Filmmaker Favorites

1. Taylor Sheridan

Taylor Sheridan is an American actor, screenwriter, and director. He is best known for wrote 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 FX television series Sons of Anarchy, and ...

2. David Simon

Writer | The Wire

David Simon was born on May 13, 1960 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA as David Judah Simon. He is a writer and producer, known for The Wire (2002), Homicide: Life on the Street (1993) and The Corner (2000). He has been married to Laura Lippman since October 3, 2006. They have one child.

3. George Pelecanos

Producer | The Wire

Pelecanos was born in Washington, D.C. in 1957. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, and worked at a variety of jobs before getting involved in the film industry. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and two children. As a modern crime fiction author, ...

4. Michelle MacLaren

Producer | Breaking Bad

Michelle MacLaren was born in 1965 in Canada. She is a producer and director, known for Breaking Bad (2008), The Walking Dead (2010) and Game of Thrones (2011).

5. Scott Frank

Writer | Logan

Scott Frank was born on March 10, 1960 in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Logan (2017), Out of Sight (1998) and The Lookout (2007).

6. 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 ...

7. Dan Gilroy

Writer | Nightcrawler

Dan Gilroy was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Frank D. Gilroy, and sculptor and writer Ruth Dorothy. His brother Tony Gilroy is a screenwriter and director; and his fraternal twin brother, John Gilroy, is a film editor. Through his father, he is of ...

8. Richard Kelly

Writer | Donnie Darko

James Richard Kelly better known as Richard Kelly, is an American film director and writer, known for writing and directing the cult classic Donnie Darko in 2001. Kelly was born James Richard Kelly in Newport News, Virginia, the son of Lane and Ennis Kelly. He grew up in Midlothian, Virginia, where...

9. Darren Aronofsky

Director | 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 ...

10. Matt Duffer

Writer | Stranger Things

Matt Duffer was born as Matthew C. Duffer. He is a writer and producer, known for Stranger Things (2016), We All Fall Down (2005) and Wayward Pines (2015).

11. Ross Duffer

Writer | Stranger Things

Ross Duffer was born as Ross C. Duffer. He is a writer and producer, known for Stranger Things (2016), We All Fall Down (2005) and Wayward Pines (2015).

12. Shawn Levy

Producer | Arrival

Shawn Levy was born on July 23, 1968 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is a producer and director, known for Stranger Things (2016), Real Steel (2011), and the Night at the Museum franchise. He is the founder and principal of 21 Laps Entertainment. He is married to Serena Levy and they have four ...

13. Charlie Brooker

Writer | Black Mirror

Charlton "Charlie" Brooker (born 3 March 1971) is an English humourist, critic, author, screenwriter, producer, and television presenter. He is the creator and co-showrunner of the anthology series Black Mirror and has written for programmes such as Brass Eye, The 11 O'Clock Show, and Nathan Barley...

14. John Carpenter

Soundtrack | Escape from New York

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 ...

15. 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...

16. Noah Hawley

Writer | Fargo

Award-winning Noah Hawley is one of the most accomplished auteurs and versatile storytellers working in television, film and literature. Hawley balances the art of telling cinematic, unforgettable character-driven stories that linger along after you've been immersed in them.

Over the course of his ...

17. Christopher Cantwell

Writer | Halt and Catch Fire

Christopher Cantwell is a writer and producer, known for Halt and Catch Fire (2014), Our Footloose Remake (2011) and Krantz (2009).

18. 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 (...

19. Ethan Coen

Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Ethan Coen was born on September 21, 1957 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA as Ethan Jesse Coen. He is a producer and writer, known for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) and A Serious Man (2009). He has been married to Tricia Cooke since October 2, 1990. They have two ...

20. Joel Coen

Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Joel Coen was born on November 29, 1954 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA as Joel Daniel Coen. He is a producer and writer, known for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), Fargo (1996) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). He has been married to Frances McDormand since April 1, 1984. They have one child.

21. 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...

22. James Mangold

Producer | Logan

James Mangold is an American film and television director, screenwriter and producer. Films he has directed include Girl, Interrupted (1999), Walk the Line (2005), which he also co-wrote, the 2007 remake 3:10 to Yuma (2007), The Wolverine (2013), and Logan (2017).

Mangold also wrote and directed Cop...

23. David Mackenzie

Director | Hell or High Water

David Mackenzie was born on May 10, 1966 in Scotland. He is a director and producer, known for Hell or High Water (2016), Perfect Sense (2011) and Starred Up (2013).

24. 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...

25. Jeremy Saulnier

Cinematographer | Blue Ruin

Jeremy Saulnier has slyly defined a unique cinematic aesthetic that complements his idiosyncratic narrative premises. His sophomore feature, Blue Ruin (2013) a quirky, crime drama set in a pretty, but grimier part of suburban America was a festival darling and supplanted his name within the ...

26. Martin Scorsese

Director | Taxi Driver

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 ...

27. Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Actor | Inception

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has completed production on the untitled Henry Joost/Ariel Schulman sci-fi film for Netflix in which he stars opposite Jamie Foxx and on the independent thriller, 7500, written and directed by Patrick Vollarth. Among his other projects, he is in development on a variety of ...

28. Alfonso Cuarón

Writer | Gravity

Alfonso Cuarón Orozco was born on November 28th in Mexico City, Mexico. From an early age, he yearned to be either a film director or an astronaut. However, he did not want to enter the army, so he settled for directing. He didn't receive his first camera until his twelfth birthday, and then ...

29. 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 ...

30. 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 as Peter Lindsay Weir. He is a director and writer, known for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), The Way Back (2010) and The Truman Show (1998). He has been married to Wendy Stites since 1966. They ...

31. Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Producer | The Revenant

Alejandro González Iñárritu (ih-nyar-ee-too), born August 15th, 1963, is a Mexican film director.

González Iñárritu is the first Mexican director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and by the Directors Guild of America for Best Director. He is also the first Mexican-born ...

32. Ryan Coogler

Director | Black Panther

Ryan Coogler was born on May 23, 1986 in Oakland, California, USA as Ryan Kyle Coogler. He is a director and writer, known for Black Panther (2018), Creed (2015) and Fruitvale Station (2013). He has been married to Zinzi Evans since 2016.

33. Joel Thomas Hynes

Actor | Cast No Shadow

Joel Thomas Hynes is a multi-disciplinary artist (screenwriter, novelist, actor, filmmaker and musician), from Newfoundland, Canada. He is the creator, lead actor and an executive producer on the critically acclaimed CBC comedy series Little Dog. Hynes is the author of numerous novels, stage-plays ...

34. Taika Waititi

Actor | What We Do in the Shadows

Taika Waititi, also known as Taika Cohen, hails from the Raukokore region of the East Coast of New Zealand, and is the son of Robin (Cohen), a teacher, and Taika Waiti, an artist and farmer. His father is Maori (Te-Whanau-a-Apanui), and his mother is of Ashkenazi Jewish, Irish, Scottish, and ...

35. Greta Gerwig

Writer | Lady Bird

Greta Gerwig is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and director. She has collaborated with Noah Baumbach on several films, including Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination, and Mistress America (2015). Gerwig made her solo directorial debut ...

36. Sam Peckinpah

Writer | The Wild Bunch

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

37. James Gunn

Writer | Guardians of the Galaxy

James Gunn was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, to Leota and James Francis Gunn. He is from a large Catholic family, with Irish and Czech ancestry. His father and his uncles were all lawyers. He has been writing and performing as long as he can remember. He began making 8mm films at the age ...

38. Ben Davis

Cinematographer | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Member of the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC).

39. Donald Glover

Actor | Solo: A Star Wars Story

The multi-talented Donald Glover is a writer, actor, musician, comedian, producer and director, who performs under the stage names Childish Gambino and mcDJ. He was born Donald McKinley Glover at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and was raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia. His mother, Beverly (...

40. Bradford Young

Cinematographer | Arrival

Bradford Young is an American cinematographer. His feature films as director of photography include White Lies, Black Sheep (2007), Pariah (2011), Restless City (2011), Middle of Nowhere (2012), Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013), Mother of George (2013), and Arrival (2016).

In January 2017, Young ...

41. John Powell

Composer | Solo: A Star Wars Story

John Powell was born on September 18, 1963 in London, England. He is a composer, known for Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and Rio (2011). He was previously married to Melinda Lerner.

42. Barry Ackroyd

Cinematographer | The Hurt Locker

Barry Ackroyd was born on May 12, 1954 in Oldham, Lancashire, England. He is known for his work on The Hurt Locker (2008), Captain Phillips (2013) and The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006).

43. Donald Graham Burt

Production_designer | The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Donald Graham Burt is known for his work on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and Gone Girl (2014).

44. George Clooney

Actor | Michael Clayton

George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney ...

45. Christopher Nolan

Writer | Dunkirk

Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear, storytelling, acclaimed writer-director Christopher Nolan was born on July 30, 1970 in London, England. Over the course of 15 years of filmmaking, Nolan has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the biggest blockbusters ever made.

...

46. Hans Zimmer

Composer | Gladiator

German-born composer Hans Zimmer is recognized as one of Hollywood's most innovative musical talents. He featured in the music video for The Buggles' single "Video Killed the Radio Star", which became a worldwide hit and helped usher in a new era of global entertainment as the first music video to ...

47. Hoyte Van Hoytema

Cinematographer | Dunkirk

Hoyte Van Hoytema was born in Horgen, Switzerland. Van Hoytema is a Dutch-Swedish director of photography known for his work on The Fighter (2010), Her (2013), Interstellar (2014), and Dunkirk (2017). Van Hoytema always wanted to be a filmmaker, therefore he wished to attend a film school in The ...

48. Quinn Shephard

Actress | Blame

Quinn Shephard is a writer, director and actress based out of the New York area, with a career spanning two decades. At age 15, Shephard began writing her debut feature Blame Blame (2017), inspired by playing Abigail Williams in a New Jersey regional production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. She ...

49. David Sardy

Composer | Zombieland

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Sardy was active as a singer, songwriter and guitarist (most notably with his group Barkmarket), but since the mid-1990s, he has been more active as a producer, writer and/or mixer. He has worked with an eclectic mix of rock, punk, alternative, electronic and ...

50. David Ayer

Writer | 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, ...

51. Boots Riley

Soundtrack | Sorry to Bother You

Boots Riley was born on April 1, 1971 in Chicago, Illinois, USA as Raymond Lawrence Riley.

52. Patton Oswalt

Actor | Young Adult

Patton Oswalt has been headlining at comedy clubs all over the United States since 1996, as well as appearing in his own standup specials on Comedy Central and HBO. He was chosen as Entertainment Weekly's "It" comedian in 2002. He is a regular on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (1993). His other ...

53. Davey Holmes

Producer | Get Shorty

Davey Holmes is a producer and writer, known for Get Shorty (2017), Shameless (2011) and Awake (2012). He has been married to Sonya Walger since July 2009. They have one child.

54. Andrew Stanton

Writer | WALL·E

Oscar-winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton was raised in Rockport, Massachusetts. He was educated at The California Institute of the Arts (or "CalArts") in Los Angeles, where he studied character animation. After graduation, Stanton began working as a writer on the TV series Mighty Mouse: The New ...

55. Michael Chabon

Writer | John Carter

Michael Chabon was born on May 24, 1963 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for John Carter (2012), Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Wonder Boys (2000). He has been married to Ayelet Waldman since 1993. They have four children. He was previously married to Lollie ...

56. David F. Sandberg

Director | Lights Out

David F. Sandberg was born on January 21, 1981 in Sweden. He is a director and writer, known for Lights Out (2016), Shazam! (2019) and Annabelle: Creation (2017). He is married to Lotta Losten.

57. Harold Ramis

Writer | Ghostbusters

Born on November 21, 1944 in Chicago, Illinois, Harold Allen Ramis got his start in comedy as Playboy magazine's joke editor and reviewer. In 1969, he joined Chicago's Second City's Improvisational Theatre Troupe before moving to New York to help write and perform in "The National Lampoon Show" ...

58. Joseph Kosinski

Director | Tron

Joseph Kosinski is a director whose uncompromising visual style has quickly made a mark in the filmmaking zeitgeist. His feature film debut, "Tron Legacy" for Walt Disney Studios, grossed over $400 million worldwide and was nominated for several awards, including an Academy Award for Sound Editing ...

59. James Gray

Director | The Immigrant

Writer/director James Gray made his first film Little Odessa (1994) at the age of twenty-five. The film, which starred Tim Roth, Edward Furlong, Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell, received critical acclaim and was the winner of the Venice Film Festival's prestigious Silver Lion Award in 1994.

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