Directors to watch
by Snavelaar | created - 02 Feb 2014 | updated - 08 Apr 2018 | PublicWho is who of international film directors worth watching and the titles I saw of them. Titles in English, original titles between brackets and year of release. In alphabetical order, the first entry is a highlight.
You can find a list of films I gladly recommend here: Snavelaar's Choice and here's my personal top 250.
This list has a film for every country in the world for those who enjoy different cultures and languages.
101. Julien Duvivier
Writer | Panique
Revered by such legendary fellow directors as Ingmar Bergman and Jean Renoir, Julien Duvivier is one of the most legendary figures in the history of French cinema. He is perhaps the most neglected of the "Big Five" of classic French cinema (the other four being Jean Renoir, Rene Clair, Jacques ...
102. W.S. Van Dyke
Director | The Thin Man
For the better part of his career, Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke lived up to his sobriquet "One-Take Woody" by steadfastly adhering to his credo of shooting each scene as quickly and efficiently as possible. Over his 25-year career, he economically directed over 90 diverse entertainments, which not ...
103. Clint Eastwood
Actor | Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in ...
104. Uli Edel
Director | Der Baader Meinhof Komplex
Uli Edel was born on April 11, 1947 in Neuenburg am Rhein, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008), Christiane F. (1981) and Das Adlon. Eine Familiensaga (2013).
105. Blake Edwards
Writer | The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Blake Edwards' stepfather's father J. Gordon Edwards was a silent screen director, and his stepfather Jack McEdward was a stage director and movie production manager. Blake acted in a number films, beginning with Ten Gentlemen from West Point (1942) and wrote a number of others, beginning with ...
106. Sergei Eisenstein
Director | Ivan Groznyy
The son of an affluent architect, Eisenstein attended the Institute of Civil Engineering in Petrograd as a young man. With the fall of the tsar in 1917, he worked as an engineer for the Red Army. In the following years, Eisenstein joined up with the Moscow Proletkult Theater as a set designer and ...
107. Adam Elliot
Director | Mary and Max.
Grew up on a shrimp farm in southern Australia together with two brothers, one sister and two parrots. He discerned his artistic abilities at an early age and spent five years studying photography, painting, pottery etc. In 1996 he began his studies at the Victorian College of the Arts where Uncle ...
108. Víctor Erice
Director | Cerrar los ojos
Víctor Erice was born on June 30, 1940 in Karrantza, Vizcaya, País Vasco, Spain. He is a director and writer, known for Close Your Eyes (2023), El Sur (1983) and The Spirit of the Beehive (1973).
109. Philippe Falardeau
Director | The Good Lie
After studying Canadian politics and international relations, Philippe Falardeau was chosen in 1993 as a contestant for the popular TV series La course destination monde (1988) (a contest were the participants tour the world making short films). There, he shot 20 films and ended up winning the race...
110. 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...
111. Federico Fellini
Writer | Le notti di Cabiria
The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the ...
112. 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...
113. Robert J. Flaherty
Director | Louisiana Story
Robert J. Flaherty was born on February 16, 1884 in Iron Mountain, Michigan, USA. He was a director and writer, known for Louisiana Story (1948), Man of Aran (1934) and Elephant Boy (1937). He was married to Frances H. Flaherty. He died on July 23, 1951 in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA.
114. Richard Fleischer
Director | Soylent Green
Richard firmly established his credentials with such epics as The Vikings (1958) , 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Barabbas (1961) and also proved to be a master of intimate drama with Compulsion (1959) , which won Cannes Festival awards for the male stars. He won an Academy Award for one ...
115. Victor Fleming
Director | Gone with the Wind
Victor Fleming entered the film business as a stuntman in 1910, mainly doing stunt driving - which came easy to him, as he had been a mechanic and professional race-car driver. He became interested in working on the other side of the camera, and eventually got a job as a cameraman on many of the ...
116. Dexter Fletcher
Actor | Ghosted
Two-time BAFTA-nominated director Dexter Fletcher is an English actor-turned-filmmaker whose movies and TV work include the Academy Award-winning Elton John biopic Rocketman. Fletcher started his career in front of the camera at the age of 6; three years later he played "Baby Face" in Alan Parker's...
117. John Ford
Director | The Quiet Man
John Ford came to Hollywood following one of his brothers, an actor. Asked what brought him to Hollywood, he replied "the train". He became one of the most respected directors in the business, in spite of being known for his westerns, which were not considered "serious" film. He won six Oscars, ...
118. Milos Forman
Director | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Milos Forman was born Jan Tomas Forman in Caslav, Czechoslovakia, to Anna (Svabova), who ran a summer hotel, and Rudolf Forman, a professor. During World War II, his parents were taken away by the Nazis, after being accused of participating in the underground resistance. His father died in ...
119. 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...
120. John Frankenheimer
Director | The Manchurian Candidate
Born in New York and raised in Queens, John Frankenheimer wanted to become a professional tennis player. He loved movies and his favorite actor was Robert Mitchum. He decided he wanted to be an actor but then he applied for and was accepted in the Motion Picture Squadron of the Air Force where he ...
121. Stephen Frears
Director | Dangerous Liaisons
Stephen started off in a career in the legal profession before switching to work as an assistant stage manager at London's Royal Court which led to work as an assistant director on films by Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson He directed his first short in 1967 and his feature debut, Gumshoe, in 1971....
122. 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 ...
123. Tony Gatlif
Director | Vengo
Tony Gatlif was born on September 10, 1948 in Algiers, Alger, France [now Algeria]. He is a director and writer, known for Vengo (2000), Freedom (2009) and The Crazy Stranger (1997).
124. Tay Garnett
Director | China Seas
Following his service as a naval aviator in WW I, Tay Garnett entered films in 1920 as a screenwriter. After a stint as a gag writer for Mack Sennett and Hal Roach he joined Pathe, then the distributor for both competing comedy producers, and in 1928 began directing for that company. Garnett ...
125. Alex Gibney
Producer | Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Alex Gibney was born on October 23, 1953 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) and Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief (2015). He has been married to Anne Gibney since ...
126. 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 ...
127. Terry Gilliam
Writer | Brazil
Terry Gilliam was born near Medicine Lake, Minnesota. When he was 12 his family moved to Los Angeles where he became a fan of MAD magazine. In his early twenties he was often stopped by the police who suspected him of being a drug addict and Gilliam had to explain that he worked in advertising. In ...
128. Jean-Luc Godard
Director | Bande à part
Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on December 3, 1930, the second of four children in a bourgeois Franco-Swiss family. His father was a doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from a preeminent family of Swiss bankers. During World War II Godard became a naturalized citizen of ...
129. 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 ...
130. Edmund Goulding
Director | Grand Hotel
London-born Edmund Goulding was an actor/playwright/director on the London stage, and entered the British army when WWI broke out. Mustered out of the service because of wounds suffered in battle, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1921. He obtained assignments as a screenwriter in Hollywood, wrote a ...
131. Peter Greenaway
Director | The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Peter Greenaway trained as a painter and began working as a film editor for the Central Office of Information in 1965. Shortly afterwards he started to make his own films. He has produced a wealth of short and feature-length films, but also paintings, novels and other books. He has held several ...
132. 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 ...
133. D.W. Griffith
Director | The Birth of a Nation
David Wark Griffith was born in rural Kentucky to Jacob "Roaring Jake" Griffith, a former Confederate Army colonel and Civil War veteran. Young Griffith grew up with his father's romantic war stories and melodramatic nineteenth-century literature that were to eventually shape his movies. In 1897 ...
134. Bert Haanstra
Director | Zoo
Bert Haanstra was born on May 31, 1916 in Holten, Overijssel, Netherlands. He was a director and writer, known for Zoo (1961), Glass (1958) and Spiegel van Holland (1950). He was married to Angenieta Barendiena Wijtmans. He died on October 23, 1997 in Hilversum, Noord-Holland, Netherlands.
135. Taylor Hackford
Producer | Ray
In addition to helming the iconic feature hits An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Against All Odds (1984), Ray (2004), and the cult thriller The Devil's Advocate (1997), Taylor Hackford has directed the films Dolores Claiborne (1995), Everybody's All-American (1988), and Proof of Life (2000). ...
136. Paul Haggis
Writer | Crash
Paul Haggis established himself over twenty years with an extensive career in television, before his big break into features arrived when he became the first screenwriter to garner two Best Film Academy Awards back-to-back for his scripts: "Million Dollar Baby" (2004) directed by Clint Eastwood, ...
137. Lasse Hallström
Director | What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Lasse Hallström inherited his enthusiasm for film from his father, who was an amateur filmmaker. In high school he made his first short film, which was released on Swedish television. Hallström then began working as a director, cameraman and editor for Swedish television. He also made music videos ...
138. Guy Hamilton
Director | Live and Let Die
Typically British stiff-upper-lip war dramas and action adventure laced with moments of sophisticated comedy were Guy Hamilton's trademark. The son of a British diplomat, he spent most of his youth with his family in France, seemingly destined to be groomed for a career in the diplomatic service. ...
139. 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 ...
140. Byron Haskin
Director | The War of the Worlds
After graduation from the University of California at Berkeley, Byron Haskin worked for a time as a newspaper cartoonist. He began his career in the film industry in 1920 as a commercial-industrial movie photographer, and then as a cameraman for Pathe and International Newsreel. Later he became an ...
141. Henry Hathaway
Director | True Grit
Henry Hathaway, son of a stage actress and manager, started his career as a child actor in westerns directed by Allan Dwan. His movie career was interrupted by World War I. After his discharge he briefly tried a career in finance but returned to Hollywood to work as an assistant director under such...
142. 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...
143. Rolf de Heer
Producer | Bad Boy Bubby
Rolf de Heer was born on May 4, 1951 in Heemskerk, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. He is a producer and director, known for Bad Boy Bubby (1993), Ten Canoes (2006) and Charlie's Country (2013).
144. 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...
145. George Roy Hill
Director | The Sting
George Roy Hill was never able to 'hit it off' with the critics despite the fact that 2 of his films - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and The Sting (1973) - had remained among the top 10 box office hits by 1976. His work was frequently derided as 'impersonal' or lacking in stylistic ...
146. Walter Hill
Writer | 48 Hrs.
Hill was born in Long Beach, California and educated at Mexico City College and Michigan State University. He worked in oil drilling and construction in the 60s before becoming a 2nd assistant director in 1967. He has written and co-written screenplays, including several uncredited works. He has ...
147. 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).
148. Oliver Hirschbiegel
Director | Das Experiment
Born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1957. In his teens he left high school and worked as a cooker in a boat.
Then he studied painting and graphism in the Academy of arts in Hamburg where he also started experimenting with video and photography. Those experimental movies attracted the attention of some ...
149. 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 ...
150. Mike Hodges
Director | Flash Gordon
Mike Hodges was born on July 29, 1932 in Bristol, England, UK. He was a director and producer, known for Flash Gordon (1980), Get Carter (1971) and Black Rainbow (1989). He was married to Carol Laws and Jean Alexandrov. He died on December 17, 2022 in Dorset, England, UK.
151. Agnieszka Holland
Director | Pokot
Having graduated from FAMU in Prague film (1971), Agnieszka Holland returned to Poland and began her film career working with Krzysztof Zanussi as assistant director, and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. Her first feature film was PROVINCIAL ACTORS (1978), one of the flagship pictures of the "cinema of...
152. Tobe Hooper
Director | The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Honored with many awards for his films and achievement in the horror genre, Tobe Hooper is truly one of the Masters of Horror (2005).
Tobe Hooper was born in Austin, Texas, to Lois Belle (Crosby) and Norman William Ray Hooper, who owned a theater in San Angelo. He spent the 1960s as a college ...
153. Ron Howard
Producer | Arrested Development
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard is one of this generation's most popular directors. From the critically acclaimed dramas A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Apollo 13 (1995) to the hit comedies Parenthood (1989) and Splash (1983), he has created some of Hollywood's most memorable films.
Howard ...
154. John Hughes
Writer | Planes, Trains & Automobiles
John Hughes was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter. He was credited for creating some of the most memorable comedy films of the 1980s and the 1990s, when he was at the height of his career. He had a talent for writing coming-of-age stories, and for depicting fairly realistic...
155. 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,...
156. Kon Ichikawa
Director | Inugami-ke no ichizoku
Kon Ichikawa has been influenced by artists as diverse as Walt Disney and Jean Renoir, and his films cover a wide spectrum of moods, from the comic to the overwhelmingly ironic and even the perverse. Ichikawa began his career as a cartoonist, and this influence is apparent in his skillful use of ...
157. James Ivory
Writer | Call Me by Your Name
The main part of his few movies were filmed in the quarter of a century in which he worked closely together with the Indian producer Ismail Merchant and the German writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. His first films are all set in India and are very much influenced by the style of Satyajit Ray and Jean ...
158. 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 ...
159. 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.
160. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Director | Un long dimanche de fiançailles
Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a self-taught director who was very quickly interested by cinema, with a predilection for a fantastic cinema where form is as important as the subject. Thus he started directing TV commercials and video clips (such as Julien Clerc in 1984). At the same time he met designer/...
161. Norman Jewison
Director | Jesus Christ Superstar
Norman Jewison was an award-winning, internationally acclaimed filmmaker who produced and directed some of the world's most memorable, entertaining and socially important films, exploring controversial and complicated subjects and giving them a universal accessibility. Some of his most well-known ...
162. 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.
163. Terry Jones
Writer | The Meaning of Life
Terry Jones was born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, the son of Dilys Louisa (Newnes), a homemaker, and Alick George Parry Jones, a bank clerk. His older brother is production designer Nigel Jones. His grandparents were involved in the entertainment business, having managed the local Amateur Operatic ...
164. Spike Jonze
Producer | Her
Spike Jonze made up one-third (along with Andy Jenkins and Mark Lewman) of the triumvirate of genius minds behind Dirt Magazine, the brother publication of the much lamented ground-breaking Sassy Magazine. These three uncommon characters were all editors for Grand Royal Magazine as well, under the ...
165. Neil Jordan
Writer | The Crying Game
Neil Jordan was born on February 25, 1950 in Sligo, Ireland. He is a writer and producer, known for The Crying Game (1992), Greta (2018) and Breakfast on Pluto (2005). He has been married to Brenda Rawn since June 30, 2004. They have two children. He was previously married to Vivienne Shields.
166. Ján Kadár
Director | Obchod na korze
Ján Kadár was born on April 1, 1918 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]. He was a director and writer, known for The Shop on Main Street (1965), Smrt si ríká Engelchen (1963) and Obzalovaný (1964). He died on June 1, 1979 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
167. 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 ...
168. Dagur Kári
Director | Voksne mennesker
Dagur Kári was born on December 12, 1973 in Paris, France. He is a director and writer, known for Voksne mennesker (2005), Nói albinói (2003) and The Good Heart (2009).
169. Philip Kaufman
Writer | The Right Stuff
Director and screenwriter Philip Kaufman was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the University of Chicago and later Harvard Law School. He won the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique at Cannes in 1965 for his film Goldstein (1964). He was the screenwriter for The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) and was to ...
170. Aki Kaurismäki
Producer | Le Havre
Aki Kaurismäki did a wide variety of jobs including postman, dish-washer and film critic, before forming a production and distribution company, Villealfa (in homage to Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965)) with his older brother Mika Kaurismäki, also a film-maker. Both Aki and Mika are prolific ...
171. Mika Kaurismäki
Producer | Kolme viisasta miestä
Mika Kaurismäki was born on September 21, 1955 in Orimattila, Finland. He is a producer and director, known for Kolme viisasta miestä (2008), Zombie ja Kummitusjuna (1991) and Helsinki Napoli All Night Long (1987). He is married to Cenira Dias Kaurismäki.
172. Tony Kaye
Director | Detachment
Tony Kaye was born in London, United Kingdom. He has made several well-known music videos, including the video for "Runaway Train" by Soul Asylum, which won a Grammy Award, "Dani California" by Red Hot Chili Peppers, "What God Wants" by Roger Waters, and "Help Me" and "God's Gonna Cut You Down" by ...
173. Elia Kazan
Director | On the Waterfront
Known for his creative stage direction, Elia Kazan was born Elias Kazantzoglou on September 7, 1909 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey). Noted for drawing out the best dramatic performances from his actors, he directed 21 actors to Oscar nominations, resulting in nine wins. He ...
174. Buster Keaton
Actor | The General
Joseph Frank Keaton was born on October 4, 1895 in Piqua, Kansas, to Joe Keaton and Myra Keaton. Joe and Myra were Vaudevillian comedians with a popular, ever-changing variety act, giving Keaton an eclectic and interesting upbringing. In the earliest days on stage, they traveled with a medicine ...
175. Abdellatif Kechiche
Writer | La vie d'Adèle
Abdellatif Kechiche was born on December 7, 1960 in Tunis, Tunisia. He is a writer and director, known for Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013), Games of Love and Chance (2003) and Poetical Refugee (2000).
176. William Keighley
Director | The Adventures of Robin Hood
William Keighley's professional career spanned three distinct mediums: the theatre, motion pictures and, finally, radio. Initially trained as a stage actor and Broadway director, he arrived in Hollywood shortly after the advent of sound, landing a job with Warner Brothers (where he spent most of ...
177. 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 ...
178. 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 (...
179. Kim Ki-duk
Writer | Bin-jip
He studied fine arts in Paris in 1990-1992. In 1993 he won the award for Best Screenplay from the Educational Institute of Screenwriting with "A Painter and A Criminal Condemned to Death". After two more screenplay awards, he made his directorial debut with Crocodile (1996) ("Crocodile"). Then he ...
180. 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 ...
181. 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 ...
182. Elem Klimov
Director | Idi i smotri
Elem Klimov was born on July 9, 1933 in Stalingrad, Nizhne-Volzhskiy kray, RSFSR, USSR [now Volgograd, Volgogradskaya oblast, Russia]. He was a director and actor, known for Come and See (1985), Rasputin (1981) and Pokhozhdeniya zubnogo vracha (1965). He was married to Larisa Shepitko. He died on ...
183. Masaki Kobayashi
Director | Seppuku
Masaki Kobayashi was born on February 14, 1916 in Hokkaido, Japan. He was a director and writer, known for Harakiri (1962), Samurai Rebellion (1967) and The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961). He died on October 4, 1996 in Tokyo, Japan.
184. Alexander Korda
Director | The Private Life of Don Juan
One of a large group of Hungarian refugees who found refuge in England in the 1930s, Sir Alexander Korda was the first British film producer to receive a knighthood. He was a major, if controversial, figure and acted as a guiding force behind the British film industry of the 1930s and continued to ...
185. Zoltan Korda
Director | Cry, the Beloved Country
A one time Hungarian cavalry officer, Zoltan Korda started working in films as a cameraman then an editor before becoming a director with London Films run by his brother Alexander Korda. Zoltan had strong liberal/socialist ideals and often clashed with Alexander, who, despite their both being born ...
186. Kore-eda Hirokazu
Director | Manbiki kazoku
Born in Tokyo in 1962. Originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 went on to become an assistant director at T.V. Man Union. Snuck off set to film Mou hitotsu no kyouiku - Ina shogakkou haru gumi no kiroku (1991). His first feature, Maborosi (1995), ...
187. Ted Kotcheff
Director | Weekend at Bernie's
William Theodore Kotcheff was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Bulgarian parents from Plovdiv. He graduated with a degree in English Literature from the University of Toronto. He began his professional career directing TV drama at age 24 at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, at the time ...
188. Stanley Kramer
Producer | Judgment at Nuremberg
Stanley Kramer was born on September 29, 1913 in Hell's Kitchen [now Clinton], Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer and director, known for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and Inherit the Wind (1960). He was married to Karen Sharpe, Anne P. ...
189. 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 ...
190. Pieter Kuijpers
Director | Riphagen
Pieter Kuijpers as a director is known for Van God los (2011), TBS (2008), Manslaughter (2012) and Love is the Word (2013). He is also the creator of the hit TV series Van God los (2011) and Force (2014). He is the co-owner of production company Pupkin and lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. ...
191. 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...
192. Emir Kusturica
Director | Underground
A Serbian film director. Born in 1954 in Sarajevo. Graduated in film directing at the prestigious Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague in 1978. During his studies, he was awarded several times for his short movies including Guernica (1978), which took first prize at the Student's Film ...
193. John Landis
Director | The Blues Brothers
John Landis began his career in the mail room of 20th Century-Fox. A high-school dropout, 18-year-old Landis made his way to Yugoslavia to work as a production assistant on Kelly's Heroes (1970). Remaining in Europe, Landis found work as an actor, extra and stuntman in many of the Spanish/Italian "...
194. 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. ...
195. 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 ...
196. 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, ...
197. Spike Lee
Director | Do the Right Thing
Spike Lee was born Shelton Jackson Lee on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. Lee came from artistic, education-grounded background; his father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a schoolteacher. He attended ...
198. Mike Leigh
Director | Secrets & Lies
Mike Leigh is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique. He began his career as a theatre ...
199. Mitchell Leisen
Director | Death Takes a Holiday
Mitchell Leisen was born on October 6, 1898 in Menominee, Michigan, USA. He was a director and art director, known for Death Takes a Holiday (1934), The Mating Season (1951) and Hold Back the Dawn (1941). He was married to Stella Yeager. He died on October 28, 1972 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, ...
200. Claude Lelouch
Director | Un homme et une femme
He started off by making short films for television on which he was producer,screenwriter and cameraman. This was interrupted by military service in the army but only partly as he was put into the army film unit where he made over 100 films. Demobbed in 1960 he used family money for his first ...
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