My Favourite Directors in order

1. Éric Rohmer

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, ...

1. The Green Ray 2. My Night at Maud's 3. Claire's Knee 4. Pauline at the Beach 5. My Girlfriend's Boyfriend 6. A Summer's Tale 7. The Collector 8. An Autumn Tale 9. The Aviator's Wife 10. The Sign of Leo 11. A Tale of Winter 12. The Bakery Girl of Monceau 13. Perceval 14. Love in the Afternoon 15. A Good Marriage 16. Full Moon in Paris 17. The Marquise of O 18. Triple Agent 19. A Tale of Springtime 20. The Romance of Astrea and Celladon 21. Rendevous in Paris 22. Suzanne's Career 23. Veronica and Her Dunce 24. The Tree, the Mayor and the Mediatheque 25. The Lady and the Duke 26. Changing Landscapes 27. Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle 28. Presentation, or Charlotte and Her Steak 29. Nadja in Paris 30. Bérénice 31. Drink your Coffee 32. A Modern Coed

2. Raúl Ruiz

Director | La Telenovela Errante

Chilean director Raúl, or Raoul, Ruiz (1941-2011) was one of the most exciting and innovative filmmakers to emerge from 1960s World Cinema, providing more intellectual fun and artistic experimentation, shot for shot, than any filmmaker since Jean-Luc Godard. A guerrilla who uncompromisingly ...

1. Mysteries of Lisbon 2. City of Pirates 3. Dog's Dialouge 4. The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting 5. Mammame 6. Manoel on the Island of Wonders 7. Three Crowns of the Sailor 8. Love Torn in a Dream 9. Time Regained 10. The Territory 11. Klimt 12. Three Lives and Only One Death 13. Zig-Zag 14. Genealogies of a Crime 15. Palomita blanca 16. On Top of the Whale 17. Tres Tristes Tigres 18. Ombres chinoises 19. The Film to Come 20. Gardens Quarrels 21. Voyage of a Hand 22. The Solitudes 23. Ballet aquatique 24. Wind Water 25. Image de sable 26. La maleta

3. 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 ...

His Films ranked in order of liking: 1. Barry Lyndon 2. 2001: A Space Odyssey 3. Eyes Wide Shut 4. A Clockwork Orange 5. The Shining 6. Dr. Strangelove 7. Paths of Glory 8. The Killing 9. Full Metall Jacket 10. Spartacus 11. Lolita 12. Killer's Kiss 13. Day of the fight 14. Flying Padre 15. Fear and Desire

4. 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...

1. Fitzcarraldo 2. Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes 3. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht 4. Lektionen in Finsternis 5. Jeder für sich und Gott gegen Alle 6. Encounters at the End of the World 7. Little Dieter needs to fly 8. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans 9. Into the Abyss 10. Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski 11. Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World 12. Land des Schweigens und der Dunkelheit 13. Cave of Forgotten Dreams 14. Gasherbrum - Der leuchtende Berg 15. Die große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner 16. Grizzly Man 17. Woyzeck 18. Fata Morgana 19. Cobra Verde 20. Into the Inferno 21. La Soufrière - Warten auf eine unausweichliche Katastrophe 22. The White Diamond 23. Lebenszeichen 24. Stroszek 25. Herz aus glas 26. Invincible 27. Wo die grünen Ameisen träumen 28. Happy People: A Year in the Taiga 29. Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen 30. Werner Herzog Filmemacher 31. Julianes Sturz in den Dschungel 32. Tod für fünf Stimmen 33. Family Romance, LLC 34. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done 35. Rescue Dawn 36. From One Second to the Next 37. Wodaabe - Die Hirten der Sonne. Nomaden am Südrand der Sahara 38. Queen of the Desert 39. Glocken aus der Tiefe - Glaube und Aberglaube in Rußland 40. Wheel of Time 41. Mit mir will keiner spielen 42. Massnahmen gegen Fanatiker 43. Pilgrimage 44. Die beispiellose Verteidigung der Festung Deutschkreuz 45. La bohème 46. Letzte Worte 47. Les Français vus par: Les Gaulois 48. Herakles 49. Salt and Fire

Other films with Herzog: Plastic Bag Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe Tokyo-Ga When Herzog Rescued Phoenix The Making of 'Nosferatu'

5. 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 ...

1. The Discret Charme of the Burgeoisie 2. Belle de Jour 3. Viridiana 4. The Exterminating Angel 5. An Andalusian Dog 6. Los Olvidados 7. Nazarin 8. That Obscure Object of Desire 9. Simon of the Desert 10. El 11. The Phantom of Liberty 12. Tristana 13. The Golden Age 14. Diary of a Chambermaid 15. The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De La Cruz 16. The Milky Way 17. Fever Mounts at El Pao 18. Susana 19. Land without Bread 20. The Brute 21. Death in the Garden 22. Robinson Crusoe 23. The Young One

6. 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 (...

1. Winter Light 2. The seventh seal 3. Persona 4. Fanny and Alexander (Seen both versions - both merit this placement) 5. Through a glass darkly 6. Wild Strawberries 7. Smiles of a summer Night 8. Scenes from a mariage (Theatrical Version) 9. The virgin spring 10. The Silence 11. Cries and Whispers 12. The passion of Anna 13. The hour of the wolf 14. Sawdust and Tinsel 15. From the life of marionettes 16. The Magican 17. Autumn Sonata 18. Saraband 19. Summer Interlude 20. Shame 21. Prison 22. After the Rehearsal 23. The Magic Flute 24. Summer with Monika 25. To Joy 26. A Lesson in Love 27. Brink of Life 28. De fördömda kvinnornas dans 29. Waiting Women 30. Port of Call 31. The Rite 32. Karins ansikte 33. Face to Face 34. The Serpent's Egg

7. 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 ...

1. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 2. Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens 3. Der letzte Mann 4. Faust: Eine deutsche Volkssage 5. City Girl 6. Tabu: A Story of the South Seas 7. Der brennende Acker 8. Herr Tartüff 9. Phantom

8. Terrence Malick

Writer | Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick was born in Ottawa, Illinois. His family subsequently lived in Oklahoma and he went to school in Austin, Texas. He did his undergraduate work at Harvard, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in philosophy in 1965.

A member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, he attended Magdalen ...

1. Badlands 2. The Tree Of Life 3. Days of Heaven 4. The Thin Red Line 5. Knight of Cups 6. To the Wonder 7. The New World 8. Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience 9. A Hidden Life 10. Song to Song

9. Jacques Rivette

Director | La Belle Noiseuse

Although François Truffaut has written that the New Wave began "thanks to Rivette," the films of this masterful French director are not well known. Rivette, like his "Cahiers du Cinéma" colleagues Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Éric Rohmer, did graduate to filmmaking but, like Rohmer...

1. Celine and Julie go boating 2. Out 1: noli me tangere 3. La belle noiseuse 4. L'amour Fou 5. Duelle (une quarantaine) 6. Norôit 7. Paris Belongs to Us 8. Up, Down, Fragile 9. Don't Touch the Axe 10. Va savoir 11. The Nun 12. Le coup du berger

10. 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 ...

1. Pierrot le fou 2. Le mépris 3. À bout de souffle 4. Week End 5. Vivre Sa Vie 6. Passion 7. Sauve qui peut (la vie) 8. Tout Va Bien 9. Adieu au langage 10. Prénom Carmen 11. Histoire(s) du cinéma 12. 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle 13. Éloge de l'amour 14. Masculin Feminin 15. Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution 16. Bande à part 17. Nouvelle Vague 18. Le petit soldat 19. Le livre d'image 20. La Chinoise 21. Ici et ailleurs 22. De l'origine du XXIe siècle 23. Charlotte et Véronique, ou Tous les garçons s'appellent Patrick 24. Puissance de la parole 25. In the Darkness of Time 26. Numéro deux 27. Le Vent d'est 28. Une femme est une femme 29. Vladimir et Rosa 30. Je vous salue, Sarajevo 31. Une femme coquette 32. Une histoire d'eau 33. Charlotte et son Jules

11. 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 ...

1. Vertigo 2. Rebecca 3. Rope 4. Rear Window 5. Psycho 6. Strangers on a train 7. North by Northwest 8. Shadow of a doubt 9. Dial M for murderer 10. The 39 Steps 11. The wrong man 12. Notorius 13. Lifeboat 14. The Lady Vanishes 15. Frenzy 16. Suspicion 17. Blackmail 18. To catch a thief 19. Foreign Correspondent 20. The Lodger 21. Stage fright 22. Family Plot 23. The man who knew too much (1934) 24. Marnie 25. The Birds 26. Saboteur 27. I confess 28. Torn Curtain 29. Spellbound 30. The Trouble with Harry 31. Young and Innocent 32. Rich and Strange 33. The man who knew too much (1956) 34. Sabotage 35. Sound Test for Blackmail 36. Topaz

12. 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 ...

1. Teorema 2. Oedipus Rex 3. The Decameron 4. The Canterbury Tales 5. Hawks and Sparrows 6. Arabian Nights 7. The Gospel According to St. Matthew 8. Accattone 9. Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom 10. Medea 11. Pigsty 12. Mamma Roma

13. 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, ...

1. Madame de... 2. Letter from an unknown woman 3. Lola Montès 4. Le plaisir 5. La ronde 6. Liebelei 7. La signora di tutti 8. The Reckless Moment 9. Sans Lendemain 10. Caught 11. Die verliebte Firma 12. The Exile 13. Valse brillante de Chopin 14. Die verkaufte Braut

14. Dominik Graf

Director | Fabian oder Der Gang vor die Hunde

Dominik Graf was born on September 6, 1952 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany. He is a director and writer, known for Fabian: Going to the Dogs (2021), Dreileben (2011) and Der Felsen (2002).

1. München – Geheimnisse einer Stadt 2. Fabian oder Der Gang vor die Hunde 3. Die Freunde der Freunde 4. Der Felsen 5. Die Katze 6. Es Werde Stadt! 7. Die Sieger 8. Die Geliebten Schwestern 9. Dreileben: Komm mir nicht nach 10. Das Gelübde 11. Polizeiruf 110: Cassandras Warnung 12. Gesicht der Erinnerung 13. Verfluchte Liebe Deutscher Film 14. Offene Wunde deutscher Film 15. Polizeiruf 110: Bis Mitternacht

15. 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 ...

1. The Rules of the Game 2. A Day in the Country 3. The River 4. The Crime of Monsieur Lange 5. Boudu Saved from Drowning 6. Picnic on the Grass 7. French Cancan 8. The Great Illusion 9. La Chienne 10. The Night at the Crossroads 11. The Golden Coach 12. La Bête Humaine 13. The Little Match Girl 14. Elena and Her Men 15. Charleston Parade

16. Andrei Tarkovsky

Writer | Offret

The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which won the...

1. Andrei Rublev 2. The Sacrifice 3. Stalker 4. Solaris 5. The Mirror 6. Ivan's childhood 7. Nostalgiha 8. The Steamroller and the Violin 9. The Killers 10. There Will Be No Leave Today

17. 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 ...

and Emeric Pressburger too who worked on most of Powell's projects aswell.

1. A Canterbury Tale 2. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 3. The Red Shoes 4. A Matter of Life and Death 5. I know where I'm going 6. Peeping Tom 7. The Tales of Hoffmann 8. The Small Back Room 9. Black Narcissus 10. 49th Parallel 11. The Thief of Bagdad 12. One of Our Aircraft Is Missing 13. Gone to Earth 14. The Edge of the World 15. The Sorcerer's Apprentice

18. 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. ...

1. Metropolis 2. M 3. Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler 4. The Woman in the Window 5. Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse 6. Frau im Mond 7. Fury 8. Scarlet Street 9. Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse 10. The Big Heat 11. Das indische Grabmal 12. Der Tiger von Eschnapur 13. Die Nibelungen: Siegfrieds tod 14. Die Nibelungen: Kriemhilds Rache 15. Der müde Tod 16. Spione 17. Clash by Night 18. Ministry of Fear 19. Man Hunt 20. While the City Sleeps 21. Rancho Notorious 22. Moonfleet

19. 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 ...

1. Ninotchka 2. To Be or Not to Be 3. The Shop Around the Corner 4. Cluny Brown 5. Trouble in Paradise 6. The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg 7. The Smiling Lieutenant 8. Angel 9. Die Puppe 10. The Marriage Circle 11. Die Bergkatze 12. Design for Living 13. Heaven can Wait 14. Lady Windermere's Fan 15. Die Austernprinzessin 16. Ich möchte kein Mann sein

20. 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 ...

1. Ordet 2. La passion de Jeanne d'Arc 3. Vredens dag 4. Vampyr 5. Gertrud 6. De nåede færgen 7. Michael 8. Landsbykirken 9. Et slot i et slot: Krogen og Kronborg

21. 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 ...

1. Professione: reporter 2. Zabriskie Point 3. La notte 4. L'eclisse 5. Blowup 6. Il deserto rosso 7. L'avventura 8. Il Grido 9. Beyond the Clouds

22. 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 ...

Unrankable

23. 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 ...

1. Phantom of the Paradise 2. Carlito's Way 3. Blow Out 4. Dressed to Kill 5. Femme Fatale 6. Carrie 7. Sisters 8. Hi, Mom! 9. Body Double 10. Snake Eyes 11. The Fury 12. Obsession 13. Scarface 14. Mission Impossible 15. Passion 16. Casualities of War 17. The Untouchables 18. Raising Cain 19. Wise Guys 20. Mission to Mars 21. The Black Dahlia 22. The Bonfire of the Vanities 23. Redacted

24. Manoel de Oliveira

Director | Os Canibais

Manoel de Oliveira was born on December 11, 1908 in Oporto, Portugal. He was a director and writer, known for The Cannibals (1988), I'm Going Home (2001) and Christopher Columbus, the Enigma (2007). He was married to Maria Isabel Brandão de Meneses de Almeida Carvalhais. He died on April 2, 2015 in...

1. Abraham's Valley 2. No, or the Vain Glory of Command 3. Porto of My Childhood 4. A Caca 5. Aniki Bóbó 6. A Talking Picture 7. I'm Going Home 8. A Century of Energy 9. The Artist and the City 10. Labour on the Douro River 11. Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl 12. Chafariz das Virtudes

25. 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...

1. Berlin Alexanderplatz 2. Die Ehe der Maria Braun 3. Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss 4. Welt am Draht 5. Angst essen Seele auf 6. Der Händler der vier Jahreszeiten 7. Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant 8. Lola 9. Lili Marleen 10. In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden 11. Chinesisches Roulette 12. Fontane Effi Briest 13. Warum läuft Herr R Amok? 14. Das Kleine Chaos

26. 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 (...

1. Three Colors: Red 2. Three Colors: Blue 3. A short film about love 4. The Decalouge 5. Three Colors: White 6. The double Life of Veronique 7. Blind Chance 8. A short film about killing 9. Camera Buff 10. The Tram

The Decalouge Episodes ranked: 1. Decalouge IX 2. Decalouge VI 3. Decalouge II 4. Decalouge X 5. Decalouge III 6. Decalouge IV 7. Decalouge I 8. Decalouge V 9. Decalouge VII 10. Decalouge VIII

27. Guy Maddin

Director | The Heart of the World

Guy Maddin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Herdis Maddin (a hair-dresser) and Charles "Chas" Maddin (grain clerk and general manager of the Maroons, a Winnipeg hockey team). Maddin studied economics at the University of Winnipeg, working as a bank manager, house painter, and photographic...

Guy is prominent in both shorts and features and it's hard to rank them together:

Features: 1. My Winnipeg 2. The Saddest Music in the World 3. Brand Upon the Brain! A Remembrance in 12 Chapters 4. The Forbidden Room 5. Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary 6. Cowards Bend the Knee or The Blue Hands 7. Careful 8. Tales from the Gimli Hospital 9. The Green Fog

Shorts: 1. The Heart of the World 2. Odilon Redon or The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity 3. My Dad Is 100 Years Old 4. Sissy Boy Slap Party 5. Night Mayor 6. Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair 7. Sombre Dolorosa 8. Odin's Shield Maiden 9. Nude Caboose 10. Stump the Guesser 11. Hospital Fragment 12. Elms 13. Spanky: To the Pier and Back 14. It's a Wonderful Life: Sparklehorse 15. A Trip to the Orphanage 16. Colours 17. Footsteps 18. The Little White Cloud That Cried

Impossible to rank (is this even a movie anymore?): Seances

28. Jacques Tourneur

Director | Cat People

Born in Paris in 1904, Tourneur went to Hollywood with his father, director Maurice Tourneur around 1913. He started out as a script clerk and editor for his father, then graduated to such jobs as directing shorts (often with the pseudonym Jack Turner), both in France and America. He was hired to ...

1. I Walked with a Zombie 2. Cat People 3. Anne of the Indies 4. Canyon Passage 5. Night of the Demon 6. The Leopard Man 7. Out of the Past

29. 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 ...

1. Voyage in Italy 2. The Flowers of St. Francis 3. Stromboli 4. Germany Year Zero 5. India: Matri Bhumi 6. Paisà 7. The Taking of Power by Louis XIV 8. Rome, open City 9. Europe '51

30. 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 ...

1. Murmur of the Heart 2. Elevator to the Gallows 3. Le feu follet 4. My Dinner with Andre 5. Lacombe Lucien 6. Atlantic City 7. Vanya on 42nd Street 8. Au revoir les enfants 9. Black Moon 10. Les amants 11. Pretty Baby 12. Crazeologie

31. Olivier Assayas

Writer | Personal Shopper

Olivier Assayas is a French film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is best know for his films Demonlover (2002), Something in the Air (2012), Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) and Personal Shopper (2016).

Assayas is the son of French director/screenwriter Raymond Assayas, alias Jacques Rémy.

His ...

1. L'heure d'été 2. Demonlover 3. Irma Vep 4. Carlos 5. Personal Shopper 6. Late August, Early September 7. Non-Fiction 8. Clouds of Sils Maria

32. 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 ...

1. Dogville 2. Nymph()maniac (the whole bloody 5 and a half hour affair) 3. Melancholia 4. Europa 5. Breaking the Waves 6. Dancer in the Dark 7. De fem benspænd 8. Antichrist 9. Medea 10. Riget I 11. Idioterne 12. Epidemic 13. The House that Jack Built 14. The Element of Crime 15. Nocturne 16. Turen til Squashland 17. Hvorfor flygte fra det du ved du ikke kan flygte fra? Fordi du er en kujon 18. En blomst

33. 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 ...

1. Citizen Kane 2. The Other Side of the Wind 3. The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice 4. The Lady from Shanghai 5. The Magnificent Ambersons 6. F for Fake 7. The Trial 8. Touch of Evil 9. Chimes at Midnight 10. The Stranger 11. Mr. Arkadin 12. The Hearts of Age

34. Buster Keaton

Actor | The General

Joseph Frank Keaton was born on October 4, 1895 in Piqua, Kansas, to Joe Keaton and Myra Keaton. Joe and Myra were Vaudevillian comedians with a popular, ever-changing variety act, giving Keaton an eclectic and interesting upbringing. In the earliest days on stage, they traveled with a medicine ...

1. Sherlock Jr. 2. Steamboat Bill, Jr. 3. The General 4. Seven Chances 5. Our Hospitality 6. The Cameraman 7. The Navigator 8. Cops 9. One Week 10. The Goat 11. Neighbors 12. The High Sign 13. The Playhouse 14. The Scarecrow 15. Spite Marriage 16. The Haunted House 17. The Electric House 18. The Railrodder 19. Hard Luck 20 Three Ages 21. College 22. The Boat

35. 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 ...

1. The Naked Kiss 2. Underworld U.S.A. 3. White Dog 4. Pickup on South Street 5. Shock Corridor 6. Forty Guns 7. The Big Red One 8. The Steel Helmet

36. 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...

1. U.S. Go Home 2. Trouble Every Day 3. High Life 4. Beau Travail 5. 35 Shots of Rum 6. White Material 7. The Intruder 8. Chocolat 9. Let the Sunshine In

37. Mario Bava

Cinematographer | Ecologia del delitto

Italian director Mario Bava was born on July 31, 1914 in the coastal northern Italian town of Sanremo. His father, Eugenio Bava (1886-1966), was a cinematographer in the early days of the Italian film industry. Bava was trained as a painter, and when he eventually followed his father into film ...

1. Black Sabbath 2. Blood and Black Lace 3. The Girl who knew too much 4. Lisa and the Devil 5. The Whip and the Body 6. Rabid Dogs 7. Black Sunday 8. Bay of Blood 9. Kill baby, Kill 10. Danger: Diabolik 11. Hatchet for the Honeymoon 12. Shock 13. Planet of the Vampires

38. 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, ...

1. Imitation of Life 2. All That Heaven Allows 3. Written on the Wind 4. The Tarnished Angels 5. A Time to Love and a Time to Die 6. Magnificent Obsession

39. Danièle Huillet

Director | Sicilia!

Danièle Huillet was born on May 1, 1936 in Paris, France. She was a director and editor, known for Sicily! (1999), Class Relations (1984) and The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968). She was married to Jean-Marie Straub. She died on October 9, 2006 in Cholet, Maine-et-Loire, France.

and her husband Jean-Marie Straub

1. Zu Früh / Zu Spät 2. Moses und Aron 3. Nicht versöhnt oder Es hilft nur Gewalt wo Gewalt herrscht 4. Eyes do not want to see at all times... 5. Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach 6. Der Bräutigam, die Komödiantin und der Zuhälter 7. Klassenverhältnisse 8. Sicilia! 9. Dalla nube alla resistenza 10. En Rachachant 11. Machorka-Muff 12. Einleitung zu Arnold Schoenbergs Begleitmusik zu einer Lichtspielscene 13. La France contre les robots 14. Toute révolution est un coup de dés

40. Chris Marker

Writer | 12 Monkeys

Chris Marker was born on July 29, 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a writer and director, known for 12 Monkeys (1995), Sans Soleil (1983) and Third Side of the Coin (1960). He died on July 29, 2012 in Paris, France.

1. La jetée 2. Sans Soleil 3. A Grin Without a Cat 4. Statues also die 5. Junkopia 6. Owl Gets in Your Eyes 7. Chat écoutant la musique 8. Tchaïka 9. Leila Attacks 10. An owl is an owl 11. Petite ceinture 12. Kino

41. 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 ...

1. Lawrence of Arabia 2. The Bridge on the River Kwai 3. Ryan's Daughter 4. Doctor Shivago 5. Brief Encounter 6. A Passage to India 7. Great Expectations 8. Summertime 9. Hobson's Choice

42. 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 ...

1. Sansho the Bailiff 2. Ugetsu monogatari 3. Chikamatsu monogatari 4. Yôkihi 5. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums 6. The Life of Oharu

43. Wim Wenders

Director | Der Himmel über Berlin

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

1. Der Himmel Über Berlin 2. Paris, Texas 3. Der amerikanische Freund 4. Alice in den Städten 5. Bis ans Ende der Welt (4,5 hours director's cut) 6. In weiter Ferne, so nah! 7. Im Lauf der Zeit 8. The State of Things 9. Tokyo-Ga 10. Beyond the Clouds 11. Un matin partout dans le monde

44. 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 ...

1. The Leopard 2. Ludwig 3. The Damned 4. Death in Venice 5. Senso 6. Rocco and his brothers 7. Ossessione 8. La Terra Trema 9. White Nights

45. Stan Brakhage

Director | The Loom

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

Unrankable

46. 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 ...

1. Taxi Driver 2. Goodfellas 3. The Last Temptation of Christ 4. The Irishman 5. After Hours 6. Raging Bull 7. Mean Streets 8. Silence 9. The Age of Innocence 10. Casino 11. The King of Comedy 12. Shutter Island 13. The Wolf of Wall Street 14. The Departed 15. A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies 16. Cape Fear 17. New York New York 18. Hugo 19. The Aviator 20. The Big Shave 21. Gangs of New York 22. The Key to Reserva

47. 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, ...

1. Raiders of The Lost Ark 2. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade 3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 4. Jaws 5. A.I. 6. Jurassic Park 7. Saving Private Ryan 8. Munich 9. Schindlers List 10. Minority Report 11. The Terminal 12. Duell 13. Catch Me If You Can 14. Close Encounters of the Third Kind 15. Ready Player One 16. E.T. 17. Sugarland Express 18. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the crystal skull 19. War of the Worlds 20. The Adventures of Tintin 21. The Lost World: Jurassic Park 22. Bridge of Spies 23. Lincoln

48. 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 ...

1. Johnny Guitar 2. Bigger Than Life 3. In a Lonely Place 4. Rebel Without a Cause 5. They Live by Night 6. The Lusty Men

49. Richard Linklater

Director | Waking Life

Self-taught writer-director Richard Stuart Linklater was born in Houston, Texas, to Diane Margaret (Krieger), who taught at a university, and Charles W. Linklater III. Richard was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. ...

1. Before Sunset 2. Before Sunrise 3. Boyhood 4. Before Midnight 5. Dazed and Confused 6. Waking Life 7. Tape 8. School of Rock 9. Bernie 10. Slacker 11. A Scanner Darkly 12. Everybody Wants Some

50. 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 ...

1. Le samouraï 2. L'armée des ombres 3. Le doulos 4. Le cercle rouge 5. Bob le flambeur 6. Le deuxième souffle 7. Leon Morin, Priest 8. Un flic 9. Le Silence de la Mer

51. Nicolas Roeg

Director | Don't Look Now

When he made his directorial debut in 1970, Nicolas Roeg was already a 23-year veteran of the British film industry, starting out in 1947 as an editing apprentice and working his way up to cinematographer twelve years later. He first came to attention as part of the second unit on David Lean's ...

1. Walkabout 2. Bad Tming 3. Performance 4. Don't Look Now 5. The Man Who Fell to Earth

52. 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 ...

1. Die freudlose Gasse 2. Die Dreigroschenoper 3. Kameradschaft 4. Die Büchse der Pandora 5. Tagebuch einer Verlorenen 6. Westfront 1918

53. 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,...

1. The Man Who Would Be King 2. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 3. The Dead 4. The Misfits 5. The Asphalt Jungle 6. The Maltese Falcon 7. The African Queen

54. 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...

1. Bringing Up Baby 2. Only Angels Have Wings 3. Scarface 4. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 5. Red River 6. To Have and Have Not 7. Rio Bravo 8. El Dorado 9. His Girl Friday 10. Hatari! 11. The Big Sleep 12. The Thing from Another World

55. 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 ...

1. Edvard Munch 2. La Commune (Paris, 1871) 3. War Game 4. Culloden 5. Punishment Park

56. George Lucas

Writer | Star Wars

George Walton Lucas, Jr. was raised on a walnut ranch in Modesto, California. His father was a stationery store owner and he had three siblings. During his late teen years, he went to Thomas Downey High School and was very much interested in drag racing. He planned to become a professional racecar ...

1. Star Wars 2. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith 3. American Graffiti 4. THX 1138 5. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones 6. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

57. Maurice Pialat

Director | À nos amours

Maurice Pialat was a French film director. Film critics have noted the naturalist style of his films, and their autobiographical elements.

Pialat obtained his first camera when only 16-years-old, but his early career involved creating documentary short films. His ambition was to become a painter and...

1. La Maison des Bois 2. À nos amours 3. We Won’t Grow Old Together 4. Van Gogh 5. Loulou 6. Graduate First 7. L'enfance nue 8. Sous le soleil de Satan 9. L'amour existe

58. Helmut Käutner

Director | Der Hauptmann von Köpenick

Helmut Käutner was born on March 25, 1908 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for The Captain from Köpenick (1956), The Last Bridge (1954) and The Rest Is Silence (1959). He was married to Erica Balqué. He died on April 20, 1980 in Castellina in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy.

1. Große Freiheit Nr. 7 2. Unter den Brücken 3. Schwarzer Kies 4. Romanze in Moll 5. Wir machen Musik 6. Der Apfel ist ab 7. Der Hauptmann von Köpenick

59. Victor Sjöström

Actor | Smultronstället

Victor Sjöström was born on September 20, 1879, and is the undisputed father of Swedish film, ranking as one of the masters of world cinema. His influence lives on in the work of Ingmar Bergman and all those directors, both Swedish and international, influenced by his work and the works of ...

1. The Wind 2. The Phantom Carriage 3. Terje Vigen 4. He Who Gets Slapped 5. The Scarlet Letter 6. Berg-Ejvind och hans hustru 7. Klostret i Sendomir

60. Erich von Stroheim

Actor | Sunset Blvd.

Erich von Stroheim was born Erich Oswald Stroheim in 1885, in Vienna, Austria, to Johanna (Bondy), from Prague, and Benno Stroheim, a hatter from Gleiwitz, Germany (now Gliwice, Poland). His family was Jewish.

After spending some time working in his father's hat factory, he emigrated to America ...

1. Greed 2. The Wedding March 3. Foolish Wives 4. Blind Husbands

61. Christian Petzold

Director | Barbara

Christian Petzold was born in Hilden in 1960. After studying German and Drama at the Freie Universität Berlin, he enrolled in Berlin's German Academy for Film and Television (DFFB). There he studied film direction while at same time working as an assistant director to Harun Farocki and Hartmut ...

1. Transit 2. Die innere Sicherheit 3. Phoenix 4. Jerichow 5. Barbara 6. Gespenster 7. Yella 8. Undine 9. Polizeiruf 110: Tatorte 10. Polizeiruf 110: Wölfe 11. Pilotinnen 12. Süden 13. Ostwärts

62. Jean Eustache

Editor | La maman et la putain

Jean Eustache was born on November 30, 1938 in Pessac, Gironde, France. He was an editor and director, known for The Mother and the Whore (1973), My Little Loves (1974) and Les photos d'Alix (1982). He died on November 3, 1981 in Paris, France.

1. Mes petites amoureuses 2. La maman et la putain 3. Le Père Noël a les yeux bleus

63. 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 ...

1. Modern Times 2. The Goldrush 3. The Great Dictator 4. City Lights 5. Limelight 6. The Kid 7. Easy Street 8. The Circus 9. The Immigrant 10. Monsieur Verdoux 11. A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate 12. A Dog's Life 13. The Pilgrim 14. Making a Living 15. Shoulder Arms

64. 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 ...

1. Mulholland Dr. 2. Blue Velvet 3. Lost Highway 4. The Elephant Man 5. Eraserhead 6. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me 7. The Straight Story 8. Inland Empire 9. Lady Blue Shanghai 10. The 3 Rs 11. Wild at Heart 12. The Alphabet 13. Absurd Encounter with Fear 14. Dune

65. 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.

1. Vagabond 2. Cléo from 5 to 7 3. Le Bonheur 4. The Gleaners & I 5. La Pointe-Courte 6. Les Plages d'Agnès 7. Black Panthers 8. Plaisir d'amour en Iran 9. Réponse de femmes : Notre corps, notre sexe 10. T'as de beaux escaliers, tu sais

66. 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...

1. Dead Ringers 2. Videodrome 3. Crash 4. The Fly 5. Eastern Promises 6. eXistenZ 7. Maps to the Stars 8. A History of Violence 9. The Brood 10. The Dead Zone 11. Naked Lunch

67. Claude Chabrol

Director | Le beau Serge

Claude Chabrol was born on June 24, 1930 in Paris, France. He was a director and writer, known for Le Beau Serge (1958), La Cérémonie (1995) and Story of Women (1988). He was married to Aurore Chabrol, Stéphane Audran and Agnès Goute. He died on September 12, 2010 in Paris, France.

1. The Butcher 2. The Unfaithful Wife 3. Les Biches 4. The Good Time Girls 5. A Story of Women 6. Merci pour le Chocolat 7. Hell 8. Les Cousins 9. The Beast Must Die 10. A Girl Cut in Two 11. Alice or the Last Escapade 12. Le Beau Serge 13. Dirty Hands 14. La Cérémonie 15. Just Before Nightfall 16. La rupture 17. Wedding in Blood 18. Inspecteur Lavardin

68. 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 ...

1. The Docks of New York 2. Anatahan 3. Underworld 4. The Scarlet Empress 5. Morocco 6. The Salvation Hunters 7. Der Blaue Engel 8. Shanghai Express 9. The Last Command 10. The Blonde Venus (11. It)

69. 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 ...

1. Stolen Kisses 2. Two English Girls 3. Jules et Jim 4. The Wild Child 5. Shoot the Piano Player 6. Day for Night 7. The Last Metro 8. Fahrenheit 451 9. The Bride Wore Black 10. Bed and Board 11. The 400 Blows 12. Mississippi Mermaid 13. The Mischief Makers 14. The Woman Next Door 15. Antoine et Colette 16. A Story of Water

70. 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...

1. Rashomon 2. High and Low 3. Throne of Blood 4. Drunken Angel 5. The Seven Samurai 6. Ran 7. The Bad Sleep Well 8. Yojimbo 9. Red Beard 10 Kagemusha 11. Stray Dog 12. Dersu Uzala 13. The Hidden Fortress 14. Ikiru 15. Sanjuro 16. Dodes'ka-den

71. 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 ...

1. An Autumn Afternoon 2. I Was Born, But... 3. Early Summer 4. Late Spring 5. The Only Son 6. Ohayo 7. Floating Weeds 8. The Equinox Flower 9. Tokyo Story

72. Roman Polanski

Director | Chinatown

Roman Polanski is a Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few truly international filmmakers. Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933.

His parents returned to Poland from France in 1936, three years ...

1. Chinatown 2. Repulsion 3. Cul de Sac 4. The Tenant 5. Frantic 6. Carnage 7. Venus in Fur 8. The Knife in the Water 9. The Pianist 10. Rosemarie's Baby 11. Dance of the Vampires 12. The Ghost Writer 13. The Ninth Gate

73. Jacques Tati

Writer | Playtime

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

1. Playtime 2. Mr. Hulot's Holiday 3. Mon Oncle 4. Jour de fête 5. Traffic

74. Satoshi Kon

Writer | Tôkyô goddofâzâzu

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

1. Paprika 2. Perfect Blue 3. Millennium Actress 4. Tokyo Godfathers 5. Ohayo (Good Morning)

75. Sergio Leone

Writer | Once Upon a Time in America

Sergio Leone was virtually born into the cinema - he was the son of Roberto Roberti (A.K.A. Vincenzo Leone), one of Italy's cinema pioneers, and actress Bice Valerian. Leone entered films in his late teens, working as an assistant director to both Italian directors and U.S. directors working in ...

1. Once upon a time in america 2. Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo. 3. Per un pugno di dollari 4. Per qualche dollaro in più 5. C'era una volta il West 6. Giù la testa

76. Jean Cocteau

Writer | La Belle et la Bête

Jean Cocteau was one of the most multi-talented artists of the 20th century. In addition to being a director, he was a poet, novelist, painter, playwright, set designer, and actor. He began writing at 10 and was a published poet by age 16. He collaborated with the "Russian Ballet" company of Sergei...

1. Orphée 2. Le sang d'un poète 3. La belle et la bête

77. 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 ...

1. The Bad and the Beautiful 2. Meet Me in St. Louis 3. Some Came Running 4. The Band Wagon 5. An American in Paris

78. Sam Raimi

Director | Spider-Man

Highly inventive U.S. film director/producer/writer/actor Sam Raimi first came to the attention of film fans with the savage, yet darkly humorous, low-budget horror film, The Evil Dead (1981). From his childhood, Raimi was a fan of the cinema and, before he was ten-years-old, he was out making ...

1. Spiderman 2 2. Spiderman 3. Evil Dead II 4. Spiderman 3 5. Army of Darkness 6. Drag me to Hell 7. Evil Dead 8. Darkman

79. 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 ...

1. The Godfather Part II 2. Apocalypse Now 3. The Godfather 4. One from the Heart 5. The Godfather Part III 6. The Conversation 7. Bram Stoker's Dracula 8. Rumble Fish 9. Youth without Youth

80. 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). ...

1. Opening Night 2. Shadows 3. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie 4. Love Streams 5. A Woman Under the Influence 6. Faces 7. Husbands

81. Peter Weir

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

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

1. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World 2. Picnic at Hanging Rock 3. Wittness 4. Dead Poets Society 5. The Truman Show 6. The Mosquito Coast

82. Joris Ivens

Director | La Seine a rencontré Paris

Joris Ivens was born on November 18, 1898 in Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands. He was a director and writer, known for La Seine a rencontré Paris (1957), The Mistral (1966) and A Tale of the Wind (1988). He was married to Marceline Loridan Ivens, Helen van Dongen and Germaine Krull. He died...

1. Regen 2. Une histoire de vent 3. La Seine a rencontré Paris 4. ...A Valparaíso 5. De brug 6. Études de mouvements

83. 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, ...

1. Last Year at Marienbad 2. Hiroshima, mon amour 3. Mon oncle d'Amérique 4. Night and Fog 5. Toute la mémoire du monde 6. Providence 7. Muriel, ou le Temps d'un retour 8. Statues also die 9. Van Gogh

84. 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 ...

1. A Streetcar Named Desire 2. Splendor in the Grass 3. On the Waterfront 4. East of Eden 5. A Face in the Crowd

85. 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...

1. Inherent Vice 2. Boogie Nights 3. Magnolia 4. There Will be Blood 5. The Master 6. Punch-Drunk Love 7. Phantom Thread 8. Licorice Pizza 9. Sydney 10. Radiohead: Daydreaming

86. Jean Vigo

Writer | Zéro de conduite : Jeunes diables au collège

Jean Vigo had bad health since he was a child. Son of anarchist militant Miguel Almareyda, he also never really recovered from his father's mysterious death in jail when he was 12. Abandoned by his mother, he passed from boarding school to boarding school. Aged 23, through meetings with people ...

1. L'Atalante 2. À propos de Nice 3. Zéro de conduite: Jeunes diables au collège 4. Taris, roi de l'eau

87. Don Bluth

Director | Anastasia

Don Bluth was one of the chief animators at Disney to come to the mantle after the great one's death. He eventually became the animation director for such films as The Rescuers (1977) and Pete's Dragon (1977). Unfortunately, the quality of animation that Disney was producing at this point was not ...

1. The Land Before Time 2. The Secret of NIMH 3. Titan A.E. 4. All Dogs go to Heaven 5. Anastasia 6. The Small One 7. An American Tail 8. The Pebble and the Penguin 9. A Troll in Central Park

88. Alexander Kluge

Director | Abschied von gestern - (Anita G.)

Writer. Director. Producer. Studied law and graduated. Was one of the founders of the Oberhausener Manifest in 1962. Since 1962 Headmaster of the 'Institut fuer Filmgestaltung' at the 'Hochschule fuer Gestaltung' in Ulm, Germany. Since 1988 produces broadcastings dealing with cultural aspects in ...

1. Abschied von gestern 2. Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: ratlos 3. Orphea 4. Brutalität in Stein

89. Andrzej Zulawski

Writer | Possession

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

1. Possession 2. On the Silver Globe 3. La fidélité

90. Paul Verhoeven

Director | RoboCop

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

1. Zwartboek 2. Elle 3. Starship Troopers 4. Benedetta 5. Total Recall 6. Robocop 7. Showgirls 8. Basic Instinct

91. Christopher Nolan

Writer | Tenet

Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear, storytelling, acclaimed Academy Award winner writer/director/producer Sir Christopher Nolan CBE was born in London, England. Over the course of more than 25 years of filmmaking, Nolan has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the ...

1. Inception 2. Memento 3. Interstellar 4. Oppenheimer 5. Dunkirk 6. Tenet 7. The Prestige 8. Insomnia 9. The Dark Knight 10. The Following 11. Batman Begins 12. Doodlebug 13. The Dark Knight Rises 14. Quay

92. 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 ...

1. Accident 2. The Go Between 3. The Prowler 4. The Servant

93. 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 ...

1. La dolce Vita 2. 8 1/2 3. Amarcord 4. La Strada 5. I vitelloni 6. Roma 7. Giulietta degli spiriti 8. Satyricon 9. Le notti di Cabiria

94. James Benning

Director | RR

James Benning was born on December 28, 1942 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. He is a director and editor, known for RR (2007), 13 Lakes (2004) and Casting a Glance (2007).

1. 13 Lakes 2. Landscape Suicide 3. One Way Boogie Woogie 4. I-94

95. 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 ...

1. It's a wonderfull Life 2. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 3. Lost Horizon 4. It happened one night 5. Arsenic and old lace 6. Meet John Doe

96. 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 ...

1. Les Diaboliques 2. Le salaire de la peur 3. Le Corbeau 4. L'enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot 5. Quai des Orfèvres

(The documentary is not directed by Clouzot himself but included because he directed the film it's about and most of the documentary consists of various takes made for the film)

97. 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 ...

1. The Thing 2. Dark Star 3. Halloween 4. The Fog 5. Escape from New York 6. Prince of Darkness 7. Assault on Precinct 13 8. Big Trouble in Little China 9. In the Mouth of Madness 10. They Live 11. Escape from L.A.

98. Louis Feuillade

Director | Les vampires

A prolific director--over 700 films, most of them short- or medium-length--Louis Feuillade began his career with Gaumont where, as well as directing his own features, he was appointed artistic director in charge of production in 1907. His work was largely comprised of film series; his first series,...

1. Les Vampires 2. Fantômas

99. Abbas Kiarostami

Writer | Copie conforme

Abbas Kiarostami was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1940. He graduated from university with a degree in fine arts before starting work as a graphic designer. He then joined the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, where he started a film section, and this started his career ...

1. Close Up 2. And Life Goes On 3. Through the Olive Trees 4. Certified Copy 5. Taste of Cherry 6. Where is the Friend's Home? 7. The Wind Will Carry Us 8. Like Someone in Love

100. 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 ...

1. Antonias das Mortes 2. Black God and White Devil 3. Entranced Earth