Benim yönetmenlerim

1. Christopher Nolan

Writer | Tenet

Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear, storytelling, acclaimed Academy Award winner writer/director/producer Sir Christopher Nolan CBE was born in London, England. Over the course of more than 25 years of filmmaking, Nolan has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the ...

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 ...

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 ...

4. Richard Linklater

Director | Waking Life

Self-taught writer-director Richard Stuart Linklater was born in Houston, Texas, to Diane Margaret (Krieger), who taught at a university, and Charles W. Linklater III. Richard was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. ...

5. 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...

6. Luc Besson

Writer | Le Cinquième Élément

Luc Besson spent the first years of his life following his parents, scuba diving instructors, around the world. His early life was entirely aquatic. He already showed amazing creativity as a youth, writing early drafts of The Big Blue (1988) and The Fifth Element (1997), as an adolescent bored in ...

7. Gus Van Sant

Director | Elephant

Gus Green Van Sant Jr. is an American filmmaker, painter, screenwriter, photographer and musician from Louisville, Kentucky who is known for directing films such as Good Will Hunting, the 1998 remake of Psycho, Gerry, Elephant, My Own Private Idaho, To Die For, Milk, Last Days, Finding Forrester, ...

8. Spike Lee

Director | Do the Right Thing

Spike Lee was born Shelton Jackson Lee on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. Lee came from artistic, education-grounded background; his father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a schoolteacher. He attended ...

9. 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...

10. 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 ...

11. Lars von Trier

Writer | Dancer in the Dark

Probably the most ambitious and visually distinctive filmmaker to emerge from Denmark since Carl Theodor Dreyer over 60 years earlier, Lars von Trier studied film at the Danish Film School and attracted international attention with his very first feature, The Element of Crime (1984). A highly ...

12. Sydney Pollack

Director | Tootsie

Sydney Pollack was an Academy Award-winning director, producer, actor, writer and public figure, who directed and produced over 40 films.

Sydney Irwin Pollack was born July 1, 1934 in Lafayette, Indiana, USA, to Rebecca (Miller), a homemaker, and David Pollack, a professional boxer turned pharmacist...

13. Bernardo Bertolucci

Writer | Il conformista

Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian director whose films were known for their colorful visual style, was born in Parma, Italy. He attended Rome University and became famous as a poet. He served as assistant director for Pier Paolo Pasolini in the film Accattone (1961) and directed The Grim Reaper (...

14. Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Director | Biutiful

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 ...

15. 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.

16. Wim Wenders

Director | Der Himmel über Berlin

Wim Wenders is an Oscar-nominated German filmmaker who was born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders on August 14, 1945 in Düsseldorf, which then was located in the British Occupation Zone of what became the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany, known colloquially as West Germany until ...

17. Michel Gondry

Director | Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

He grew up in Versailles with a family who was very influenced by pop music. When he was young, Gondry wanted to be a painter or an inventor. In the 80s he entered in an art school in Paris where he could develop his graphic skills and where he also met friends with whom he created a pop-rock band ...

18. Asghar Farhadi

Writer | Forooshande

Asghar Farhadi was born in 1972 in Iran. He became interested in cinema in his teenage years and started his filmmaking education by joining the Youth Cinema Society of Esfahan in 1986 where he made 8mm and 16mm short films. He received his Bachelors in Theater from University of Tehran's School of...

19. Hayao Miyazaki

Writer | Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi

Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan's greatest animation directors. The entertaining plots, compelling characters, and breathtaking visuals in his films have earned him international renown from critics as well as public recognition within Japan.

Miyazaki started his career in 1963 as an animator at the ...

20. 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 ...

21. 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, ...

22. 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 ...

23. 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...

24. 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...

25. Alfonso Cuarón

Producer | Gravity

Alfonso Cuarón Orozco was born on November 28th 1961 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 ...

26. 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 ...

27. Alejandro Amenábar

Writer | The Others

Is the son of a Spanish mother and a Chilean father. His family moved back to Spain when he was 1 year old, and he grew up and studied in Madrid. He wrote, produced and directed his first short film La cabeza at the age of 19, and he was 23 when he directed his feature debut Thesis (1996). His film ...

28. Kar-Wai Wong

Director | Yi dai zong shi

Wong Kar-wai (born 17 July 1956) is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylised, emotionally resonant work, including Ah fei zing zyun (1990), Dung che sai duk (1994), Chung Hing sam lam (1994), Do lok tin si (1995), Chun gwong ...

29. Krzysztof Kieslowski

Writer | Trois couleurs: Bleu

Krzysztof Kieslowski graduated from Lódz Film School in 1969, and became a documentary, TV and feature film director and scriptwriter. Before making his first film for TV, Przejscie podziemne (1974) (The Underground Passage), he made a number of short documentaries. His next TV title, Personnel (...

30. Milos Forman

Director | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Milos Forman was born Jan Tomas Forman in Caslav, Czechoslovakia, to Anna (Svabova), who ran a summer hotel, and Rudolf Forman, a professor. During World War II, his parents were taken away by the Nazis, after being accused of participating in the underground resistance. His father died in ...

31. Michael Haneke

Writer | Caché

A true master of his craft, Michael Haneke is one of the greatest film artists working today and one who challenges his viewers each year and work goes by, with films that reflect real portions of life in realistic, disturbing and unforgettable ways. One of the most genuine filmmakers of the world ...

32. Pedro Almodóvar

Writer | Hable con ella

The most internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel was born in a small town (Calzada de Calatrava) in the impoverished Spanish region of La Mancha. He arrived in Madrid in 1968, and survived by selling used items in the flea-market called El Rastro. Almodóvar couldn't study ...

33. Steven Soderbergh

Director | Sex, Lies, and Videotape

Steven Andrew Soderbergh was born on January 14, 1963 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, the second of six children of Mary Ann (Bernard) and Peter Soderbergh. His father was of Swedish and Irish descent, and his mother was of Italian ancestry. While he was still at a very young age, his family moved to ...

34. Emir Kusturica

Director | Underground

A Serbian film director. Born in 1954 in Sarajevo. Graduated in film directing at the prestigious Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague in 1978. During his studies, he was awarded several times for his short movies including Guernica (1978), which took first prize at the Student's Film ...

35. Costa-Gavras

Director | Z

Costa-Gavras was born on February 12, 1933 in Loutra-Iraias, Greece. He is a director and writer, known for Z (1969), Missing (1982) and Amen. (2002). He has been married to Michèle Ray-Gavras since 1968. They have two children.

36. Kim Ki-duk

Writer | Bin-jip

He studied fine arts in Paris in 1990-1992. In 1993 he won the award for Best Screenplay from the Educational Institute of Screenwriting with "A Painter and A Criminal Condemned to Death". After two more screenplay awards, he made his directorial debut with Crocodile (1996) ("Crocodile"). Then he ...

37. Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Producer | Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da

Nuri Bilge Ceylan was born in Istanbul on January 26th, 1959. In 1976, he began studying chemical engineering at Istanbul Technical University, in a context of strong student unrest, boycotts and political polarization. In 1978, he switched courses to Electrical Engineering at Bogazici University. ...

38. Zeki Demirkubuz

Director | Masumiyet

Demirkubuz dropped out of high school and started working in a textile workshop. He then worked as a street vendor for some time. After the 1980 coup d'état, he was imprisoned without trial for three years at the age of 17 for alleged communist activities and was tortured.

At the time, he was ...

39. Metin Erksan

Director | Kuyu

Born in 1929, Metin Erksan is one of the first Turkish filmmakers who saw cinema as an art form apart from a mass entertaining medium. Having studied art history in Istanbul University and being the brother of a little known director named Cetin Karamanbey, Erksan found himself at a very early age ...

40. Onur Saylak

Director | Daha

Arif Onur Saylak (born 12 May 1977, Ankara) is a Turkish actor and director. He is also a lecturer at Kadir Has University in the field of film and drama.

He was born in Ankara. He studied at the Middle East Technical University, Department of Physics.

He left the university and tried his luck in ...

41. 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 -...

42. Ferzan Özpetek

Director | La finestra di fronte

He is a Turkish-Italian director, screenwriter and writer. In 1976, he first went to Perugia Foreigners University in Italy, learned Italian for a year, and then transferred to Rome La Sapienza University to study cinema. After completing his education there, he went to Accademia Navona and ...

43. Reha Erdem

Director | Hayat Var

Born in Istanbul, Reha Erdem began his studies in History at Bogazici University in Istanbul. He graduated from Cinema Department of Paris 8 University. He obtained his M.A. in Plastic Arts at the same university. He shot his first feature-length film Oh Moon in 1989 as a French-Turkish ...

44. Ken Loach

Director | I, Daniel Blake

Unlike virtually all his contemporaries, Ken Loach has never succumbed to the siren call of Hollywood, and it's virtually impossible to imagine his particular brand of British socialist realism translating well to that context.

After studying law at St. Peter's College, Oxford, he branched out into ...

45. Atom Egoyan

Director | The Sweet Hereafter

Born in Egypt to Armenian parents, he was raised in Western Canada. Both his parents were painters, and he planned to be a playwright, but after making a short film, he became hooked on telling stories visually. Returned to ethnic "homeland" when he filmed Calendar (1993) in Armenia. Won attention ...

46. Claude Lelouch

Director | Un homme et une femme

He started off by making short films for television on which he was producer,screenwriter and cameraman. This was interrupted by military service in the army but only partly as he was put into the army film unit where he made over 100 films. Demobbed in 1960 he used family money for his first ...

47. Dervis Zaim

Director | Tabutta Rövasata

Born in 1964 in Famagusta, North Cyprus, Dervish Zaim graduated from Warwick University. He took a course in independent film production, organized in London by the Hollywood Film Institute. In 1995 his first novel won the prestigious "Yunus Nadi" literary prize in Turkey. Tabutta Rövasata (...

48. Onur Ünlü

Director | Itirazim Var

Onur Ünlü is a Turkish film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. He was born in Izmit, Turkey in 1973. He studied Communication Arts in Anadolu University. He gained a Master's degree on Communication Studies from Marmara University. He is a poet and a musician at the same time. All of his ...

49. Emin Alper

Director | Tepenin Ardi

Emin Alper (born in Karaman, Turkey) is a Turkish filmmaker and historian. His directorial debut, Beyond the Hill won the Caligari Film Prize in the 62nd Berlinale and Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. His second feature Frenzy won the Special Jury Prize after premiering in competition ...

50. Özcan Alper

Director | Karanlik Gece

Özcan Alper (b. 1975 Hopa, Artvin) is a Turkish director and screenwriter.

He was born in Hopa district of Artvin. He graduated from Trabzon High School. In 1992, he started at Istanbul University, Faculty of Science, Department of Physics. In 1996, he entered Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters...

51. Yesim Ustaoglu

Director | Tereddüt

After making several award - winning shorts in Turkey, Yesim Ustaoglu made her feature film debut with 1994's 'The Trace' (Iz). The film was presented at numerous international festivals, including Moscow and Gotenburg and won the Best Film Award at Istanbul Film Festival. Yesim Ustaoglu received ...

52. Semih Kaplanoglu

Producer | Yumurta

Semih Kaplanoglu is one of the most acclaimed writer-director-producers of contemporary filmmaking. Born and raised in Izmir, Turkey, he received BS in Cinema-Television from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Dokuz Eylul University, in 1984. Kaplanoglu made his debut feature in 2001 'Away From Home', and ...

53. 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 ...

54. Ömer Kavur

Director | Akrebin Yolculugu

Ömer Kavur was born on June 18, 1944 in Ankara, Turkey. He was a director and producer, known for Akrebin Yolculugu (1997), Karsilasma (2003) and Motherland Hotel (1987). He was married to Hümeyra. He died on May 12, 2005 in Istanbul, Turkey.

55. Atif Yilmaz

Director | Bir Yudum Sevgi

Atif Yilmaz Batibeki was a renowned Turkish film director, screenwriter, and film producer. After finishing high school in Mersin, he attended the Law School of Istanbul University. Because of his interest in arts, he dropped out of Law School and entered the Painting Department of the Academy of ...

56. Orhan Oguz

Director | Dönersen Islik Çal

Orhan Oguz was born on March 24, 1948 in Kirklareli, Turkey. He is a director and cinematographer, known for Dönersen Islik Çal (1993), Herseye Ragmen (1988) and Hayde Bre (2010). He has been married to Nilüfer Açikalin since 2002. He was previously married to Nuray Oguz.

57. Yavuz Turgul

Writer | Eskiya

Yavuz Turgul was born in Istanbul, 1946. He worked as journalist for many years. In 1976 he started to write scripts with the support of Ertem Egilmez. His first directing experience came with the movie Fahriye Abla, in 1984. He worked with famous Turkish actor Sener Sen in so many movies. Turgul ...

58. Tunç Basaran

Director | Uçurtmayi Vurmasinlar

Tunç Basaran was born on October 1, 1938 in Istanbul, Turkey. He was a director and writer, known for Don't Let Them Shoot the Kite (1989), Sen de Gitme (1995) and Biri ve Digerleri (1988). He was married to Füsun Önal. He died on December 18, 2019 in Turkey.

59. Erden Kiral

Director | Bereketli Topraklar Üzerinde

Erden Kiral was born on April 10, 1942 in Gölcük, Turkey. He was a director and writer, known for On Fertile Lands (1980), The Blue Exile (1993) and Hakkari'de Bir Mevsim (1983). He was married to Tezer Özlü. He died on July 17, 2022 in Antalya, Turkey.

60. Yavuz Özkan

Writer | Bir Sonbahar Hikayesi

Yavuz Özkan was a Turkish film director, screenwriter, and producer who was active in the Turkish film industry from the 1970s to the 2000s. He is best known for his films that deal with social and political issues, and for his collaborations with some of the leading actors of Turkish cinema.

Özkan ...

61. Ugur Yücel

Director | Yazi Tura

Ugur Yücel is a Turkish film actor, producer and director. He graduated from the Theater Department of the Istanbul Municipality Conservatory (Istanbul Belediye Konservatuari Tiyatro Bölüm). He took part in several plays between 1975 and 1984 in Kenter Tiyatrosu (Kenter Theatre), Tef Kabare Theatre...

62. Fehmi Yasar

Director | Camdan Kalp

Fehmi Yasar was born in 1954 in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. He is an actor and writer, known for Camdan Kalp (1990), Faize Hücum (1982) and Bir Yudum Sevgi (1984).

63. Yilmaz Güney

Writer | Yol

Güney and his work were almost entirely unknown outside of his homeland Turkey until his 1981 escape from imprisonment in Turkey and his "discovery" the following year at the Cannes Film Festival for his autobiographical screenplay for Yol (1982), the festival's grand prize winner. Born in 1937 in ...

64. 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...

65. 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.

66. Andrzej Wajda

Director | Katyn

Andrzej Wajda is an Academy Award-winning director. He is the most prominent filmmaker in Poland known for The Promised Land (1975), Man of Iron (1981), and Katyn (2007).

He was Born on March 6, 1926, in Suwalki, Poland. His mother, Aniela Wajda, was a teacher at a Ukrainian school. His father, ...

67. Tayfun Pirselimoglu

Writer | Saç

Tayfun Pirselimoglu is known for Hair (2010), Kerr (2021) and I Am Not Him (2013).

68. Lütfi Ö. Akad

Director | Dügün

Turkish film director, screenwriter, academician. Who directed movies from 1948 to 1990. In 1949, he debuted as a film director with Vurun Kahpeye ("Strike the Whore") an adaptation of Halide Edip Adivar's book of the same title. He became one of the pioneers of the period in the "Director ...

69. Halit Refig

Director | Hanim

Halit Refig, Turkish filmmaker, film critic and theoretician and an intellectual was born in Izmir, Turkey in 1934 to an industrial family. He attended Sisli Terakki High School and briefly attended Robert College Engineering Dept. During his military service he started making documentaries in ...