Directors II

1. Georges Méliès

Georges Méliès was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.

Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, ...

2. Wladyslaw Starewicz

Director | Zhitel nyeobitayemovo ostrova

Although his name nowadays means very little except to animation buffs (and even they have to be pretty well informed), Wladyslaw Starewicz ranks alongside Walt Disney, as one of the great animation pioneers, and his career started nearly a decade before Disney's. He became an animator by accident ...

3. Paul Wegener

Actor | Der Golem

Paul Wegener was born in Arnoldsdorf, West Prussia, part of the German Empire. His birthplace is currently part of Poland, under the name "Jarantowice". Wegener's family included a number of scientists, the most notable being his cousin Alfred Wegener (1880-1930). Alfred is remembered as the ...

4. Louis Feuillade

Director | Les vampires

A prolific director--over 700 films, most of them short- or medium-length--Louis Feuillade began his career with Gaumont where, as well as directing his own features, he was appointed artistic director in charge of production in 1907. His work was largely comprised of film series; his first series,...

5. Yevgeny Bauer

Director | Coachman, don't drive the horses

Yevgeni Bauer was the most important filmmaker of the early Russian cinema, who made about eighty silent films in 5 years before the Russian Revolution of 1917.

He was born Yevgeni Frantsevich Bauer in 1865, in Moscow, Russia, into an artistic family. His father, Franz Bauer, was a renown musician ...

6. 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 ...

7. Yakov Protazanov

Director | L'angoissante aventure

Yakov Protazanov was born on February 4, 1881 in Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for A Narrow Escape (1920), Without Dowry (1937) and Kak khoroshi, kak svezhi byli rozy (1913). He died on August 9, 1945 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia].

8. Victor Bergdahl

Director | Den fatala konserten i Cirkus Fjollinski

Victor Bergdahl was born on December 12, 1878 in Österåker, Stockholms län, Sweden. He was a director and actor, known for Den fatala konserten i Cirkus Fjollinski (1916), Kapten Grogg och Kalle på negerbal (1917) and Kapten Grogg gifter sig (1918). He died on January 20, 1939 in Stockholm, ...

9. Yevgeni Slavinsky

Cinematographer | Vladimir Ilich Lenin

Yevgeni Slavinsky was born on January 24, 1877. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1949), The Young Lady and the Hooligan (1918) and Wedding Day (1912). He died on September 23, 1950.

10. 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 ...

11. Abel Gance

Writer | La roue

Born an illegitimate son of a wealthy physician, Abel Flamant, and a working class mother, Francoise Perethon. He was raised by his mother and her boyfriend, who later became her husband, Adolphe Gance. Pressured by his parents, he began his working career as a lawyer's clerk in hopes of achieving ...

12. 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 ...

13. 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. ...

14. Carl Theodor Dreyer

Writer | Gertrud

The illegitimate son of a Danish farmer and his Swedish housekeeper, Carl Theodor Dreyer was born in Copenhagen on the 3th of February, 1889. He spent his early years in various foster homes before being adopted by the Dreyers at the age of two. Contrary to popular belief (perhaps nourished by the ...

15. Mauritz Stiller

Director | Erotikon

Moshe "Mauritz" Stiller, born July 17, 1883, in Helsinki, Finland, was a director, writer and actor. He began his artistic activity in the theatre, as an actor at 16. Mauritz Stiller portrayed 87 roles from 1899-1916 and directed 16 productions 1911-28. Together with Viktor Sjöström ( director, ...

16. Marcel L'Herbier

Director | L'inhumaine

Marcel L'Herbier was born on April 23, 1888 in Paris, France. He was a director and writer, known for L'inhumaine (1924), Le bonheur (1934) and Sacrifice d'honneur (1935). He was married to Marcelle Pradot. He died on November 26, 1979 in Paris, France.

17. 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.

18. Louis Delluc

Director | Fumée noire

Louis Delluc was born on October 14, 1890 in Le Buisson-de-Cadouin, Dordogne, France. He was a director and writer, known for Fumée noire (1920), The Woman from Nowhere (1922) and L'inondation (1924). He was married to Ève Francis. He died on March 22, 1924 in Paris, France.

19. Paul Leni

Director | The Man Who Laughs

Paul Leni was born on July 8, 1885 in Stuttgart, Germany. He was an art director and director, known for The Man Who Laughs (1928), Das Rätsel von Bangalor (1918) and The Last Warning (1928). He died on September 2, 1929 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

20. Benjamin Christensen

Director | Hævnens nat

Benjamin Christensen was born on September 28, 1879 in Viborg, Denmark. He was a director and writer, known for Blind Justice (1916), Häxan (1922) and The Devil's Circus (1926). He was married to Karen Winther, Sigrid Stahl and Ellen Arctander. He died on April 2, 1959 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

21. Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Director | Komödianten

Georg Wilhelm Pabst is considered by many to be the greatest director of German cinema, in his era. He was especially appreciated by actors and actresses for the humane way in which he treated them. This was in contrast to some of his contemporaries, such as Arnold Fanck, who have been ...

22. Ivan Mozzhukhin

Actor | L'angoissante aventure

Ivan Mozzhukhin was a legendary actor of Russian silent films, who escaped execution by the Soviet Red Army and had a stellar career in Europe.

He was born Ivan Ilyich Mozzhukhin on September 26, 1889, in the village of Kondol, Saratov province, Russia (now Penza province, Russia). His father was ...

23. Jean Epstein

Director | La chute de la maison Usher

Jean Epstein was born on March 25, 1897 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland]. He was a director and writer, known for The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), Mauprat (1926) and Le lion des Mogols (1924). He died on April 2, 1953 in Paris, France.

24. Robert Wiene

Director | Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari

Robert Wiene was born on April 24, 1873 in Breslau, Silesia, Germany [now Wroclaw, Dolnoslaskie, Poland]. He was a writer and director, known for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Das wandernde Licht (1916) and The Knight of the Rose (1925). He died on July 17, 1938 in Paris, France.

25. Amo Bek-Nazaryan

Director | Zangezur

A pioneer of cinema in Armenia and the Caucasus, Amo Bek-Nazaryan began his career as a professional athlete. However, he later discovered film, joined the cinema as an actor in 1914, and soon became one of the major stars in the pre-Soviet Russian cinema. In 1918, he graduated from the Moscow ...

26. Karl Grune

Director | Schlagende Wetter

Karl Grune (22 January 1890 - 2 October 1962) was an Austrian film director and writer who made many silent films in the 1920s.

Grune was born in Vienna, where he later attended drama school. He volunteered in the First World War, where an injury temporarily deprived him of the ability to speak in ...

27. Man Ray

Director | Home Movies

American painter and artist in various media who participated in a few films. He helped found the Dada movement and was the prime American participant in the Surrealist movement. An American expatriate to Paris in the 1920s, he was a member of the so-called "Lost Generation" of creative minds ...

28. Alexandre Volkoff

Director | Amore imperiale

Alexandre Volkoff was born on December 27, 1885 in Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for Amore imperiale (1941), La maison du mystère (1923) and Kean (1924). He died on May 22, 1942 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

29. Lev Kuleshov

Director | Po zakonu

Lev Kuleshov was a Russian director who used the editing technique known as the "Kuleshov effect." Although some of the editing innovations, such as crosscutting were used by other directors before him, Kuleshov was the first to use it in the Soviet Russia. he was driving a Ford sports car amidst ...

30. Nikolay Khodataev

Director | Mezhplanetnaya revolyutsiya

Nikolay Khodataev was born on May 9, 1892 in Rostov-on-Don, Russian Empire. He was a director and writer, known for Mezhplanetnaya revolyutsiya (1924), Organchik (1933) and Kak Avdotya stala gramotnoy (1925). He died on December 27, 1979 in Moscow, USSR.

31. Jaque Catelain

Actor | La galerie des monstres

Jaque Catelain was born on February 9, 1897 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Seine-et-Oise [now Yvelines], France. He was an actor and director, known for La galerie des monstres (1924), L'inhumaine (1924) and The Secret Spring (1923). He was married to Suzanne Catelain. He died on March 5, 1965 in Paris,...

32. Germaine Dulac

Director | Âme d'artiste

The daughter of a cavalry captain, she was raised by a grandmother in Paris, where she studied various forms of art with an emphasis on music and the opera. In 1905 she married engineer-novelist Marie-Louis Albert-Dulac and under his influence veered toward journalism. As one of the leading radical...

33. Grigoriy Kozintsev

Director | Gamlet

Grigori Mikhailovich Kozintsev was born on March 22, 1905, in Kiev, Russian Empire (now Kiev, Ukraine). His father, named Mikhail Kozintsev, was a medical doctor. Young Kozintsev studied at the Kiev Gymnazium. There, in 1919, he organized experimental theatre "Arlekin" together with his fellow ...

34. Leonid Trauberg

Writer | Yunost Maksima

Leonid Trauberg was born on January 17, 1902 in Odessa, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire [now Ukraine]. He was a writer and director, known for Yunost Maksima (1935), The Return of Maxim (1937) and New Horizons (1939). He died on November 14, 1990 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia].

35. Dziga Vertov

Director | Chelovek s kino-apparatom

Dziga Vertov was born on January 2, 1896 in Bialystok, Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire [now Podlaskie, Poland]. He was a director and writer, known for Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Three Songs About Lenin (1934) and The Sixth Part of the World (1926). He was married to Elizaveta Svilova. He ...

36. Sergei Eisenstein

Director | Ivan Groznyy

The son of an affluent architect, Eisenstein attended the Institute of Civil Engineering in Petrograd as a young man. With the fall of the tsar in 1917, he worked as an engineer for the Red Army. In the following years, Eisenstein joined up with the Moscow Proletkult Theater as a set designer and ...

37. Ewald André Dupont

Writer | Varieté

German film director E.A. Dupont was an influential critic and newspaper columnist before breaking into the film industry. He wrote several screenplays and worked as a story editor for Richard Oswald before turning to directing in 1917. Over the next eight years Dupont became a respected exponent ...

38. Vsevolod Pudovkin

Director | Admiral Nakhimov

Vsevolod Pudovkin was born on February 28, 1893 in Penza, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a director and actor, known for Admiral Nakhimov (1947), Zhukovsky (1950) and Minin i Pozharskiy (1939). He was married to Anna Zemtsova. He died on June 30, 1953 in Jurmala, Latvian SSR, USSR [now Latvia].

39. 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.

40. Teinosuke Kinugasa

Director | Jigokumon

Former female impersonator who entered films in 1917 as an actor, turned to directing in 1922 and made some of the most formally brilliant Japanese films of the following decades. The few of Kinugasa's early works to have reached the West betray a highly mature, sophisticated talent. His best-known...

41. Abram Room

Director | Nashestvie

Abram Room was born on June 28, 1894 in Vilna, Russian Empire [now Vilnius, Lithuania]. He was a director and writer, known for Nashestvie (1945), Sud chesti (1949) and Belated Flowers (1970). He died on July 26, 1976 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia].

42. Alberto Cavalcanti

Director | O Canto do Mar

Born in Brazil in 1897, Alberto Cavalcanti began his film career in France in 1920, working as writer, art director and director. He directed the avant-garde documentary Nothing But Time (1926) ("Nothing but Time"), a portrait of the lives of Parisian workers in a single day. He moved to England in...

43. Boris Barnet

Director | Miss Mend

Boris Barnet was born on June 18, 1902 in Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a director and actor, known for The Adventures of the Three Reporters (1926), Secret Agent (1947) and Okraina (1933). He was married to Yelena Kuzmina, Natalia Glan, Alla Kazanskaya and Valentina Barnet. He died ...

44. Dimitri Kirsanoff

Director | Quartier sans soleil

In France from 1923. Kirsanoff was at the forefront of Parisian avant-garde filmmaking thanks to works such as Ménilmontant (1926), which combined soviet style montage with hand-held camerawork and lyrically composed static shots. Kirsanoff's early silent films, many starring his first wife Nadia ...

45. Esfir Shub

Editor | K.S.E. - Komsomol Shef Elektrifikatsii

Esfir Shub was born into a family of landowners. She studied literature in Moscow, but after Revolution she began to attend the classes at the Institute for Women's Higher Education and then got a job as a 'theater officer' at the State Commissariat of Education. In the theatre she worked in ...

46. 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 ...

47. Walter Ruttmann

Cinematographer | Metropolis

Walter Ruttmann was born on December 28, 1887 in Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Metropolis (1927), Mannesmann - Ein Film der Mannesmannröhren-Werke (1937) and Acciaio (1933). He was married to Christine Margarete Helene Prasch, Nina Hamson, Erna Treitel and...

48. Grigoriy Aleksandrov

Director | Vesna

Grigori Aleksandrov was a Soviet-Russian filmmaker best known as director of Volga - Volga (1938), The Circus (1936), and October (Ten Days that Shook the World) (1927), as well as co-star in Battleship Potemkin (1925) by director Sergei Eisenstein.

He was born Grigori Vasilyevich Mormonenko on ...

49. René Clair

Writer | Le silence est d'or

René Clair was born on November 11, 1898 in Paris, France. He was a writer and director, known for Man About Town (1947), Beauties of the Night (1952) and The Grand Maneuver (1955). He was married to Bronia Clair. He died on March 15, 1981 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France.

50. Aleksandr Dovzhenko

Writer | Zemlya

Aleksandr Dovzhenko was born on September 10, 1894 in Vyunishche, Sosnitsa Ueyzd, Chernigov Governorate, Russian Empire [now Sosnitsa, Sosnitsa Raion, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine]. He was a writer and director, known for Earth (1930), Shors (1939) and Life in Bloom (1949). He was married to Yuliya ...

51. Robert Florey

Director | Four Star Playhouse

Robert Florey became infatuated with Hollywood while in his teens. By the time he set off for America in the early 1920s he had written articles on film for Cinemagazine, La Cinematographie Francaise and Le Technicien du Film, acted and directed one-reel shorts in Switzerland and worked as an ...

52. Joris Ivens

Director | La Seine a rencontré Paris

Joris Ivens was born on November 18, 1898 in Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands. He was a director and writer, known for La Seine a rencontré Paris (1957), The Mistral (1966) and A Tale of the Wind (1988). He was married to Marceline Loridan Ivens, Helen van Dongen and Germaine Krull. He died...

53. Gustav Machatý

Director | Ekstase

Gustav Machatý was born on May 9, 1901 in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic). His first experience with the motion picture industry was playing piano at movie theaters, accompanying silent pictures. In 1917, he made his debut as an actor.

In the early 1920s, he emigrated to ...

54. 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 ...

55. Arnold Fanck

Director | Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü

Arnold Fanck was born March 6, 1889, in Frankenthal, Germany. A trained geologist, he began making documentary and action films after the end of World War I, and his love of geology inspired him to shoot his films in remote mountain locations. These pictures became immensely popular with the German...

56. Fridrikh Ermler

Director | Velikaya sila

Fridrikh Ermler was born on May 13, 1898 in Rechitsa, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire [now Rezekne, Latvia]. He was a director and writer, known for The Great Force (1951), Great Citizen (1938) and The Turning Point (1945). He died on July 12, 1967 in Leningrad, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia...

57. Henri Storck

Director | Rubens

Henri Storck was born on September 5, 1907 in Oostende, West Flanders, Belgium. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Rubens (1948), Le banquet des fraudeurs (1952) and Boerensymfonie (1944). He died on September 16, 1999 in Brussels, Belgium.

58. 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 ...

59. Mikhail Kalatozov

Director | Letyat zhuravli

Mikhail Kalatozov was born on December 28, 1903 in Tiflis, Russian Empire [now Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia]. He was a director and cinematographer, known for The Cranes Are Flying (1957), True Friends (1954) and Zagovor obrechyonnykh (1950). He died on March 27, 1973 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now ...

60. Jean Vigo

Writer | Zéro de conduite: Jeunes diables au collège

Jean Vigo had bad health since he was a child. Son of anarchist militant Miguel Almareyda, he also never really recovered from his father's mysterious death in jail when he was 12. Abandoned by his mother, he passed from boarding school to boarding school. Aged 23, through meetings with people ...

61. Jean Cocteau

Writer | La Belle et la Bête

Jean Cocteau was one of the most multi-talented artists of the 20th century. In addition to being a director, he was a poet, novelist, painter, playwright, set designer, and actor. He began writing at 10 and was a published poet by age 16. He collaborated with the "Russian Ballet" company of Sergei...

62. Alexander Korda

Director | The Private Life of Don Juan

One of a large group of Hungarian refugees who found refuge in England in the 1930s, Sir Alexander Korda was the first British film producer to receive a knighthood. He was a major, if controversial, figure and acted as a guiding force behind the British film industry of the 1930s and continued to ...

63. Leontine Sagan

Director | Mädchen in Uniform

Leontine Sagan was born on February 13, 1889 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. She was a director and actress, known for Mädchen in Uniform (1931), Men of Tomorrow (1932) and Showtime (1946). She was married to Dr. Victor Fleischer (dramatist). She died on May 20, 1974 in Pretoria, ...

64. Marc Allégret

Director | Entrée des artistes

Marc Allégret was born on December 22, 1900 in Basel, Switzerland. He was a director and writer, known for The Curtain Rises (1938), Avec André Gide (1951) and Julietta (1953). He was married to Nadine Vogel. He died on November 3, 1973 in Paris, France.

65. 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 ...

66. 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, ...

67. Aleksandr Ptushko

Director | Kamennyy tsvetok

Aleksandr Ptushko was born on April 19, 1900 in Lugansk, Lugansk uyezd, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire [now Luhansk, Luhansk Oblast, Ukraine]. He was a director and writer, known for The Stone Flower (1946), Sadko (1953) and Ruslan i Lyudmila (1972). He died on March 6, 1973 in Moscow, ...

68. Aleksandr Medvedkin

Director | Novaya Moskva

Aleksandr Medvedkin was born on February 24, 1900 in Penza, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for The New Moscow (1938), Happiness (1935) and Chudesnitsa (1937). He died on February 20, 1989 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].

69. Leni Riefenstahl

Producer | Das blaue Licht - Eine Berglegende aus den Dolomiten

Leni Riefenstahl's show-biz experience began with an experiment: she wanted to know what it felt like to dance on the stage. Success as a dancer gave way to film acting when she attracted the attention of film director Arnold Fanck, subsequently starring in some of his mountaineering pictures. With...

70. Julien Duvivier

Writer | Panique

Revered by such legendary fellow directors as Ingmar Bergman and Jean Renoir, Julien Duvivier is one of the most legendary figures in the history of French cinema. He is perhaps the most neglected of the "Big Five" of classic French cinema (the other four being Jean Renoir, Rene Clair, Jacques ...

71. Iosif Kheifits

Director | Deputat Baltiki

Iosif Kheifits was born on December 4, 1905 in Minsk, Russian Empire [now Belarus]. He was a director and writer, known for Baltic Deputy (1937), The Lady with the Dog (1960) and The Rumyantsev Case (1956). He was married to Yanina Zheymo. He died on April 24, 1995 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

72. 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 ...

73. Vladimir Legoshin

Director | U nikh est Rodina

Vladimir Legoshin was born on May 27, 1904 in Baku, Russian Empire [now Azerbaijan]. He was a director and writer, known for U nikh est Rodina (1950), The Lonely White Sail (1937) and Military Secret (1945). He died on December 21, 1954 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].

74. Mark Donskoy

Director | Detstvo Gorkogo

Mark Donskoy was born on March 6, 1901 in Odessa, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire [now Ukraine]. He was a director and writer, known for Gorky 1: The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (1938), Foma Gordeev (1959) and The Taras Family (1945). He died on March 21, 1981 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].

75. Marcel Pagnol

Writer | La fille du puisatier

Marcel Pagnol was born on February 28, 1895 in Aubagne, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. He was a writer and producer, known for The Well-Digger's Daughter (1940), Jean de Florette (1986) and Le schpountz (1938). He was married to Jacqueline Pagnol and Simone Collin. He died on April 18, 1974 in Paris, ...

76. 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 ...

77. Tatyana Lukashevich

Director | Prestuplenie Ivana Karavaeva

Tatyana Nikolaevna Lukashevich was a Soviet writer and director. She was very devoted to her profession, at the time where filmmaking wasn't appreciated at all. It should be noted that she was one of the earliest female film directors, not only in the Soviet Union, but in the world. Some of her ...

78. Aleksandr Rou

Director | Morozko

Aleksandr Rou was born on February 24, 1906 in Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for Frosty (1965), Kashchei the Immortal (1945) and The Fair Barbara (1970). He was married to Irina Zarubina. He died on December 28, 1973 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now ...

79. António Lopes Ribeiro

Director | O Primo Basílio

António Lopes Ribeiro was born on April 16, 1908 in Lisbon, Portugal. He was an actor and director, known for O Primo Basílio (1959), The Tyrant Father (1941) and Amor de Perdição (1943). He died on April 14, 1995 in Lisbon, Portugal.

80. Alf Sjöberg

Director | Fröken Julie

Alf Sjöberg was born on June 21, 1903 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden. He was a director and writer, known for Miss Julie (1951), Ön (1966) and Torment (1944). He died on April 16, 1980 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden.

81. Manoel de Oliveira

Director | Os Canibais

Manoel de Oliveira was born on December 11, 1908 in Oporto, Portugal. He was a director and writer, known for The Cannibals (1988), I'm Going Home (2001) and Christopher Columbus, the Enigma (2007). He was married to Maria Isabel Brandão de Meneses de Almeida Carvalhais. He died on April 2, 2015 in...

82. Jacques Becker

Writer | Le trou

His interest in films was stimulated by a meeting with King Vidor, who offered him employment in the US as actor and assistant director. However, he remained in France and became assistant to Jean Renoir, a friend of the family, during that director's peak period (1932-39). In 1934 he ventured ...

83. Luchino Visconti

Writer | Il gattopardo

Born in his ancestral palazzo, situated in the same Milanese square as both the opera house La Scala and the Milan Cathedral, Luchino Visconti (1906 - 1976) was raised under the auspices of aristocratic privilege, theater and Catholicism. This triangulation of monuments would create an equally ...

84. Henri-Georges Clouzot

Writer | Le salaire de la peur

Beginning his film career as a screenwriter, Henri-Georges Clouzot switched over to directing and in 1943 had the distinction of having his film The Raven (1943) banned by both the German forces occupying France and the Free French forces fighting them, but for different reasons. He shot to ...

85. Jean Delannoy

Director | Dieu a besoin des hommes

Jean Delannoy began his film career in the 1920s as an actor. By the 1930s he had switched careers and become an editor, then a short-subjects director. By the mid-'30s he was a full-fledged director, and soon garnered a reputation as a sensitive, understated craftsman with a thorough command of ...

86. Vittorio De Sica

Director | Ladri di biciclette

Vittorio De Sica grew up in Naples, and started out as an office clerk in order to raise money to support his poor family. He was increasingly drawn towards acting, and made his screen debut while still in his teens, joining a stage company in 1923. By the late 1920s he was a successful matinee ...

87. Robert Bresson

Writer | Au hasard Balthazar

Robert Bresson trained as a painter before moving into films as a screenwriter, making a short film (atypically a comedy), Public Affairs (1934) in 1934. After spending more than a year as a German POW during World War II, he made his debut with Angels of Sin (1943) in 1943. His next film, The ...

88. Roberto Rossellini

Writer | Roma città aperta

The master filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, as one of the creators of neo-realism, is one of the most influential directors of all time. His neo-realist films influenced France's nouvelle vague movement in the 1950s and '60s that changed the face of international cinema. He also influenced American ...

89. David Lean

Director | Lawrence of Arabia

An important British filmmaker, David Lean was born in Croydon on March 25, 1908 and brought up in a strict Quaker family (ironically, as a child he wasn't allowed to go to the movies). During the 1920s, he briefly considered the possibility of becoming an accountant like his father before finding ...

90. 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 ...

91. 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 ...

92. René Clément

Director | Plein soleil

René Clément was one of the leading French directors of the post-World War II era. He directed what are regarded as some of the greatest films of the time, such as The Battle of the Rails (1946), Forbidden Games (1952) and The Day and the Hour (1963). He was later almost forgotten as a director. He...

93. Hans Richter

Director | Dreams That Money Can Buy

Hans Richter was born on April 6, 1888 in Berlin, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947), 8 X 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1955) and Chesscetera (1957). He was married to Frida Ruppel, Erna Niemeyer, Maria van Vanselow and Elisabeth Steiner. He died ...

94. Géza von Radványi

Writer | Onkel Toms Hütte

Géza von Radványi was born on December 17, 1907 in Kassa, Hungary, Austria-Hungary [now Kosice, Slovak Republic]. He was a writer and director, known for Uncle Tom's Cabin (1965), Európa nem válaszol (1941) and Mädchen in Uniform (1958). He was married to Mária Tasnádi Fekete and...

95. Mikhail Romm

Director | Russkiy vopros

Mikhail Romm was born in 1901, into a Russian-Jewish family, in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, Russia. He served in the Red Army in 1918-21 as an Inspector of the Special Forces for Food Supplies. He was in charge of confiscations of bread and food from the wealthier farmers (kulaks) in Central ...

96. Luis César Amadori

Writer | Madreselva

Luis César Amadori was born on May 28, 1903 in Pescara, Abruzzo, Italy. He was a writer and director, known for Honeysuckle (1938), La pasión desnuda (1953) and Almafuerte (1949). He was married to Zully Moreno. He died on June 5, 1977 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

97. Wanda Jakubowska

Director | Ostatni etap

Wanda Jakubowska was born on October 10, 1907 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland]. She was a director and writer, known for The Last Stage (1948), Król Macius I (1958) and Pozegnanie z diablem (1957). She died on February 24, 1998 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, ...

98. Yves Allégret

Director | Les orgueilleux

Yves Allégret was born on October 13, 1905 in Asnières-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a director and writer, known for The Proud and the Beautiful (1953), La meilleure part (1955) and Dédée d'Anvers (1948). He was married to Michèle Cordoue, Simone Signoret and Renée ...

99. 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 ...

100. Robert Hamer

Director | Kind Hearts and Coronets

Robert James Hamer was born in 1911 along with his twin sister Barbara, the son of Owen Dyke Hamer, a bank clerk, and his wife, Annie Grace Brickell. He was educated at Cambridge University where he wrote some poetry and was published in a collection 'Contemporaries and Their Maker', along with the...