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1. Lars von Trier

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 ...

2. 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...

3. Luc Besson

Writer | Le Cinquième Élément

Luc Besson spent the first years of his life following his parents, scuba diving instructors, around the world. His early life was entirely aquatic. He already showed amazing creativity as a youth, writing early drafts of The Big Blue (1988) and The Fifth Element (1997), as an adolescent bored in ...

4. Matteo Pizzolo

Producer | Black

Matt Pizzolo is an award-winning film director, screenwriter, producer, comic book writer, playwright, and entrepreneur. He was born in Long Island, New York. He is lifelong straight edge follower and brings a unique hardcore punk approach to his projects, both in terms of content and execution. He...

5. Andrzej Zulawski

Writer | Possession

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

6. Ulrich Seidl

Producer | Rimini

Ulrich Seidl was born on November 24, 1952 in Vienna, Austria. He is a producer and director, known for Rimini (2022), Paradise: Love (2012) and Goodnight Mommy (2014). He is married to Veronika Franz. They have two children.

7. 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 (...

8. Fatih Akin

Director | Aus dem Nichts

Fatih Akin was born in 1973 in Hamburg of Turkish parentage. He began studying Visual Communications at Hamburg's College of Fine Arts in 1994. His collaboration with Wueste Film also dates from this time. In 1995, he wrote and directed his first short feature, "Sensin - You're The One!" ("Sensin -...

9. 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 ...

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 ...

11. 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.

12. 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 ...

13. 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 ...

14. Julio Medem

Director | Lucía y el sexo

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

15. Leos Carax

Director | Holy Motors

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

16. Lilly Wachowski

Writer | The Matrix

Director, writer, and producer Lilly Wachowski was born in 1967 in Chicago, the daughter of Lynne, a nurse and painter, and Ron, a businessman. Lilly was educated at Kellogg Elementary School in Chicago, before moving on to Whitney M. Young High School. After graduating from high school, she ...

17. Lana Wachowski

Writer | The Matrix

Lana Wachowski and her sister Lilly Wachowski, also known as the Wachowskis, are the duo behind such ground-breaking movies as The Matrix (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2012). Born to mother Lynne, a nurse, and father Ron, a businessman of Polish descent, Wachowski grew up in Chicago and formed a tight ...

18. 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 ...

19. 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/...

20. 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 ...

21. 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).

22. Wim Wenders

Director | Der Himmel über Berlin

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

23. 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 ...

24. Álex de la Iglesia

Director | El bar

Álex de la Iglesia is one of the most popular and respected European filmmakers of his generation. Considered a genre of his own, based on his skill and originality in a range of cinematographic art styles, he has currently finished shooting the second season of "30 Coins", the successful HBO Max ...

25. 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 ...

26. 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 ...

27. Jørgen Leth

Director | Haiti. Uden titel

Jørgen Leth was born on June 14, 1937 in Århus, Denmark. He is a director and writer, known for Haiti. Uden titel (1995), Jeg er levende - Søren Ulrik Thomsen, digter (1999) and The Five Obstructions (2003).

28. Angelina Maccarone

Writer | Fremde Haut

Angelina Maccarone was born on August 21, 1965 in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. She is a writer and director, known for Unveiled (2005), Alles wird gut (1998) and Verfolgt (2006).

29. 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 ...

30. Malgorzata Szumowska

Director | W imie...

One of the most prominent Polish directors of today, Malgorzata Szumowska was born in Kraków in 1973. She's been directing, writing and producing feature and documentary films and has received numerous awards at international and Polish film festivals. After two noticed shorts, her first feature ...

31. Marc Caro

Director | Delicatessen

Marc Caro was born on April 2, 1956 in Paris, France. He is a director and writer, known for Delicatessen (1991), The City of Lost Children (1995) and Alien: Resurrection (1997).

32. 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 ...

33. 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...

34. 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 ...

35. Andrew Niccol

Writer | GATTACA

New Zealand-born screenwriter-director Andrew Niccol began his career in London, successfully directing TV commercials before moving to Los Angeles in order to make films "longer than 60 seconds." He interested high-powered producer Scott Rudin in his The Truman Show (1998) script, but Rudin was not...

36. 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 ...

37. Alex Proyas

Director | Dark City

Alex Proyas has moved effortlessly between helming TV commercials and music videos to feature films. Born to Greek parents in Egypt, Proyas relocated to Australia with his family when he was three years old. He began making films at age ten and went on to attend the Australian Film Television and ...

38. Peter Weir

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

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

39. Friðrik Þór Friðriksson

Producer | Djöflaeyjan

Fridrik Thor Fridriksson started his film making carrier with a series of experimental films and documentaries in the early 1980s. In 1987, he founded The Icelandic Film Corporation, which has become Iceland's most important production company, producing Fridrikssons films as well as working with ...

40. Tom Tykwer

Writer | Lola rennt

Director, writer, producer and composer Tom Tykwer was born in 1965 in Wuppertal, Germany. He showed an interest in film-making from childhood, making super 8 films from the age of 11. Among his first jobs was working at a local art-house cinema. Tykwer eventually relocated to Berlin, first working...

41. Alexandre Rockwell

Director | Sweet Thing

A skilled and celebrated film maker, Alexandre Rockwell is perhaps best known for his works In the Soup (1992) and 13 Moons (2002). Rockwell's characters are as intricate as they are flawed. He abstains from the shotgun pop of mainstream film and uses classical techniques and sheer creativity to ...

42. Allison Anders

Director | Gas Food Lodging

Anders weathered a rough childhood and young adult life which not only encouraged an escapist penchant for making up characters but also an insider's sympathy for the strong but put-upon women who people her films. Growing up in rural Kentucky, Anders would always remember hanging onto her father's...

43. David Twohy

Writer | The Fugitive

As both writer and director, David Twohy has contributed much to the film world, helping to elevate movies in such a way that Entertainment Weekly was prompted to name him "one of the 100 most creative people in Hollywood." In his career, Twohy has worked with on-screen notables like Harrison Ford,...

44. Paul W.S. Anderson

Writer | Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Paul W.S. Anderson gained a fair bit of notoriety in his native England when he directed the ultra-violent Shopping (1994) (which he also wrote), starring Jude Law and Sean Pertwee in a story about thieves who steal by ramming a car into storefronts. The film was banned in some cinemas in England, ...

45. Peter Chung

Animation_department | The Animatrix

Peter Chung was born on April 19, 1961 in Seoul, South Korea. He is a writer, known for The Animatrix (2003), Æon Flux (1991) and Æon Flux (2005).

46. Enki Bilal

Director | Tykho Moon

Born in Yugoslavia, his mother was Czech and his Bosnian father used to be Tito's tailor. His family fled the country to France in 1960, where Enki learns French and discovers cinema and comic books. In 1971, he wins a contest organized by the famous comics magazine Pilote with his first story "...

47. Xavier Gens

Director | Frontière(s)

Xavier Gens was born on April 27, 1975 in Dunkerque, Nord, France. He is a director and assistant director, known for Frontier(s) (2007), The Divide (2011) and Cell (2016). He has been married to Mounia Meddour since 2005.

48. Jaco Van Dormael

Director | Mr. Nobody

Jaco Van Dormael was born on February 9, 1957 in Ixelles, Brabant, Belgium. He is a director and writer, known for Mr. Nobody (2009), The Brand New Testament (2015) and Toto the Hero (1991).

49. 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 ...

50. Victor Salva

Writer | Powder

Born in Martinez, California, 20 miles outside San Francisco, Victor Salva had written and directed over 20 short and feature-length films before graduating from high school. In the mid-'80s his 37-minute short Something in the Basement (1986) took first place in the fiction category at the Sony/...

51. Hélène Cattet

Director | Amer

Hélène Cattet was born in 1976 in Paris, France. She is a director and writer, known for Amer (2009), The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (2013) and Let the Corpses Tan (2017).

52. Bruno Forzani

Director | Amer

Bruno Forzani is known for Amer (2009), The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears (2013) and Let the Corpses Tan (2017).

53. 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...

54. 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 ...

55. Lazar Bodroza

Director | A.I. Rising

Lazar Bodroza was born on August 19, 1983 in Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia. Lazar is a director and writer, known for A.I. Rising (2018), Deathcember (2019) and Uber Life: An Interactive Movie (2010). Lazar is married to Nada Sargin. They have one child.

56. Paco Cabezas

Director | Penny Dreadful

Paco Cabezas was born on January 11, 1976 in La Puebla de Cazalla, Sevilla, Andalucía, Spain. He is a director and producer, known for Penny Dreadful (2014), The Umbrella Academy (2019) and Mr. Right (2015).

57. Richard Kelly

Writer | Donnie Darko

James Richard Kelly better known as Richard Kelly, is an American film director and writer, known for writing and directing the cult classic Donnie Darko in 2001. Kelly was born James Richard Kelly in Newport News, Virginia, the son of Lane and Ennis Kelly. He grew up in Midlothian, Virginia, where...

58. Nick Willing

Writer | Photographing Fairies

Nick Willing was born in 1961 in London, England, UK. He is a writer and director, known for Photographing Fairies (1997), Close Your Eyes (2002) and Olympus (2015).

59. Panos Cosmatos

Writer | Mandy

Panos Cosmatos is known for Mandy (2018), Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) and Tombstone (1993).

60. Shirow Masamune

Writer | Innocence

Born in the Hyogo Prefecture capital city of Kobe, he studied oil painting at Osaka University of Arts. While in college, he developed an interest in manga, which led him to create his own complete work, Black Magic, which was published in the manga dojinshi Atlas. His work caught the eye of ...

61. Jonas Åkerlund

Director | Lords of Chaos

Jonas Åkerlund was born on November 10, 1965 in Bromma, Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden. He is a director and editor, known for Lords of Chaos (2018), Polar (2019) and Try (2000). He is married to B. Åkerlund. He was previously married to Charlotta Palmbäck.

62. 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 ...

63. Ben Cresciman

Writer | Sun Choke

Ben Cresciman is known for Sun Choke (2015), Negative Space (2011) and Quitting (2009).

64. Satoshi Kon

Writer | Tôkyô goddofâzâzu

Satoshi Kon was born in 1963. He studied at the Musashino College of the Arts. He began his career as a Manga artist. He then moved to animation and worked as a background artist on many films (including Roujin Z (1991) by 'Katsuhiro Otomo'). Then, in 1995, he wrote an episode of the anthology film ...

65. Atom Egoyan

Director | The Sweet Hereafter

Born in Egypt to Armenian parents, he was raised in Western Canada. Both his parents were painters, and he planned to be a playwright, but after making a short film, he became hooked on telling stories visually. Returned to ethnic "homeland" when he filmed Calendar (1993) in Armenia. Won attention ...

66. 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. ...

67. Chiaki Konaka

Writer | Urutoraman Gaia

Chiaki Konaka was born on April 4, 1961 in Tokyo, Japan. He is a writer and director, known for Ultraman Gaia (1998), Digimon: Digital Monsters (1999) and Armitage III (1995).

68. Alice Waddington

Director | Paradise Hills

Alice is co-writing and executive producing her second feature 'Scarlet' for Netflix and with writer Kristen SaBerre ('The Good Lord Bird') at MGM/Orion with Alana Mayo and Panchi Simeto; produced by Michael Costigan and Roxie Rodriguez at Aggregate Entertainment. Alice is also developing genre and...

69. Wayne Wang

Director | Smoke

Wayne Wang is a key figure in the development of independent filmmaking, alternating major Hollywood studio films such as »The Joy Luck Club« with smaller, independent work like »Smoke«. Continuing to work in the two different worlds, Wang directed an independent digital film, »The Center of the ...

70. Feo Aladag

Producer | Die Fremde

Feo Aladag is an Austrian showrunner, producer, director, screenwriter and actress who lives in Berlin, Germany. She is the producer, executive producer, director and writer of the multi-awarded feature films "When We Leave", "Inbetween Worlds" and "Alone - A Family Story" (aka "The Boy Who Wants ...

71. Adina Pintilie

Director | Touch Me Not

Adina Pintilie was born on January 12, 1980 in Bucharest, Romania. She is a director and writer, known for Touch Me Not (2018), Nu te supara, dar... (2007) and An American Haunting (2005).

72. Virginie Despentes

Writer | Baise-moi

Virginie Despentes was born on June 13, 1969 in Nancy, France. She is a writer and director, known for Baise-moi (2000), Bye Bye Blondie (2012) and Mutantes: Punk Porn Feminism (2009).

73. Alex Cox

Director | Repo Man

Throughout his years in the industry, Alex Cox, an English writer-director, has not only proven his loyalty and integrity to cult cinema, but also his love for it. This all began in 1977, when Cox dropped out of Oxford University to study Radio, Film & TV at Bristol until graduating in 1977. Seeing...

74. Dan Glass

Visual_effects | The Matrix Reloaded

Dan Glass is known for The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Resurrections (2021) and Cloud Atlas (2012).

75. Hsiao-Hsien Hou

Producer | Cike Nie Yin Niang

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

76. Josef Rusnak

Director | The Thirteenth Floor

Josef Rusnak was born on November 25, 1958. He is a director and writer, known for The Thirteenth Floor (1999), Kaltes Fieber (1984) and Godzilla (1998).

77. Tsai Ming-liang

Director | Qingshaonian Nuozha

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