Favourite Filmdirectors
by alexandrews-97236 | created - 11 months ago | updated - 3 months ago | Public1. 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 ...
2. 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 ...
3. Ingmar Bergman
Writer | Smultronstället
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born July 14, 1918, the son of a priest. The film and T.V. series, The Best Intentions (1992) is biographical and shows the early marriage of his parents. The film Sunday's Children (1992) depicts a bicycle journey with his father. In the miniseries Private Confessions (...
4. 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 ...
5. 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 ...
6. 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...
7. Sergei Parajanov
Director | Tini zabutykh predkiv
One of the 20th century's greatest masters of cinema Sergei Parajanov was born in Georgia to Armenian parents and it was always unlikely that his work would conform to the strict socialist realism that Soviet authorities preferred. After studying film and music, Parajanov became an assistant ...
8. 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...
9. 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 ...
10. 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...
11. Ildikó Enyedi
Director | Teströl és lélekröl
Ildikó Enyedi was born on November 15, 1955 in Budapest, Hungary. She is a director and writer, known for On Body and Soul (2017), Simon, the Magician (1999) and My Twentieth Century (1989).
12. Jan Svankmajer
Director | Otesánek
After studying at the Institute of Industrial Arts and the Marionette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s, Jan Svankmajer started working as a theatre director, chiefly in association with the Theatre of Masks and the Black Theatre. He first experimented with film-making after ...
13. 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 ...
14. Takeshi Kitano
Actor | Zatôichi
Takeshi Kitano originally studied to become an engineer, but was thrown out of school for rebellious behavior. He learned comedy, singing and dancing from famed comedian Senzaburô Fukami. Working as a lift boy on a nightclub with such features as comic sketches and striptease dancing, Kitano saw ...
15. 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 ...
16. Guy Ritchie
Director | Sherlock Holmes
Guy Ritchie was born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK on September 10, 1968. After watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) as a child, Guy realized that what he wanted to do was make films. He never attended film school, saying that the work of film school graduates was boring and ...
17. John Woo
Director | Ying hung boon sik
Born in southern China, John Woo grew up in Hong Kong, where he began his film career as an assistant director in 1969, working for Shaw Brothers Studios. He directed his first feature in 1973 and has been a prolific director ever since, working in a wide variety of genres before A Better Tomorrow ...
18. 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 ...
19. Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Animation_department | Jûbê ninpûchô
Graduated from Yokohama High School in 1968. After a few years working as animator at Mushi Production Animation, the company went bankrupt in 1972 and he joined Madhouse Studio. In the 70s he was promoted to animation director and finally debuted as film director in 1984's "SF New Century Lensman"...
20. Tim Burton
Producer | Edward Scissorhands
Timothy Walter Burton was born in Burbank, California, to Jean Rae (Erickson), who owned a cat-themed gift shop, and William Reed Burton, who worked for the Burbank Park and Recreation Department. He spent most of his childhood as a recluse, drawing cartoons, and watching old movies (he was ...
21. 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 ...
22. 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 ...
23. 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 ...
24. 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 ...
25. Aleksandr Petrov
Director | Rusalka
He studied art at VGIK (state institute of cinema and TV). He was a disciple of Yuri Norstein at the Advanced School for screenwriters and directors (Moscow).
After making his first films in Russia, in Canada he adapted the novel The Old Man and the Sea (1999), resulting in a 20-minute animated ...
26. 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.
27. Sergio Leone
Writer | Once Upon a Time in America
Sergio Leone was virtually born into the cinema - he was the son of Roberto Roberti (A.K.A. Vincenzo Leone), one of Italy's cinema pioneers, and actress Bice Valerian. Leone entered films in his late teens, working as an assistant director to both Italian directors and U.S. directors working in ...
28. 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 ...
29. David Cherkasskiy
Director | Ostrov Sokrovishch
David Cherkasskiy was born on August 23, 1932 in Shpola, Ukrainskaya SSR, USSR. He was a director and writer, known for Ostrov Sokrovishch (1988), Goodbye, Pharaohs! (1975) and Komunalne. He died on October 30, 2018 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
30. Leonid Parfyonov
Writer | Zvorykin-Muromets
Leonid Parfyonov is known for Zvorykin-Muromets (2010), Ves' Zhvanetskiy (1998) and Generation P (2011).
31. Georges Méliès
Director | À la conquête du pôle
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, ...
32. Robert Sahakyants
Director | Yellow SubmarYAN
Robert Sahakyants was born on August 30, 1950 in Baku, USSR [now Azerbaijan]. He was a director and writer, known for Yellow SubmarYAN (2002), Wow, a Talking Fish! (1983) and Ish ty, maslenitsa! (1985). He died on September 24, 2009 in Yerevan, Armenia.
33. 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. ...
34. 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, ...
35. 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 ...
36. 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].
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 ...
38. 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 ...
39. 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 ...
40. 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...
41. Dan Riba
Director | Batman Beyond
Dan Riba is known for Batman Beyond (1999), The New Batman Adventures (1997) and Superman: The Animated Series (1996).
42. Curt Geda
Art_department | Batman Beyond
Curt Geda is known for Batman Beyond (1999), The New Batman Adventures (1997) and Superman: The Animated Series (1996).
43. Aleksey Balabanov
Director | Brat
Aleksey Balabanov was born on February 25, 1959 in Sverdlovsk, Sverdlovskaya oblast, RSFSR, USSR [now Ekaterinburg, Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for Brother (1997), Cargo 200 (2007) and Of Freaks and Men (1998). He was married to Irina ? and Nadezhda Vasileva. He died on May 18, ...
44. 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.
45. 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.
46. 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.
47. Yuri Ilyenko
Director | Bilyy ptakh z chornoyu oznakoyu
Yuri Ilyenko was born on July 18, 1936 in Cherkassy, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Cherkasy, Ukraine]. He was a director and writer, known for Bilyy ptakh z chornoyu oznakoyu (1971), Swan Lake: The Zone (1990) and Vechir na Ivana Kupala (1968). He was married to Lyudmila Efimenko and Larisa Kadochnikova...
48. Clint Eastwood
Actor | Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in ...
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