My Top 160 Filmmakers

1. Steven Spielberg

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, ...

2. Antoine Fuqua

Producer | The Magnificent Seven

Antoine Fuqua is an American film director, known for his work in the film Training Day as well as The Replacement Killers, Tears of the Sun, King Arthur, Shooter, Brooklyn's Finest, Olympus Has Fallen and The Equalizer.

He has directed music videos for such artists as Arrested Development, Prince, ...

3. 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 ...

4. Costa-Gavras

Director | Z

Costa-Gavras was born on February 12, 1933 in Loutra-Iraias, Greece. He is a director and writer, known for Z (1969), Missing (1982) and Amen. (2002). He has been married to Michèle Ray-Gavras since 1968. They have two children.

5. Denis Villeneuve

Director | Dune

Denis Villeneuve is a French Canadian film director and writer. He was born in 1967, in Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada. He started his career as a filmmaker at the National Film Board of Canada. He is best known for his feature films Arrival (2016), Sicario (2015), Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), ...

6. 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 ...

7. David Ayer

Producer | End of Watch

David Ayer is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. David Ayer was born in Champaign, Illinois and grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Bethesda, Maryland, where he was kicked out of his house by his parents as a teenager. Ayer then lived with his cousin in Los Angeles, ...

8. 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 ...

9. Paul Schrader

Writer | First Reformed

Although his name is often linked to that of the "movie brat" generation (Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Brian De Palma, etc.) Paul Schrader's background couldn't have been more different than theirs. His strict Calvinist parents refused to allow him to see a...

10. 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 ...

11. 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...

12. 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...

13. Larry Cohen

Writer | God Told Me To

Larry Cohen was born July 15, 1936, in New York, New York, and spent time in Kingston, a small town north of New York City. At a young age, his family moved to the Riverdale section of the Bronx, and he eventually majored in film at the historic City College of New York, from which he graduated in ...

14. 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 ...

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 ...

16. 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 ...

17. John McTiernan

Director | Die Hard

John McTiernan was born on January 8, 1951 in Albany, New York, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Die Hard (1988), Rollerball (2002) and Last Action Hero (1993). He has been married to Gail Sistrunk since 2012. He was previously married to Kate Harrington, Donna Dubrow and Carol Land.

18. Dario Argento

Writer | Profondo rosso

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

19. Nicholas Meyer

Writer | Time After Time

Nicholas Meyer was born in New York City, the son of a psychoanalyst and a concert pianist. He attended the University of Iowa, home of the famous Writers Workshop.

Meyer's award-winning teleplays for ABC's JUDGE DEE & MONASTERY MURDERS and CBS's NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA launched his ...

20. Johnnie To

Director | Hak se wooi

With over thirty directing and producing credits to his name, Johnnie To enjoyed international breakthroughs with Election (2005), Election 2 (2006) (aka "Triad Election") and Exiled (2006); those films enjoyed multiple international film festival appearances and were separately sold to more than ...

21. Joel Schumacher

Director | The Phantom of the Opera

Joel Schumacher was an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and fashion designer from New York City. He rose to fame in the 1980s for directing the coming-of-age drama "St. Elmo's Fire" (1985), and the vampire-themed horror film "The Lost Boys" (1987). In the 1990s, he worked on two ...

22. 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 ...

23. John Singleton

Writer | Boyz n the Hood

Son of Danny Singleton, a mortgage broker, and Sheila Ward, a pharmaceutical company sales executive, and raised in separate households by his unmarried parents, John Singleton attended the Film Writing Program at USC, after graduating from high school in 1986. While studying there, he won three ...

24. 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 ...

25. Tony Scott

Producer | Domino

Tony Scott was a British-born film director and producer. He was the youngest of three brothers, one of whom is fellow film director Ridley Scott. He was born in North Shields, Northumberland, England to parents Jean and Colonel Francis Percy Scott. As a result of his father's career in the British...

26. Paul Greengrass

Director | United 93

Paul Greengrass started his filmmaking career with a super 8 camera he found in his art room in secondary school. Those short movies were animation horror films he made using old dolls, artist dummies, and the general art room clutter.

After studying in Cambridge University he got into Granada ...

27. Peter Berg

Actor | Chicago Hope

Peter Berg is an American actor, director, writer, and producer. His first role was in the Adam Rifkin road movie Never on Tuesday (1988). He went on to star in the World War 2 film A Midnight Clear (1992). Roles in Fire in the Sky (1993) and Cop Land (1997) followed, and the Tom Cruise films ...

28. John Sayles

Writer | Lone Star

A bright child, John Sayles began reading novels before age 9. A Williams College grad in 1972, he shunned a corporate career to work various blue-collar jobs, moving to east Boston to take a factory job. He wrote stories and submitted them to various magazines, and the Atlantic Monthly gave him ...

29. Terry Gilliam

Writer | Brazil

Terry Gilliam was born near Medicine Lake, Minnesota. When he was 12 his family moved to Los Angeles where he became a fan of MAD magazine. In his early twenties he was often stopped by the police who suspected him of being a drug addict and Gilliam had to explain that he worked in advertising. In ...

30. 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). ...

31. Roger Donaldson

Director | The World's Fastest Indian

Roger Donaldson was born on November 15, 1945 in Ballarat, Australia. He is a director and producer, known for The World's Fastest Indian (2005), No Way Out (1987) and Species (1995). He is married to Marliese Schneider. He was previously married to Susan Hockley.

32. Bruce Beresford

Director | Driving Miss Daisy

Bruce Beresford was born in Australia and graduated from Sydney University in 1962. He served as Film Officer for the British Film Institute Production Board from 1966-1971 and as a Film Advisor to the Arts Council of Great Britain. Beresford has also directed several operas including Girl Of The ...

33. Anthony Minghella

Writer | The Talented Mr. Ripley

Anthony Minghella was the son of immigrants from Italy, who own an ice-cream factory on the Isle of Wight, where Anthony was born on January 6, 1954. He and his two siblings, Edana Minghella and Dominic Minghella, grew up there, a popular British holiday spot. After graduating from the University of...

34. Robert Towne

Writer | Chinatown

Writer, director, producer, actor. Born in Los Angeles, California, USA, and raised in the seaport town of San Pedro. Got his start acting and writing for legendary exploitation director/producer Roger Corman. Came into his own during the 1970s when he was regarded as one of the finest ...

35. Joe Dante

Director | Innerspace

Joe Dante is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art. After a stint as a film reviewer, he began his filmmaking apprenticeship in 1974 as trailer editor for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. He made his directorial debut in 1976 with Hollywood Boulevard (1976) (co-directed with Allan Arkush)...

36. Christopher McQuarrie

Writer | The Usual Suspects

Christopher McQuarrie is an acclaimed producer, director and an Academy Award® winning writer. McQuarrie grew up in Princeton Junction, New Jersey and in lieu of college, he spent the first five years out of school traveling and working at a detective agency. He later moved to Los Angeles to pursue...

37. Lawrence Kasdan

Writer | The Big Chill

Lawrence Kasdan is an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. He directed Body Heat, Grand Canyon, The Big Chill, Silverado and Dreamcatcher. He wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Bodyguard, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens and Solo: A Star Wars Story. He is ...

38. 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.

39. Milos Forman

Director | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Milos Forman was born Jan Tomas Forman in Caslav, Czechoslovakia, to Anna (Svabova), who ran a summer hotel, and Rudolf Forman, a professor. During World War II, his parents were taken away by the Nazis, after being accused of participating in the underground resistance. His father died in ...

40. Tony Gilroy

Writer | Michael Clayton

Tony Gilroy was born in Manhattan, New York, New York, USA; and raised in upstate New York. His father, Frank D. Gilroy, was a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, director, and screenwriter. Tony has penned many films, including The Devil's Advocate (1997) and The Cutting Edge (1992).

41. Jesse V. Johnson

Director | Avengement

Jesse V. Johnson was born on November 29, 1971 in Winchester, England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Avengement (2019), Hell Hath No Fury (2021) and Debt Collectors (2020). He was previously married to Jamie Johnson.

42. Isaac Florentine

Assistant_director | The Legend of Hercules

Adored by his fans for many years Isaac Florentine has built up his excellent reputation within the movie business. At first attracting the action movie fans, Isaac moved into the mainstream with New Line's release Undisputed II: Last man standing. The film received rave reviews not only for its ...

43. 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...

44. Jim Wynorski

Director | The Lost Empire

A 25-year veteran in the Hollywood exploitation field, writer/producer/director Jim Wynorski is responsible for over 150 varied motion pictures in a myriad of genres. Leaving behind a successful commercial business in New York, Wynorski relocated to California in 1980 and soon found himself on the ...

45. Charles Band

Producer | Puppet Master

Charles Band is a writer, producer, director and publisher. He was born on December 27, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, as Charles Robert Band. His father was producer and director Albert Band and his brother is composer Richard Band.

Band has been writing, producing and directing films in the ...

46. Fred Olen Ray

Director | Hatfields and McCoys: Bad Blood

Fred Olen Ray spent most of his childhood in Florida, where he was always a fan of horror movies on TV. He collected autographs of many of the actors in those films where he met Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. His early career was filled with low-budget horror and science-fiction films, but the ...

47. Michael Bay

Producer | Armageddon

A graduate of Wesleyan University, Michael Bay spent his 20s working on advertisements and music videos. His first projects after film school were in the music video business. He created music videos for Tina Turner, Meat Loaf, Lionel Richie, Wilson Phillips, Donny Osmond and Divinyls. His work won...

48. James Cameron

Writer | Avatar: The Way of Water

James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his ...

49. Norman Jewison

Director | Jesus Christ Superstar

Norman Jewison was an award-winning, internationally acclaimed filmmaker who produced and directed some of the world's most memorable, entertaining and socially important films, exploring controversial and complicated subjects and giving them a universal accessibility. Some of his most well-known ...

50. Sydney Pollack

Director | Tootsie

Sydney Pollack was an Academy Award-winning director, producer, actor, writer and public figure, who directed and produced over 40 films.

Sydney Irwin Pollack was born July 1, 1934 in Lafayette, Indiana, USA, to Rebecca (Miller), a homemaker, and David Pollack, a professional boxer turned pharmacist...

51. Stephen Frears

Director | Dangerous Liaisons

Stephen started off in a career in the legal profession before switching to work as an assistant stage manager at London's Royal Court which led to work as an assistant director on films by Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson He directed his first short in 1967 and his feature debut, Gumshoe, in 1971....

52. Alan J. Pakula

Producer | Sophie's Choice

Alan J. Pakula was an American film director, writer and producer. He was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Best Director for All the President's Men (1976) and Best Adapted Screenplay for Sophie's Choice (1982).

He also directed Presumed Innocent (...

53. Nelson McCormick

Director | The Stepfather

Nelson McCormick is a DGA award-nominated director best known for his work on critically acclaimed television series such as Showtime's HOMELAND, HBO's LOVECRAFT COUNTRY and Amazon's HUNTERS starring Al Pacino. Other credits include 24, THE WEST WING, THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, and the Marvel/...

54. Mimi Leder

Producer | The Morning Show

Mimi Leder was born on January 26, 1952 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a producer and director, known for The Morning Show (2019), On the Basis of Sex (2018) and Deep Impact (1998). She has been married to Gary Werntz since January 26, 1986. They have one child. She was previously married ...

55. Jon Cassar

Producer | 24

Jon Cassar was born on April 27, 1958 in Malta. He is a producer and director, known for 24 (2001), Forsaken (2015) and When the Bough Breaks (2016).

56. Jan de Bont

Director | Speed

Jan de Bont was one of 17 children born into a Roman Catholic Dutch family in Eindhoven on 22 October 1943. Credited with being creative and having a good mentality for camera techniques, he became a popular cinematographer. He worked on a huge number of films before finding himself on the ...

57. Gordon Willis

Cinematographer | Zelig

Gordon Willis was an American cinematographer. He's best known for his work on Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather films, as well asWoody Allen's Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979).

His work on the first two Godfather films turned out to be groundbreaking in its use of low-light photography and ...

58. Roger Deakins

Cinematographer | Blade Runner 2049

Roger Deakins is an English cinematographer best known for his work on the films of the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes, and Denis Villeneuve.

He is a member of both the American and British Society of Cinematographers.

Deakins' first feature film in America as cinematographer was Mountains of the Moon (...

59. Ava DuVernay

Writer | Queen Sugar

A director, producer, writer, marketer and film distributor, Ava DuVernay made her feature film debut with the documentary This is the Life (2008), a history on hip hop movement that flourished in Los Angeles in the 1990's. This was followed by series of television music documentaries which ...

60. 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 ...

61. William Friedkin

Director | To Live and Die in L.A.

Friedkin's mother was an operating room nurse. His father was a merchant seaman, semi-pro softball player and ultimately sold clothes in a men's discount chain. Ultimately, his father never earned more than $50/week in his whole life and died indigent. Eventually young Will became infatuated with ...

62. Rob Reiner

Actor | All in the Family

Robert Reiner was born in New York City, to Estelle Reiner (née Lebost) and Emmy-winning actor, comedian, writer, and producer Carl Reiner.

As a child, his father was his role model, as Carl Reiner created and starred in The Dick Van Dyke Show. Estelle was also an inspiration for him to become a ...

63. Mike Flanagan

Writer | The Fall of the House of Usher

Mike Flanagan is a prolific writer, director, and editor. He entered into an exclusive overall deal with Amazon Studios in 2023 for television projects (after a similar exclusive deal with Netflix from 2018-2022), and has made feature films for Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Netflix and more. ...

64. Hark Tsui

Producer | Di Renjie zhi Tongtian diguo

Tsui Hark recently became the fourth Chinese film director to join the board of judges for the 57th Cannes Film Festival in the feature films category this year.

An internationally acclaimed visionary director, Tsui started making experimental movies with 8mm film when he was only 13. After ...

65. Aaron Sorkin

Writer | The West Wing

Aaron Sorkin grew up in Scarsdale, a suburb of New York City where he was very involved in his high school drama and theater club. After graduating from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater, Sorkin intended to pursue a career in acting. It took him only a short time to ...

66. David Mamet

Writer | House of Games

Born in 1947 in Chicago, he was educated at Goddard College, in Vermont, and studied drama at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, before returning to Chicago and establishing the St Nicholas Theatre Company in 1972. He remained their resident writer for four years. The first of his plays to secure ...

67. Craig R. Baxley

Director | Action Jackson

Craig Baxley is a third-generation filmmaker. After starting his career in front of the camera, working his way up as a successful stunt coordinator and second unit director on films like Predator (1987), Reds (1981), The Long Riders (1980) and The Warriors (1979) (with such talented directors as ...

68. Walter Hill

Writer | 48 Hrs.

Hill was born in Long Beach, California and educated at Mexico City College and Michigan State University. He worked in oil drilling and construction in the 60s before becoming a 2nd assistant director in 1967. He has written and co-written screenplays, including several uncredited works. He has ...

69. Steven E. de Souza

Writer | Die Hard

Among the handful of screenwriters whose films have earned over $2 billion at the box office, Steven de Souza was introduced to Hollywood on camera--as a contestant on an L.A. game show. There the Philadelphia-based writer for PBS, The New York Times, Premiere and other media outlets won a car and ...

70. John Hughes

Writer | Planes, Trains & Automobiles

John Hughes was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter. He was credited for creating some of the most memorable comedy films of the 1980s and the 1990s, when he was at the height of his career. He had a talent for writing coming-of-age stories, and for depicting fairly realistic...

71. 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 ...

72. Oliver Stone

Director | JFK

Oliver Stone has become known as a master of controversial subjects and a legendary film maker. His films are filled with a variety of film angles and styles, he pushes his actors to give Oscar-worthy performances, and despite his failures, has always returned to success.

William Oliver Stone was ...

73. Frank Darabont

Writer | The Shawshank Redemption

Three-time Oscar nominee Frank Darabont was born in a refugee camp in 1959 in Montbeliard, France, the son of Hungarian parents who had fled Budapest during the failed 1956 Hungarian revolution. Brought to America as an infant, he settled with his family in Los Angeles and attended Hollywood High ...

74. Clark Johnson

Actor | S.W.A.T.

Clark Johnson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He is an actor and director, known for S.W.A.T. (2003), The Sentinel (2006) and Homicide: Life on the Street (1993). He was previously married to Heather Salmon.

75. 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 ...

76. Tom McCarthy

Writer | The Station Agent

Tom McCarthy is an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best known for direct and write The Station Agent (2003), The Visitor (2007), Win Win (2011), and Spotlight (2015), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and was nominated for Best Director.

McCarthy...

77. Brad Turner

Director | 24

Brad Turner is known for 24 (2001), Human Cargo (2004) and Homeland (2011).

78. 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 ...

79. 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...

80. 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,...

81. Phillip Noyce

Producer | Rabbit-Proof Fence

Born in the Australian rural town of Griffith, New South Wales, Phillip Noyce moved to Sydney with his family at the age of 12. As a teenager, he was introduced to underground films produced on shoestring budgets as well as mainstream American movies. He was 18 when he made his first film, the 15-...

82. Jim Jarmusch

Director | Paterson

Moved to New York City at the age of seventeen from Akron, Ohio. Graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in English, class of '75. Without any prior film experience, he was accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts, New York.

83. Dolph Lundgren

Actor | Rocky IV

Dolph Lundgren was born as Hans Lundgren in Stockholm, Sweden, to Sigrid Birgitta (Tjerneld), a language teacher, and Karl Johan Hugo Lundgren, an engineer and economist for the Swedish government. He lived in Stockholm until the age of 13, when he moved in with his grandparents in Nyland, ...

84. Kevin Hooks

Actor | Innerspace

Kevin Hooks was born on September 19, 1958 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Innerspace (1987), Last Resort (2012) and Passenger 57 (1992). He is married to Cheryl. They have two children. He was previously married to Regina Hooks.

85. James Whitmore Jr.

Actor | Baa Baa Black Sheep

James Whitmore Jr. was born on October 24, 1948 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a director and actor, known for Black Sheep Squadron (1976), Hunter (1984) and Tequila and Bonetti (1992). He has been married to Salesha Ali since March 28, 1972. They have four children.

86. Geoff Murphy

Director | The Quiet Earth

Geoff Murphy was born on October 12, 1938 in Wellington, New Zealand. He was a director and actor, known for The Quiet Earth (1985), Dante's Peak (1997) and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995). He was married to Merata Mita, Pat Robins and Diane Kearns. He died on December 3, 2018 in Wellington, ...

87. Ernest R. Dickerson

Director | Juice

Ernest Roscoe Dickerson A.S.C., aka. Ernest R. Dickerson, is an American film director and cinematographer. As a cinematographer, he is known for his frequent collaborations with Spike Lee. As a director, he is known for films such as Juice (1992), Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995), Bones (...

88. Vic Armstrong

Stunts | I Am Legend

He was a stuntman for over 30 years having left school at14 and started working with his father and the intention of being jockey riding point to point but he grew too big. As he was interested in films stuntman jimmy Lodge got him a job working with the horses on the film Arabesque, Some years ...

89. Ang Lee

Director | Xi yan

Born in 1954 in Pingtung, Taiwan, Ang Lee has become one of today's greatest contemporary filmmakers. Ang graduated from the National Taiwan College of Arts in 1975 and then came to the U.S. to receive a B.F.A. Degree in Theatre/Theater Direction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, ...

90. 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 (...

91. David Twohy

Writer | The Fugitive

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

92. Anthony Hickox

Director | Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth

Anthony (Tony), started as a club promoter in London in the early eighties and financed his first short 'rock-a-bye baby' by holding an event at Le'quipe Anglaise, where all the door money went to finance the film. In fact, when it was finished it was the clubs owner Shariffi who showed it to ...

93. Mark L. Lester

Director | Commando

Director, writer and producer Mark L. Lester has created high-action films throughout his career, including some of the world's biggest box office draws. His directorial expertise has garnered praise for such films as Arnold Schwarzenegger's box-office mega-hit Commando (1985), Stephen King's ...

94. Michael Vejar

Director | Fantasy Island

Michael Vejar was born on June 25, 1943 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Michael is a director and producer, known for Fantasy Island (1977), Quantum Leap (1989) and The Sentinel (1996).

95. Jerry Jameson

Director | Land of the Free

Jerry Jameson was born on November 26, 1934 in Los Angeles, California, USA. Jerry is a director and producer, known for Land of the Free (1998), Airport '77 (1977) and Raise the Titanic (1980).

96. Scott Derrickson

Producer | The Black Phone

Scott Derrickson is an American filmmaker who is known for directing horror films such as Deliver Us from Evil, Hellraiser: Inferno, Sinister and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. He also directed the superhero film Doctor Strange starring Benedict Cumberbatch. He decided not to direct Doctor Strange in ...

97. Joe Chappelle

Producer | Godfather of Harlem

Joe Chappelle is known for Godfather of Harlem (2019), Black Bird (2022) and The Wire (2002).

98. Jonathan Frakes

Actor | Star Trek: First Contact

Jonathan Scott Frakes was born in Bellefonte, central Pennsylvania. He is the son of Doris J. (Yingling) and Dr. James R. Frakes, a professor. His parents moved with Jonathan and his younger brother Daniel to Bethlehem in eastern Pennsylvania. There, his father taught English at Lehigh University, ...

99. Roger Christian

Set_decorator | Star Wars

Academy Award winner Roger Christian has had an extensive film career. He won an Academy Award for set decoration on director George Lucas's Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), which began a long collaboration between the filmmakers. Christian subsequently worked with Lucas on Star Wars: ...

100. Taylor Sheridan

Writer | Hell or High Water

Taylor Sheridan is an American actor, screenwriter and director. He is best known for writing the screenplay for 'Sicario' (2015) and 'Hell or high water' (2016), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

He also starred in the FX television series 'Sons of ...