Maestria

1. Quentin Tarantino

Writer | Reservoir Dogs

Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.

In January of...

2. Denis Villeneuve

Director | Blade Runner 2049

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), ...

3. Christopher Nolan

Writer | The Prestige

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.

...

4. Pier Paolo Pasolini

Writer | Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma

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 ...

5. Jean-Luc Godard

Director | Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux

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 ...

6. 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 ...

7. Wes Anderson

Director | Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wesley Wales Anderson was born in Houston, Texas. His mother, Texas Ann (Burroughs), is an archaeologist turned real estate agent, and his father, Melver Leonard Anderson, worked in advertising and PR. He has two brothers, Eric and Mel. Anderson's parents divorced when he was a young child, an ...

8. 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...

9. 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 ...

10. Woody Allen

Writer | Manhattan

Woody Allen was born Allan Stewart Konigsberg on December 1, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York, to Nettie (Cherrie), a bookkeeper, and Martin Konigsberg, a waiter and jewellery engraver. His father was of Lithuanian Jewish descent, and his maternal grandparents were Austrian Jewish immigrants. As a young ...

11. 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 ...

12. Yance Ford

Producer | Strong Island

Yance Ford is the director of Strong Island (2017) and winner of the Special Jury Award for Storytelling at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Ford is a grantee of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, a MacDowell Colony fellow, a Creative Capital Grantee (Theo Westenberger Award), and has...

13. Tom Ford

Director | A Single Man

Tom Ford is an American fashion designer, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He gained fame as the creative director at Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. In 2006, Ford launched his own "Tom Ford" label.

Ford directed the films A Single Man (2009) and Nocturnal Animals (2016), both films were...

14. Sean Baker

Writer | The Florida Project

Sean Baker is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He is an award-winning writer/director/producer known for Take Out (2004), Prince of Broadway (2008), Starlet (2012) and Tangerine (2015). Sean's latest feature, The Florida Project, premiered at Cannes -- Director's Fortnight 2017. The ...

15. Craig Gillespie

Director | I, Tonya

Craig Gillespie is an Australian film director, best known for his films Lars and the Real Girl (2007), and I, Tonya (2017).

Born and raised in Sydney, Gillespie moved to New York City at the age of nineteen to study illustration, graphic design and advertising at Manhattan's School of Visual Arts.

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16. Joe Wright

Director | Pride & Prejudice

Joe Wright is an English film director. He is best known for Pride & Prejudice (2005), Atonement (2007), Anna Karenina (2012), and Darkest Hour (2017).

Wright always had an interest in the arts, especially painting. He would also make films on his Super 8 camera as well as spend time in the evenings...

17. David Lowery

Editor | A Ghost Story

David Lowery is an American writer and director. He is best know for Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013), Pete's Dragon (2016), and A Ghost Story (2017).

At the age of 19, Lowery wrote and directed his first film, Lullaby.

Lowery had his breakthrough with his first feature film, St. Nick (2009).

He often ...

18. Martin McDonagh

Writer | In Bruges

Martin McDonagh was born on March 26, 1970 in Camberwell, London, England. He is a writer and director, known for In Bruges (2008), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) and Seven Psychopaths (2012).

19. 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 ...

20. Michael Showalter

Writer | Wet Hot American Summer

Michael Showalter is a director, writer, and producer who most recently directed the 2017 hit The Big Sick. Previously he directed and co-wrote the 2016 film Hello, My Name Is Doris starring Sally Field. Michael's first film was the The Baxter (2005) starring Michelle Williams and Justin Theroux. ...

21. Yorgos Lanthimos

Director | The Lobster

Yorgos Lanthimos was born in Athens, Greece. He studied directing for Film and Television at the Stavrakos Film School in Athens. He has directed a number of dance videos in collaboration with Greek choreographers, in addition to TV commercials, music videos, short films and theater plays. Kinetta,...

22. Petra Costa

Director | The Edge of Democracy

Petra Costa was born on July 8, 1983 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. She is a director and producer, known for The Edge of Democracy (2019), Olmo & the Seagull (2015) and Undertow Eyes (2009).

23. Juliana Rojas

Writer | As Boas Maneiras

Juliana Rojas is a writer and director, known for Good Manners (2017), Hard Labor (2011) and Necropolis Symphony (2014).

24. Anna Muylaert

Writer | Que Horas Ela Volta?

Anna Muylaert was born on April 21, 1964 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. She is known for her work on The Second Mother (2015), Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (2009) and Durval Records (2002).

25. Eliane Caffé

Director | Narradores de Javé

26. Maria Ramos

Director | O Processo

Maria Augusta Ramos was born in Brasília, DF. Brazil in 1964. Graduated in Music at UNB University (Brazil), she moved to Paris, where she completed her studies in Musicology and Electroacoustic Music at the Groupe de Recherche Musicale (Radio France) and later in London (City University). In 1990,...

27. Marília Rocha

Director | A Cidade onde Envelheço

Marília Rocha is a director and cinematographer, known for Where I Grow Old (2016), Descaminhos (2007) and Aboio (2005).

28. Kátia Lund

Director | Cidade de Deus

Kátia Lund was born in 1966 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. She is a director and writer, known for City of God (2002), News from a Personal War (1999) and Anaconda (1997).

29. Lúcia Murat

Writer | Quase Dois Irmãos

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Lúcia Murat was member of the Brazilian leftist "guerrilha" in the hardest times of military dictatorship in Brazil (1968-1979). She was arrested and tortured in prison, and this experience is highly influential in all of her work. Undoubtedly Lúcia Murat is the most ...

30. Monique Gardenberg

Director | Benjamim

31. Debora Diniz

Director | A Casa dos Mortos

32. Daniel Rezende

Editor | Tropa de Elite

Daniel Rezende was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Film Editing for his work on City of God (2002) and won a BAFTA Award for Best Editing for the same film. He also edited RoboCop (2014), The Tree of Life (2011), Blindness (2008) and many other feature films before moving on to direct his ...

33. Eduardo Coutinho

Director | Edifício Master

Eduardo Coutinho was born on May 11, 1933 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil as Eduardo de Oliveira Coutinho. He was a director and writer, known for Edifício Master (2002), The Mighty Spirit (1999) and Babilônia 2000 (1999). He was married to Maria das Dores de Oliveira. He died on ...