Directors to Watch
by TeraisaWrites | created - 06 Oct 2014 | updated - 3 months ago | PublicDirectors who I already admire or want to get to know through their work... or hell, my friends and family who happen to direct
1. T.C. Christensen
Cinematographer | 17 Miracles
T.C. Christensen was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He is known for 17 Miracles (2011), The Penny Promise (2001) and Seasons of the Heart (1993).
2. John Farzad Strong
Actor | I Did Not Forget You
Writer/Director/Actor John Farzad Strong A.K.A. John Farmanesh-Bocca, the immigrant son of an Iranian General, is a multi-award winning American theatre and film director, who is known both here and abroad for his many modern adaptations of ancient works. Mr. Farmanesh-Bocca's visually compelling ...
3. William Malone
Director | House on Haunted Hill
Born and raised in Lansing, Michigan, William Malone was inspired by films during weekly trips to the Lucian Theater to see the latest releases of horror films. By age 14 he was making home movies with an 8mm camera and designing monster masks for himself and friends to wear for Halloween.
Malone ...
4. David Crabtree
Director | The Resident
David Crabtree started his career in the entertainment industry at Roger Corman's New Horizons as Assistant Editor, and he quickly climbed the ranks to Lead Editor. He has cut over 100 hours of prime time television, including such hit shows as NYPD Blue, Las Vegas, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and ...
5. 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...
6. Baltasar Kormákur
Producer | Mýrin
Baltasar Kormákur is an actor, producer and director whose work spans theater, movies and television. Born in Reykjavik, Iceland, he graduated as an actor from Iceland's National Academy of Fine Arts in 1990. He was immediately signed on by the National Theatre of Iceland, where he worked as one of...
7. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Producer | Saving Face
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was born on November 12, 1978 in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. She is a producer and director, known for Saving Face (2012), A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers (2015) and A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness (2015). She is married to Fahd Kamal Chinoy. They have ...
8. Daniel Attias
Director | Silver Bullet
Daniel Attias won the DGA's 2009 best drama directing award for The Wire (2002) (episode: "Transitions"). He has also been nominated three other times in that category for episodes of The Sopranos (1999) ("46 Long"), Six Feet Under (2001) ("Back to the Garden"), and "Homeland" (2015)_ ("13 Hours in...
9. Joseph Mazzello
Actor | Jurassic Park
Born in Rhinebeck, New York, he got into acting when he was 5 years old, after his sister had appeared in 30-odd commercials. Since then he has acted opposite some of the best actors in Hollywood as a bright, expressive actor with complexity, sensitivity, and emotion. He attended film school at USC...
10. Ethan Coen
Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The younger brother of Joel, Ethan Coen is an Academy Award and Golden Globe winning writer, producer and director coming from small independent films to big profile Hollywood films. He was born on September 21, 1957 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In some films of the brothers- Ethan & Joel wrote, Joel...
11. Joel Coen
Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Joel Daniel Coen is an American filmmaker who regularly collaborates with his younger brother Ethan. They made Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail Caesar and other projects. Joel ...
12. Todd Fisher
Director | Science of Survival
Todd Emmanuel Fisher is an American actor, director, cinematographer, and producer of television films and documentaries. He has a professional background in architectural design and sound engineering, with experience designing and building sound stages, recording studios, and television facilities...
13. Tom Tykwer
Writer | Lola rennt
Director, writer, producer and composer Tom Tykwer was born in 1965 in Wuppertal, Germany. He showed an interest in film-making from childhood, making super 8 films from the age of 11. Among his first jobs was working at a local art-house cinema. Tykwer eventually relocated to Berlin, first working...
14. Fisher Stevens
Actor | Short Circuit
Fisher Stevens moved from his native Chicago to New York at the age of 13 to pursue an acting career. He tried, unsuccessfully, to get any kind of job and was, he recalls, even rejected as extra for a Crest commercial.
When his acting teacher, Dan Fauci, lost the lease to his teaching studio, he ...
15. M. Night Shyamalan
Producer | Lady in the Water
Born in Puducherry, India, and raised in the posh suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, M. Night Shyamalan is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor, known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots.
He is the son of Jayalakshmi, a Tamil ...
16. Bong Joon Ho
Writer | Snowpiercer
Bong Joon-ho is a South Korean filmmaker. The recipient of three Academy Awards, his filmography is characterized by emphasis on social themes, genre-mixing, black humor, and sudden tone shifts. He first became known to audiences and achieved a cult following with his directorial debut film, the ...
17. Brian Knappenberger
Producer | The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
Brian Knappenberger is known for The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (2014), Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror (2021) and The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez (2020).
18. McG
Director | Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
McG was born on August 9, 1968 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), Terminator Salvation (2009) and The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020).
19. Jonathan Demme
Director | The Silence of the Lambs
Jonathan Demme was born on February 22, 1944 in Baldwin, Long Island, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Philadelphia (1993). He was married to Joanne Howard and Evelyn Purcell. He died on April 26, 2017 in ...
20. Peter Bogdanovich
Director | The Last Picture Show
Peter Bogdanovich was conceived in Europe but born in Kingston, New York. He is the son of immigrants fleeing the Nazis, Herma (Robinson) and Borislav Bogdanovich, a painter and pianist. His father was a Serbian Orthodox Christian, and his mother was from a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. Peter ...
21. Ryan Murphy
Producer | Glee
Born November 9, 1965 in Indianapolis, Indiana, US as Ryan Patrick Murphy, he is an American writer, director, and producer, responsible for creating such hits as Nip/Tuck (2003), Glee (2009) and American Horror Story (2011). His mother, J. Andy Murphy, was a writer and communications worker and ...
22. Daniel Minahan
Director | Series 7: The Contenders
Daniel Minahan is known for Series 7: The Contenders (2001), Game of Thrones (2011) and American Crime Story (2016).
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. Taika Waititi
Producer | What We Do in the Shadows
Taika Waititi, also known as Taika Cohen, hails from the Raukokore region of the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand, and is the son of Robin (Cohen), a teacher, and Taika Waititi, an artist and farmer. His father is Maori (Te-Whanau-a-Apanui), and his mother is of Ashkenazi Jewish, Irish...
25. Darren Aronofsky
Writer | Pi
Darren Aronofsky was born February 12, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Darren was always artistic: he loved classic movies and, as a teenager, he even spent time doing graffiti art. After high school, Darren went to Harvard University to study film (both live-action and animation). He won ...
26. John Krasinski
Actor | Jack Ryan
American actor John Krasinski is known for his role as sardonic nice guy Jim Halpert on NBC's popular TV sitcom, The Office (2005), for which he won a 2007 and 2008 Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a comedy series.
Born John Burke Krasinski on October 20, 1979,...
27. Lana Wachowski
Writer | The Matrix
Lana Wachowski and her sister Lilly Wachowski, also known as the Wachowskis, are the duo behind such ground-breaking movies as The Matrix (1999) and Cloud Atlas (2012). Born to mother Lynne, a nurse, and father Ron, a businessman of Polish descent, Wachowski grew up in Chicago and formed a tight ...
28. Sean Penn
Actor | Mystic River
Sean Penn is a powerhouse film performer capable of intensely moving work, who has gone from strength to strength during a colourful film career, and who has drawn much media attention for his stormy private life and political viewpoints.
Sean Justin Penn was born in Los Angeles, California, the ...
29. Hayley Keown
Actress | Reservation Dogs
Hayley Keown is known for Reservation Dogs (2021), The Morning Show (2019) and The Family Plan (2023).
30. John Slattery
Actor | Spotlight
John Slattery was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Joan (Mulhern), a CPA, and John "Jack" Slattery, a leather merchant, both of Irish descent. John landed his first TV gig on the 1988 series The Dirty Dozen (1988) and has worked steadily since then. His television career has ...
31. Leslie Hope
Director | Lost in Space
Leslie Hope was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and is a dual citizen of the US and Canada. She has directed several episodes of television including Snowpiercer (2020), Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022), Lost in Space (2018), The Order (2019), Murdoch Mysteries (2008), Van Helsing (2016), ...
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