daddy Longlegs(2009),Heaven Knows What(2014), Good Time (2017), Uncut ...
Uncut Gems
13. Bong Joon Ho
Writer | Snowpiercer
Bong Joon-ho is a South Korean filmmaker. The recipient of three Academy Awards, his filmography is characterized by emphasis on social themes, genre-mixing, black humor, and sudden tone shifts. He first became known to audiences and achieved a cult following with his directorial debut film, the ...
Parasite
14. Cameron Crowe
Writer | Almost Famous
Certainly idiosyncratic as a writer, Cameron Crowe has created a series of scripts that, while liked by the critics, were considered offbeat and difficult to market.
Cameron Bruce Crowe was born in Palm Springs, California, to Alice Marie Crowe (née George), a teacher and activist, and James A. ...
15. Cary Joji Fukunaga
Producer | Beasts of No Nation
Cary Joji Fukunaga is a Japanese-American film director, screenwriter, cinematographer and producer from Oakland, California who is known for directing the James Bond film No Time to Die, Kofi, Beasts of No Nation, Jane Eyre and Sin Nombre. He co-wrote the 2017 film adaptation of the Stephen King ...
16. Charlie Kaufman
Writer | I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Avid reader Charlie Kaufman wrote plays and made short films as a young student. He moved from Massapequa, New York to West Hartford, Connecticut in 1972 where he attended high school. As a comedic actor, he performed in school plays and, after graduation, he enrolled at Boston University but soon ...
17. Chloé Zhao
Director | Nomadland
Chloé Zhao or Zhao Ting (born March 31, 1982) is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, and producer. Her debut feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), premiered at Sundance Film Festival. Her second feature film, The Rider (2017), was critically acclaimed and received several accolades ...
Nomadland
18. 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 ...
Interstellar
19. Clint Eastwood
Actor | Million Dollar Baby
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margaret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took ...
20. Damien Chazelle
Writer | La La Land
Damien Sayre Chazelle is an American director and screenwriter. He was born in Providence, Rhode Island. His mother, Celia Sayre (Martin) Chazelle, is an American-Canadian writer and professor of history at The College of New Jersey. His father, Bernard Chazelle, is a French-American Eugene Higgins...
La La Land
21. Dan Gilroy
Writer | Nightcrawler
Dan Gilroy was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Frank D. Gilroy, and sculptor and writer Ruth Dorothy. His brother Tony Gilroy is a screenwriter and director; and his fraternal twin brother, John Gilroy, is a film editor. Through his father, he is of ...
Nightcrawler
22. Daniel Kwan
Director | Everything Everywhere All at Once
Daniel Kwan with Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, are a duo of film directors and writers. They began their career as directors of music videos, including the popular DJ Snake promotional for the single "Turn Down for What" (2013). They have since ventured into film, having written ...
Everything Everywhere All at Once
23. Daniel Scheinert
Director | Everything Everywhere All at Once
Daniel Scheinert was born on June 7, 1987 in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. He is a director and actor, known for Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Swiss Army Man (2016) and Foster the People: Houdini (2012).
Everything Everywhere All at Once
24. Danny Boyle
Director | 127 Hours
Daniel Francis Boyle is a British filmmaker, producer and writer from Radcliffe, Greater Manchester. He is known for directing 28 Days Later, 127 Hours, Trainspotting, T2 Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, Millions, Shallow Grave, The Beach, Yesterday, and Steve Jobs. He won many awards for ...
127 Hours
25. Darren Aronofsky
Writer | Pi
Darren Aronofsky was born February 12, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Darren was always artistic: he loved classic movies and, as a teenager, he even spent time doing graffiti art. After high school, Darren went to Harvard University to study film (both live-action and animation). He won ...
Black Swan
26. David Ayer
Producer | End of Watch
David Ayer is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. David Ayer was born in Champaign, Illinois and grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Bethesda, Maryland, where he was kicked out of his house by his parents as a teenager. Ayer then lived with his cousin in Los Angeles, ...
End of Watch
27. 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...
28. David Fincher
Director | Se7en
David Fincher was born in 1962 in Denver, Colorado, and was raised in Marin County, California. When he was 18 years old he went to work for John Korty at Korty Films in Mill Valley. He subsequently worked at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) from 1981-1983. Fincher left ILM to direct TV commercials...
Fight Club
29. 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 ...
Mulholland Drive
30. David Mackenzie
Director | Starred Up
David Mackenzie was born on May 10, 1966 in Corbridge, Northumberland, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for Starred Up (2013), Perfect Sense (2011) and Hell or High Water (2016).
Hell or High Water
31. David O. Russell
Director | American Hustle
David Owen Russell is an American film writer, director, and producer, known for a cinema of intense, tragi-comedic characters whose love of life can surpass dark circumstances faced in very specific worlds. His films address such themes as mental illness as stigma or hope; invention of self and ...
Silver Linings Playbook
32. David Robert Mitchell
Writer | It Follows
David Robert Mitchell is an American director mainly known for the breakout horror film ''It Follows'' which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2014. in 2002, Mitchell wrote and directed ''Virgin'' a short film featuring Carolina Castro and Cameron Diskin about a local legend...
Under the Silver Lake
33. David Yates
Director | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
David Yates was born on October 8, 1963 in St. Helens, Merseyside, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), The Legend of Tarzan (2016) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011).
34. Denis Villeneuve
Director | Dune
Denis Villeneuve is a French Canadian film director and writer. He was born in 1967, in Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada. He started his career as a filmmaker at the National Film Board of Canada. He is best known for his feature films Arrival (2016), Sicario (2015), Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), ...
Arrival
35. Derek Cianfrance
Writer | Blue Valentine
Derek Cianfrance began making movies at age 13. He later attended The University of Colorado where he studied under avant-garde film legends Stan Brakhage and Phil Solomon. His first three films, 'Five O'clock Shadow', 'Raw Footage', and Brother Tied (1998), won consecutive Goldfarb Awards for best...
The Place Beyond the Pines
36. Doug Liman
Producer | Edge of Tomorrow
Douglas Eric Liman is a Jewish-American filmmaker and producer who directed Swingers, The Bourne Identity, Chaos Walking, Jumper, Go, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Fair Game, Locked Down, Edge of Tomorrow, The Wall and American Made. He executive produced the Bourne sequels except The Bourne Legacy, The ...
37. Drew Goddard
Producer | The Martian
Drew Goddard was raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He attended Los Alamos High School in Los Alamos, New Mexico and graduated in 1993. He then attended the University of Colorado, and worked as a production assistant in L.A. after graduation. A spec script Drew wrote based on Six Feet Under (2001) ...
38. Edgar Wright
Director | Shaun of the Dead
Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. He is best known for his comedic Three Flavours Cornetto film trilogy consisting of Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and The World's End (2013), made with recurrent collaborators Simon Pegg...
Baby Driver
39. Edward Zwick
Producer | The Last Samurai
Zwick moves deftly between the roles of writer, director and producer. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his direction of the 1989 critically acclaimed Civil War drama, Glory. He received his second Golden Globe nomination as a director for Legends of the Fall. Zwick received an Academy Award...
40. Ethan Coen
Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The younger brother of Joel, Ethan Coen is an Academy Award and Golden Globe winning writer, producer and director coming from small independent films to big profile Hollywood films. He was born on September 21, 1957 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In some films of the brothers- Ethan & Joel wrote, Joel...
No Country for Old Men
41. Fernando Meirelles
Director | The Constant Gardener
Fernando Meirelles was born in a middle class family in São Paulo City, Brazil.
He studied architecture at the university of São Paulo. At the same time he developed an interest in filmmaking. With a group of friends he started producing experimental videos and video art. They won a huge number of ...
City of God
42. 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 ...
43. Frank Darabont
Writer | The Shawshank Redemption
Three-time Oscar nominee Frank Darabont was born in a refugee camp in 1959 in Montbeliard, France, the son of Hungarian parents who had fled Budapest during the failed 1956 Hungarian revolution. Brought to America as an infant, he settled with his family in Los Angeles and attended Hollywood High ...
44. Garth Davis
Director | Lion
Garth Davis's work has been recognized in every major award show around the world. His rigorous commitment to detail, cinematic sensibilities and deep appreciation of the actor-director relationship are his trademark. Garth most recently directed Foe for Amazon, based on the novel of the same name ...
Lion
45. George Clooney
Actor | The Ides of March
George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney ...
46. George Lucas
Writer | Star Wars
George Walton Lucas, Jr. was raised on a walnut ranch in Modesto, California. His father was a stationery store owner and he had three siblings. During his late teen years, he went to Thomas Downey High School and was very much interested in drag racing. He planned to become a professional racecar ...
Star Wars
47. George Miller
Producer | Mad Max: Fury Road
George Miller is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer, and former medical doctor. He is best known for his Mad Max franchise, with Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) being hailed as amongst the greatest action films of all time. Aside from the Mad Max ...
Mad Max Fury Road
48. Gore Verbinski
Director | Rango
Gore Verbinski, one of American cinema's most inventive directors who was a punk-rock guitarist as a teenager and had to sell his guitar to buy his first camera, is now the director of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) which made the industry record for highest opening weekend of ...
49. Greta Gerwig
Writer | Barbie
Greta Gerwig is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and director. She has collaborated with Noah Baumbach on several films, including Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination, and Mistress America (2015). Gerwig made her solo directorial debut ...
Lady Bird
50. Greg Mottola
Director | Adventureland
Greg Mottola was born on July 11, 1964 in Dix Hills, Long Island, New York, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Adventureland (2009), The Daytrippers (1996) and Superbad (2007). He is married to Sarah Allentuch. They have three children.
Adventureland
51. Guillermo del Toro
Writer | El laberinto del fauno
Guillermo del Toro was born October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Raised by his Catholic grandmother, del Toro developed an interest in filmmaking in his early teens. Later, he learned about makeup and effects from the legendary Dick Smith (The Exorcist (1973)) and worked on making his ...
The Shape of Water
52. Gus Van Sant
Director | Elephant
Gus Green Van Sant Jr. is an American filmmaker, painter, screenwriter, photographer and musician from Louisville, Kentucky who is known for directing films such as Good Will Hunting, the 1998 remake of Psycho, Gerry, Elephant, My Own Private Idaho, To Die For, Milk, Last Days, Finding Forrester, ...
Good Will Hunting
53. Harmony Korine
Director | Gummo
Harmony Korine was born in 1973 in Bolinas, California. His family moved to the east coast of the United States when he was five, and he spent his early years in Nashville, Tennessee, and New York. At the age of nineteen, he wrote the critically acclaimed screenplay Kids (1995) for director Larry ...
Spring Breakers
54. James Cameron
Writer | Avatar: The Way of Water
James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his ...
Titanic
55. James Franco
Actor | Spring Breakers
Known for his breakthrough starring role on Freaks and Geeks (1999), James Franco was born April 19, 1978 in Palo Alto, California, to Betsy Franco, a writer, artist, and actress, and Douglas Eugene "Doug" Franco, who ran a Silicon Valley business. His mother is Jewish and his father was of ...
56. James Mangold
Producer | Logan
James Mangold is an American film and television director, screenwriter and producer. Films he has directed include Girl, Interrupted (1999), Walk the Line (2005), which he also co-wrote, the 2007 remake 3:10 to Yuma (2007), The Wolverine (2013), and Logan (2017).
Mangold also wrote and directed Cop...
Ford vs. Ferrari
57. Jason Reitman
Producer | Up in the Air
Jason Reitman is a Canadian filmmaker and producer who notably directed Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Juno, Thank You for Smoking, Up in the Air, Young Adult and Tully. He produced Chloe and Jennifer's Body, two films that advanced Amanda Seyfried's career for adult oriented roles. He is the son of Ivan...
Juno
58. J.C. Chandor
Producer | A Most Violent Year
J.C. Chandor is known for A Most Violent Year (2014), Margin Call (2011) and All Is Lost (2013). He has been married to Mary Cameron Goodyear since 2004. They have two children.
59. Jean-Marc Vallée
Director | C.R.A.Z.Y.
Jean-Marc Vallée was a Canadian filmmaker, editor and screenwriter from Montreal. He directed Black List, C.R.A.Z.Y., The Young Victoria, Wild, Dallas Buyers Club, Los Locos, Loser Love and Café de Flore. He also created the HBO shows Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects. He was married to Chantal ...
Dallas Buyers Club
60. Jim Jarmusch
Director | Paterson
Moved to New York City at the age of seventeen from Akron, Ohio. Graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in English, class of '75. Without any prior film experience, he was accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts, New York.
Only Lovers Left Alive
61. J.J. Abrams
Producer | Lost
Jeffrey Jacob Abrams was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, the son of TV producer parents. At 15, he wrote the music for Don Dohler's Nightbeast (1982). In his senior year of college, he and Jill Mazursky teamed up to write a feature film, which became Taking Care of Business (1990)....
Star Wars The Force Awakens
62. Joel Coen
Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Joel Daniel Coen is an American filmmaker who regularly collaborates with his younger brother Ethan. They made Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail Caesar and other projects. Joel ...
The Big Lebowski
63. Joe Wright
Director | Pride & Prejudice
Joe Wright is an English film director. He is best known for Pride & Prejudice (2005), Atonement (2007), Anna Karenina (2012), and Darkest Hour (2017).
Wright always had an interest in the arts, especially painting. He would also make films on his Super 8 camera as well as spend time in the evenings...
64. John Hillcoat
Director | The Proposition
John Hillcoat was born on August 14, 1961 in Queensland, Australia. He is a director and producer, known for The Proposition (2005), The Road (2009) and Lawless (2012).
The Road
65. John Lee Hancock
Writer | The Blind Side
John Lee Hancock was born on December 15, 1956 in Longview, Texas, USA. He is a writer and director, known for The Blind Side (2009), Saving Mr. Banks (2013) and The Highwaymen (2019).
66. Jonathan Demme
Director | The Silence of the Lambs
Jonathan Demme was born on February 22, 1944 in Baldwin, Long Island, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Philadelphia (1993). He was married to Joanne Howard and Evelyn Purcell. He died on April 26, 2017 in ...
67. Jonathan Glazer
Director | Under the Skin
Jonathan first found fame for his revolutionary work on Radiohead's 'Street Spirit' and Jamiroquai's multi-MTV award winning 'Virtual Insanity' video.
In 1999 he directed the ground-breaking Guinness 'Surfer', which picked up 2 D&AD Black Pencils and the top spot at most of the other awards ...
Under the Skin
68. Jonathan Levine
Director | 50/50
Jonathan Levine was born on June 18, 1976. He is a producer and director, known for 50/50 (2011), The Wackness (2008) and Warm Bodies (2013).
69. Jordan Peele
Writer | Nope
Jordan Peele is an Oscar- and Emmy-winning director, writer, actor, producer, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions. Peele's first feature film, "Get Out," was a critically acclaimed blockbuster, recognized with four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. The film would earn Peele the ...
Get Out
70. Josh Safdie
Director | Uncut Gems
Born and raised in New York City: in both Queens & Manhattan. He attended the school of Communication at Boston University. He often collaborates with his brother Benny Safdie. The brothers have both cited early experiences in front of their father's camera as the reasons for their pursing ...
Good Time
71. Kathryn Bigelow
Director | Zero Dark Thirty
A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. At 20, she won a scholarship to the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She was given a studio in a former Offtrack Betting building, literally in an old bank vault, where she made art and waited to be ...
The Hurt Locker
72. Kenneth Lonergan
Writer | Manchester by the Sea
Kenneth Lonergan is a playwright, screenwriter and director. His film, You Can Count on Me (2000), which he wrote and directed, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, won the Sundance 2000 Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, the NY Film Critics Circle, LA Film ...
Manchester by the Sea
73. Lenny Abrahamson
Director | Room
Lenny Abrahamson was born in Dublin in 1966. He studied physics and philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. While at university he directed short videos with the Trinity Video Society, which he co-founded with Ed Guiney. He graduated in 1991 with first class honours (gold medal). His first short film...
Room
74. Luca Guadagnino
Director | Call Me by Your Name
Luca Guadagnino was born on August 10, 1971 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. He is a director and producer, known for Call Me by Your Name (2017), Suspiria (2018) and Bones and All (2022).
Call Me By Your Name
75. Marc Forster
Producer | World War Z
Marc Forster is a German-born filmmaker and screenwriter. He is best known for directing the films Monster's Ball (2001), Finding Neverland (2004), Stay (2005), Stranger than Fiction (2006), The Kite Runner (2007), Quantum of Solace (2008), and World War Z (2013).
His breakthrough film was Monster's...
76. Marc Webb
Director | (500) Days of Summer
Marc Webb is an American film and music video director. He directed over 100 music videos before he made his film directorial debut with 500 Days of Summer, a romantic comedy. He later directed The Amazing Spider-Man and its 2014 sequel starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. He also directed ...
500 Days of Summer
77. Martin McDonagh
Writer | In Bruges
Martin McDonagh was born on March 26, 1970 in Camberwell, London, England, UK. He is a writer and director, known for In Bruges (2008), Seven Psychopaths (2012) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017).
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri
78. 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
79. Mel Gibson
Actor | Braveheart
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born January 3, 1956 in Peekskill, New York, USA, as the sixth of eleven children of Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Anne Patricia (Reilly) Gibson (who died in December of 1990). His mother was Irish, from County Longford, while his American-born father is ...
Hacksaw Ridge
80. 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
81. Michel Gondry
Director | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
He grew up in Versailles with a family who was very influenced by pop music. When he was young, Gondry wanted to be a painter or an inventor. In the 80s he entered in an art school in Paris where he could develop his graphic skills and where he also met friends with whom he created a pop-rock band ...
82. Mike Cahill
Editor | Another Earth
Mike Cahill was born on July 5, 1979 in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He is an editor and director, known for Another Earth (2011), I Origins (2014) and Boxers and Ballerinas (2004).
Another Earth
83. M. Night Shyamalan
Producer | Lady in the Water
Born in Puducherry, India, and raised in the posh suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, M. Night Shyamalan is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor, known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots.
He is the son of Jayalakshmi, a Tamil ...
The Sixth Sense
84. Morten Tyldum
Director | Hodejegerne
Morten Tyldum was born on May 19, 1967 in Bergen, Norway. He is a director and producer, known for Headhunters (2011), The Imitation Game (2014) and Passengers (2016).
The Imitation Game
85. Neill Blomkamp
Director | District 9
Neill Blomkamp is a South African-Canadian film director and screenwriter who is known for the science fiction films District 9, Elysium and Chappie. He also directed the supernatural horror film Demonic and the 2007 short film Halo: Landfall, based on the Microsoft science fiction video game ...
District 9
86. Nicolas Winding Refn
Writer | The Neon Demon
Writer, director, and producer Nicolas Winding Refn was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1970, to Anders Refn, a film director and editor, and Vibeke Winding (née Tuxen), a cinematographer. Just before he turned 11, in 1981, he moved to New York with his parents, where he lived out his teen years. ...
Drive
87. Noah Baumbach
Writer | The Squid and the Whale
Born in Brooklyn in 1969 Noah Baumbach is the son of two film critics, Georgia Brown and Jonathan Baumbach (also a writer). His studies at Vassar College were the subject of his first film (made as he was 26 years old), Kicking and Screaming (1995). His second major picture, made ten years later, ...
Marriage Story
88. Oliver Stone
Director | JFK
Oliver Stone has become known as a master of controversial subjects and a legendary film maker. His films are filled with a variety of film angles and styles, he pushes his actors to give Oscar-worthy performances, and despite his failures, has always returned to success.
William Oliver Stone was ...
89. Paul Greengrass
Director | United 93
Paul Greengrass started his filmmaking career with a super 8 camera he found in his art room in secondary school. Those short movies were animation horror films he made using old dolls, artist dummies, and the general art room clutter.
After studying in Cambridge University he got into Granada ...
The Bourne Ultimatum
90. Paul Thomas Anderson
Director | Punch-Drunk Love
Anderson was born in 1970. He was one of the first of the "video store" generation of film-makers. His father was the first man on his block to own a V.C.R., and from a very early age Anderson had an infinite number of titles available to him. While film-makers like Spielberg cut their teeth making...
There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, Licorice Pizza
91. Peter Berg
Actor | Chicago Hope
Peter Berg is an American actor, director, writer, and producer. His first role was in the Adam Rifkin road movie Never on Tuesday (1988). He went on to star in the World War 2 film A Midnight Clear (1992). Roles in Fire in the Sky (1993) and Cop Land (1997) followed, and the Tom Cruise films ...
92. Peter Jackson
Producer | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Sir Peter Jackson made history with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, becoming the first person to direct three major feature films simultaneously. The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King were nominated for and collected a slew of awards from around the globe, with The ...
The Lord of the Rings
93. Quentin Tarantino
Writer | Reservoir Dogs
Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.
In January of...
Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
94. Rian Johnson
Producer | Knives Out
Rian Johnson was born in Maryland and at a young age his family moved to San Clemente, California, where he was raised. After graduating from high school, he went on to attend the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. His first feature film, Brick (2005), was released in 2005 ...
Knives Out
95. Richard Linklater
Director | Waking Life
Self-taught writer-director Richard Stuart Linklater was born in Houston, Texas, to Diane Margaret (Krieger), who taught at a university, and Charles W. Linklater III. Richard was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. ...
Boyhood
96. 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 ...
97. Robert Eggers
Director | The Lighthouse
Robert Houston Eggers is an American filmmaker and production designer. He is best known for writing and directing the historical horror films The Witch (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019), as well as directing and co-writing the historical fiction epic film The Northman (2022). His films are noted ...
The Lighthouse
98. Robert Rodriguez
Producer | El mariachi
Robert Anthony Rodriguez was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, USA, to Rebecca (Villegas), a nurse, and Cecilio G. Rodríguez, a salesman. His family is of Mexican descent.
Of all the people to be amazed by the images of John Carpenter's 1981 sci-fi parable, Escape from New York (1981), none ...
Planet Terror
99. Robert Zemeckis
Writer | Back to the Future
A whiz-kid with special effects, Robert is from the Spielberg camp of film-making (Steven Spielberg produced many of his films). Usually working with writing partner Bob Gale, Robert's earlier films show he has a talent for zany comedy (Romancing the Stone (1984), 1941 (1979)) and special effect ...
Forrest Gump
100. 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 ...
The Pianist
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