My Personal Favorite Directors
by kilian-appleby | created - 15 Aug 2011 | updated - 15 Aug 2011 | PublicI'd like to say up front that I like modern films. Modern language, clothing, style, etc. help me lose myself in a film's world. Often, if I'm watching an older movie, the differences in the things listed above take me out of the experience, because it feels dated. So this list will mostly be dominated by modern filmmakers. If you're not into that, whatever.
1. 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...
Every single one of his films is a masterpiece. From Hard Eight to TWBB. Really looking forward to The Master.
2. 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...
Not much needs to be said about Fincher. Even his least-admired films (Panic Room, The Game) are head-and-shoulders above what most other directors are doing. And then there's Zodiac, Seven, Fight Club, The Social Network... God damn, he's great.
3. 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...
Couldn't choose "The Coen Brothers", so take this one as being both of them. Everyone knows what they've done, so I don't need to say any more.
4. 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...
Everyone loves him, and I'd argue that Inglorious Basterds is his best, so he's only getting better with age.
5. 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 ...
A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut are two of my favorite films. I don't need to tell you why he's great, everybody already knows.
6. 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 ...
He makes gripping films, plain and simple.
7. Lars von Trier
Writer | Dancer in the Dark
Probably the most ambitious and visually distinctive filmmaker to emerge from Denmark since Carl Theodor Dreyer over 60 years earlier, Lars von Trier studied film at the Danish Film School and attracted international attention with his very first feature, The Element of Crime (1984). A highly ...
His films are both shocking and heartbreaking. The end of The Idiots is one of the most devastating things I've ever seen.
8. 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, ...
He's had some duds, but the greats outweigh the not-as-greats. My Own Private Idaho is a classic, and his more mainstream-friendly stuff like Milk and Good Will Hunting are great as well. Having a foot in both the indie world and Hollywood makes him a singular presence in film.
9. 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 ...
From Memento to The Prestige to Inception to the Batman films, he's making mind-bending films that are also smashes at the box office. He's managed to make smart films popular, which is a very unique talent.
10. 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 ...
Requiem For A Dream, Pi, The Fountain... Great films. Too bad Black Swan was a complete ripoff of Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher. I'm willing to look past that, though.
11. 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 ...
The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, The Life Aquatic, Bottle Rocket... I'm not as crazy about his recent output, but I'm not sure anything could live up to his earlier work. Either way, he's made some great movies.
12. 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 ...
His work on numerous films, as well as the TV show Twin Peaks, cement has status as an all-time best.
13. Judd Apatow
Producer | Girls
Judd Apatow is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and comedian. He directed The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, This is 40, Funny People, Trainwreck and The King of Staten Island. He also developed the television shows Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, Girls, Love and Crashing. He is ...
The three films he's directed are among the best modern comedies, and if you include all the stuff he's produced, it gets even better.
14. 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...
His filmography goes way back, and just about every one of them, documentary and feature, is worthwhile.
15. 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, ...
The Squid And The Whale moved me in ways very few films do, and Greenberg was great as well. And his first movie, Kicking & Screaming was a great (and funny) study of post-college life.
16. 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 ...
With the help of Charlie Kaufman, he's made some of the craziest films of the past 15 years.
17. 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 ...
Eternal Sunshine, Science Of Sleep... Good enough for me.
18. 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). ...
A Woman Under The Influence is one of the best ever made.
19. 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 ...
I Heart Huckabees is one of my favorite films. Then add in Three Kings, which was also great, and you have one solid filmmaker.
20. Larry Clark
Director | Bully
Was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma (1943). Son of Frances Clark (baby photographer) and Lewis Clark. Graduated from Central High school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Attended Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Studied under Walter Sheffer and Gerard Bakker. Film debut was the movie Kids (1995). He was ...
He brought harmony Korine into the film world with Kids, and then went on to direct some great films like Another Day In Paradise and Bully. Sure, he might focus a bit much on teen skin, but as long as he keeps making good movies, I can look past it.
21. Gaspar Noé
Director | Enter the Void
Gaspar Noé is an Argentinian filmmaker and screenwriter who lives in France. He is the son of Luis Felipe Noé, an Argentinian artist. He directed I Stand Alone, Irréversible, Enter the Void, Love, Climax, Carne, Lux Æterna, Sodomites and Vortex. His films are known for having a sensory overload ...
Some dismiss him as shocking-for-shock's-sake, or style-for-style's-sake, but Irreversible is a completely unique film, and Enter The Void genuinely moved me.
22. 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 ...
I thought the Piano Teacher was a masterpiece. And Funny Games is a great twist on the horror-thriller genre.
23. Gregg Araki
Writer | Mysterious Skin
Gregg Araki was born on December 17, 1959 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a writer and director, known for Mysterious Skin (2004), White Bird in a Blizzard (2014) and Kaboom (2010).
Mysterious Skin is amazing, as is The Doom Generation. He makes films unlike anybody else, and I admire him for it.
24. 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 ...
Gummo is spectacular. Even if I'm not as enthusiastic about the rest of his films as that one, I admire what he does and think he's certainly a very unique filmmaker.
25. Vincent Gallo
Actor | Buffalo '66
Vincent Gallo. American-born, Buffalo, New York, 1961. Left home, moved to New York City in 1978, and began playing in the experimental musical group, Gray, with artist Jean Michel Basquiat. After leaving Gray, he formed the band, Bohack, and recorded the highly regarded avant-garde industrial ...
Buffalo '66 is one of the best films ever made, and The Brown Bunny certainly has its merits. While he may come off as rude, I personally think he's a genius, if a misunderstood one.
26. 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. ...
Almost Famous is, in my mind, everything a dramedy should be. And I'll admit that Vanilla Sky moved me. Many may disagree, but I think he deserves to be on this list.
27. Todd Solondz
Director | Welcome to the Dollhouse
Todd Solondz was born in Newark, New Jersey. One of his earliest jobs in the film industry was when, as a young man, he worked as a messenger for the Writers' Guild of America. During this time, he wrote several screenplays.
Solondz's first color film with sync sound was the short "Schatt's Last ...
His dark humor is completely unmatched, with films like Happiness, Storytelling, and Welcome To The Dollhouse. It may be too much for some, but it's just right for me.
28. 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...
Two words: Short Cuts. Among others.
29. David Gordon Green
Producer | Halloween Kills
David Gordon Green was born on April 9, 1975 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Halloween Kills (2021), Prince Avalanche (2013) and Halloween (2018).
He's proven that he can do both drama and comedy very well. Overall a very versatile director. Let's just forget that Your Highness happened.
30. Roger Avary
Writer | Pulp Fiction
Award-winning filmmaker Roger Avary first began experimenting in Beta I video and 8mm film formats during the late 1970s. In 1983, his Super-8mm supernatural thriller The Worm Turns won Best Film from the Los Angeles Film Teachers Association Film Expo. He went on to attend the Pasadena Art Center ...
Showed GREAT promise with The Rules Of Attraction. Too bad about what happened with his life after.
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