Fav Directors

1. Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1940. He graduated from university with a degree in fine arts before starting work as a graphic designer. He then joined the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, where he started a film section, and this started his career ...

Dah 10/10 Zire darakhatan zeyton 10/10 Ta'm e guilass 10/10 Nema-ye Nazdik 10/10 Like Someone in Love 10/10 Khane-ye doust kodjast? 9/10 No 9/10 Bad ma ra khahad bord 9/10 Copie conforme 8/10 Five Dedicated to Ozu 8/10 Mossafer 8/10 Zendegi va digar hich 7/10 10 on Ten 7/10 Hamsarayan 7/10 ABC Africa 6/10 Be Tartib ya Bedoun-e Tartib 6/10 Dow Rahehal Baraye yek Massaleh 6/10 Nan va Koutcheh 6/10 Gozaresh 5/10

2. Luis Buñuel

Writer | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education (which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior), and subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the ...

Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie 10/10 Viridiana 10/10 La voie lactée 9/10 Le journal d'une femme de chambre 10/10 Simón del desierto 10/10 Susana 9/10 Le fantôme de la liberté 9/10 El 9/10 Cet obscur objet du désir 8/10 El gran calavera 8/10 El ángel exterminador 8/10 Tristana 7/10 Belle de jour 7/10 Un chien andalou 7/10 Robinson Crusoe 5/10 Las Hurdes 5/10 Los olvidados 4/10

3. 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 ...

Mulholland Dr. 10/10 Blue Velvet 10/10 Twin Peaks 10/10 Lost Highway 10/10 The Straight Story 10/10 The Elephant Man 10/10 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me 7/10 David Lynch's Comic-Con Message 7/10 Wild at Heart 6/10 Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted 6/10 Early Experiments 6/10 Eraserhead 8/10

4. Éric Rohmer

Director | Ma nuit chez Maud

Admirers have always had difficulty explaining Éric Rohmer's "Je ne sais quoi." Part of the challenge stems from the fact that, despite his place in French Nouvelle Vague (i.e., New Wave), his work is unlike that of his colleagues. While this may be due to the auteur's unwillingness to conform, ...

Le genou de Claire 9.6/10 Les amours d'Astrée et de Céladon 9.1/10 Conte d'hiver 9.0/10 Le beau mariage 9.0/10 Les nuits de la pleine lune 9.0/10 Conte de printemps 8.7/10 Conte d'été 8.7/10 Pauline à la plage 8.5/19 4 aventures de Reinette et Mirabelle 8.5/10 Ma nuit chez Maud 8.4/10 Le rayon vert 7.2/10 Les rendez-vous de Paris 7.0/10 La collectionneuse 7.0/10 Louis Lumière 6.8/10 Conte d'automne 6.3/10 La carrière de Suzanne 5.0/10

5. René Laloux

Writer | La planète sauvage

René Laloux was born on July 13, 1929 in Paris, France. He was a writer and director, known for Fantastic Planet (1973), Time Masters (1982) and Les escargots (1966). He died on March 14, 2004 in Angoulême, Charente, France.

Les maîtres du temps 10/10 Gandahar 8.8/10 La planète sauvage 8.5/10 Comment Wang-Fo fut sauvé 8.4/10 La prisonnière 7.6/10 Les escargots 6.1/10 Les dents du singe 5.0/10

6. Werner Herzog

Director | Fitzcarraldo

Director. Writer. Producer. Actor. Poet. He studied history, literature and theatre for some time, but didn't finish it and founded instead his own film production company in 1963. Later in his life, Herzog also staged several operas in Bayreuth, Germany, and at the Milan Scala in Italy. Herzog has...

Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes 10/10 Stroszek 10/10 Lektionen in Finsternis 9.9/10 Die große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner 9.1/10 The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans 9.0/10 Mein liebster Feind - Klaus Kinski 8.9/10 Grizzly Man 8.9/10 Encounters at the End of the World 8.8/10 Little Dieter Needs to Fly 8.8/10 Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht 8.5/10 Mit mir will niemand spielen 8.4/10 Massnahmen gegen Fanatiker 8.3/10 Werner Herzog: Filmemacher 8.1/10 La Soufrière - Warten auf eine unausweichliche 8.0/10 Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World 7.9/10 How much Wood would a Woodchuck 7.7/10 Glocken aus der Tiefe - Glaube und Aberglaube 7.3/10 Fitzcarraldo 7.2/10 Herz aus Glas 7.1/10 Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen 7.0/10 The White Diamond 7.0/10 Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle 6.9/10 Gasherbrum - Der leuchtende Berg 6.9/10 Land des Schweigens und der Dunkelheit 6.9/10 Lebenszeichen 6.8/10 Into the Inferno 6.7/10 Into the Abyss 6.6/10 From One Second to the Next 6.5/10 Happy People: A Year in the Taiga 6.3/10 Woyzeck 6.2/10 My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done 6.1/10 Wheel of Time 6.1/10 Letzte Worte 6.0/10 Fata Morgana 5.9/10 Jag Mandir: Das exzentrische Privattheater 5.8/19 Wodaabe - Die Hirten der Sonne 5.2/10 Pilgrimage 5.0/10 Herakles 4.0/10 Queen of the Desert 1.9/10

7. Marcel Carné

Director | Le quai des brumes

Marcel Carné, the son of a cabinet maker, entered the movies as the assistant of Jacques Feyder. At the age of 25 he directed his first movie Jenny (1936). Colaborating with the writer Jacques Prévert, the decorator Alexandre Trauner, the musician and composer Maurice Jaubert and the actor Jean ...

Thérèse Raquin 10/10 Les enfants du paradis 10/10 Les visiteurs du soir 9.4/10 Trois chambres à Manhattan 7.6/10 Le quai des brumes 7.3/10 Le jour se lève 7.1/10 Hôtel du Nord 7.0/10

8. Monte Hellman

Director | Iguana

Monte Hellman was born on July 12, 1929, in New York City, where his parents were visiting, but he grew up in Los Angeles. He studied drama at Stanford University--on an NBC scholarship--and film at UCLA. After a few years directing in summer theater, Hellman hooked up with legendary "B" movie ...

Two-Lane Blacktop 10/10 Cockfighter 9.9/10 Ride in the Whirlwind 9.9/10 The Shooting 9.9 Beast from Haunted Cave 3.0/10

9. Jean Renoir

Writer | La règle du jeu

Son of the famous Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste, he had a happy childhood. Pierre Renoir was his brother, and Claude Renoir was his nephew. After the end of World War I, where he won the Croix de Guerre, he moved from scriptwriting to filmmaking. He married Catherine Hessling, for whom he ...

La bête humaine 10/10 Partie de campagne 10/10 La chienne 9.9/10 La petite marchande d'allumettes 9.1/10 La règle du jeu 8.2/10 La grande illusion 8.1/10 Les bas-fonds 8.0/10 French Cancan 8.0/10 The Diary of a Chambermaid 7.8/10 Toni 7.3/10 This Land Is Mine 7.2/10 The Southerner 7.0/10 La nuit du carrefour 6.4/10 The Woman on the Beach 6.1/10 The River 5.0/10 Sur un air de Charleston 3.6/10

10. Pier Paolo Pasolini

Writer | Il Decameron

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 ...

Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma 9.7/10 Il Decameron 9.6/10 Accattone 9.0/10 I racconti di Canterbury 8.9/10 Edipo re 8.5/10 Mamma Roma 8.3/10 Comizi d'amore 8.2/10 Uccellacci e uccellini 7.0/10 Medea 5.0/10 La rabbia di Pasolini 3.0/10

11. F.W. Murnau

Director | Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

F.W. Murnau was a German film director. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, and became a friend of director Max Reinhardt. During World War I he served as a company commander at the eastern front and was in the German air ...

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans 10/10 City Girl 10/10 Herr Tartüff 9.1/10 Faust: Eine deutsche Volkssage 9.0/10 Der letzte Mann 7.3/10 Tabu: A Story of the South Seas 6.8/10 Schloß Vogelöd 6.2/10 Der brennende Acker 5.8/10 Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens 4.5/10

12. 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 ...

Femme Fatale 10/10 Raising Cain 10/10 Snake Eyes 9.6/10 Phantom of the Paradise 9.4/10 Dressed to Kill 7.3/10 Scarface 7.0/10 Carlito's Way 6.8/10 Carrie 6.6/10 The Fury 6.1/10 Mission: Impossible 5.6/10 The Untouchables 3.0/10

13. George Cukor

Director | My Fair Lady

George Cukor was an American film director of Hungarian-Jewish descent, better known for directing comedies and literary adaptations. He once won the Academy Award for Best Director, and was nominated other four times for the same Award.

In 1899, George Dewey Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of...

Holiday 9.3/10 Gaslight 9.2/10 The Philadelphia Story 9.2/10 Adam's Rib 8.8/10 Les Girls 8.5/10 A Woman's Face 8.3/10 The Women 8.0/10 Bhowani Junction 7.5/10 Romeo and Juliet 7.4/10 One Hour with You 7.2/10 Two-Faced Woman 7.0 /10 Born Yesterday 6.7/10 My Fair Lady 6.0/10 Little Women 5.3/10 A Star Is Born 5.0/10

14. Jacques Demy

Soundtrack | Les parapluies de Cherbourg

Jacques Demy was born on June 5, 1931 in Pontchâteau, Loire-Atlantique, France. He was a director and writer, known for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and A Room in Town (1982). He was married to Agnès Varda. He died on October 27, 1990 in Paris, France.

Les parapluies de Cherbourg 9.8/10 Une chambre en ville 9.3/10 Lola 9.0/10 Les demoiselles de Rochefort 8.5/10

15. Shôhei Imamura

Director | Kuroi ame

Shohei Imamura's films dig beneath the surface of Japanese society to reveal a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath. Along with his colleagues Nagisa Ôshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Imamura began his serious directorial career as a member of the New Wave movement in Japan....

Unagi 9.8/10 Kuroi ame 8.9/10 Narayama bushikô 8.4/10

16. 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 ...

The Sweet Hereafter 10/10 Speaking Parts 9.3/10 Citadel 9.0/10 Exotica 8.9/10 Next of Kin 8.8/10 Calendar 8.7/10 Family Viewing 6.3/10 Chloe 6.0/10 Where the Truth Lies 4.5/10

17. 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 ...

Frenzy 10/10 Dial M for Murder 9.6/10 Shadow of a Doubt 9.5/10 The Trouble with Harry 8.7/10 Saboteur 8.7/10 Rebecca 8.6/10 Marnie 8.5/10 Rope 8.0/10 Psycho 8.0/10 The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog 7.9/10 Spellbound 7.8/10 North by Northwest 7.7/10 Vertigo 7.6/10 Strangers on a Train 7.5/10 Suspicion 7.4/10 The Wrong Man 7.3/10 Stage Fright 7.3/10 The Lady Vanishes 7.2/10 The Birds 7.0/10 Rear Window 6.9/10 The Paradine Case 6.8/10 The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) 6.8/10 Topaz 6.7/10 Lifeboat 6.3/10 The 39 Steps 6.2/10 Notorious 6.1/10 To Catch a Thief 6.0/10 Sabotage 6.0/10 Torn Curtain 6.0/10 Bon Voyage 5.9/10 I Confess 5.8/10 Rich and Strange 5.2/10 Sound Test for Blackmail 5.1/10 Foreign Correspondent 5.1/10 Blackmail 5.0/10 The Ring 5.0/10 Family Plot 5.0/10 Under Capricorn 5.0/10 Aventure malgache 4.8/10 The Fighting Generation 1.0/10

18. 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 ...

Amour 9.8/10 Caché 9.0/10 Benny's Video 8.8/10 Das weiße Band - Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte 7.5/10 La pianiste 6.2/10 Le temps du loup 4.7/10

19. 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...

Stalker 9.8/10 Ivanovo detstvo 9.0/10 Nostalghia 7.9/10 Zerkalo 7.5/10 Andrey Rublev 6.9/10 Offret 5.9/10 Solyaris 4.6/10

20. 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...

Videodrome 9.4/10 The Brood 9.0/10 Scanners 9.0/10 A History of Violence 8.7/10 The Dead Zone 7.8/10 The Fly 7.5/10 Teleplay: The Italian Machine 7.3/10 Maps to the Stars 7.1/10 eXistenZ: 6.8/10 Rabid 6.0/10 Spider 5.7/10 Shivers 5.6/10 Camera 4.9/10 Cosmopolis 4.8/10 Crimes of the Future 4.5/10 Stereo 4.5/10 Dead Ringers 4.2/10 Crash 4.1/10 Naked Lunch 3.2/10 Eastern Promises 2.7/10

21. 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 ...

Ladybird Ladybird 9.9/10 Family Life 9.4/10 Kes 7.8/10 Land and Freedom 7.6/10 I, Daniel Blake 7.1/10 The Wind that Shakes the Barley 7.0/10 Sweet Sixteen 6.0/10

22. Ernst Lubitsch

Director | To Be or Not to Be

From Ernst Lubitsch's experiences in Sophien Gymnasium (high school) theater, he decided to leave school at the age of 16 and pursue a career on the stage. He had to compromise with his father and keep the account books for the family tailor business while he acted in cabarets and music halls at ...

Die Puppe 10/10 Cluny Brown 9.0/10 Design for Living 8.5/10 The Shop Around the Corner 8.5/10 Trouble in Paradise 8.2/10 To Be or Not to Be 7.9/10 Angel 7.3/10 One Hour with You 7.2/10 The Love Parade The Love Parade 6.5/10 Die Bergkatze 6.2/10 Die Austernprinzessin 6.1/10 Ich möchte kein Mann sein 6.0/10 Die Augen der Mumie Ma 4.7/10

23. Mervyn LeRoy

Producer | The Wizard of Oz

The great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 was a tragedy for Mervyn LeRoy. While he and his father managed to survive, they lost everything they had. To make money, LeRoy sold newspapers and entered talent contests as a singer. When he entered vaudeville, his act was "LeRoy and Cooper--Two...

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang 10/10 Gold Diggers of 1933 9.1/10 The Bad Seed 7.8/10 The Cocoanuts 7.0/10 Little Caesar 5.6/10 The House I Live In 5.0/10 Quo Vadis 4.0/10

24. Terry Jones

Writer | The Meaning of Life

Terry Jones was born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, the son of Dilys Louisa (Newnes), a homemaker, and Alick George Parry Jones, a bank clerk. His older brother is production designer Nigel Jones. His grandparents were involved in the entertainment business, having managed the local Amateur Operatic ...

The Meaning of Life 9.2/10 Life of Brian 9.0/10 Monty Python and the Holy Grail 8.9/10

25. 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 ...

Happy-Go-Lucky 9.5/10 Another Year 9.1/10 High Hopes 8.3/10 A Sense of History 7.5/10

26. Mamoru Oshii

Director | Kôkaku kidôtai

Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker, television director and screenwriter. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of popular anime, including Urusei Yatsura (1981-1984), Angel's Egg (1985), Patlabor: The Movie (1989), Ghost in the Shell (1995), and Ghost in ...

Tenshi no tamago 9.8/10 Kôkaku Kidôtai 8.6/10 Innocence 7.4/10 Kidô keisatsu patorebâ: Gekijô-ban 6.4/10

27. Michael Curtiz

Director | Casablanca

Curtiz began acting in and then directing films in his native Hungary in 1912. After WWI, he continued his filmmaking career in Austria and Germany and into the early 1920s when he directed films in other countries in Europe. Moving to the US in 1926, he started making films in Hollywood for Warner...

Mildred Pierce 9.6/10 Casablanca 8.9/10 Life with Father 8.4/10 The Breaking Point 8.1/10 My Dream Is Yours 7.8/10 Flamingo Road 7.4/10 Dodge City 6.5/10 Mystery of the Wax Museum 6.4/10 The Unsuspected 6.3/10 Doctor X 6.0/10 The Adventures of Robin Hood 5.6/10 Captain Blood 5.3/10 Yankee Doodle Dandy 5.2/10 The Sea Hawk 5.1/10 Angels with Dirty Faces 4.0/10

28. 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).

La graine et le mulet 10/10 La vie d'Adèle 10/10 L'esquive 10/10

29. Jacques Tati

Writer | Playtime

The comic genius Jacques Tati was born Taticheff, descended from a noble Russian family. His grandfather, Count Dimitri, had been a general in the Imperial Army and had served as military attaché to the Russian Embassy in Paris. His father, Emmanuel Taticheff, was a well-to-do picture framer who ...

Jour de fête 10/10 Mon oncle 9.2/10 Playtime 9.1/10 Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot 8.9/10 L'école des facteurs 8.3/10 Trafic 7.3/10

30. Max Ophüls

Director | La ronde

Director Max Ophüls was born Max Oppenheimer in Saarbrücken, Germany. He began his career as a stage actor and director in the golden twenties. He worked in cities such as Stuttgart, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Vienna, Frankfurt, Breslau and Berlin. In 1929 his son Marcel Ophüls was born in Frankfurt, ...

La ronde 9.8/10 Letter from an Unknown Woman 8.6/10 Madame de... 8.4/10 Le plaisir 7.9/10 Lola Montès 5.6/10 Liebelei 5.0/10 The Reckless Moment 5.0/10

31. Abel Ferrara

Director | Bad Lieutenant

Born in the Bronx, Ferrara started making amateur films on Super 8 in his teens before making his debut with violent exploitation films such as 'Driller Killer' and 'Ms.45'. Good reviews for the latter helped create his cult reputation, leading to larger budgets, studio funding and 'name' actors (...

King of New York 9.2/10 New Rose Hotel 6.9/10 Ms .45 5.8/10 Go Go Tales 5.0/10 The Driller Killer 4.9/10 Bad Lieutenant 4.8/10 The Addiction 4.0

32. Federico Fellini

Writer | Le notti di Cabiria

The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the ...

La città delle donne 9.2/10 E la nave va 9.0/10 Le notti di Cabiria 8.8/10 La strada 8.8/10 Fellini - Satyricon 8.7/10 I vitelloni 8.0/10 Il bidone 7.5/10 Amarcord 7.3/10 Lo sceicco bianco 6.0/10 8½ 5.5/10 La dolce vita 5.3/10

33. Yasujirô Ozu

Writer | Tôkyô monogatari

Tokyo-born Yasujiro Ozu was a movie buff from childhood, often playing hooky from school in order to see Hollywood movies in his local theatre. In 1923 he landed a job as a camera assistant at Shochiku Studios in Tokyo. Three years later, he was made an assistant director and directed his first ...

Tôkyô no onna 8.6/10 Tôkyô boshoku 8.5/10 Ukikusa 8.2/10 Tôkyô monogatari 8.0/10 Kohayagawa-ke no aki 7.4/10 Otona no miru ehon - Umarete wa mita keredo 7.1/10 Shukujo wa nani o wasureta ka 5.9/10

34. Bob Connolly

Producer | Facing the Music

Bob Connolly was born on June 7, 1945 in Australia. He is a producer and director, known for Facing the Music (2001), Joe Leahy's Neighbours (1989) and Black Harvest (1992). He was previously married to Robin Anderson.

Black Harvest 10/10 First Contact 9.7/10 Joe Leahy's Neighbours 8.4/10

35. Douglas Sirk

Director | Schlußakkord

Film director Douglas Sirk, whose reputation blossomed in the generation after his 1959 retirement from Hollywood filmmaking, was born Hans Detlef Sierck on April 26, 1897, in Hamburg, Germany, to a journalist. Both of his parents were Danish, and the future director would make movies in German, ...

All That Heaven Allows 9.8/10 A Time to Love and a Time to Die 9.5/10 The Tarnished Angels 8.7/10 Zu neuen Ufern 8.6/10 Shockproof 6.1/10 Magnificent Obsession 6.0/10 Imitation of Life 5.2/10

36. Fritz Lang

Actor | Le mépris

Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. ...

Fury 8.8/10 Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse 8.3/10 Ministry of Fear 8.3/10 Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse 7.9/10 Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler 7.9/10 Das indische Grabmal 7.9/10 Der Tiger von Eschnapur 7.9/10 You and Me 7.7/10 You Only Live Once 7.7/10 House by the River 7.4/10 While the City Sleeps 7.2/10 Scarlet Street 7.0/10 Moontide 7.0/10 The Big Heat 6.6/10 The Woman in the Window 6.5/10 Clash by Night 6.4/10 M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder 6.9/10 Der müde Tod 5.8/10 Beyond a Reasonable Doubt 5.6/10 Die Spinnen, 1. Teil - Der Goldene See 4.8 Die Spinnen, 2. Teil - Das Brillantenschiff 4.8 Harakiri 4.7/10 Metropolis 4.4/10

37. D.W. Griffith

Director | The Birth of a Nation

David Wark Griffith was born in rural Kentucky to Jacob "Roaring Jake" Griffith, a former Confederate Army colonel and Civil War veteran. Young Griffith grew up with his father's romantic war stories and melodramatic nineteenth-century literature that were to eventually shape his movies. In 1897 ...

Orphans of the Storm 9.0/10 The Birth of a Nation 8.9/10 Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages 8.8/10 As It Is in Life 8.5/10 The New York Hat 7.9/10 The Sunbeam 7.7/10 True Heart Susie 7.6/10 The Mothering Heart 7.5/10 Edgar Allan Poe 7.3/10 The Old Actor 7.1/10 The Girl and Her Trust 7.0/10 Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl 6.7/10 The Lonedale Operator 6.3/10 The Avenging Conscience: or 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' 6.2/10 Death's Marathon 6.1/10 The Lonely Villa 6.0/10 A Corner in Wheat 5.5/10 Hearts of the World 5.4/10 The Unchanging Sea 5.3/10 Judith of Bethulia 5.2/10 The Painted Lady 5.2/10 A Calamitous Elopement 5.1/10 The Greatest Question 5.0/10 The Musketeers of Pig Alley 5.0/10 His Trust: The Faithful Devotion and Self-Sacrifice of an Old Negro Servant 5.0/10 The Curtain Pole 4.9/10 The Mended Lute 4.8/10 Those Awful Hats 4.5/10 The Country Doctor 4.3/10 The Battle of Elderbush Gulch 4.0/10 The House with Closed Shutters 3.4/10

38. Buster Keaton

Actor | The General

Joseph Frank Keaton was born on October 4, 1895 in Piqua, Kansas, to Joe Keaton and Myra Keaton. Joe and Myra were Vaudevillian comedians with a popular, ever-changing variety act, giving Keaton an eclectic and interesting upbringing. In the earliest days on stage, they traveled with a medicine ...

The Navigator 9.0/10 Cops 8.8/10 Battling Butler 8.7/10 The 'High Sign' 8.6/10 The Blacksmith 8.5/10 The Goat 8.4/10 The Scarecrow 8.3/10 The Cameraman 8.3/10 One Week 8.2/10 The Love Nest 7.6/10 Seven Chances 7.5/10 The Paleface 7.5/10 Our Hospitality 7.4/10 My Wife's Relations 7.4/10 The Boat 7.3/10 College 7.2/10 Day Dreams 7.2/10 The Haunted House 7.1/10 The Play House 7.0/10 Three Ages 6.3/10 Go West 6.2/10 The Electric House 6.0/10 The General 5.1/10 Sherlock Jr. 5.0/10 The Rough House 4.0/10 The Balloonatic ?/10

39. Alejandro Jodorowsky

Writer | El Topo

Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in Tocopilla, Chile on February 17, 1929. In 1939 he moved to Santiago where he attended university, was a circus clown and a puppeteer. In 1953 he went to Paris and studied mime with Marcel Marceau. He worked with Maurice Chevalier there and made a short film, La ...

La montaña sagrada 10/10 El topo 8.9/10 La danza de la realidad 8.4/10 Santa sangre 7.2/10

40. Charles Chaplin

Writer | The Great Dictator

Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the ...

City Lights 9.5/10 The Circus 9.4/10 The Gold Rush 9.4/10 Monsieur Verdoux 8.8/10 The Pawnshop 8.2/10 Modern Times 7.7/10 The Kid 7.6/10 The Adventurer 7.4/10 Pay Day 7.3/10 A Night in the Show 7.0/10 The Great Dictator 6.9/10 Limelight 6.6/10 A Dog's Life 6.5/10 The Idle Class 6.2/10 One A.M. 6.1/10 The Rink 6.1/10 Shoulder Arms 5.8/10 A Day's Pleasure 5.1/10 A Woman 5.0/10 The Masquerader 5.0/10 Work 4.9/10 The Immigrant 4.8/10 Easy Street 4.0/10 The Vagabond 4.0/10 The Cure 4.0/10 Sunnyside 4.0/10 A Burlesque on Carmen 3.0/10 Behind the Screen ?/10

41. Agnès Varda

Director | Cléo de 5 à 7

Agnès Varda was born on May 30, 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on March 29, 2019 in Paris, France.

Les plages d'Agnès 9.3/10 Le bonheur 9.2/10 Oncle Yanco 8.9/10 Les glaneurs et la glaneuse 8.2/10 Sans toit ni loi 8.1/10 Cléo de 5 à 7 8.0/10 Jacquot de Nantes 7.3/10 Les fiancés du pont Mac Donald ou (Méfiez-vous des lunettes noires) 5.2/10 La Pointe-Courte 5.8/10 Kung-fu master! 5.7/10 L'opéra-mouffe 5.2/10 Plaisir d'amour en Iran 5.0/10 Daguerréotypes 4.9/10 Mur murs 4.7/10 Lions Love 4.0/10 Salut les Cubains 3.6/10 Documenteur 3.0/10 Black Panthers 2.7/10

42. 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 ...

Badkonake sefid 9.7/10 Taxi 9.4/10 Dayereh 5.0/10

43. Alexander Mackendrick

Writer | The Man in the White Suit

One of the most distinguished (if frequently overlooked) directors ever to emerge from the British film industry, Alexander Mackendrick, was in fact born in the US (to Scottish parents), but grew up in his native Scotland, where he studied at the Glasgow School of Art. He started out as a ...

The Man in the White Suit 10/10 Sweet Smell of Success 9.1/10 The Ladykillers 5.7/10

44. John Waters

Writer | Pecker

Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, John Waters was not like other children; he was obsessed by violence and gore, both real and on the screen. With his weird counter-culture friends as his cast, he began making silent 8mm and 16mm films in the mid-'60s; he screened these in rented Baltimore ...

Polyester 8.9/10 Desperate Living 8.9/10 Female Trouble 8.8/10 Pink Flamingos 7.9/10 Hairspray 7.6/10 Cecil B. DeMented 6.7/10 Pecker 6.6/10 Multiple Maniacs 6.2/10 Cry-Baby 5.4/10 A Dirty Shame 5.1/10 Serial Mom 5.0/10

45. 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...

Dawn of the Dead 8.9/10 Land of the Dead 7.8/10 Diary of the Dead 7.8/10 Day of the Dead 7.6/10 Martin 7.0/10 Night of the Living Dead 6.0/10 The Crazies 5.0/10

46. Helmut Käutner

Director | Der Hauptmann von Köpenick

Helmut Käutner was born on March 25, 1908 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for The Captain from Köpenick (1956), The Last Bridge (1954) and The Rest Is Silence (1959). He was married to Erica Balqué. He died on April 20, 1980 in Castellina in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy.

Unter den Brücken 10/10 In jenen Tagen 8.9/10 Romanze in Moll 8.0/10 Die letzte Brücke 7.3/10 Große Freiheit Nr. 7 7.0/10

47. Sam Raimi

Director | Spider-Man

Highly inventive U.S. film director/producer/writer/actor Sam Raimi first came to the attention of film fans with the savage, yet darkly humorous, low-budget horror film, The Evil Dead (1981). From his childhood, Raimi was a fan of the cinema and, before he was ten-years-old, he was out making ...

Evil Dead II 9.9/10 The Evil Dead 9.8/10 Drag Me to Hell 8.9/10 Army of Darkness 6.9/10 Spider-Man 3 5.8/10 Darkman 5.0/10 Spider-Man 4.9/10 Oz the Great and Powerful 4.1/10 Spider-Man 2/10

48. Tod Browning

Director | Dracula

Belonging to a well-situated family, Charles Browning fell in love at the age of 16 with a dancer of a circus. Following her began his itinerary of being clown, jockey and director of a variety theater which ended when he met D.W. Griffith and became an actor. He made his debut in Intolerance (1916)...

Freaks 9.0/10 The Devil-Doll 7.8/10 Dracula 7.7/10 West of Zanzibar 7.6/10 The Unknown 6.3/10 Mark of the Vampire 5.1/10

49. 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...

Pulp Fiction 9.1/10 Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood 9.0/10 The Hateful Eight 8.8/10 Death Proof 8.1/10 Jackie Brown 6.9/19 Django Unchained 6.2/10 Inglourious Basterds 6.1/10 Kill Bill: Vol. 1 5.0/10 Kill Bill: Vol. 2 5.0/10 Reservoir Dogs 4.8/10

50. 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.

Paterson 9.0/10 Mystery Train 8.8/10 Night on Earth 8.4/10 Coffee and Cigarettes 7.8/10 Only Lovers Left Alive 7.7/10 Dead Man 7.7/10 Stranger Than Paradise 5.6/10 Down by Law 5.5/10

51. 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 ...

The Fog 8.9/10 The Thing 8.8/10 Assault on Precinct 13 8.0/10 Big Trouble in Little China 7.8/10 Prince of Darkness 7.0/10 Halloween 6.9/10 Escape from New York 6.7/10 They Live 6.5/10 Dark Star 6.1/10 Village of the Damned 5.7/10 John Carpenter: Escape from New York 5.4 In the Mouth of Madness 5.1/10 Vampires 4.0/10

52. Leo McCarey

Director | An Affair to Remember

Leo McCarey was born on October 3, 1896 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a director and writer, known for An Affair to Remember (1957), Going My Way (1944) and Love Affair (1939). He was married to Virginia Stella Martin. He died on July 5, 1969 in Santa Monica, California, USA.

Make Way for Tomorrow 9.7/10 The Finishing Touch 8.0/10 Big Business 7.4/10 Wrong Again 7.3/10 Duck Soup 7.3/10 Liberty 6.2/10 Mighty Like a Moose 6.0/19 Going My Way 5.1/10 The Bells of St. Mary's 5.0/10

53. Frederick Wiseman

Director | National Gallery

Born in 1930, Wiseman is a Cambridge, Massachusetts resident and member of the Massachusetts Bar Association who turned to filmmaking in 1967, after years as an instructor and/or researcher at Boston University, Brandeis University, and Harvard. In 1970 he founded Zipporah Films, Inc., which ...

At Berkeley 9.0/10 Domestic Violence 8.6/10 National Gallery 8.5/10 Titicut Follies 7.0/10

54. William Friedkin

Director | To Live and Die in L.A.

Friedkin's mother was an operating room nurse. His father was a merchant seaman, semi-pro softball player and ultimately sold clothes in a men's discount chain. Ultimately, his father never earned more than $50/week in his whole life and died indigent. Eventually young Will became infatuated with ...

The Exorcist 8.9/10 To Live and Die in L.A. 8.5/10 Sorcerer 8.0/10 The French Connection 7.0/10

55. Jacques Tourneur

Director | Cat People

Born in Paris in 1904, Tourneur went to Hollywood with his father, director Maurice Tourneur around 1913. He started out as a script clerk and editor for his father, then graduated to such jobs as directing shorts (often with the pseudonym Jack Turner), both in France and America. He was hired to ...

Cat People 8.2/10 I Walked with a Zombie 7.9/10 Out of the Past 7.5/10 The Comedy of Terrors 7.4/10 Nightfall 7.2/10 The Leopard Man 6.5/10 Berlin Express 6.4/10 Night of the Demon 6.3/10 Canyon Passage 4.1/10

56. Helge Schneider

Actor | 00 Schneider - Jagd auf Nihil Baxter

Helge Schneider was born on August 30, 1955 in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. He is an actor and composer, known for 00 Schneider - Jagd auf Nihil Baxter (1994), 00 Schneider - Im Wendekreis der Eidechse (2013) and Texas - Doc Snyder hält die Welt in Atem (1993).

Praxis Dr. Hasenbein 8.0/10 Texas - Doc Snyder hält die Welt in Atem 8.0/10 00 Schneider - Im Wendekreis der Eidechse 7.1/10 00 Schneider - Jagd auf Nihil Baxter 7.0/10 Jazzclub - Der frühe Vogel fängt den Wurm. 6.5/10 Stangenfieber 5.5/10

57. Victor Sjöström

Actor | Smultronstället

Victor Sjöström was born on September 20, 1879, and is the undisputed father of Swedish film, ranking as one of the masters of world cinema. His influence lives on in the work of Ingmar Bergman and all those directors, both Swedish and international, influenced by his work and the works of ...

He Who Gets Slapped 9.2/10 The Wind 7.7/10 Körkarlen 7.6/10 Berg-Ejvind och hans hustru 6.0/10 Ingeborg Holm 5.1/10

58. 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 ...

Léon 9.7/10 The Fifth Element 9.5/10 Subway 8.7/10 Nikita 7.9/10 Lucy 3.7/10 Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets 2.4/10

59. Robert Zemeckis

Writer | Back to the Future

A whiz-kid with special effects, Robert is from the Spielberg camp of film-making (Steven Spielberg produced many of his films). Usually working with writing partner Bob Gale, Robert's earlier films show he has a talent for zany comedy (Romancing the Stone (1984), 1941 (1979)) and special effect ...

Back to the Future Part II 8.8/10 Back to the Future Part II 8.3/10 Forrest Gump 7.0/10 Romancing the Stone 4.8/10 The Polar Express 4.2/10 Cast Away 3.7/10 Back to the Future ?/10 (seen as a kid. deserves a rewatch) Who Framed Roger Rabbit ?/19 (also seen as a kid)

60. Kenji Mizoguchi

Director | Ugetsu monogatari

Coming from a lower class family Mizoguchi entered the production company Nikkatsu as an actor specialized in female roles. Later he became an assistant director and made his first film in 1922. Although he filmed almost 90 movies in the silent era, only his last 12 productions are really known ...

Sanshô dayû 9.0/10 Chikamatsu monogatari 8.9/10 Ugetsu monogatari 6.5/10

61. Jacques Feyder

Director | La kermesse héroïque

Jacques Feyder was born on July 21, 1885 in Ixelles, Brabant, Belgium. He was a director and writer, known for Carnival in Flanders (1935), Le grand jeu (1934) and Fahrendes Volk (1938). He was married to Françoise Rosay. He died on May 24, 1948 in Rive-de-Prangins, Switzerland.

Le grand jeu 8.8/10

62. Lotte Reiniger

Director | Silhouetten

Lotte Reiniger was born on June 2, 1899 in Berlin, Germany. She was a director and writer, known for Silhouetten (1936), Der Graf von Carabas (1935) and Lotte Reiniger - The Fairy Tale Films (1961). She was married to Carl Koch. She died on June 19, 1981 in Dettenhausen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed 8.7/10 Jack and the Beanstalk 6.8/10 Papageno 6.1/10

63. Robert Siodmak

Director | Nachts wenn der Teufel kam

Robert Siodmak (8 August 1900 - 10 March 1973) was a German-born, American film director. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for a series of stylish, unpretentious Hollywood films noirs he made in the 1940s.

Siodmak (pronounced SEE-ODD-MACK) was born in Dresden, Germany, the son of ...

The Spiral Staircase 8.7/10 The Dark Mirror 8.4/10 Criss Cross 7.4/10 Phantom Lady 6.4/10 Christmas Holiday 6.3/10 The File on Thelma Jordon 6.2/10 Cry of the City 5.6/10 The Killers 5.2/10

64. 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 ...

Taking Off 9.7/10 Cerný Petr 9.0/10 Horí, má panenko 7.6/10 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 7.0/10 The People vs. Larry Flynt 5.9/10 Hair ?/10 Amadeus ?/10

65. Josef von Sternberg

Director | The Devil Is a Woman

Josef von Sternberg split his childhood between Vienna and New York City. His father, a former soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army, could not support his family in either city; Sternberg remembered him only as "an enormously strong man who often used his strength on me." Forced by poverty to drop ...

The Docks of New York 7.6/10 The Scarlet Empress 7.2/10 Underworld 7.1/10 The Salvation Hunters 6.6/10 Der blaue Engel 6.4/10 It 6.3/10 Thunderbolt 6.1/10 Shanghai Express 5.3/10

66. Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Writer | Gabbeh

Mohsen Makhmalbaf is known as one of the most influential filmmakers and founders of the new wave of Iranian cinema in the world today.

Many of his films like Salam Cinema, A Moment Of Innocence, Gabbeh, Kandahar and The President have been widely well received across the globe and have brought him ...

Nun va Goldoon 9.8/10 Alefbay-e afghan 9.5/10 Arousi-ye Khouban 6.3/10

67. Nicholas Ray

Director | Rebel Without a Cause

Nicholas Ray was born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle in 1911, in small-town Galesville, Wisconsin, to Lena (Toppen) and Raymond Joseph Kienzle, a contractor and builder. He was of German and Norwegian descent. Ray's early experience with film came with some radio broadcasting in high school. He left the ...

In a Lonely Place 9.7/10 Johnny Guitar 8.8/10 They Live by Night 7.8/10 Party Girl 7.4/10 Rebel Without a Cause 6.9/10 Run for Cover 6.1/10 On Dangerous Ground 5.2/10 Bigger Than Life 5.0/10

68. Souleymane Cissé

Director | Yeelen

Souleymane Cissé was born on April 21, 1940 in Bamako, Mali. He is a director and writer, known for Yeelen (1987), Baara (1978) and The Wind (1982).

Yeelen 9.3/10

69. Lloyd Kaufman

Producer | The Toxic Avenger

Stanley Lloyd Kaufman never really wanted to make movies, he wanted to work in Broadway musicals. During his years in Yale he was introduced to "B" pictures and the works of Roger Corman. Lloyd later got the opportunity to executive-produce a short movie made by a fellow student. The film, called "...

Tromeo and Juliet 7.4/10 The Toxic Avenger 7.0/10 Terror Firmer 6.9/10 Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. 6.4/10 Class of Nuke 'Em High 5.3/10 Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead 4.4/10

70. Vincente Minnelli

Director | An American in Paris

Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, his father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, Minelli worked in the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set ...

The Pirate 8.8/10 Meet Me in St. Louis 8.7/10 The Clock 8.2/10 The Band Wagon 7.8/10 Gigi 7.3/10 The Cobweb 7.2/10 An American in Paris 6.0/10 Some Came Running 5.2/10

71. Samuel Fuller

Writer | Shock Corridor

At age 17, Samuel Fuller was the youngest reporter ever to be in charge of the events section of the New York Journal. After having participated in the European battle theater in World War II, he directed some minor action productions for which he mostly wrote the scripts himself and which he also ...

Pickup on South Street 8.6/10 White Dog 8.5/10 Shock Corridor 8.2/10 The Naked Kiss 7.1/10 Forty Guns 5.2/10 The Crimson Kimono 4.8/10

72. Jean Painlevé

Director | L'hippocampe, ou 'Cheval marin'

Jean Painlevé was born on November 20, 1902 in Paris, France. He was a director and producer, known for The Sea Horse (1935), Pasteur (1947) and Crevettes (1930). He died on July 2, 1989 in Paris, France.

73. 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 ...

74. Kathryn Bigelow

Director | The Hurt Locker

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 ...

75. 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. ...

Before Midnight 9.6/10 Boyhood 9.5/10 Before Sunset 8.4/10 Before Sunrise 6.7/10 The School of Rock 6.6/10 Bernie 6.3/10 Dazed and Confused 4.5/10 Everybody Wants Some!! 4.5/10 A Scanner Darkly 4.2/10 Waking Life 2.1/10

76. Robert Rodriguez

Producer | El mariachi

Robert Anthony Rodriguez was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, USA, to Rebecca (Villegas), a nurse, and Cecilio G. Rodríguez, a salesman. His family is of Mexican descent.

Of all the people to be amazed by the images of John Carpenter's 1981 sci-fi parable, Escape from New York (1981), none ...

Sin City 9.3/10 Planet Terror 8.8/10 The Robert Rodriguez Ten Minute Film School 8.0/10 Sin City: A Dame to Kill For 7.3/10 El mariachi 7.0/10 Machete 7.0/10 Ten More Minutes: Anatomy of a Shootout 7.0/10 Desperado 6.0/10 Bedhead 6.0/10 From Dusk Till Dawn 6.9/10 Machete Kills 5.3/10

77. Stan Brakhage

Director | The Loom

Stan Brakhage was born on January 14, 1933 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He was a director and cinematographer, known for The Loom (1986), The God of Day Had Gone Down Upon Him (2000) and Visions in Meditation (1990). He was married to Marilyn Jull and Jane Wodening. He died on March 9, 2003 in ...

78. Vittorio De Seta

Director | Banditi a Orgosolo

Vittorio De Seta was born on October 15, 1923 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. He was a director and writer, known for Bandits of Orgosolo (1961), Un uomo a metà (1966) and Islands of Fire (1955). He died on November 28, 2011 in Sellia Marina, Calabria, Italy.

Lu tempu di li pisci spata 7.9/10 Contadini del mare 7.7/10 Banditi a Orgosolo 7.5/10 Un giorno in Barbagia 7.4/10 I dimenticati 7.3/10 Pastori di Orgosolo 6.4/10 Pescherecci 6.4/10 Parabola d'oro 6.2/10 Isole di fuoco 5.6/10 Surfarara 5.2/10 Pasqua in Sicilia 5.1/10

79. Kelly Reichardt

Director | Wendy and Lucy

Kelly Reichardt was born and raised in Miami-Dade Country, Florida, to a family of police officers. She had an interest in photography from a very young age. She started by using her father's camera, which he used for photographing crime scenes. She went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in ...

80. 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 ...

81. Trey Parker

Music_department | South Park

Trey was born in Conifer, Colorado, on October 19, 1969 to Randy Parker, a geologist, and Sharon Parker, an insurance broker. He has an older sister, Shelley Parker. He met Matt Stone (co-creator of South Park (1997)) while attending the University of Colorado in Boulder, where he had a double ...

82. Leos Carax

Director | Holy Motors

Leos Carax made several short films and also wrote film criticism, then at the age of 24 years made a very strong first feature Boy Meets Girl (1984). The film played at the 1984 Cannes film festival and was a critical triumph. It paved the way for Carax's second feature Bad Blood (1986) (Bad Blood...

Tokyo! 8.2/10 Holy Motors 7.9/10 Les amants du Pont-Neuf 7.9/10

83. Mike Nichols

Director | The Graduate

He, along with the other members of the "Compass Players" including Elaine May, Paul Sills, Byrne Piven, Joyce Hiller Piven and Edward Asner helped start the famed "Second City Improv" company. They used the games taught to them by fellow cast mate, Paul Sills 's mother, Viola Spolin. He later ...

84. 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...

85. Jim Abrahams

Writer | Airplane!

Jim Abrahams was born on May 10, 1944 in Shorewood, Wisconsin, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Airplane! (1980), Top Secret! (1984) and Hot Shots! (1991). He is married to Nancy Cocuzzo.

86. 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 ...

De vierde man 8.9/10 RoboCop 8.5/10 Flesh+Blood 7.8/10 Total Recall 7.7/10 Elle 7.6/10 Starship Troopers 7.0/10 Basic Instinct 5.9/10

87. Kore-eda Hirokazu

Director | Manbiki kazoku

Born in Tokyo in 1962. Originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 went on to become an assistant director at T.V. Man Union. Snuck off set to film Mou hitotsu no kyouiku - Ina shogakkou haru gumi no kiroku (1991). His first feature, Maborosi (1995), ...

Dare mo shiranai 7.5/10 Soshite chichi ni naru 7.3/10 Maboroshi no hikari 7.2/10

88. Claude Chabrol

Director | Le beau Serge

Claude Chabrol was born on June 24, 1930 in Paris, France. He was a director and writer, known for Le Beau Serge (1958), La Cérémonie (1995) and Story of Women (1988). He was married to Aurore Chabrol, Stéphane Audran and Agnès Goute. He died on September 12, 2010 in Paris, France.

89. Ti West

Director | Pearl

Ti West is most notable for directing horror films, as well as being an actor, writer, producer, and editor. Ti broke out, after directing various projects, in 2009, when he directed two feature films - 2009's The House Of The Devil and Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. Ti later directed, with his ...

90. Lukas Moodysson

Director | Fucking Åmål

Lukas Moodysson was born on January 17, 1969 in Malmö, Skåne län, Sweden. He is a director and writer, known for Show Me Love (1998), Lilya 4-Ever (2002) and Together (2000). He has been married to Coco Moodysson since 1994. They have three children.

91. Ross McElwee

Director | Sherman's March

Ross McElwee was born on July 21, 1947 in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Sherman's March (1985), Bright Leaves (2003) and Photographic Memory (2011). He is married to Hyun Kyung Kim. He was previously married to Marilyn Levine.

Time Indefinite 8.3/10 Bright Leaves 7.9/10 Sherman's March 4.9/10

92. 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 ...

93. 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 ...

94. 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 ...

95. 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 ...

96. Orson Welles

Actor | Citizen Kane

His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was ...

Le procès 7.9/10 F for Fake 7.5/10 The Lady from Shanghai 7.3/10 Citizen Kane 6.9/10 Touch of Evil 6.9/10 The Fountain of Youth 6.1/10 The Stranger 6.0/10 The Magnificent Ambersons 5.3 Journey Into Fear 5.0/10 Campanadas a medianoche 4.4/10 Black Magic 4.2/10 The Other Side of the Wind 3.5/10 Too Much Johnson 3.4/10

97. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Writer | Faustrecht der Freiheit

Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Openly homosexual, he married twice; one of his wives acted in his films and the other served as his editor. Accused variously by detractors of being anticommunist, male chauvinist, antiSemitic and...

Angst essen Seele auf 9.4/10 Welt am Draht 8.8/10 Martha 7.5/10 Die dritte Generation 7.0/10 Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss 6.0/10 Angst vor der Angst 5.9/10 Deutschland im Herbst 4.5/10 Querelle 4.1/10 In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden 3.3/10

98. Otto Preminger

Actor | Stalag 17

Otto Ludwig Preminger was born in Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary. His father was a prosecutor, and Otto originally intended to follow his father into a law career; however, he fell in love with the theater in his 20's and became one of the most imaginative stage producers and directors. He was ...

Laura 8.9/10 Fallen Angel 8.9/10 Anatomy of a Murder 7.0/10 Angel Face 5.8/10 River of No Return 4.3/10

99. Alexander Kluge

Director | Abschied von gestern - (Anita G.)

Writer. Director. Producer. Studied law and graduated. Was one of the founders of the Oberhausener Manifest in 1962. Since 1962 Headmaster of the 'Institut fuer Filmgestaltung' at the 'Hochschule fuer Gestaltung' in Ulm, Germany. Since 1988 produces broadcastings dealing with cultural aspects in ...

100. Alain Resnais

Director | Hiroshima mon amour

Alain Resnais was born on June 3, 1922 in Vannes, Morbihan, France. He was a director and editor, known for Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Same Old Song (1997) and My American Uncle (1980). He was married to Sabine Azéma and Florence Malraux. He died on March 1, 2014 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, ...