Directors,Cinematographers etc.

1. 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 ...

2. 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, ...

3. 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...

4. Robert Wise

Director | West Side Story

Robert Earl Wise was born on September 10, 1914 in Winchester, Indiana, the youngest of three sons of Olive R. (Longenecker) and Earl Waldo Wise, a meat packer. His parents were both of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) descent. At age nineteen, the avid moviegoer came into the film business through an ...

5. Hayao Miyazaki

Writer | Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi

Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan's greatest animation directors. The entertaining plots, compelling characters, and breathtaking visuals in his films have earned him international renown from critics as well as public recognition within Japan.

Miyazaki started his career in 1963 as an animator at the ...

6. 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...

7. Emilio Fernández

Writer | La perla

Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez Romo is the most famous person in the history of Mexican movies. For an era he symbolized Mexico due to his violent machismo, rooted in the Revolution of 1910-17, and because of his staunch commitment to Mexican cultural nationalism. Born to a Mexican (Mestizo) father ...

8. Ingmar Bergman

Writer | Smultronstället

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 (...

9. Jacques Tati

Writer | Playtime

The comic genius Jacques Tati was born Taticheff, descended from a noble Russian family. His grandfather, Count Dimitri, had been a general in the Imperial Army and had served as military attaché to the Russian Embassy in Paris. His father, Emmanuel Taticheff, was a well-to-do picture framer who ...

10. 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 ...

11. 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 ...

12. Hark Tsui

Producer | Di Renjie zhi Tongtian diguo

Tsui Hark recently became the fourth Chinese film director to join the board of judges for the 57th Cannes Film Festival in the feature films category this year.

An internationally acclaimed visionary director, Tsui started making experimental movies with 8mm film when he was only 13. After ...

13. Zhuangzhuang Tian

Director | Cha ma gu dao xi lie

Zhuangzhuang Tian was born in April 1952 in Beijing, China. He is a director and actor, known for Cha ma gu dao xi lie (2004), Springtime in a Small Town (2002) and The Blue Kite (1993).

14. 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.

15. 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 ...

16. 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 ...

17. 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 ...

18. John Sayles

Writer | Lone Star

A bright child, John Sayles began reading novels before age 9. A Williams College grad in 1972, he shunned a corporate career to work various blue-collar jobs, moving to east Boston to take a factory job. He wrote stories and submitted them to various magazines, and the Atlantic Monthly gave him ...

19. 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 ...

20. Paul Verhoeven

Director | RoboCop

Paul Verhoeven graduated from the University of Leiden, with a degree in math and physics. He entered the Royal Netherlands Navy, where he began his film career by making documentaries for the Navy and later for TV. In 1969, he directed the popular Dutch TV series, Floris (1969), about a medieval ...

21. Jane Campion

Writer | Bright Star

Jane Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and now lives in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Having graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975, and a BA, with a painting major, at Sydney College of the Arts in 1979, she began filmmaking in the early...

22. Park Chan-wook

Director | Oldeuboi

Park Chan-wook was born on August 23, 1963 in Seoul, South Korea. He is a producer and director, known for Oldboy (2003), The Handmaiden (2016) and Decision to Leave (2022). He is married to Eun-hee Kim. They have one child.

23. Woo-Ping Yuen

Stunts | Wo hu cang long

Woo-Ping Yuen was born on January 1, 1945 in Guangzhou, China. He is a director and actor, known for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Fearless (2006) and The Grandmaster (2013).

24. 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...

25. 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, ...

26. Chantal Akerman

Director | Les rendez-vous d'Anna

Chantal Akerman was born on June 6, 1950 in Brussels, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for The Meetings of Anna (1978), I, You, He, She (1974) and A Couch in New York (1996). She was married to Sonia Wieder-Atherton. She died on October 5, 2015 in Paris, France.

27. Matthew Barney

Director | Drawing Restraint 9

Matthew Barney was born on March 25, 1967 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is a director and writer, known for Drawing Restraint 9 (2005), Cremaster 2 (1999) and The Cremaster Cycle (2003).

28. Edward Neumeier

Writer | RoboCop

Edward Neumeier is an American screenwriter, producer and director best known for his work on the science fiction movies RoboCop and Starship Troopers. He wrote the latter's sequel, and most recently wrote and directed Starship Troopers 3: Marauder.

Neumeier studied journalism at the University of ...

29. Vincente Minnelli

Director | An American in Paris

Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, his father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, Minelli worked in the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set ...

30. Paul Schrader

Writer | First Reformed

Although his name is often linked to that of the "movie brat" generation (Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Brian De Palma, etc.) Paul Schrader's background couldn't have been more different than theirs. His strict Calvinist parents refused to allow him to see a...

31. Maya Deren

Director | Meshes of the Afternoon

Maya Deren came to the USA in 1922 as Eleanora Derenkowsky. Together with her father Solomon Derenkowsky, a psychiatrist, and her mother Maria Fidler, an artist, she fled the pogroms organized by the Bolsheviks against the Jews. She studied journalism and political science at the Syracuse ...

32. 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...

33. 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 ...

34. Stan Brakhage

Director | The Loom

Stan Brakhage was born on January 14, 1933 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He was a director and cinematographer, known for The Loom (1986), The God of Day Had Gone Down Upon Him (2000) and Visions in Meditation (1990). He was married to Marilyn Jull and Jane Wodening. He died on March 9, 2003 in ...

35. 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 ...

36. Vittorio Storaro

Cinematographer | Apocalypse Now

Vittorio Storaro, the award-winning cinematographer who won Oscars for "Apocalypse Now (1979)", "Reds (1981)" and "The Last Emperor (1987)". He was born on June 24, 1940 in Rome, where his father was a projectionist at the Lux Film Studio. At the age of 11, he began studying photography at a ...

37. Abel Gance

Writer | La roue

Born an illegitimate son of a wealthy physician, Abel Flamant, and a working class mother, Francoise Perethon. He was raised by his mother and her boyfriend, who later became her husband, Adolphe Gance. Pressured by his parents, he began his working career as a lawyer's clerk in hopes of achieving ...

38. Taika Waititi

Producer | What We Do in the Shadows

Taika Waititi, also known as Taika Cohen, hails from the Raukokore region of the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand, and is the son of Robin (Cohen), a teacher, and Taika Waititi, an artist and farmer. His father is Maori (Te-Whanau-a-Apanui), and his mother is of Ashkenazi Jewish, Irish...

39. Eddie Romero

Director | Ganito kami noon... Paano kayo ngayon?

Eddie Romero, who initially used the screen name 'Enrique Moreno' early in his directing career, was born July 7 1924 in Dumaguete City. He is the son of Pilar Cinco, a school teacher, and José E. Romero, a former congressman, Secretary of Education, and Philippine Ambassador to London. He was ...

40. Sidney Lumet

Director | 12 Angry Men

Sidney Lumet was a master of cinema, best known for his technical knowledge and his skill at getting first-rate performances from his actors -- and for shooting most of his films in his beloved New York. He made over 40 movies, often complex and emotional, but seldom overly sentimental. Although ...

41. Paolo Villaluna

Director | Selda

In 2001, Paolo made his first short documentary,"Palugid" (Margins) and won the Best Short Film at the 24th Urian Awards, the Documentary Prize at the 2000 Gawad CCP Awards and the Audience Award at the eKsperimento International Film Festival 2001. His subsequent short films have been screened in ...

42. 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. ...

43. Steven Spielberg

Producer | Schindler's List

One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, ...

44. 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 ...

45. Romy Vitug

Cinematographer | Bakit may kahapon pa?

Romy Vitug was born on January 27, 1937 in Floridablanca, Pampanga. He was a cinematographer, known for Bakit may kahapon pa? (1996), The Captive Virgins (1977) and Second Chances (1995). He died on January 18, 2024 in the Philippines.

46. Marilou Diaz-Abaya

Director | Muro-ami

Marilou Diaz-Abaya was born on March 30, 1955 in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines. She was a director and producer, known for Muro-ami (1999), New Moon (2001) and José Rizal (1998). She was married to Manolo Abaya. She died on October 8, 2012 in Taguig City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

47. 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 ...

48. Wes Anderson

Director | Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wesley Wales Anderson was born in Houston, Texas. His mother, Texas Ann (Burroughs), is an archaeologist turned real estate agent, and his father, Melver Leonard Anderson, worked in advertising and PR. He has two brothers, Eric and Mel. Anderson's parents divorced when he was a young child, an ...

49. Robert Surtees

Cinematographer | Ben-Hur

Robert L. Surtees began his working life as a portrait photographer and retoucher, before becoming camera assistant at Universal in 1927. He spent a lengthy apprenticeship (15 years) working under such experienced cinematographers as Hal Mohr, Joseph Ruttenberg and Gregg Toland. Between 1929 and ...

50. Jack Cardiff

Cinematographer | Black Narcissus

Almost universally considered one of the greatest cinematographers of all time, Jack Cardiff was also a notable director. He described his childhood as very happy and his parents as quite loving. They performed in music hall as comedians, so he grew up with the fun that came with their theatrical ...

51. Sean Baker

Writer | Red Rocket

Sean Baker is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He is an award-winning writer/director/producer known for Take Out (2004), Prince of Broadway (2008), Starlet (2012), Tangerine (2015), and The Florida Project (2017). Sean's latest feature, Red Rocket, premiered at Cannes on July 14, 2021...

52. Ken Burns

Producer | The Central Park Five

Celebrated American documentarian who gradually amassed a considerable reputation and a devoted audience with a series of reassuringly traditional meditations on Americana. Burns' works are treasure troves of archival materials; he skillfully utilizes period music and footage, photographs, ...

53. 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 ...

54. 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 ...

55. Tim Burton

Producer | Edward Scissorhands

Timothy Walter Burton was born in Burbank, California, to Jean Rae (Erickson), who owned a cat-themed gift shop, and William Reed Burton, who worked for the Burbank Park and Recreation Department. He spent most of his childhood as a recluse, drawing cartoons, and watching old movies (he was ...

56. Salvador Calvo

Director | Adú

Salvador Calvo is a Cinema and Television director, born in 1970 in Madrid. His last film "Adú" was released in theaters on January 31th with great critical and box office success. With his short film "Maras" he has obtained great recognition in Festivals around the world, being nominated for the ...

57. 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 ...

58. Rithy Panh

Director | L'image manquante

Rithy Panh was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on the 18th april 1964. He is today one of the most acclaimed documentary filmmakers and the most famous Cambodian filmmaker worldwide. After 1975 his family died through the genocidal Khmer Rouge government (1975-1979) while he could escape in 1979 to ...

59. Kar-Wai Wong

Director | Yi dai zong shi

Wong Kar-wai (born 17 July 1956) is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylised, emotionally resonant work, including Ah fei zing zyun (1990), Dung che sai duk (1994), Chung Hing sam lam (1994), Do lok tin si (1995), Chun gwong ...

60. Frank Capra

Director | It's a Wonderful Life

One of seven children, Frank Capra was born on May 18, 1897, in Bisacquino, Sicily. On May 10, 1903, his family left for America aboard the ship Germania, arriving in New York on May 23rd. "There's no ventilation, and it stinks like hell. They're all miserable. It's the most degrading place you ...

61. 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,...

62. Joseph Barbera

Producer | ABC Afterschool Specials

Joseph Roland Barbera was an American animator, film director, and television producer. He was the co-founder of the company Hanna-Barbera, with his longtime partner William Hanna.

Barbera was born in an Italian-American family. His parents were barbershop-owner Vincent Barbera (1889-1965) and ...

63. William Hanna

Producer | ABC Afterschool Specials

William Hanna was an animator, film director, and television producer. He was the co-founder of the company Hanna-Barbera, with his longtime partner Joseph Barbera.

Hanna was born in an Irish-American family, son of William John Hanna (1873-1949) and his wife Avice Joyce Denby. He was born in ...

64. Khavn

Director | Mondomanila: Kung paano ko inayos ang buhok ko matapos ang mahaba-haba ring paglalakbay

Khavn was born on December 23, 1973 in the Philippines. He is a director and writer, known for Mondomanila, or: How I Fixed My Hair After a Rather Long Journey (2012), Balangiga: Howling Wilderness (2017) and EDSA XXX: Nothing Ever Changes in the Ever-Changing Republic of Ek-Ek-Ek (2014).

65. John Milius

Writer | Conan the Barbarian

John Milius is a screenwriter and director who came to prominence in the 1970s, when he was associated with Francis Ford Coppola and the pre-Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) George Lucas. Born on April 11, 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri, Milius was one of the first movie industry ...

66. Cirio H. Santiago

Director | Water Lily

Producer/director Cirio H. Santiago is the son of Dr. Ciriaco Santiago, who founded Premiere Productions in Manila in 1946. He has two siblings. After starting out as a producer he started directing English-language movies in the early 70s. Santiago became one of the pioneers of the "Blaxploitation...

67. Carlos Siguion-Reyna

Director | Ikaw pa lang ang minahal

Carlos Siguion-Reyna was born on November 4, 1957 in Manila, Philippines. He is an actor and director, known for Only You (1992), Azucena (2000) and Where I Am King (2014).

68. Bernardo Bertolucci

Writer | Il conformista

Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian director whose films were known for their colorful visual style, was born in Parma, Italy. He attended Rome University and became famous as a poet. He served as assistant director for Pier Paolo Pasolini in the film Accattone (1961) and directed The Grim Reaper (...

69. Pier Paolo Pasolini

Writer | Il Decameron

Pier Paolo Pasolini achieved fame and notoriety long before he entered the film industry. A published poet at 19, he had already written numerous novels and essays before his first screenplay in 1954. His first film Accattone (1961) was based on his own novel and its violent depiction of the life ...

70. Hugo Van Lawick

Cinematographer | People of the Forest: The Chimps of Gombe

Hugo Van Lawick was born on April 10, 1937 in Soerabaja, Soerabaja, Dutch East Indies [now Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia]. He was a cinematographer and producer, known for People of the Forest: The Chimps of Gombe (1988), Jane (2017) and The Leopard Son (1996). He was married to Jane Goodall. He ...

71. Takashi Miike

Director | Jûsan-nin no shikaku

Takashi Miike was born in the small town of Yao on the outskirts of Osaka, Japan. His main interest growing up was motorbikes, and for a while he harbored ambitions to race professionally. At the age of 18 he went to study at the film school in Yokohama founded by renowned director Shôhei Imamura, ...

73. Gerardo de Leon

Director | Noli me tángere

Gerardo de Leon was born on September 12, 1913 in Manila, Philippines. He was a director and actor, known for Noli me tángere (1961), El filibusterismo (1962) and Huwag Mo Akong Limutin (1960). He died on July 25, 1981 in Manila, Philippines.

73. Christopher Doyle

Cinematographer | Paranoid Park

Christopher Doyle was born on May 2, 1952 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for Paranoid Park (2007), Hero (2002) and 2046 (2004).

74. 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 ...

75. Dr. Seuss

Writer | How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Acclaimed writer, Dr. Seuss was born Theodor Geisel in Springfield, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, March 2nd, 1904. After attending Dartmouth College and Oxford University, he began a career in advertising. His advertising cartoons, featuring Quick, Henry, the Flit!, appeared in several leading ...

76. Peque Gallaga

Director | Magic Temple

PEQUE Gallaga was recently awarded The Natatanging Gawad for Lifetime Achievement for Filmmaking from the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino during the 32nd Gawad Urian last September 19 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera, founding member of the Manunuri, the...

77. Peter Bogdanovich

Director | The Last Picture Show

Peter Bogdanovich was conceived in Europe but born in Kingston, New York. He is the son of immigrants fleeing the Nazis, Herma (Robinson) and Borislav Bogdanovich, a painter and pianist. His father was a Serbian Orthodox Christian, and his mother was from a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. Peter ...

78. George Cukor

Director | My Fair Lady

George Cukor was an American film director of Hungarian-Jewish descent, better known for directing comedies and literary adaptations. He once won the Academy Award for Best Director, and was nominated other four times for the same Award.

In 1899, George Dewey Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of...

79. John Cassavetes

Actor | Rosemary's Baby

John Cassavetes was a Greek-American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He is considered a pioneer of American independent film, as he often financed his own films.

Cassavetes was born in New York City in 1929 to Nicholas John Cassavetes (1893-1979) and his wife, Katherine Demetre (1906-1983). ...

80. 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...

81. 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 ...

82. 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...

83. William Wyler

Director | The Best Years of Our Lives

William Wyler was an American filmmaker who, at the time of his death in 1981, was considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema. The winner of three Best Director Academy Awards, second again only to Ford's four, Wyler's reputation has unfairly suffered as the...

84. Ernst Lubitsch

Director | To Be or Not to Be

From Ernst Lubitsch's experiences in Sophien Gymnasium (high school) theater, he decided to leave school at the age of 16 and pursue a career on the stage. He had to compromise with his father and keep the account books for the family tailor business while he acted in cabarets and music halls at ...

85. Otto Preminger

Actor | Stalag 17

Otto Ludwig Preminger was born in Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary. His father was a prosecutor, and Otto originally intended to follow his father into a law career; however, he fell in love with the theater in his 20's and became one of the most imaginative stage producers and directors. He was ...

86. 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 ...

87. 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, ...

88. 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.

89. D.A. Pennebaker

Director | Dont Look Back

D.A. Pennebaker was born on July 15, 1925 in Evanston, Illinois, USA. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Don't Look Back (1967), The War Room (1993) and Unlocking the Cage (2016). He was married to Chris Hegedus, Kate Taylor and Sylvia Bell. He died on August 1, 2019 in Sag Harbor, ...

90. Errol Morris

Director | The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

His documentaries helped spur a rebirth of non-fiction film in the 80s & garnered wide critical success. But until 2003's "The Fog of War," Morris was shunned by the Academy Awards.

Morris' first two films won much acclaim (Gates of Heaven (1978) and Vernon, Florida (1981)). In the second movie, ...

91. Michael Moore

Director | Bowling for Columbine

Michael Francis Moore was born in Flint, Michigan on April 23, 1954, and was raised in its Davison suburb. He is the son of Helen Veronica (Wall), a secretary, and Francis Richard Moore, who worked on an auto assembly line. He has Irish, as well as English and Scottish, ancestry.

Moore studied ...

92. Lino Brocka

Director | Gumapang ka sa lusak

Lino Brocka was born on April 7, 1939 in Pilar, Sorsogon, Luzon, Philippines. He was a director and writer, known for Dirty Affair (1990), Bayan Ko (1984) and Dipped in Gold (1970). He died on May 22, 1991 in Quezon City, Philippines.

93. Zack Snyder

Director | 300

Zachary Edward "Zack" Snyder (born March 1, 1966) is an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter, best known for action and science fiction films. Snyder made his feature film debut with the 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead and has gone on to be known for his comic book movies and ...

94. Ishmael Bernal

Director | Pagdating sa dulo

Ishmael Bernal was born on September 30, 1938 in Manila, Philippines. He was a director and writer, known for At the Top (1971), Dalawang pugad... Isang ibon (1977) and City After Dark (1980). He died on June 2, 1996 in Manila, Philippines.

95. Lily Y. Monteverde

Producer | Blue Moon

Lily Y. Monteverde is known for Blue Moon (2005), ZsaZsa Zaturnnah Ze Moveeh (2006) and Sambahin ang ngalan mo (1998).

96. Michel Seydoux

Producer | Cyrano de Bergerac

Michel Seydoux was born on September 11, 1947 in Paris, France. He is a producer and director, known for Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), Close to Eden (1991) and Burnt by the Sun (1994).

97. Waldemar Januszczak

Director | The Dark Ages: An Age of Light

Waldemar Januszczak was born on January 12, 1954 in the UK. He is a director and writer, known for The Dark Ages: An Age of Light (2012), The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) and Discovery Atlas (2006).

98. Simon West

Director | Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Simon West is a British born and Hollywood based film director and producer. His films include CON AIR starring Nicholas Cage, "THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER" starring John Travolta and "LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER" starring Angelina Jolie. West is the only live action director ever whose first three 3 films ...

99. 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 ...

100. Jerrold Tarog

Composer | Confessional

Jerrold Tarog is known for Confessional (2007), Sana dati (2013) and Heneral Luna (2015).