Favorite Directors
by boleslawskistan | created - 10 Feb 2018 | updated - 10 Feb 2018 | Public
1. 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 ...
Best Work: Eraserhead (1977) The Elephant Man (1980) Blue Velvet (1986) Twin Peaks (1990-1991, 2017) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Lost Highway (1997) Mulholland Drive (2001)
2. 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 ...
Best Work: Paths of Glory (1957) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) A Clockwork Orange (1971) The Shining (1980) Full Metal Jacket (1987) Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
3. 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 ...
Best Work: Raising Arizona (1987) Miller's Crossing (1990) Barton Fink (1991) Fargo (1996) The Big Lebowski (1998) No Country for Old Men (2007) A Serious Man (2009) Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
4. 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...
Same as Joel
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...
Best Work: The Brood (1979) Videodrome (1983) The Dead Zone (1983) The Fly (1986) Dead Ringers (1988) Crash (1996) A History of Violence (2005)
6. 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...
Best Work: Boogie Nights (1997) Magnolia (1999) Punch-Drunk Love (2002) There Will Be Blood (2007) The Master (2012)
7. 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...
Best Work: Ivan's Childhood (1962) Andrei Rublev (1966) Solaris (1972) Stalker (1979) The Sacrifice (1986)
8. Ridley Scott
Producer | The Martian
Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom ...
Best Work: The Duellists (1977) Alien (1979) Blade Runner (1982) Thelma & Louise (1991) Matchstick Men (2003) American Gangster (2007)
9. David Fincher
Director | Se7en
David Fincher was born in 1962 in Denver, Colorado, and was raised in Marin County, California. When he was 18 years old he went to work for John Korty at Korty Films in Mill Valley. He subsequently worked at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) from 1981-1983. Fincher left ILM to direct TV commercials...
Best Work: Alien 3 (1992) Seven (1995) Fight Club (1999) Zodiac (2007) The Social Network (2010) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) Gone Girl (2014)
10. 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 ...
Best Work: Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) Halloween (1978) Escape from New York (1981) The Thing (1982) Big Trouble in Little China (1986) They Live (1988)
11. 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 ...
Best Work: Memories of Murder (2003) Mother (2009) Snowpiercer (2013)
12. 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 ...
Best Work: Mean Streets (1973) Taxi Driver (1976) Raging Bull (1980) The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) Goodfellas (1990) Casino (1995) Silence (2016)
13. Tim Burton
Producer | Edward Scissorhands
Timothy Walter Burton was born in Burbank, California, to Jean Rae (Erickson), who owned a cat-themed gift shop, and William Reed Burton, who worked for the Burbank Park and Recreation Department. He spent most of his childhood as a recluse, drawing cartoons, and watching old movies (he was ...
Best Work: Beetlejuice (1988) Edward Scissorhands (1990) Batman Returns (1992) Ed Wood (1994) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
14. 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 ...
Best Work: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) Time Bandits (1981) Brazil (1985) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) 12 Monkeys (1995) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
15. 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), ...
Best Work: Polytechnique (2009) Incendies (2010) Prisoners (2013) Enemy (2013) Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
16. 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 ...
Best Work: Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Spellbound (1945) Strangers on a Train (1951) Rear Window (1954) Vertigo (1958) Psycho (1960) Frenzy (1972)
17. 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 ...
Best Work: Phantom of the Paradise (1974) Carrie (1976) Dressed to Kill (1980) Blow Out (1981) Scarface (1983) Body Double (1984) The Untouchables (1987) Carlito's Way (1993)
18. 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 ...
Best Work: The Fourth Man (1983) Robocop (1987) Total Recall (1990) Starship Troopers (1997) Black Book (2006) Elle (2016)
19. 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...
Best Work: Rashomon (1950) Ikiru (1952) Seven Samurai (1954) Throne of Blood (1957) High and Low (1963) Ran (1985)
20. Edgar Wright
Director | Shaun of the Dead
Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. He is best known for his comedic Three Flavours Cornetto film trilogy consisting of Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and The World's End (2013), made with recurrent collaborators Simon Pegg...
Best Work: Spaced (1999-2001) Shaun of the Dead (2004) Hot Fuzz (2007) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) The World's End (2013)
21. 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.
Best Work: Down by Law (1986) Mystery Train (1989) Dead Man (1995) Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999) Paterson (2016)
22. George A. Romero
Writer | Land of the Dead
George A. Romero never set out to become a Hollywood figure; by all indications, though, he was very successful. The director of the groundbreaking "Living Dead" films was born February 4, 1940 ,in New York City to Ann (Dvorsky) and Jorge Romero. His father was born in Spain and raised in Cuba, and...
Best Work: Night of the Living Dead (1968) Martin (1978) Dawn of the Dead (1978) Creepshow (1982) Day of the Dead (1985)
23. Guillermo del Toro
Writer | El laberinto del fauno
Guillermo del Toro was born October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Raised by his Catholic grandmother, del Toro developed an interest in filmmaking in his early teens. Later, he learned about makeup and effects from the legendary Dick Smith (The Exorcist (1973)) and worked on making his ...
Best Work: The Devil's Backbone (2001) Hellboy (2004) Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) The Shape of Water (2017)
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