Top 250 Directors

101. Raoul Walsh

Raoul Walsh's 52-year directorial career made him a Hollywood legend. Walsh was also an actor: He appeared in the first version of W. Somerset Maugham's "Rain" renamed Sadie Thompson (1928) opposite Gloria Swanson in the title role. He would have played the Cisco Kid in his own film In Old Arizona ...

Recommended Viewing: The Thief of Bagdad (1924), The Big Trail (1930), The Roaring Twenties (1939), They Drive by Night (1940), High Sierra (1941), The Strawberry Blonde (1941), They Died with Their Boots On (1941), Gentleman Jim (1942), The Man I Love (1947), Pursued (1947), Colorado Territory (1949), White Heat (1949), Along the Great Divide (1951), The Tall Men (1955)

102. Jean-Pierre Dardenne

Producer | Deux jours, une nuit

After studying drama in the arts institute, Jean Pierre Dardenne and his brother Luc made some videos about the rough life in blue-collar small towns in the Wallonie. After their meeting with filmmaker Armad Gatti and cinematographer Ned Burgess, they decided to enter in the movie business.

In 1978 ...

and Luc Dardenne

Recommended Viewing: La Promesse (1996), Rosetta (1999), The Son (2002), L'Enfant (2005), Lorna's Silence (2008), The Kid with a Bike (2011), Two Days, One Night (2014)

103. Agnès Varda

Director | Cléo de 5 à 7

Agnès Varda was born on May 30, 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on March 29, 2019 in Paris, France.

Recommended Viewing: Cléo from 5 to 7 (1961), Le Bonheur (1965), Vagabond (1985), Jacquot de Nantes (1991), The Gleaners & I (2000), The Beaches of Agnès (2008)

104. Dziga Vertov

Director | Chelovek s kino-apparatom

Dziga Vertov was born on January 2, 1896 in Bialystok, Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire [now Podlaskie, Poland]. He was a director and writer, known for Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Three Songs About Lenin (1934) and The Sixth Part of the World (1926). He was married to Elizaveta Svilova. He ...

Recommended Viewing: The Sixth Part of the World (1926), The Eleventh Year (1928), Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Enthusiasm (1931)

105. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Director | Memoria

Apichatpong Weerasethakul (b. 1970, Bangkok) grew up in Khon Kaen, a city in the north east of Thailand. He has a degree in Architecture from Khon Kaen University and a Master of Fine Arts in Filmmaking from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has been making films and videos since the ...

Recommended Viewing: Blissfully Yours (2002), Tropical Malady (2004), Syndromes and a Century (2006), Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)

106. Sergei Parajanov

Director | Tini zabutykh predkiv

One of the 20th century's greatest masters of cinema Sergei Parajanov was born in Georgia to Armenian parents and it was always unlikely that his work would conform to the strict socialist realism that Soviet authorities preferred. After studying film and music, Parajanov became an assistant ...

Recommended Viewing: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965), The Color of Pomegranates (1968), The Legend of the Suram Fortress (1984), Ashik Kerib (1988)

107. 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.

Recommended Viewing: Nanook of the North (1922), Moana (1926), Man of Aran (1934), Louisiana Story (1948)

108. 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 ...

and Ethan Coen

Recommended Viewing: Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), No Country for Old Men (2007), A Serious Man (2009), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Hail, Caesar! (2016)

109. 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...

Recommended Viewing: Hard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch Drunk Love (2002), There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), Inherent Vice (2014)

110. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: The Curse of the Cat People (1944) [co-directed by Gunther von Fritsch], The Body Snatcher (1945), Born to Kill (1947), Blood on the Moon (1948), The Set-Up (1949), The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The Captive City (1952), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Run Silent Run Deep (1958), I Want to Live! (1958), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), West Side Story (1961), The Haunting (1963), The Sound of Music (1965)

111. 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...

Recommended Viewing: Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004), The Hateful Eight (2015)

112. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) [co-directed by Terry Jones], Time Bandits (1981), Brazil (1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989), The Fisher King (1991), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Zero Theorem (2013)

113. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: The Loves of a Blonde (1965), The Firemen's Ball (1967), Taking Off (1971), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)

114. Shôhei Imamura

Director | Kuroi ame

Shohei Imamura's films dig beneath the surface of Japanese society to reveal a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath. Along with his colleagues Nagisa Ôshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Imamura began his serious directorial career as a member of the New Wave movement in Japan....

Recommended Viewing: Pigs and Battleships (1961), The Insect Woman (1963), Intentions of Murder (1964), The Pornographers (1966), Profound Desires of the Gods (1968), Vengeance is Mine (1979), The Ballad of Narayama (1983), Black Rain (1988)

115. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Red Sorghum (1987), Ju Dou (1990), Raise the Red Lantern (1991), To Live (1994), Shanghai Triad (1995), Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004)

116. Claire Denis

Director | High Life

The films of Claire Denis frequently explore the fragile connections between people and the ways in which the most seemingly inconsequential relationship can have life-changing effects. At the heart of Denis' cinema is a fascination with the delights and difficulties of belonging and otherness, the...

Recommended Viewing: U.S. Go Home (1994), Beau Travail (1999), Friday Night (2002), The Intruder (2004), 35 Shots of Rum (2008), White Material (2009)

117. John Carpenter

Writer | The Fog

John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, to mother Milton Jean (Carter) and father Howard Ralph Carpenter. His family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father, a professor, was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. He attended Western Kentucky ...

Recommended Viewing: Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Starman (1984), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), They Live (1988), In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

118. Michael Snow

Director | Wavelength

Central figure of the American avant-garde. An artist who made an isolated animated short, A to Z (1956), Snow concentrated on his painting career until moving to New York in 1963. After attending avant-garde film screenings organized by critic-filmmaker Jonas Mekas and turning out a second film, ...

Recommended Viewing: Wavelength (1967), La Région centrale (1971)

119. Gillo Pontecorvo

Director | La battaglia di Algeri

Gillo Pontecorvo was an Italian filmmaker. He is best known for his 1966 masterpiece, The Battle of Algiers, widely viewed as one of the finest films of its genre: realistic though fictionalized documentary. Its portrayal of the Algerian resistance during the Algerian War uses the neorealist style ...

Recommended Viewing: Kapò (1960), The Battle of Algiers (1965), Burn! (1969)

120. 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, ...

Recommended Viewing: The Bird People in China (1998), Audition (1999), Dead or Alive (1999), Dead or Alive 2: Birds (2000), Visitor Q (2001), Ichi the Killer (2001), The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001), Gozu (2003), Big Bang Love, Juvenile A (2006)

121. Claude Lanzmann

Director | Shoah

Claude Lanzmann was born on November 27, 1925 in Bois-Colombes, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a director and writer, known for Shoah (1985), The Four Sisters (2018) and Israel, Why (1973). He was married to Dominique Lanzmann-Petithory, Angelika Schrobsdorff and Judith Magre. He died on July 5, ...

Recommended Viewing: Shoah (1985), Tsahal (1994), Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4 P.M. (2001)

122. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Play Misty for Me (1970), High Plains Drifter (1973), Breezy (1973), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Honkytonk Man (1982), Bird (1988), Unforgiven (1992), A Perfect World (1993), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), Million Dollar Baby (2004), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), Gran Torino (2008), American Sniper (2014)

123. John Boorman

Producer | Hope and Glory

John Boorman attended Catholic school (Salesian Order) although his family was not, in fact, Roman Catholic. His first job was for a dry-cleaner. Later, he worked as a critic for a women's journal and for a radio station until he entered the television business, working for the BBC in Bristol. ...

Recommended Viewing: Point Blank (1967), Deliverance (1972), Excalibur (1981), The General (1998)

124. Joseph H. Lewis

Director | Gun Crazy

The term "style over content" fits director Joseph H. Lewis like a glove. His ability to elevate basically mundane and mediocre low-budget material to sublime cinematic art has gained him a substantial cult following among movie buffs. The Bonnie & Clyde look-alike Gun Crazy (1950), shot in 30 days...

Recommended Viewing: My Name is Julia Ross (1945), Gun Crazy (1949), Cry of the Hunted (1953), The Big Combo (1955), A Lawless Street (1955)

125. Robert Aldrich

Director | Emperor of the North Pole

Robert Aldrich entered the film industry in 1941 when he got a job as a production clerk at RKO Radio Pictures. He soon worked his way up to script clerk, then became an assistant director, a production manager and an associate producer. He began writing and directing for TV series in the early ...

Recommended Viewing: Vera Cruz (1954), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), The Big Knife (1955), Autumn Leaves (1956), Attack (1956), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1965), Flight of the Phoenix (1966), The Dirty Dozen (1967), Ulzana's Raid (1972), The Longest Yard (1974), Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977)

126. Alexander Mackendrick

Writer | The Man in the White Suit

One of the most distinguished (if frequently overlooked) directors ever to emerge from the British film industry, Alexander Mackendrick, was in fact born in the US (to Scottish parents), but grew up in his native Scotland, where he studied at the Glasgow School of Art. He started out as a ...

Recommended Viewing: The Man in the White Suit (1951), Mandy (1952), The Ladykillers (1955), Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

127. Nagisa Ôshima

Director | Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Nagisa Oshima's career extends from the initiation of the "Nuberu bagu" (New Wave) movement in Japanese cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s, to the contemporary use of cinema and television to express paradoxes in modern society. After an early involvement with the student protest movement in ...

Recommended Viewing: Death by Hanging (1968), Boy (1969), The Ceremony (1971), In the Realm of the Senses (1976)

128. Terence Davies

Writer | Distant Voices, Still Lives

Terence Davies was born on November 10, 1945 in Liverpool, England, UK. He was a writer and director, known for Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), The House of Mirth (2000) and Benediction (2021). He died on October 7, 2023 in Mistley, Essex, England, UK.

Recommended Viewing: The Terence Davies Trilogy (1983), Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), The Long Day Closes (1992), The Neon Bible (1995), The House of Mirth (2000), Of Time and the City (2008), The Deep Blue Sea (2011)

129. Joseph Losey

Director | The Servant

Belonging to an important family clan in Wisconsin, Joseph Losey studied philosophy but was always interested in theater and thus worked together with Bertolt Brecht. After directing some shorts for MGM, he made his first important film, The Boy with Green Hair (1948), for RKO. While he was filming ...

Recommended Viewing: The Boy with Green Hair (1948), The Lawless (1949), The Prowler (1951), The Big Night (1951), The Sleeping Tiger (1954), The Criminal (1960), The Servant (1963), Accident (1967)

130. James Whale

Director | Bride of Frankenstein

James Whale was an English film director, theatre director and actor. He is best remembered for his four classic horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He also directed films in other genres, including what is ...

Recommended Viewing: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Man in the Iron Mask (1939)

131. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Red Dust (1932), Bombshell (1933), The Wizard of Oz (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

132. Albert Maysles

Cinematographer | Grey Gardens

Albert Maysles was born on November 26, 1926 in Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Grey Gardens (1975), Salesman (1969) and Gimme Shelter (1970). He was married to Gillian Walker. He died on March 5, 2015 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, ...

and David Maysles

Recommended Viewing: Salesman (1968), Gimme Shelter (1970), Grey Gardens (1975)

133. René Clair

Writer | Le silence est d'or

René Clair was born on November 11, 1898 in Paris, France. He was a writer and director, known for Man About Town (1947), Beauties of the Night (1952) and The Grand Maneuver (1955). He was married to Bronia Clair. He died on March 15, 1981 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France.

Recommended Viewing: Entr'acte (1924), The Italian Straw Hat (1927), Under the Roofs of Paris (1930), Le Million (1931), À nous la liberté (1931), And Then There Were None (1945)

134. Alejandro Jodorowsky

Writer | El Topo

Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in Tocopilla, Chile on February 17, 1929. In 1939 he moved to Santiago where he attended university, was a circus clown and a puppeteer. In 1953 he went to Paris and studied mime with Marcel Marceau. He worked with Maurice Chevalier there and made a short film, La ...

Recommended Viewing: Fando y Lis (1968), El Topo (1970), The Holy Mountain (1973), Santa Sangre (1989), The Dance of Reality (2013)

135. Mervyn LeRoy

Director | Gypsy

The great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 was a tragedy for Mervyn LeRoy. While he and his father managed to survive, they lost everything they had. To make money, LeRoy sold newspapers and entered talent contests as a singer. When he entered vaudeville, his act was "LeRoy and Cooper--Two...

Recommended Viewing: Little Caesar (1931), I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), They Won't Forget (1937), Random Harvest (1942), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), The Bad Seed (1956)

136. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Violent Cop (1989), Boiling Point (1990), A Scene at the Sea (1991), Sonatine (1993), Kids Return (1996), Hana-Bi (1997), Kikujiro (1999), Dolls (2002), Zatoichi (2003), Achilles and the Tortoise (2008)

137. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Naked (1993), Secrets & Lies (1996), Topsy-Turvy (1999), All or Nothing (2002), Vera Drake (2004), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Another Year (2010)

138. Robert Siodmak

Director | Nachts wenn der Teufel kam

Robert Siodmak (8 August 1900 - 10 March 1973) was a German-born, American film director. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for a series of stylish, unpretentious Hollywood films noirs he made in the 1940s.

Siodmak (pronounced SEE-ODD-MACK) was born in Dresden, Germany, the son of ...

Recommended Viewing: People on Sunday (1929) [co-directed by Edgar G. Ulmer], Phantom Lady (1944), The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945), The Spiral Staircase (1946), The Killers (1946), The Dark Mirror (1946), Criss Cross (1949), The File on Thelma Jordan (1949)

139. Peter Watkins

Director | The War Game

Peter Watkins began his career in advertising as an assistant producer and turned to amateur filmmaking in the late 1950s. In the mid-'60s he was commissioned by BBC-TV to make two feature-length docudramas incorporating a quasi-newsreel style and nonprofessional actors. The second of these, The ...

Recommended Viewing: The War Game (1965), Punishment Park (1971), Edvard Munch (1974), La Commune (Paris, 1871) (2000)

140. 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.

Recommended Viewing: The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959), The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959), The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961), Harakiri (1962), Kwaidan (1964), Samurai Rebellion (1967)

141. 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).

Recommended Viewing: The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), El Sur (1983), Quince Tree of the Sun (1992), La Morte rouge (2006)

142. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: The Cranes are Flying (1957), The Letter That Was Never Sent (1959), I Am Cuba (1964), The Red Tent (1969)

143. Dusan Makavejev

Director | W.R. - Misterije organizma

Dusan Makavejev is the premier figure in Yugoslavian film history; his films are deeply rooted in his nation's painful postwar experiences and draw on important Yugoslavian cinematic and cultural models. Makavejev's work has violated many political and sexual taboos and invited censorship in dozens...

Recommended Viewing: Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator (1967), Innocence Unprotected (1968), W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971), Sweet Movie (1974), Montenegro (1981)

144. Mu Fei

Director | Xiao cheng zhi chun

Mu Fei was born on October 10, 1906 in Shanghai, China. He was a director and writer, known for Spring in a Small Town (1948), Sea of Fragrant Snow (1934) and Night in the City (1933). He died on January 31, 1951 in China.

Recommended Viewing: Tian Lun (1935), Blood on Wolf Mountain (1936), Spring in a Small Town (1948)

145. Fred Zinnemann

Director | A Man for All Seasons

Initially grew up wanting to be a violinist, but while at the University of Vienna decided to study law. While doing so, he became increasingly interested in American film and decided that was what he wanted to do. He became involved in European filmaking for a short time before going to America to...

Recommended Viewing: The Men (1950), High Noon (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), A Man for All Seasons (1966)

146. Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Director | Komödianten

Georg Wilhelm Pabst is considered by many to be the greatest director of German cinema, in his era. He was especially appreciated by actors and actresses for the humane way in which he treated them. This was in contrast to some of his contemporaries, such as Arnold Fanck, who have been ...

Recommended Viewing: The Love of Jeanne Ney (1927), Pandora's Box (1928), Diary of a Lost Girl (1929), Kameradschaft (1931), The Threepenny Opera (1931)

147. Rouben Mamoulian

Director | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Rouben Mamoulian was born on October 8, 1897 in Tiflis, Russian Empire [now Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia]. He was a director and writer, known for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Applause (1929) and Becky Sharp (1935). He was married to Catharine Azadia Newman. He died on December 4, 1987 in ...

Recommended Viewing: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Love Me Tonight (1932), The Mark of Zorro (1940), Silk Stockings (1957)

148. Arthur Penn

Director | Bonnie and Clyde

Arthur Penn was born on September 27, 1922 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Little Big Man (1970) and The Miracle Worker (1962). He was married to Peggy Maurer. He died on September 28, 2010 in Manhattan, New York City, New York,...

Recommended Viewing: The Left-Handed Gun (1958), The Miracle Worker (1962), Mickey One (1965), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Little Big Man (1970), Night Moves (1975)

149. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: 12 Angry Men (1957), Fail Safe (1964), The Hill (1965), Serpico (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976), The Verdict (1982), Running on Empty (1988), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

150. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: The Draughtsman's Contract (1982), A Zed & Two Noughts (1985), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), The Pillow Book (1996)

151. Lindsay Anderson

Director | If....

Lindsay was born in Bangalore, India but educated in England at Cheltenham College and Wadham College, Oxford where he was a classical scholar. He then spent 3 years war time service in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps. His career in the theatre started at the Royal Court in the late 1950's where he was...

Recommended Viewing: This Sporting Life (1963), If.... (1968), O Lucky Man! (1973), The Whales of August (1987)

152. Theodoros Angelopoulos

Director | Mia aioniotita kai mia mera

Theo Angelopoulos began to study law in Athens but broke up his studies to go to the Sorbonne in Paris in order to study literature. When he had finished his studies, he wanted to attend the School of Cinema at Paris but decided instead to go back to Greece. There he worked as a journalist and ...

Recommended Viewing: The Travelling Players (1975), Voyage to Cythera (1984), Landscape in the Mist (1988), Ulysses' Gaze (1995), Eternity and a Day (1998)

153. Mikio Naruse

Director | Ukigumo

Considered a major figure of Japan's 'golden age of cinema', Mikio Naruse was a filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer who directed 89 films in the period 1930 to 1967. Although Naruse's work is lesser known in the twenty-first century than those of his contemporaries Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi...

Recommended Viewing: Mother (1952), Late Chrysanthemums (1954), Floating Clouds (1955), When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960), Scattered Clouds (1967)

154. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985), Dust in the Wind (1987), A City of Sadness (1989), The Puppetmaster (1993), Goodbye South, Goodbye (1996), Flowers of Shanghai (1998), Café Lumière (2003), Three Times (2005), Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)

155. Glauber Rocha

Director | Terra em Transe

He studied Law. He also directed theatre pieces, wrote movie criticisms and took part in the creation and development of the 'cinema novo' movement in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, becoming its theoretical leader and first embassador in Europe. After "Barravento (1962)", a trilogy of films and "Antonio ...

Recommended Viewing: Black God, White Devil (1964), Terra em Transe (1967), Antonio das Mortes (1969), The Age of the Earth (1980)

156. Frank Tashlin

Director | Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Frank Tashlin was born on February 19, 1913 in Weehawken, New Jersey, USA. He was a director and writer, known for Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), The Girl Can't Help It (1956) and Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958). He was married to Jean Deines, Mary Costa and Dorothy Marguerite Hill. He died on May ...

Recommended Viewing: Son of Paleface (1952), Artists and Models (1955), Hollywood or Bust (1956), The Girl Can't Help It (1956), Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958)

157. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), At Land (1944), Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946), Meditation on Violence (1948)

158. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Europa (1991), Breaking the Waves (1996), The Kingdom (1994-1997), The Idiots (1998), Dancer in the Dark (2000), Dogville (2003), Antichrist (2009), Melancholia (2011), Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013), Nymphomaniac: Vol. II (2013)

159. Merian C. Cooper

Writer | King Kong

In 1920, Merian C. Cooper was a member of volunteer of the American Kosciuszko Squadron that supported the Polish army in the war with Soviet Russia, where he met best friend and producing partner Ernest B. Schoedsack. On 26 July 1920, his plane was shot down, and he spent nearly nine months in the...

and Ernest B. Schoedsack

Recommended Viewing: King Kong (1933), The Last Days of Pompeii (1935)

160. Ken Loach

Director | I, Daniel Blake

Unlike virtually all his contemporaries, Ken Loach has never succumbed to the siren call of Hollywood, and it's virtually impossible to imagine his particular brand of British socialist realism translating well to that context.

After studying law at St. Peter's College, Oxford, he branched out into ...

Recommended Viewing: Kes (1969), Raining Stones (1993), Ladybird Ladybird (1994), Land and Freedom (1995), Sweet Sixteen (2002), I, Daniel Blake (2016)

161. Ermanno Olmi

Director | L'albero degli zoccoli

Ermanno Olmi was born on July 24, 1931 in Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy. He was a director and writer, known for The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978), The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988) and Il posto (1961). He was married to Loredana Detto. He died on May 5, 2018 in Asiago, Veneto, Italy.

Recommended Viewing: Il Posto (1961), I Fidanzati (1963), The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978), The Legend of the Holy Drinker (1988)

162. Brian De Palma

Director | Body Double

Brian De Palma is one of the well-known directors who spear-headed the new movement in Hollywood during the 1970s. He is known for his many films that go from violent pictures, to Hitchcock-like thrillers. Born on September 11, 1940, De Palma was born in Newark, New Jersey in an Italian-American ...

Recommended Viewing: Phantom of the Paradise (1974), Carrie (1976), Blow Out (1981), Scarface (1983), The Untouchables (1987)

163. Aleksandr Sokurov

Director | Russkiy kovcheg

He was born with a disability because of an anatomic defect of his leg, in 1951 in Podorvikha village in Siberian Russia. His father was a Red Army veteran of WW2. One of most important contemporary filmmakers, Sokurov worked extensively in television and later graduated from the prestigious film ...

Recommended Viewing: Mother and Son (1997), Russian Ark (2002), Father and Son (2003), The Sun (2005)

164. Pedro Almodóvar

Writer | Hable con ella

The most internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel was born in a small town (Calzada de Calatrava) in the impoverished Spanish region of La Mancha. He arrived in Madrid in 1968, and survived by selling used items in the flea-market called El Rastro. Almodóvar couldn't study ...

Recommended Viewing: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Live Flesh (1997), All About My Mother (1999), Talk to Her (2002), Volver (2006), Broken Embraces (2009), The Skin I Live In (2011)

165. 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.

Recommended Viewing: Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Down by Law (1986), Mystery Train (1989), Night on Earth (1991), Dead Man (1995), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), Broken Flowers (2005), The Limits of Control (2009)

166. 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, ...

Recommended Viewing: Duel (1971), Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1975), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Color Purple (1985), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Jurassic Park (1993), Schindler's List (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002), Catch Me if You Can (2002), Munich (2005)

167. George Stevens

Director | Giant

George Stevens, a filmmaker known as a meticulous craftsman with a brilliant eye for composition and a sensitive touch with actors, is one of the great American filmmakers, ranking with John Ford, William Wyler and Howard Hawks as a creator of classic Hollywood cinema, bringing to the screen ...

Recommended Viewing: Swing Time (1936), Gunga Din (1939), Penny Serenade (1941), Woman of the Year (1942), The More the Merrier (1943), I Remember Mama (1948), A Place in the Sun (1951), Shane (1953), Giant (1956)

168. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), The Train (1965), Seven Days in May (1965), Seconds (1966), Ronin (1998)

169. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Welcome, or No Trespassing (1964), Come and See (1985)

170. Robert Wiene

Director | Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari

Robert Wiene was born on April 24, 1873 in Breslau, Silesia, Germany [now Wroclaw, Dolnoslaskie, Poland]. He was a writer and director, known for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Das wandernde Licht (1916) and The Knight of the Rose (1925). He died on July 17, 1938 in Paris, France.

Recommended Viewing: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), The Hands of Orlac (1924)

171. Djibril Diop Mambéty

Director | Touki bouki

Born the son of a Muslim cleric in Colobane, near Dakar, Senegal, Djibril Diop Mambéty received no formal training in filmmaking. He experimented with theater, but in 1968, he was asked to leave an avant-garde theater group. Shortly thereafter, he made his first film short called Badou Boy (1970), ...

Recommended Viewing: Touki Bouki (1973), Hyenas (1992), The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun (1999)

172. Sam Wood

Director | A Night at the Opera

Following a two-year apprenticeship under Cecil B. DeMille as assistant director, Samuel Grosvenor Wood had the good fortune to have assigned to him two of the biggest stars at Paramount during their heyday: Wallace Reid (between 1919 and 1920) and Gloria Swanson (from 1921 to 1923). By the time ...

Recommended Viewing: A Night at the Opera (1935), A Day at the Races (1937), The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), Kings Row (1942)

173. Ridley Scott

Producer | The Martian

Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom ...

Recommended Viewing: The Duellists (1977), Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000)

174. Steven Soderbergh

Director | Sex, Lies, and Videotape

Steven Andrew Soderbergh was born on January 14, 1963 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, the second of six children of Mary Ann (Bernard) and Peter Soderbergh. His father was of Swedish and Irish descent, and his mother was of Italian ancestry. While he was still at a very young age, his family moved to ...

Recommended Viewing: The Underneath (1995), Out of Sight (1998), The Limey (1999), Erin Brockovich (2000), Traffic (2000), Solaris (2002), Bubble (2005), The Good German (2006)

175. Michael Cimino

Director | The Deer Hunter

Michael Cimino studied architecture and dramatic arts; later he filmed advertisements and documentaries and also wrote scripts until the actor, producer and director Clint Eastwood gave him the opportunity to direct the thriller Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974). But his biggest success was The Deer...

Recommended Viewing: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1971), The Deer Hunter (1978), Heaven's Gate (1980), Year of the Dragon (1985)

176. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981), Time of the Gypsies (1988), Arizona Dream (1992), Underground (1995), Black Cat, White Cat (1998)

177. George A. Romero

Writer | Land of the Dead

George A. Romero never set out to become a Hollywood figure; by all indications, though, he was very successful. The director of the groundbreaking "Living Dead" films was born February 4, 1940 ,in New York City to Ann (Dvorsky) and Jorge Romero. His father was born in Spain and raised in Cuba, and...

Recommended Viewing: Night of the Living Dead (1968), Martin (1977), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985)

178. Bob Rafelson

Producer | Five Easy Pieces

Bob Rafelson was an American film director, writer and producer. He is regarded as one of the founders of the New Hollywood movement in the 1970s. Among his best-known films are Five Easy Pieces (1970), The King of Marvin Gardens (1972), and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981). He was also one of...

Recommended Viewing: Five Easy Pieces (1970), King of Marvin Gardens (1972)

179. Edgar G. Ulmer

Director | The Naked Dawn

Edgar G. Ulmer was born on September 17, 1904 in Olmütz, Moravia, Austria-Hungary [now Olomouc, Czech Republic]. He was a director and writer, known for The Naked Dawn (1955), The Black Cat (1934) and Isle of Forgotten Sins (1943). He was married to Shirley Ulmer and Joan Warner. He died on ...

Recommended Viewing: People on Sunday (1929) [co-directed by Robert Siodmak], Black Cat (1934), Strange Illusion (1945), Detour (1945)

180. Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Writer | Gabbeh

Mohsen Makhmalbaf is known as one of the most influential filmmakers and founders of the new wave of Iranian cinema in the world today.

Many of his films like Salam Cinema, A Moment Of Innocence, Gabbeh, Kandahar and The President have been widely well received across the globe and have brought him ...

Recommended Viewing: Gabbeh (1996), A Moment of Innocence (1996), The Silence (1998), Kandahar (2001)

181. Jules Dassin

Director | Du rififi chez les hommes

Jules Dassin was an Academy Award-nominated director, screenwriter and actor best known for his films Rififi (1955), Never on Sunday (1960), and Topkapi (1964).

He was born Julius Samuel Dassin on 18 December 1911, in Middletown, Connecticut, USA. He was one of eight children of Russian-Jewish ...

Recommended Viewing: Brute Force (1947), The Naked City (1948), Thieves' Highway (1949), Night and the City (1950), Riffifi (1955), Topkapi (1964)

182. Budd Boetticher

Director | Bullfighter and the Lady

Brilliant, distinguished American director, particularly of Westerns, whose simple, bleak style disguises a complex artistic temperament. The adopted son of a wealthy hardware retailer, Boetticher attended Culver Military Academy and Ohio State University, where he excelled in football and boxing.

...

Recommended Viewing: Seven Men from Now (1956), The Tall T (1957), Ride Lonesome (1959), Comanche Station (1960), The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960)

183. Jan Svankmajer

Director | Otesánek

After studying at the Institute of Industrial Arts and the Marionette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s, Jan Svankmajer started working as a theatre director, chiefly in association with the Theatre of Masks and the Black Theatre. He first experimented with film-making after ...

Recommended Viewing: Dimensions of Dialogue (1982), Alice (1988), Faust (1994), Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), Little Otik (2000), Lunacy (2005)

184. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: She's Gotta Have It (1986), Do the Right Thing (1989), Malcolm X (1992), Clockers (1995), 25th Hour (2002), When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006)

185. Jack Clayton

Producer | The Innocents

Jack Clayton was born on March 1, 1921 in Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK. He was a producer and director, known for The Innocents (1961), Our Mother's House (1967) and The Great Gatsby (1974). He was married to Haya Harareet, Katherine Kath and Christine Norden. He died on February 26, 1995 in ...

Recommended Viewing: Room at the Top (1959), The Innocents (1961), The Pumpkin Eater (1964), Our Mother's House (1967), The Great Gatsby (1974)

186. Bob Fosse

Director | Cabaret

Bob Fosse was born on June 23, 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Cabaret (1972), All That Jazz (1979) and Lenny (1974). He was married to Gwen Verdon, Joan McCracken and Mary Ann Niles. He died on September 23, 1987 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.

Recommended Viewing: Sweet Charity (1969), Cabaret (1972), Lenny (1974), All That Jazz (1979)

187. Dario Argento

Writer | Profondo rosso

Dario Argento was born on September 7, 1940, in Rome, Italy, the first-born son of famed Italian producer Salvatore Argento and Brazilian fashion model Elda Luxardo. Argento recalls getting his ideas for filmmaking from his close-knit family from Italian folk tales told by his parents and other ...

Recommended Viewing: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1969), Deep Red (1975), Suspiria (1977), Inferno (1980)

188. Frederick Wiseman

Director | National Gallery

Born in 1930, Wiseman is a Cambridge, Massachusetts resident and member of the Massachusetts Bar Association who turned to filmmaking in 1967, after years as an instructor and/or researcher at Boston University, Brandeis University, and Harvard. In 1970 he founded Zipporah Films, Inc., which ...

Recommended Viewing: Titicut Follies (1967), High School (1968), Hospital (1970), Near Death (1989)

189. John Schlesinger

Director | Midnight Cowboy

Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger, who was born in London, on February 16, 1926, was the eldest child in a solidly middle-class Jewish family. Berbard Schlesinger, his father, was a pediatrician, and his mother, Winifred, was a musician. He served in the Army in the Far East during World War ...

Recommended Viewing: Midnight Cowboy (1969), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), Day of the Locust (1975), Marathon Man (1976)

190. Mark Sandrich

Director | Shall We Dance

Mark Sandrich was born on October 26, 1900 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and writer, known for Shall We Dance (1937), Holiday Inn (1942) and Melody Cruise (1933). He was married to Freda Wirtschafter. He died on March 4, 1945 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Recommended Viewing: The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935), Follow the Fleet (1936)

191. René Clément

Director | Jeux interdits

René Clément was one of the leading French directors of the post-World War II era. He directed what are regarded as some of the greatest films of the time, such as The Battle of the Rails (1946), Forbidden Games (1952) and The Day and the Hour (1963). He was later almost forgotten as a director. He...

Recommended Viewing: Forbidden Games (1952), Gervaise (1956), Plein Soleil (1960)

192. Louis Malle

Director | Au revoir les enfants

Louis Malle, the descendant of a French nobleman who made a fortune in beet sugar during the Napoleonic Wars, created films that explored life and its meaning. Malle's family discouraged his early interest in film but, in 1950, allowed him to enter the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies ...

Recommended Viewing: Elevator to the Gallows (1957), Murmur of the Heart (1971), Lacombe, Lucien (1974), Black Moon (1975), Atlantic City (1980), My Dinner with André (1981), Au revoir les enfants (1987)

193. Roger Corman

Actor | The Silence of the Lambs

Roger William Corman was born April 5, 1926, in Detroit, Michigan. Initially following in his father's footsteps, Corman studied engineering at Stanford University but while in school, he began to lose interest in the profession and developed a growing passion for film. Upon graduation, he worked a...

Recommended Viewing: The Fall of the House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Intruder (1962), X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), The Tomb of Ligeia (1965)

194. 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 ...

Recommended Viewing: Targets (1968), The Last Picture Show (1971), Paper Moon (1973), At Long Last Love (1975)

195. Russ Meyer

Director | Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens

Russell Albion Meyer was born in San Leandro, California, to Lydia Lucinda (Hauck), a nurse, and William Arthur Meyer, a police officer, who divorced during his childhood. His parents were both of German descent. Meyer began winning prizes at 15 with his amateur films. He spent World War II in ...

Recommended Viewing: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), Motor Psycho (1965), Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), Supervixens (1975)

196. Don Siegel

Director | Dirty Harry

Don Siegel was educated at Cambridge University, England. In Hollywood from the mid-'30s, he began his career as an editor and second unit director. In 1945 he directed two shorts (Hitler Lives (1945) and Star in the Night (1945)) which both won Academy Awards. His first feature as a director was ...

Recommended Viewing: The Big Steal (1949), Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The Lineup (1958), The Killers (1964), The Beguiled (1971), Dirty Harry (1971), The Shootist (1976), Escape from Alcatraz (1979)

197. William A. Wellman

Director | A Star Is Born

William Wellman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter-director of the original A Star Is Born (1937), was called "Wild Bill" during his World War I service as an aviator, a nickname that persisted in Hollywood due to his larger-than-life personality and lifestyle.

A leap-year baby born in 1896 on the 29th...

Recommended Viewing: Wings (1927), The Public Enemy (1931), Midnight Mary (1933), A Star is Born (1937), Beau Geste (1939), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Magic Town (1947), Battleground (1949), Track of the Cat (1954)

198. Francesco Rosi

Writer | Cadaveri eccellenti

His father was a shipowner. After school, Rosi initially began studying law, which he soon dropped out to work as a broadcast journalist and book illustrator in Naples. From 1944 to 1945 he worked for "Radio Napoli". In the immediate post-war years, Rosi moved to Rome, where he came into contact ...

Recommended Viewing: Salvatore Giuliano (1962), Hands Over the City (1963), The Mattei Affair (1972), Illustrious Corpses (1976)

199. Frank Perry

Director | Mommie Dearest

Frank Perry was born on August 21, 1930 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Mommie Dearest (1981), David and Lisa (1962) and Last Summer (1969). He was married to Virginia Brush Ford, Barbara Goldsmith and Eleanor Perry. He died on August 29, 1995 in New York ...

Recommended Viewing: David and Lisa (1962), The Swimmer (1967), Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), Man on a Swing (1974)

200. Mel Brooks

Actor | Spaceballs

Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He served in WWII, and afterwards got a job playing the drums at nightclubs in the Catskills. Brooks eventually started a comedy act and also worked in radio and as Master Entertainer at Grossinger's Resort before going to ...

Recommended Viewing: The Producers (1967), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974)