The Best Directors Ever - 2010s
by dziwnytenswiat | created - 31 Jan 2019 | updated - 3 days ago | PublicPoints from my "The Best Films Ever Made"-Lists. Vol. 1 = 100%, Vol. 2 = 50%, Vol. 3 = 33%, Vol. 4 = 25%, Vol. 5 = 20 %, Vol. 6 = 17%
101. Steven Spielberg
Producer | Schindler's List
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, ...
544 points
102. Gavin O'Connor
Producer | The Accountant
Gavin O'Connor was born on December 24, 1963 in Huntington, Long Island, New York, USA. He is a producer and director, known for The Accountant (2016), Pride and Glory (2008) and Warrior (2011). He has been married to Brooke Burns since June 22, 2013. They have one child. He was previously married ...
543 points
103. Alexander Payne
Director | Nebraska
Director, producer and screenwriter Alexander Payne was born in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents, Peggy (Constantine) and George Payne, ran a Greek restaurant. His father is of Greek and German ancestry, and his mother is of Greek descent; the family name was originally Papadopoulos. He is the youngest...
535 points
104. Jafar Panahi
Director | Taxi
Jafar Panahi (Born 11 July 1960) is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly identified with the Iranian New Wave film movement. After several years of making short films and working as an assistant director for fellow Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi achieved ...
534 points
105. Tate Taylor
Producer | Get on Up
Tate Taylor was born on June 3, 1969 in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Get on Up (2014), The Help (2011) and The Girl on the Train (2016).
519 points
106. 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 ...
517 points
107. 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 ...
512 points
108. 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...
510 points
109. David O. Russell
Director | American Hustle
David Owen Russell is an American film writer, director, and producer, known for a cinema of intense, tragi-comedic characters whose love of life can surpass dark circumstances faced in very specific worlds. His films address such themes as mental illness as stigma or hope; invention of self and ...
489 points
110. Fatih Akin
Director | Aus dem Nichts
Fatih Akin was born in 1973 in Hamburg of Turkish parentage. He began studying Visual Communications at Hamburg's College of Fine Arts in 1994. His collaboration with Wueste Film also dates from this time. In 1995, he wrote and directed his first short feature, "Sensin - You're The One!" ("Sensin -...
489 points
111. Radu Jude
Director | Toata lumea din familia noastra
Radu Jude is a Romanian film director and screenwriter. In 2003, he graduated from the Media University of Bucharest (Film Directing Department). Jude worked as an assistant director on Amen. (2002), directed by Costa-Gavras, and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), directed by Cristi Puiu. He ...
449 points
112. Cary Joji Fukunaga
Producer | Beasts of No Nation
Cary Joji Fukunaga is a Japanese-American film director, screenwriter, cinematographer and producer from Oakland, California who is known for directing the James Bond film No Time to Die, Kofi, Beasts of No Nation, Jane Eyre and Sin Nombre. He co-wrote the 2017 film adaptation of the Stephen King ...
444 points
113. Theodore Melfi
Producer | Hidden Figures
Theodore Melfi was born in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Theodore is a producer and director, known for Hidden Figures (2016), St. Vincent (2014) and Going in Style (2017). Theodore is married to Kimberly Quinn.
441 points
114. Stephen Daldry
Director | The Reader
In 1989, Stephen Daldry worked as a freelance reader of unsolicited manuscripts for Literary Manager Nicholas Wright in the Scripts Department at the Royal National Theatre. In July of that year, he directed a Dadaist/expressionist production of "Judgement Day," a play by Odon von Horvath, at the ...
440 points
115. 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, ...
438 points
116. Christian Schwochow
Director | Die Unsichtbare
Christian Schwochow was born on September 23, 1978 in Bergen auf Rügen, East Germany. He is a director and producer, known for Cracks in the Shell (2011), Novemberkind (2008) and Munich: The Edge of War (2021).
435 points
117. Lars Kraume
Director | Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer
Lars Kraume was born on February 24, 1973 in Chieri, Piedmont, Italy. He is a director and writer, known for The People Vs. Fritz Bauer (2015), The Silent Revolution (2018) and Tatort (1970).
434 points
118. Jacques Audiard
Writer | De rouille et d'os
Born in Paris, France, in 1952. Jacques Audiard's family has always been involved in movie business. His father, Michel, was a popular screenwriter and director and his uncle a producer. But in his teens he refused that world and wanted to be a teacher. He studied literature and philosophy at the ...
421 points
119. Agnieszka Holland
Director | Pokot
Having graduated from FAMU in Prague film (1971), Agnieszka Holland returned to Poland and began her film career working with Krzysztof Zanussi as assistant director, and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. Her first feature film was PROVINCIAL ACTORS (1978), one of the flagship pictures of the "cinema of...
403 points
120. Woody Allen
Writer | Annie Hall
Woody Allen was born on November 30, 1935, as Allen Konigsberg, in The Bronx, NY, the son of Martin Konigsberg and Nettie Konigsberg. He has one younger sister, Letty Aronson. As a young boy, he became intrigued with magic tricks and playing the clarinet, two hobbies that he continues today.
Allen ...
402 points
121. Anna Muylaert
Writer | Que Horas Ela Volta?
Ana Luiza Machado da Silva Muylaert (born 21 April 1964), known professionally as Anna Muylaert, is a Brazilian film and television director, producer and screenwriter. Anna studied filmmaking at the School of Communications and Arts at University of São Paulo (USP) from 1980 to 1984. She became a ...
402 points
122. Kathryn Bigelow
Director | Zero Dark Thirty
A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. At 20, she won a scholarship to the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She was given a studio in a former Offtrack Betting building, literally in an old bank vault, where she made art and waited to be ...
400 points
123. Noah Baumbach
Writer | The Squid and the Whale
Born in Brooklyn in 1969 Noah Baumbach is the son of two film critics, Georgia Brown and Jonathan Baumbach (also a writer). His studies at Vassar College were the subject of his first film (made as he was 26 years old), Kicking and Screaming (1995). His second major picture, made ten years later, ...
400 points
124. Pelin Esmer
Director | Ise Yarar Bir Sey
Pelin Esmer, writer&director of both fiction and documentary films studied sociology and afterwards moved on to cinema. She established her film company Sinefilm and since 2001 she has made her independent films The Collector, The Play, 10 to 11, Watchtower, Something Useful and Queen Lear. A ...
400 points
125. Xiaoshuai Wang
Director | Rizhao Chongqing
Wang Xiaoshuai (Director, Writer, Producer)
Wang Xiaoshuai is one of very few masters who remains true to his art in spite of rampant commercialism in the Chinese film market. Evoking the trauma of ordinary Chinese people caught in extraordinary times, his works span different eras, yet consistently...
399 points
126. Park Chan-wook
Director | Oldeuboi
Park Chan-wook was born on August 23, 1963 in Seoul, South Korea. He is a producer and director, known for Oldboy (2003), The Handmaiden (2016) and Decision to Leave (2022). He is married to Eun-hee Kim. They have one child.
398 points
127. Christian Petzold
Director | Barbara
Christian Petzold was born in Hilden in 1960. After studying German and Drama at the Freie Universität Berlin, he enrolled in Berlin's German Academy for Film and Television (DFFB). There he studied film direction while at same time working as an assistant director to Harun Farocki and Hartmut ...
398 points
128. Jan-Ole Gerster
Director | Oh Boy
Born in 1978 in Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia. In 2000, Jan-Ole Gerstner moved to Berlin, where he did an internship at the production company "X-Films Creative Pool" ("Run Lola Run", "The White Ribbon"). He then became Wolfgang Becker's personal assistant in the production of "Good Bye, Lenin!" ...
398 points
129. 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...
398 points
130. Ron Howard
Producer | Arrested Development
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard is one of this generation's most popular directors. From the critically acclaimed dramas A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Apollo 13 (1995) to the hit comedies Parenthood (1989) and Splash (1983), he has created some of Hollywood's most memorable films.
Howard ...
397 points
131. J.A. Bayona
Director | La sociedad de la nieve
Juan Antonio García Bayona is a Spanish film director. He directed the 2007 horror film The Orphanage, the 2012 drama film The Impossible, and the 2016 fantasy drama film A Monster Calls. Bayona's latest film is the 2018 science fiction adventure film Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the fifth ...
397 points
132. Sabu
Director | Mandei
Japanese director/writer/actor whose often kinetic, cyberpunk style is much imitated. He expressed appreciation over the similarity of the international hit German film "Run Lola Run" (1998) to his first film as a director/writer, "Dangan Runner" (1996). When asked at the Chicago International Film...
397 points
133. Nana Ekvtimishvili
Writer | Grzeli nateli dgeebi
Nana Ekvtimishvili was born on July 9, 1978 in Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR. She is a writer and director, known for In Bloom (2013), My Happy Family (2017) and Waiting for Mum (2011).
397 points
134. Tanel Toom
Director | Tõde ja õigus
Tanel Toom was born on November 1, 1982 in Estonia. He is a director and writer, known for Truth and Justice (2019), Last Sentinel (2023) and The Confession (2010).
397 points
135. Ang Lee
Director | Wo hu cang long
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, ...
396 points
136. Václav Marhoul
Producer | Nabarvené ptáche
Václav Marhoul was born on January 30, 1960 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He is an actor and producer, known for The Painted Bird (2019), Tobruk (2008) and Smart Philip (2003).
396 points
137. Baran bo Odar
Writer | Who Am I - Kein System ist sicher
Baran bo Odar was born on April 18, 1978 in Olten, Switzerland. He is a writer and director, known for Who Am I (2014), Dark (2017) and The Silence (2010).
396 points
138. Jan Komasa
Director | Sala samobójców
Jan Komasa was born on October 28, 1981 in Poznan, Wielkopolskie, Poland. He is a director and writer, known for Suicide Room (2011), The Hater (2020) and Warsaw '44 (2014).
395 points
139. Fernando Meirelles
Director | The Constant Gardener
Fernando Meirelles was born in a middle class family in São Paulo City, Brazil.
He studied architecture at the university of São Paulo. At the same time he developed an interest in filmmaking. With a group of friends he started producing experimental videos and video art. They won a huge number of ...
395 points
140. Dee Rees
Director | Mudbound
Writer/Director Dee Rees is an alumna of New York University's graduate film program and a Sundance Screenwriting & Directing Lab Fellow.
In 2018, Dee became the first Black woman nominated for an Oscar in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for her highly-acclaimed film Mudbound (2017). The film, ...
395 points
141. 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 ...
394 points
142. Ildikó Enyedi
Director | Teströl és lélekröl
Ildikó Enyedi was born on November 15, 1955 in Budapest, Hungary. She is a director and writer, known for On Body and Soul (2017), Simon, the Magician (1999) and My Twentieth Century (1989).
394 points
143. Caroline Link
Director | Nirgendwo in Afrika
Caroline Link was born on June 2, 1964 in Bad Nauheim, Hesse, Germany. She is a director and writer, known for Nowhere in Africa (2001), Beyond Silence (1996) and Annaluise & Anton (1999).
394 points
144. Gustav Möller
Director | Den skyldige
Gustav Möller was born in 1988 in Göteborg, Sweden. He is a director and writer, known for The Guilty (2018), The Guilty (2021) and Sons (2024).
394 points
145. Matthew Warchus
Director | Pride
Matthew Warchus was born on October 24, 1966 in Rochester, Kent, England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Pride (2014), Matilda: The Musical (2022) and Simpatico (1999).
394 points
146. Peter Farrelly
Producer | Green Book
Peter Farrelly was born on December 17, 1956 in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Green Book (2018), There's Something About Mary (1998) and Dumb and Dumber (1994). He has been married to Melinda Farrelly since December 31, 1996. They have two children.
394 points
147. Kim Nguyen
Director | Rebelle
Kim Nguyen was born in 1974 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He is a director and writer, known for War Witch (2012).
393 points
148. Pablo Berger
Writer | Blancanieves
Pablo Berger was born in 1963 in Bilbao, Vizcaya, País Vasco, Spain. He is a writer and director, known for Snow White (2012), Robot Dreams (2023) and Torremolinos 73 (2003). He is married to Yuko Harami. They have one child.
393 points
149. Bryan Fogel
Producer | Icarus
Bryan Fogel is an American film director, producer, author, playwright, speaker and human rights activist, best known for the 2017 documentary Icarus, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 90th Academy Awards in 2018.
The New York Times described Fogel's film Icarus as "...
393 points
150. 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 ...
392 points
151. Tomer Heymann
Director | Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life
Tomer Heymann is an Israeli award-winning documentary filmmaker whose career has spanned over two decades and includes some of the most successful films in the history of Israeli documentary cinema. His critically acclaimed films have screened in festivals worldwide and have received prizes at the ...
392 points
152. Steve James
Director | Hoop Dreams
Steve James was born in Hampton, Virginia, USA. He has been based in Chicago, Illinois, USA for his entire career. He is known for the documentary films Hoop Dreams (1994), Stevie (2002), The Interrupters (2011), Life Itself (2014) and Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016). His documentary series ...
392 points
153. François Delisle
Producer | Chorus
Born in Montreal in 1967, François Delisle began his career by making short films between 1987 and 1991. His first feature, Ruth (1994), had critics raving and made a name for the director in Canada and Europe. In 2003, after founding his production company Films 53/12, he produced his second film,...
392 points
154. Susanne Rostock
Editor | Sing Your Song
Long esteemed as "an aural and visual poet", Susanne Rostock's filmmaking is a stunning 40 years of some of the most compelling documentaries of each decade. Her most recent film as director/editor, Sing Your Song, about Harry Belafonte's life as an artist and activist, was chosen to open the U.S. ...
392 points
155. Hans Weingartner
Director | Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei
Hans Weingartner was born on November 2, 1977 in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg, Austria. He is a director and writer, known for The Edukators (2004), Das weiße Rauschen (2001) and 303 (2018).
391 points
156. Henry Alex Rubin
Director | Murderball
Henry Alex Rubin is known for Murderball (2005), Girl, Interrupted (1999) and Disconnect (2012).
391 points
157. Alexandre Arcady
Producer | 24 jours
Alexandre Arcady was born on March 17, 1947 in Algiers, Alger, France [now Algeria]. He is a producer and writer, known for 24 Days (2014), What the Day Owes the Night (2012) and Dernier été à Tanger (1987).
391 points
158. Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Director | Crooked House
Gilles Paquet-Brenner was born on September 14, 1974 in Paris, France. He is a director and writer, known for Crooked House (2017), Sarah's Key (2010) and Dark Places (2015).
391 points
159. Anne Fontaine
Writer | Les innocentes
Anne Fontaine was born on July 15, 1959 in Luxembourg. She is an actress and writer, known for The Innocents (2016), Coco Before Chanel (2009) and Reinventing Marvin (2017). She is married to Philippe Carcassonne. They have one child.
390 points
160. Boris Khlebnikov
Director | Koktebel
Boris Khlebnikov was born on August 28, 1972 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He is a producer and director, known for Koktebel (2003), Svobodnoe plavanie (2006) and Arrhythmia (2017).
390 points
161. Josh Boone
Director | The Fault in Our Stars
Joshua Boone is an American filmmaker and producer from Virginia Beach. He directed The Fault in Our Stars, Stuck in Love and The New Mutants, a horror themed spin-off of the X-Men films. Had Disney not bought Fox, Boone would have made New Mutants sequels. He also created the miniseries The Stand.
390 points
162. Stig Björkman
Director | Jag är Ingrid
Stig Gösta Henning Stigson Björkman, born October 2, 1938 in Stockholm, is a Swedish writer, film director and film critic Björkman was the editor of the film magazine Chaplin 1964-1972 and with great dedication written a number of books on the art of film and interview books with, among others, ...
390 points
163. Benedikt Erlingsson
Writer | Kona fer í stríð
Benedikt Erlingsson was born on May 31, 1969 in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is an actor and writer, known for Kona fer í stríð (2018), Of Horses and Men (2013) and The Show of Shows (2015).
389 points
164. Abdellatif Kechiche
Writer | La vie d'Adèle
Abdellatif Kechiche was born on December 7, 1960 in Tunis, Tunisia. He is a writer and director, known for Blue Is the Warmest Colour (2013), Games of Love and Chance (2003) and Poetical Refugee (2000).
389 points
165. Spike Jonze
Producer | Her
Spike Jonze made up one-third (along with Andy Jenkins and Mark Lewman) of the triumvirate of genius minds behind Dirt Magazine, the brother publication of the much lamented ground-breaking Sassy Magazine. These three uncommon characters were all editors for Grand Royal Magazine as well, under the ...
389 points
166. Giuseppe Tornatore
Director | La migliore offerta
Giuseppe Tornatore was born on May 27, 1956 in Bagheria, Sicily, Italy. He is a director and writer, known for The Best Offer (2013), Cinema Paradiso (1988) and The Legend of 1900 (1998). He is married to Roberta Pacetti.
389 points
167. Kenneth Lonergan
Writer | Manchester by the Sea
Kenneth Lonergan is a playwright, screenwriter and director. His film, You Can Count on Me (2000), which he wrote and directed, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, won the Sundance 2000 Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, the NY Film Critics Circle, LA Film ...
389 points
168. Jordan Peele
Writer | Nope
Jordan Peele is an Oscar- and Emmy-winning director, writer, actor, producer, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions. Peele's first feature film, "Get Out," was a critically acclaimed blockbuster, recognized with four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. The film would earn Peele the ...
389 points
169. 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 ...
389 points
170. Bill Pohlad
Producer | 12 Years a Slave
Bill Pohlad is known for 12 Years a Slave (2013), Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Love & Mercy (2014).
388 points
171. Lukasz Palkowski
Director | Bogowie
Lukasz Palkowski was born on March 2, 1976 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland. He is a director and assistant director, known for Bogowie (2014), Rezerwat (2007) and Breaking the Limits (2017).
377 points
172. 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, ...
373 points
173. John Carney
Director | Sing Street
John Carney was born in 1972 in Dublin, Ireland. He is a director and producer, known for Sing Street (2016), Once (2007) and Flora and Son (2023).
373 points
174. Angelina Jolie
Actress | Maleficent
Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become ...
373 points
175. Clint Eastwood
Actor | Million Dollar Baby
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margaret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took ...
370 points
176. Todd Haynes
Director | Far from Heaven
Todd Haynes was always interested in art, and made amateur movies and painted while he was still a child. He attended Brown university and majored in art and semiotics. After he graduated he moved to New York City and made the controversial short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987). ...
370 points
177. 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,...
370 points
178. Andrey Konchalovskiy
Writer | Belye nochi pochtalyona Alekseya Tryapitsyna
The Russian theatre and film director Andrei Konchalovsky is an elder brother of Nikita Mikhalkov, born August, 20, 1937. As a youngster he planned to pursue a career of a musician and learned to play piano but his love for cinema outweighed and he entered VGIK-the major state film school where he ...
370 points
179. Cristian Mungiu
Producer | 4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile
Cristian Mungiu was born on April 27, 1968 in Iasi, Romania. He is a producer and writer, known for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), Graduation (2016) and Beyond the Hills (2012).
369 points
180. László Nemes
Director | Saul fia
László Nemes was born on 18th Feb. 1977 in Budapest, Hungary. He moved to France at 12 with his mother. He grew up in Paris, where he studied History, International Relations and Political Science at the Institut d'Études Politiques, because he couldn't go to film school. After that he started ...
369 points
181. Gavin Hood
Director | Official Secrets
Gavin Hood was born on May 12, 1963 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is an actor and director, known for Official Secrets (2019), Tsotsi (2005) and Eye in the Sky (2015). He was previously married to Janine Eser.
330 points
182. Dexter Fletcher
Actor | Ghosted
Two-time BAFTA-nominated director Dexter Fletcher is an English actor-turned-filmmaker whose movies and TV work include the Academy Award-winning Elton John biopic Rocketman. Fletcher started his career in front of the camera at the age of 6; three years later he played "Baby Face" in Alan Parker's...
305 points
183. David Michôd
Writer | The King
David Michôd is known for The King (2019), Animal Kingdom (2010) and The Rover (2014). He is married to Mirrah Foulkes.
304 points
184. Mike Leigh
Director | Secrets & Lies
Mike Leigh is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique. He began his career as a theatre ...
303 points
185. Scott Cooper
Director | Crazy Heart
Scott Cooper was born on April 20, 1970 in Abingdon, Virginia, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Crazy Heart (2009), Hostiles (2017) and Out of the Furnace (2013).
303 points
186. Pernille Fischer Christensen
Director | En familie
Pernille Fischer Christensen was born on December 24, 1969 in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is a director and writer, known for A Family (2010), A Soap (2006) and Someone You Love (2014).
290 points
187. Brad Furman
Director | The Lincoln Lawyer
Brad Furman is known for The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), The Infiltrator (2016) and City of Lies (2018).
289 points
188. Oliver Haffner
Director | Wackersdorf
Oliver Haffner was born on April 4, 1974 in Germersheim, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for Wackersdorf (2018), Ein Geschenk der Götter (2014) and Lecke Milch (2006).
287 points
189. Wash Westmoreland
Director | Still Alice
Hailing from Leeds, England, Westmoreland earned his college degree in Politics at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and soon after moved to America to pursue filmmaking. His 2014 film, "Still Alice," starring Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart, Alec Baldwin and Kate Bosworth, saw Moore win ...
264 points
190. Vitaliy Manskiy
Director | Truba
Vitaliy Manskiy was born on December 2, 1963 in Lvov, Lvovskaya oblast, Ukrainskaya SSR, USSR [now Lviv, Lvivska oblast, Ukraine]. He is a director and writer, known for Pipeline (2013), Under the Sun (2015) and Motherland or Death (2011).
264 points
191. Yôji Yamada
Writer | Tasogare Seibei
Yamada Yoji graduated Tokyo University in 1954, the year he joined Shochiku as an assistant director. In 1969, he launched the popular "Tora-san" series, the world's longest theatrical film series. "The Twilight Samurai" (The Twilight Samurai (2002)) marks his 77th film as well as his 41th year as ...
263 points
192. Chloé Zhao
Director | Nomadland
Chloé Zhao or Zhao Ting (born March 31, 1982) is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, and producer. Her debut feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), premiered at Sundance Film Festival. Her second feature film, The Rider (2017), was critically acclaimed and received several accolades ...
263 points
193. Bennett Miller
Director | Foxcatcher
Bennett Miller is an American film director, best known for Capote (2005), Moneyball (2011), and Foxcatcher (2014). He began his film career directing the 1998 documentary The Cruise.
In 2006 Miller directed the Bob Dylan music video "When the Deal Goes Down" starring Scarlett Johansson.
Miller has ...
262 points
194. Hans Petter Moland
Director | Kraftidioten
Hans Petter Moland was born on October 17, 1955 in Oslo, Norway. He is a director and writer, known for In Order of Disappearance (2014), Aberdeen (2000) and Out Stealing Horses (2019). He is married to Maria Sødahl. They have three children. He was previously married to Elizabeth Pacini.
262 points
195. Jake Scott
Director | Welcome to the Rileys
Jake Scott was born in 1965. He is a director and producer, known for Welcome to the Rileys (2010), Black Rain (1989) and Days of Thunder (1990).
262 points
196. Aleksey Balabanov
Director | Brat
Aleksey Balabanov was born on February 25, 1959 in Sverdlovsk, Sverdlovskaya oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now Ekaterinburg, Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for Brother (1997), Cargo 200 (2007) and Of Freaks and Men (1998). He was married to Irina ? and Nadezhda Vasileva. He died on May 18, ...
261 points
197. Quan'an Wang
Director | Tuan yuan
Quan'an Wang was born in Yan'an in 1965. A graduate from the 1991 Beijing Film Academy promotion, he belongs to what has been called the "sixth generation" of Chinese directors. From 1999 to 2009, he shared his life with actress Nan Yu, with whom he made his first four movies : "Yue shi" (Lunar ...
261 points
198. Aisling Walsh
Director | Maudie
Aisling Walsh studied Fine Art at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology. There was no film course there at that time but there was a film appreciation society that she joined and through this she developed an interest in filmmaking and started making her own short movies. The ...
258 points
199. Alexei Popogrebsky
Director | Kak ya provyol etim letom
Alexei Popogrebsky was born on August 7, 1972 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He is a director and writer, known for How I Ended This Summer (2010), Koktebel (2003) and Prostye veshchi (2007).
258 points
200. Houda Benyamina
Director | Divines
Houda Benyamina was born on November 30, 1980 in Viry-Châtillon, Essonne, France. She is a director and writer, known for Divines (2016), Sur la route du paradis (2011) and Ma poubelle géante (2009).
258 points
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