Best Directors of All-Time

1. Alfred Hitchcock

Director | Psycho

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England. He was the son of Emma Jane (Whelan; 1863 - 1942) and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock (1862 - 1914). His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William Hitchcock (born 1890) and ...

Seen: The Birds Psycho North by Northwest Vertigo The Wrong Man Rear Window Dial M for Murder I Confess Strangers on a Train Rope Notorious Spellbound Lifeboat Saboteur Suspicion Foreign Correspondent Rebecca The Lady Vanishes The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) Murder! To Catch a Thief

Haven't Seen: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) Shadow of a Doubt Jamaica Inn Sabotage The 39 Steps

2. 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, ...

Seen: Bridge of Spies Lincoln War Horse The Adventures of Tintin Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Munich War of the Worlds The Terminal Catch Me If you Can Minority Report A.I. Artificial Intelligence Saving Private Ryan Amistad The Lost World: Jurassic Park Schindler's List Jurassic Park Hook Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Empire of the Sun The Color Purple Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Raiders of the Lost Ark 1941 Close Encounters of the Third Kind Jaws The Sugarland Express

Haven't Seen: Ready Player One The BFG Always Twilight Zone: The Movie Duel

3. 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 ...

Seen: F for Fake The Trial Touch of Evil The Stranger Citizen Kane

Haven't Seen: It's All True, The Deep Chimes at Midnight Confidential Report Macbeth The Lady from Shanghai The Magnificent Ambersons

4. 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...

Seen: Ran Kagemusha Sanjuro Yojimbo The Hidden Fortress Seven Samurai Ikiru Rashomon Tora no o wo fumu otokotachi

Haven't Seen: Dersu Uzala Red Beard High and Low The Bad Sleep Well Throne of Blood

5. D.W. Griffith

Director | The Birth of a Nation

David Wark Griffith was born in rural Kentucky to Jacob "Roaring Jake" Griffith, a former Confederate Army colonel and Civil War veteran. Young Griffith grew up with his father's romantic war stories and melodramatic nineteenth-century literature that were to eventually shape his movies. In 1897 ...

Seen: Intolerance The Birth of a Nation The Massacre An Unseen Enemy The Musketeers of Pig Alley The Female of the Species The Lonedale Operator

Haven't Seen: America The White Rose Orphans of the Storm Broken Blossoms Judith of Bethulia

6. 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 ...

Seen: Weekend Alphaville Pierrot le Fou

Haven't Seen: Histoire(s) du Cinema Band of Outsiders Contempt Vivre Sa Vie Breathless

7. 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, ...

Seen: How the West Was Won The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance The Searchers Mister Roberts The Quiet Man How Green Was My Valley The Grapes of Wrath Young Mr. Lincoln Stagecoach

Haven't Seen: Rio Grande She Wore a Yellow Ribbon My Darling Clementine They Were Expendable The Long Voyage Home

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 (...

Seen: The Passion of Anna Persona Through the Glass Darkly The Virgin Spring Wild Strawberries The Seventh Seal

Haven't Seen: Fanny and Alexander Cries and Whispers The Silence Winter Light Smiles of a Summer Night

9. Sergei Eisenstein

Director | Ivan Groznyy

The son of an affluent architect, Eisenstein attended the Institute of Civil Engineering in Petrograd as a young man. With the fall of the tsar in 1917, he worked as an engineer for the Red Army. In the following years, Eisenstein joined up with the Moscow Proletkult Theater as a set designer and ...

Seen: Que Viva Mexico Battleship Potemkin

Haven't Seen: Ivan the Terrible Part I Ivan the Terrible Part II Alexander Nevsky October Strike

10. 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...

Seen: Funny Girl How to Steal a Million Ben-Hur Roman Holiday The Heiress The Best Years of Our Lives Mrs. Miniver

Haven't Seen: The Big Country The Little Foxes The Letter Wuthering Heights Dodsworth

11. Robert Bresson

Writer | Au hasard Balthazar

Robert Bresson trained as a painter before moving into films as a screenwriter, making a short film (atypically a comedy), Public Affairs (1934) in 1934. After spending more than a year as a German POW during World War II, he made his debut with Angels of Sin (1943) in 1943. His next film, The ...

Seen: Au Hasard Balthazar

Haven't Seen: L'Argent Mouchette Pickpocket A Man Escaped Diary of a Country Priest

12. 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...

Seen: A Prairie Home Companion Gosford Park The Player Tanner '88 The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial Secret Honor Popeye 3 Women Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's History Lesson Nashville M*A*S*H

Haven't Seen: Cookie's Fortune Short Cuts The Long Goodbye McCabe & Mrs. Miller Brewster McCloud

13. 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...

Seen: Rio Lobo El Dorado Rio Bravo Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Monkey Business Red River The Big Sleep To Have and Have Not Sergeant York His Girl Friday Bringing Up Baby Viva Villa! Scarface

Haven't Seen: The Big Sky The Thing from Another World I Was a Male War Bride A Song Is Born Only Angels Have Wings

14. Luis Buñuel

Writer | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education (which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior), and subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the ...

Seen: The Phantom of Liberty The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Tristana The Milky Way Belle de Jour Diary of a Chambermaid The Exterminating Angel Viridiana El Bruto L'Age d'Or Un Chien Andalou

Haven't Seen: That Obscure Object of Desire Simon of the Desert The Young One Nazarin Los Olvidados

15. Billy Wilder

Writer | The Apartment

Originally planning to become a lawyer, Billy Wilder abandoned that career in favor of working as a reporter for a Viennese newspaper, using this experience to move to Berlin, where he worked for the city's largest tabloid. He broke into films as a screenwriter in 1929 and wrote scripts for many ...

Seen: The Front Page One, Two, Three The Apartment Some Like It Hot Witness for the Prosecution Sabrina Stalag 17 Ace in the Hole Sunset Blvd. The Lost Weekend Double Indemnity

Haven't Seen: Irma la Douce The Spirit of St. Louis The Seven Year Itch Five Graves of Cairo The Major and the Minor

16. Satyajit Ray

Writer | Pather Panchali

Satyajit Ray was born in Calcutta on May 2, 1921. His father, Late Sukumar Ray was an eminent poet and writer in the history of Bengali literature. In 1940, after receiving his degree in science and economics from Calcutta University, he attended Tagore's Viswa-Bharati University. His first movie ...

Seen: The Big City Charulata The World of Apu The Music Room Aparajito Pather Panchali

Haven't Seen: The Stranger The Chess Players The Golden Fortress Company Limited The Goddess

17. 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 ...

Seen: Blue Jasmine To Rome with Love Midnight in Paris You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Vicky Cristina Barcelona Match Point The Curse of the Jade Scorpion Small Time Crooks Everyone Says I Love You Manhattan Murder Mystery Husbands and Wives Crimes and Misdemeanors Radio Days Hannah and Her Sisters The Purple Rose of Cairo Broadway Danny Rose Zelig A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy Stardust Memories Manhattan Annie Hall Love and Death Sleeper Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex... Bananas Take the Money and Run

Haven't Seen: Sweet and Lowdown Deconstructing Harry Mighty Aphrodite Bullets Over Broadway Interiors

18. Kenji Mizoguchi

Director | Ugetsu monogatari

Coming from a lower class family Mizoguchi entered the production company Nikkatsu as an actor specialized in female roles. Later he became an assistant director and made his first film in 1922. Although he filmed almost 90 movies in the silent era, only his last 12 productions are really known ...

Seen: Sansho the Bailiff Ugetsu

Haven't Seen: Street of Shame The Crucified Lovers The Life of Oharu Miss Oyu The Story of the Last Chysanthemums

19. 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 ...

Seen: Amarcord Fellini Satyricon Juliet of the Spirits 8 1/2 La Dolce Vita Nights of Cabiria La Strada I Vitelloni

Haven't Seen: Intervista And the Ship Sails On Il Bidone The White Sheik Variety Lights

20. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Writer | Faustrecht der Freiheit

Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Openly homosexual, he married twice; one of his wives acted in his films and the other served as his editor. Accused variously by detractors of being anticommunist, male chauvinist, antiSemitic and...

Seen: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Haven't Seen: Veronika Voss Berlin Alexanderplatz The Marriage of Maria Braun The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant The Merchant of Four Seasons

21. 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. ...

Seen: Scarlet Street Ministry of Fear Man Hunt You Only Live Once M Metropolis Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler

Haven't Seen: The Big Heat Western Union Fury The Testament of Dr. Mabuse Spies

22. Carl Theodor Dreyer

Writer | Gertrud

The illegitimate son of a Danish farmer and his Swedish housekeeper, Carl Theodor Dreyer was born in Copenhagen on the 3th of February, 1889. He spent his early years in various foster homes before being adopted by the Dreyers at the age of two. Contrary to popular belief (perhaps nourished by the ...

Seen: The Passion of Joan of Arc

Haven't Seen: Gertrud Ordet Day of Wrath Vampyr Master of the House

23. 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 ...

Seen: The Wolf of Wall Street Hugo Shutter Island The Departed The Aviator Gangs of New York Kundun Casino A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies Cape Fear Goodfellas The Last Temptation of Christ Raging Bull Taxi Driver Mean Streets

Haven't Seen: Shine the Light The Age of Innocence After Hours The King of Comedy Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

24. 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 ...

Seen: Jules and Jim Shot the Pianist The 400 Blows

Haven't Seen: The Last Metro The Man Who Loved Women The Story of Adele H Day for Night The Bride Wore Black

25. 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...

Seen: The Hateful Eight Django Unchained Inglourious Basterds Death Proof Kill Bill Vol. 1 Kill Bill Vol. 2 Jackie Brown Four Rooms Pulp Fiction Reservoir Dogs

Haven't Seen: My Best Friend's Birthday

26. 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 ...

Seen: Late Autumn Tokyo Story

Haven't Seen: An Autumn Afternoon Floating Weeds Good Morning Early Spring I Was Born But...

27. Jean Renoir

Writer | La règle du jeu

Son of the famous Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste, he had a happy childhood. Pierre Renoir was his brother, and Claude Renoir was his nephew. After the end of World War I, where he won the Croix de Guerre, he moved from scriptwriting to filmmaking. He married Catherine Hessling, for whom he ...

Seen: The Lower Depths The Southerner The Rules of the Game La Grande Illusion

Haven't Seen: The Golden Coach The River La Bete Humaine The Crime of Monsieur Lange Boudu Saved from Drowning

28. 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 ...

Seen: N/A

Haven't Seen: Au Revoir Les Enfants My Dinner with Andre Lacombe Lucien Murmur of the Heart Elevator to the Gallows

29. Blake Edwards

Writer | The Pink Panther Strikes Again

Blake Edwards' stepfather's father J. Gordon Edwards was a silent screen director, and his stepfather Jack McEdward was a stage director and movie production manager. Blake acted in a number films, beginning with Ten Gentlemen from West Point (1942) and wrote a number of others, beginning with ...

Seen: Micki + Maude 10 A Shot in the Dark The Pink Panther Breakfast at Tiffany's

Haven't Seen: The Man Who Loved Women The Party The Great Race Days of Wine and Roses Operation Petticoat

30. Éric Rohmer

Director | Ma nuit chez Maud

Admirers have always had difficulty explaining Éric Rohmer's "Je ne sais quoi." Part of the challenge stems from the fact that, despite his place in French Nouvelle Vague (i.e., New Wave), his work is unlike that of his colleagues. While this may be due to the auteur's unwillingness to conform, ...

Seen: The Bakery Girl of Monceau

Haven't Seen: A Tale of Springtime Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle Chloe in the Afternoon Claire's Knee My Night at Maud's

31. 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...

Seen: My Fair Lady Adam's Rib Gaslight The Philadelphia Story Gone with the Wind The Wizard of Oz

Haven't Seen: Lust for Life Born Yesterday The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Little Women One Hour with You

32. 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 ...

Seen: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead Find Me Guilty The Verdict Network Dog Day Afternoon Murder on the Orient Express Serpico Fail-Safe 12 Angry Men

Haven't Seen: The Wiz Equus The Pawnbroker Long Day's Journey Into Night The Fugitive Kind

33. 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). ...

Seen: Husbands A Woman Under the Influence

Haven't Seen: Love Streams Gloria Opening Night The Killing of a Chinese Bookie Faces Shadows

34. Vittorio De Sica

Director | Ladri di biciclette

Vittorio De Sica grew up in Naples, and started out as an office clerk in order to raise money to support his poor family. He was increasingly drawn towards acting, and made his screen debut while still in his teens, joining a stage company in 1923. By the late 1920s he was a successful matinee ...

Seen: Marriage Italian Style Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Bicycle Thieves Shoeshine

Haven't Seen: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Indiscretion of an American Wife Umberto D. Miracle in Milan The Children Are Watching Us

35. 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,...

Seen: Annie Wise Blood The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean Casino Royale Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison The African Queen The Asphalt Jungle Key Largo The Treasure of the Sierra Madre The Maltese Falcon

Haven't Seen: Prizzi's Honor The Man Who Would Be King The Misfits The Red Badge of Courage Let There Be Light

36. 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 ...

Seen: Eyes Wide Shut Full Metal Jacket The Shining Barry Lyndon A Clockwork Orange 2001: A Space Odyssey Dr. Strangelove Lolita Spartacus Paths of Glory The Killing

Haven't Seen: Killer's Kiss Fear and Desire

37. 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 ...

Seen: Chi-Raq Inside Man She Hate Me 25th Hour The Original Kings of Comedy Crooklyn Malcolm X Do the Right Thing

Haven't Seen: 4 Little Girls Clockers Jungle Fever Mo' Better Blues She's Gotta Have It

38. 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 ...

Seen: Gigi Tea and Sympathy The Bad and the Beautiful An American in Paris Ziegfeld Follies Meet Me in St. Louis

Haven't Seen: Kismet Brigadoon The Band Wagon Father of the Bride The Pirate

39. Michael Curtiz

Director | Casablanca

Curtiz began acting in and then directing films in his native Hungary in 1912. After WWI, he continued his filmmaking career in Austria and Germany and into the early 1920s when he directed films in other countries in Europe. Moving to the US in 1926, he started making films in Hollywood for Warner...

Seen: White Christmas Mildred Pierce Casablanca Yankee Doodle Dandy The Adventures of Robin Hood Captain Blood

Haven't Seen: We're No Angels This Is the Army The Sea Wolf Angels with Dirty Faces The Charge of the Light Brigade

40. 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 ...

Seen: Hurry Sundown Advise & Consent Anatomy of a Murder The Man with the Golden Arm Carmen Jones River of No Return Laura

Haven't Seen: Bunny Lake Is Missing In Harm's Way The Cardinal Exodus Where the Sidewalk Ends

41. 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...

Seen: No Time for Sergeants Mister Roberts The Wizard of Oz I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang Little Caesar

Haven't Seen: The Green Berets The Bad Seed Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo Madame Curie The King and the Chorus Girl

42. 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 ...

Seen: Jersey Boys Invictus Gran Torino Changeling Letters from Iwo Jima Million Dollar Baby Mystic River Blood Work Unforgiven Bird Heartbreak Ridge The Outlaw Josey Wales High Plains Drifter

Haven't Seen: American Sniper Space Cowboys Absolute Power The Bridges of Madison County Pale Rider

43. 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 ...

Seen: America America A Face in the Crowd East of Eden On the Waterfront Viva Zapata! A Streetcar Named Desire Gentleman's Agreement

Haven't Seen: The Last Tycoon Splendor in the Grass Baby Doll Pinky A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

44. 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 ...

Seen: Doctor Zhivago Lawrence of Arabia The Bridge on the River Kwai

Haven't Seen: A Passage to India Summertime Hobson's Choice Great Expectations Brief Encounter

45. 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 ...

Seen: Pocketful of Miracles It's a Wonderful Life Arsenic and Old Lace Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Mr. Deeds Goes to Town It Happened One Night

Haven't Seen: You Can't Take It With You Lost Horizon Lady for a Day The Miracle Woman The Younger Generation

46. Roberto Rossellini

Writer | Roma città aperta

The master filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, as one of the creators of neo-realism, is one of the most influential directors of all time. His neo-realist films influenced France's nouvelle vague movement in the 1950s and '60s that changed the face of international cinema. He also influenced American ...

Seen: Escape By Night Paisan

Haven't Seen: General Della Rovere Journey to Italy Europe '51 The Flowers of St. Francis Rome Open City

47. 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 ...

Seen: To Be or Not to Be The Shop Around the Corner Trouble in Paradise The Smiling Lieutenant

Haven't Seen: Heaven Can Wait Ninotchka Design for Living One Hour with You The Love Parade

48. 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.

Seen: Harakiri Samurai Rebellion The Human Condition I: No Greater Love The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer

Haven't Seen: Tokyo Trial Kwaidan The Inheritance I Will Buy You Izumi

49. Michelangelo Antonioni

Writer | Blow-Up

Together with Fellini, Bergman and Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni is credited with defining the modern art film. And yet Antonioni's cinema is also recognized today for defying any easy categorization, with his films ultimately seeming to belong to their own distinctive genre. Indeed, the ...

Seen: Blow-up L'Avventura

Haven't Seen: Identification of a Woman Red Desert L'Eclisse La Notte Il Grido

50. Samuel Fuller

Writer | Shock Corridor

At age 17, Samuel Fuller was the youngest reporter ever to be in charge of the events section of the New York Journal. After having participated in the European battle theater in World War II, he directed some minor action productions for which he mostly wrote the scripts himself and which he also ...

Seen: The Big Red One Shock Corridor The Steel Helmet The Baron of Arizona

Haven't Seen: White Dog The Naked Kiss Underworld U.S.A. Pickup on South Street I Shot Jesse James

51. Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Writer | All About Eve

Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on February 11, 1909, Joseph Leo Mankiewicz first worked for the movies as a translator of intertitles, employed by Paramount in Berlin, the UFA's American distributor at the time (1928). He became a dialoguist, then a screenwriter on numerous Paramount ...

Seen: Guys and Dolls Julius Caesar All About Eve A Letter to Three Wives The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Haven't Seen: Sleuth Suddenly Last Summer The Barefoot Contessa Cleopatra Dragonwyck

52. Anthony Mann

Director | El Cid

Anthony Mann was born on June 30, 1906 in San Diego, California, USA. He was a director and writer, known for El Cid (1961), Men in War (1957) and The Glenn Miller Story (1954). He was married to Anna, Sara Montiel and Mildred Mann. He died on April 29, 1967 in London, England.

Seen: N/A

Haven't Seen: The Fall of the Roman Empire El Cid The Naked Spur The Furies Winchester '73

53. 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 ...

Seen: Giant Shane A Place in the Sun Swing Time

Haven't Seen: The Diary of Anne Frank I Remember Mama The More the Merrier The Talk of the Town Penny Serenade

54. 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...

Seen: The Day of the Jackal A Man for All Seasons Oklahoma! From Here to Eternity High Noon

Haven't Seen: Behold a Pale Horse The Sundowners The Old Man and the Sea A Hatful of Rain The Seventh Cross

55. Nicholas Ray

Director | Rebel Without a Cause

Nicholas Ray was born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle in 1911, in small-town Galesville, Wisconsin, to Lena (Toppen) and Raymond Joseph Kienzle, a contractor and builder. He was of German and Norwegian descent. Ray's early experience with film came with some radio broadcasting in high school. He left the ...

Seen: King of Kings The Savage Innocents Rebel Without a Cause

Haven't Seen: Bigger Than Life Johnny Guitar On Dangerous Ground In a Lonely Place They Live by Night

56. Raoul Walsh

Editor | The Birth of a Nation

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 ...

Seen: White Heat The Thief of Bagdad

Haven't Seen: Blackbeard the Pirate Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. Action in the North Atlantic The Roaring Twenties Artists and Models

57. Henry King

Director | The Song of Bernadette

For more than three decades, Henry King was the most versatile and reliable (not to mention hard-working) contract director on the 20th Century-Fox lot. His tenure lasted from 1930 to 1961, spanning most of Hollywood's "golden" era. King was renowned as a specialist in literary adaptations (A Bell ...

Seen: The Gunfighter The Song of Bernadette

Haven't Seen: Carousel Twelve O'Clock High Wilson Alexander's Ragtime Band Seventh Heaven

58. Francis Ford Coppola

Producer | Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola was born in 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, but grew up in a New York suburb in a creative, supportive Italian-American family. His father, Carmine Coppola, was a composer and musician. His mother, Italia Coppola (née Pennino), had been an actress. Francis Ford Coppola graduated ...

Seen: The Rainmaker Jack Bram Stoker's Dracula The Godfather The Godfather Part II The Godfather Part III Tucker: The Man and His Dream Apocalypse Now The Conversation Dementia 13 The Terror

Haven't Seen: Peggy Sue Got Married The Cotton Club Rumble Fish The Outsiders One from the Heart

59. George Sidney

Director | Scaramouche

The son of Louis K. Sidney the vice president of M.G.M. and Hazel Mooney of The Mooney Sisters. In his teens he worked as studio messenger going through every department learning the techniques and secrets of the trade. In 1933 he was assigned to direct screen tests of Judy Garland, Robert Taylor ...

Seen: Annie Get Your Gun The Red Danube Ziegfeld Follies Anchors Aweigh

Haven't Seen: Viva Las Vegas Bye Bye Birdie Pepe Pal Joey Kiss Me Kate

60. Carol Reed

Director | The Third Man

Carol Reed was the second son of stage actor, dramatics teacher and impresario founder of the Royal School of Dramatic Art Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. Reed was one of Tree's six illegitimate children with Beatrice Mae Pinney, who Tree established in a second household apart from his married life. ...

Seen: Oliver! The Third Man Night Train to Munich

Haven't Seen: The Agony and the Ecstasy Mutiny on the Bounty Our Man in Havana The Fallen Idol Odd Man Out

61. 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...

Seen: The Ox-Bow Incident Lady of Burlesque Beau Geste Viva Villa! Wings The Boob

Haven't Seen: Story of G.I. Joe Roxie Hart The Public Enemy Young Eagles The Cat's Pajamas

62. 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 ...

Seen: Broken Embraces Bad Education Talk to Her All About My Mother Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Haven't Seen: Julieta, I'm So Excited!, The Skin I Live In Volver Live Flesh Matador Labyrinth of Passion

63. 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...

Seen: The Tomb of Ligeia The Masque of the Red Death The Terror The Intruder Pit and the Pendulum Creature from the Haunted Sea Last Woman on Earth The Little Shop of Horrors The Wasp Woman The Saga of the Viking Women... The Undead Swamp Women

Haven't Seen: The Trip The Raven Premature Burial House of Usher A Bucket of Blood

64. 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 ...

Seen: Star Trek: The Motion Picture The Sound of Music The Haunting West Side Story Run Silent Run Deep The Day the Earth Stood Still

Haven't Seen: The Andromeda Strain The Sand Pebbles Odds Against Tomorrow The House on Telegraph Hill The Set-Up

65. Charles Chaplin

Writer | The Great Dictator

Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the ...

Seen: A King in New York Limelight The Great Dictator Modern Times City Lights The Circus The Gold Rush A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate The Idle Class The Kid Shoulder Arms The Immigrant

Haven't Seen: A Countess from Hong Kong Monsieur Verdoux The Pilgrim A Dog's Life Chase Me Charlie

66. Richard Brooks

Writer | In Cold Blood

Richard Brooks was an Academy Award-winning film writer who also earned six Oscar nominations and achieved success as a film director and producer.

He was born Reuben Sax on May 18, 1912, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents were Russian-Jewish immigrants. He graduated from West Philadelphia ...

Seen: Elmer Gantry Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Blackboard Jungle

Haven't Seen: Looking for Mr. Goodbar In Cold Blood The Professionals Sweet Bird of Youth The Brothers Karamazov

67. Sam Peckinpah

Writer | The Wild Bunch

"If they move", commands stern-eyed William Holden, "kill 'em". So begins The Wild Bunch (1969), Sam Peckinpah's bloody, high-body-count eulogy to the mythologized Old West. "Pouring new wine into the bottle of the Western, Peckinpah explodes the bottle", observed critic Pauline Kael. That ...

Seen: Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid The Ballad of Cable Hogue The Wild Bunch Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Haven't Seen: Convoy Cross of Iron The Getaway Junior Bonner Straw Dogs

68. 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 ...

Seen: Mission to Mars Snake Eyes Mission: Impossible Casualties of War Th Untouchables Scarface Blow Out The Fury Carrie

Haven't Seen: Femme Fatale Carlito's Way Dressed to Kill Home Movies Sisters

69. Henry Hathaway

Director | True Grit

Henry Hathaway, son of a stage actress and manager, started his career as a child actor in westerns directed by Allan Dwan. His movie career was interrupted by World War I. After his discharge he briefly tried a career in finance but returned to Hollywood to work as an assistant director under such...

Seen: True Grit Nevada Smith The Sons of Katie Elder How the West Was Won Call Northside 777

Haven't Seen: Of Human Bondage Niagara The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel 13 Rue Madeleine The Lives of a Bengal Lancer

70. 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 ...

Seen: Rififi The Naked City

Haven't Seen: Topkapi Never on Sunday Night and the City Brute Force The Affairs of Martha

71. Lloyd Bacon

Director | Wonder Bar

One of the workhorses in Warner Brothers' stable of directors in the 1930s, Lloyd Bacon didn't have a career as loaded with classic films as many of his more famous contemporaries. What few "classics" he had his hand in (42nd Street (1933), Footlight Parade (1933)) are so overshadowed by the ...

Seen: Brother Orchid

Haven't Seen: The Good Humor Man Give My Regards to Broadway Knute Rockne All American 42nd Street Footlight Parade

72. Herbert Ross

Director | The Turning Point

Herbert Ross was born on May 13, 1927 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for The Turning Point (1977), The Goodbye Girl (1977) and The Secret of My Success (1987). He was married to Lee Radziwill and Nora Kaye. He died on October 9, 2001 in New York ...

Seen: Steel Magnolias Footloose The Goodbye Girl

Haven't Seen: My Blue Heaven Pennies from Heaven The Turning Point The Sunshine Boys The Owl and the Pussycat

73. 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 ...

Seen: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Gone with the Wind The Wizard of Oz

Haven't Seen: Joan of Arc A Guy Named Joe Captains Courageous Treasure Island The Way of All Flesh

74. Max Ophüls

Director | La ronde

Director Max Ophüls was born Max Oppenheimer in Saarbrücken, Germany. He began his career as a stage actor and director in the golden twenties. He worked in cities such as Stuttgart, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Vienna, Frankfurt, Breslau and Berlin. In 1929 his son Marcel Ophüls was born in Frankfurt, ...

Seen: The Earrings of Madame de...

Haven't Seen: Lola Montes Le Plaisir La Ronde Caught Letter from an Unknown Woman

75. 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 ...

Seen: The Martian Prometheus American Gangster Kingdom of Heaven Matchstick Men Black Hawk Down Gladiator G.I. Jane White Squall Thelma and Louise Blade Runner Alien

Haven't Seen: Alien: Covenant Exodus: Gods and Kings 1492: Conquest of Paradise Legend The Duellist

76. Luchino Visconti

Writer | Il gattopardo

Born in his ancestral palazzo, situated in the same Milanese square as both the opera house La Scala and the Milan Cathedral, Luchino Visconti (1906 - 1976) was raised under the auspices of aristocratic privilege, theater and Catholicism. This triangulation of monuments would create an equally ...

Seen: The Leopard Senso

Haven't Seen: Sandra Rocco and His Brothers Le Notti Bianche La Terra Trema Ossessione

77. Josef von Sternberg

Director | The Devil Is a Woman

Josef von Sternberg split his childhood between Vienna and New York City. His father, a former soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army, could not support his family in either city; Sternberg remembered him only as "an enormously strong man who often used his strength on me." Forced by poverty to drop ...

Seen: Duel in the Sun The Blue Angel

Haven't Seen: The Scarlet Empress Shanghai Express The Last Command Underworld It

78. 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 ...

Seen: N/A

Haven't Seen: Nymphomaniac: Vol. I Nymphomaniac: Vol. II Melancholia Dogville The Idiots

79. 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 ...

Seen: The Pride of the Yankees Gone with the Wind Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Haven't Seen: For Whom the Bell Tolls The Devil and Miss Jones Our Town A Day at the Races A Night at the Opera

80. 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...

Seen: Purple Noon The Damned

Haven't Seen: The Deadly Trap The Day and the Hour Forbidden Games The Glass Castle The Walls of Malapaga

81. Mike Nichols

Director | The Graduate

He, along with the other members of the "Compass Players" including Elaine May, Paul Sills, Byrne Piven, Joyce Hiller Piven and Edward Asner helped start the famed "Second City Improv" company. They used the games taught to them by fellow cast mate, Paul Sills 's mother, Viola Spolin. He later ...

Seen: Charlie Wilson's War Closer What Planet Are You From? Primary Colors The Birdcage Wolf Catch-22 The Graduate Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Haven't Seen: Postcards from the Edge Working Girl Biloxi Blues Silkwood Carnal Knowledge

82. James Ivory

Writer | Call Me by Your Name

The main part of his few movies were filmed in the quarter of a century in which he worked closely together with the Indian producer Ismail Merchant and the German writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. His first films are all set in India and are very much influenced by the style of Satyajit Ray and Jean ...

Seen: Howards End A Room with a View

Haven't Seen: Maurice The Bostonians Quartet Bombay Talkie Shakespeare-Wallah

83. Henri-Georges Clouzot

Writer | Le salaire de la peur

Beginning his film career as a screenwriter, Henri-Georges Clouzot switched over to directing and in 1943 had the distinction of having his film The Raven (1943) banned by both the German forces occupying France and the Free French forces fighting them, but for different reasons. He shot to ...

Seen: Diabolique The Wages of Fear

Haven't Seen: Woman in Chains Miquette Manon Quai des Orfevres Le Corbeau

84. George Roy Hill

Director | The Sting

George Roy Hill was never able to 'hit it off' with the critics despite the fact that 2 of his films - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and The Sting (1973) - had remained among the top 10 box office hits by 1976. His work was frequently derided as 'impersonal' or lacking in stylistic ...

Seen: Funny Farm Slap Shot The Sting Slaughterhouse-Five Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Haven't Seen: The World According to Garp The Great Waldo Pepper Thoroughly Modern Millie Hawaii The World of Henry Orient

85. 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 ...

Seen: Mulholland Dr. Blue Velvet Dune The Elephant Man Eraserhead

Haven't Seen: Inland Empire The Straight Story Lost Highway Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me Wild at Heart

86. 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 ...

Seen: The Gospel According to St. Matthew

Haven't Seen: La rabbia di Pasolini, Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom, Arabian Nights, The Canterbury Tales, 12 Dicembre, The Decameron, Appunti per un Romanzo Dell'immondezza, Notes Towards an African Orestes, Medea, Porcile, Teorema, Oedipus Rex, The Hawks and the Sparrows, Sporalluoghi in Palestina per il Vangelo Secondo Matteo, Love Meetings, Ro.Go.Pa.G., Mamma Roma, Accattone

87. Alain Resnais

Director | Hiroshima mon amour

Alain Resnais was born on June 3, 1922 in Vannes, Morbihan, France. He was a director and editor, known for Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Same Old Song (1997) and My American Uncle (1980). He was married to Sabine Azéma and Florence Malraux. He died on March 1, 2014 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, ...

Seen: Last Year at Marienbad

Haven't Seen: Private Fears in Public Places Melo My American Uncle Muriel or the Time of Return Hiroshima Mon Amour

88. Preston Sturges

Writer | Sullivan's Travels

Preston Sturges' own life is as unlikely as some of the plots of his best work. He was born into a wealthy family. As a boy he helped out on stage productions for his mother's friend, Isadora Duncan (the scarf that strangled her was made by his mother's company, Maison Desti). He served in the U.S....

Seen: The Palm Beach Story Sullivan's Travels The Lady Eve The Great McGinty

Haven't Seen: The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend Unfaithfully Yours The Great Moment Hail the Conquering Hero The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

89. 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...

Seen: Into the Abyss Cave of Forgotten Dreams Happy People: A Year in the Taiga Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Encounters at the End of the World Grizzly Man My Best Fiend Cobra Verde Fitzcarraldo Nosferatu the Vampyre Woyzeck The Enigma ofKaspar Hauser Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Haven't Seen: Rescue Dawn Lessons of Darkness Where the Green Ants Dream Stroszek The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner

90. Seijun Suzuki

Director | Tsigoineruwaizen

Seijun Suzuki was born in Nihonbashi, Tôkyô, on May 24, 1923. In 1943, he entered the army to fight at the front. In 1946, he enrolled in the film department of the Kamakura Academy and passed the assistant director's exam. For the next few years, he worked as an assistant director at several ...

Seen: N/A

Haven't Seen: Tsigoineruwaizen Branded to Kill Tokyo Drifter Youth of the Beast Take Aim at the Police Van

91. Aki Kaurismäki

Producer | Le Havre

Aki Kaurismäki did a wide variety of jobs including postman, dish-washer and film critic, before forming a production and distribution company, Villealfa (in homage to Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965)) with his older brother Mika Kaurismäki, also a film-maker. Both Aki and Mika are prolific ...

Seen: N/A

Haven't Seen: Le Havre The Man Without a Past Drifting Clouds The Match Factory Girl Leningrad Cowboys Go America

92. Douglas Sirk

Director | Schlußakkord

Film director Douglas Sirk, whose reputation blossomed in the generation after his 1959 retirement from Hollywood filmmaking, was born Hans Detlef Sierck on April 26, 1897, in Hamburg, Germany, to a journalist. Both of his parents were Danish, and the future director would make movies in German, ...

Seen: Imitation of Life Written on the Wind All That Heaven Allows Magnificent Obsession Sleep, My Love

Haven't Seen: A Time to Love and a Time to Die The Tarnished Take Me to Town Has Anybody Seen My Gal A Scandal in Paris

93. 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 (...

Seen: Three Colors: Red Three Colors: White Three Colors: Blue

Haven't Seen: The Double Life of Veronique The Decalogue A Short Film About Love A Short Film About Killing Blind Chance

94. Michael Powell

Director | Peeping Tom

The son of Thomas William Powell and Mabel (nee Corbett). Michael Powell was always a self-confessed movie addict. He was brought up partly in Canterbury ("The Garden of England") and partly in the south of France (where his parents ran a hotel). Educated at Kings School, Canterbury and Dulwich ...

Seen: Peeping Tom The Red Shoes Black Narcissus Stairway to Heaven The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 49th Parallel The Thief of Bagdad The Spy in Black

Haven't Seen: The Tales of Hoffmann The Fighting Pimpernel I Know Where I'm Going! A Canterbury Tale One of Our Aircraft Is Missing

95. David Cronenberg

Actor | The Fly

David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early...

Seen: A Dangerous Method Eastern Promises Crash The Fly Videodrome Scanners Shivers

Haven't Seen: A History of Violence Naked Lunch Dead Ringers The Dead Zone The Brood

96. Jean-Pierre Melville

Writer | Le samouraï

The name "Melville" is not immediately associated with film. It conjures up images of white whales and crackbrained captains, of naysaying notaries and soup-spilling sailors. It is the countersign to a realm of men and their deeds, both heroic and villainous. It is the American novel, with its ...

Seen: Le Cercle Rouge Le Samourai Le Silence de la Mer

Haven't Seen: The Army of Shadows Le Deuxieme Souffle Le Doulos Bob le Flambeur Les Enfants Terribles

97. F.W. Murnau

Director | Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

F.W. Murnau was a German film director. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, and became a friend of director Max Reinhardt. During World War I he served as a company commander at the eastern front and was in the German air ...

Seen: Sunrise Nosferatu

Haven't Seen: Tabu: A Story of the South Seas Faust The Last Laugh Finances of the Grand Duke The Haunted Castle

98. 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 (...

Seen: The Last Emperor The Conformist

Haven't Seen: The Dreamers Last Tango in Paris The Spider's Stratagem Before the Revolution The Grim Reaper

99. 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 ...

Seen: Happy-Go-Lucky Topsy-Turvy

Haven't Seen: Another Year Vera Drake Secrets & Lies Naked High Hopes

100. Leo McCarey

Director | An Affair to Remember

Leo McCarey was born on October 3, 1896 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a director and writer, known for An Affair to Remember (1957), Going My Way (1944) and Love Affair (1939). He was married to Virginia Stella Martin. He died on July 5, 1969 in Santa Monica, California, USA.

Seen: An Affair to Remember The Awful Truth Make Way for Tomorrow Duck Soup

Haven't Seen: The Bells of St. Mary's Going My Way Ruggles of Red Gap Indiscreet Let's Go Native