Surely Hong Sang-soo could lay claim to the 2000s? Hahaha, Like You Know It All, Night And Day, Woman on the Beach, Tale of Cinema, Woman Is the Future of Man, On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate, Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors.
If Hong Sang-soo isn’t your cup of tea then I think Lee Chang-dong trumps Haneke as one of if not the most consistently strong director of the 2000s: Peppermint Candy, Oasis, Secret Sunshine, and Poetry
I liked Secret Sunshine and Poetry (isn’t that from 2010?) but they have nothing on Haneke’s films.
Oh yeah, Poetry is 2010. I really liked Cache and loved The White Ribbon. The Piano Teacher not so much. So that’s only 2 films for me – surely there’s lots of directors with at least 2 films of the 2000s that are as good as the two Haneke’s? Roy Andersson springs immediately to mind. Or Lynch.
I noticed several people mentioned Woody Allen for the 80’s. I have, only seen Hannah and Her Sisters and Crimes and Misdemeanors from this period. Both were very good films, particularly C&D, but I didn’t see either as being even close to the best of the decade, so I was very surprised to see people mention Allen for this decade. Are there others from the 80’s that are better, or are you folks just bigger fans of those films than I am.
Not saying that choosing the greatest director from the 80’s is easy, because I agree that the 80’s is very possibly the worst decade for film. But still, I can think of several other directors that I would choose before Allen, such as Wim Wenders, David Lynch, Spike Lee, and even Tim Burton for pure comedy. Plus I am nowhere near as familiar with non-English/non-European films as many of you.
20’s: Jean Epstein and Victor Sjöström
30’s: Jean Renoir
40’s: Orson Welles, De Sica
50’s: Kenji Mizoguchi
60’s: Robert Bresson, František Vláčil, Glauber Rocha and Ingmar Bergman
70’s: Andrei Tarkovsky and Werner Herzog
80’s: Jim Jarmusch and Peter Greenaway
90’s: Béla Tarr, Sharunas Bartas, Abbas Kiarostami, Aleksandr Sokurov
00’s: Harmony Korine, David Lynch, Tsai Ming-liang, Michael Haneke, Gaspar Noé
Yeah but don’t sleep on Code Unknown – one of Haneke’s best IMO, defs top 10 for me for the decade. Hidden easily as well, and White Ribbon would be competitive.
1890s: Georges Melies
1900s: Segundo de Chomon
1910s: DW Griffith
1920s: Sergei Eisenstein
1930s: Josef von Sternberg
1940s: Robert Siodmak
1950s: Kenji Mizoguchi
1960s: Ingmar Bergman
1970s: Werner Herzog
1980s: Taviani Brothers
1990s: Abbas Kiarostami
2000s: Michael Haneke
2010s: Asghar Farhadi
I’ll bite
2000s: Hong sang-soo
1990s: Abbas Kiarostami
1980s: Hou Hsiao Hsien
1970s: Robert Altman
1960s: Ingmar Bergman
1950s: Akira Kurosawa
1940s: Howard Hawks
1930s: Ernst Lubitsch
1920s: Buster Keaton
@Dead Can Dance
I agree with you on Akira Kurosawa and Robert Altman.
Still need to get into Hou Hsiao-Hisien, I think A CITY OF SADNESS (1989) would be a perfect starter for me. :)
1920s: F.W. Murnau
1930s: Fritz Lang
1940s: Preston Sturges
1950s: Satyajit Ray
1960s: Ingmar Bergman
1970s: Satyajit Ray*
1980s: Woody Allen
1990s: Abbas Kiarostami/Krzysztof Kieslowski
2000s: Hong Sang-soo
*I can’t think of anyone else who totally pwned two separate decades.
@Scampi
I agree on F.W. Murnau as the best of the ’20s but I have only seen both NOSFERATU (1922) and THE LAST LAUGH (1924).
@Scorpio – You should catch Sunrise and Faust – very good.
@Scampi
Sure. I have them both on my “to-watch” list. ;)
1910s: Tod Browning
1920s: Buster Keaton
1930s: Michael Curtiz
1940s: Alfred Hitchcock
1950s: Billy Wilder
1960s: Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, Glauber Rocha and Robert Bresson
1970s: Andrei Tarkovsky, R.W. Fassbinder and Martin Scorsese
1980s: ???
1990s: Joel and Ethan Coen
2000s: Michael Haneke, Manoel de Oliveira, Joachim Trier and Wes Anderson (yes)
2000s: Spielberg
1990s: Mann
1980s: Carpenter
1970s: Coppola
1960s: Leone
1950s: Wilder or Hitchcock
1940s: Welles
tbh before the 40s I just haven’t seen enough to feel comfortable voting
I’m gonna leave off the 00-30s because I don’t really have enough experience yet. But otherwise my list would probably go:
1940s: Welles
1950s: Hitchcock, Ozu, Wilder, Powell or Nic Ray.
1960s: Bergman
1970s: Roeg, Coppola, Tarkovsky*
1980s: Kieslowski
1990s: Lynch
2000s: Haneke
I did a bit of reshuffling here – Although my favourite works of Kieslowski came from the 90s, I put Lynch in there because I don’t think two films, regardless of how much I love them, can pip Haneke.
The easiest one to choose is 1960s: Godard. Clearly, he owned the Sixties.
@Coma Girlfriend: six people on this page have chosen Bergman for the 60s, and only two have chosen Godard. So not so ‘clearly’ to many of us.
10’s – Griffith
20’s – Murnau
30’s – Renoir
40’s – Ford
50’s – Mizoguchi
60’s – Bresson
70’s – ?
80’s – Pialat
90’s – Carpenter
00’s – De Palma
10’s – Griffith
20’s – Murnau
30’s – von Sternberg
40’s – Ford
50’s – Ozu
60’s – Godard
70’s – Fassbinder
80’s – Carpenter
90’s – Eastwood
00’s – Mann
00’s – Tarantino
90’s – Scorsese
80’s – Carpenter
70’s – Peckinpah
60’s – Leone
Pretty cool topic:
20’s – Buster Keaton
30’s – Josef von Sternberg
40’s – Preston Sturges
50’s – Alfred Hitchcock
60’s – Jean-Pierre Melville
70’s – Francis Ford Coppola
80’s – Woody Allen
90’s – Martin Scorsese
00’s (and I’ll include the last two years into this) – Terrence Malick
Not only the best, but also the most essential + most typical + most innovative, a combination of thsese.
20s: Carl Theodor Dreyer
30s: Jean Renoir
40s: Howard Hawks
50s: Kenji Mizoguchi
60s: Ingmar Bergman
70s: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
80s: David Lynch
90s: Abbas Kiarostami
00s: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
This is such a bizarre topic.
10’s Griffith
20’s Dreyer
30’s Renoir
40’s Welles/Ford
50’s Mizoguchi/Ray
60’s Bergman
70’s Coppola/Malick
80’s Speilberg???
90’s Kieslowski
20’s (Including the past year and a half) Bahrani/Malick
Yeah, Chris. Looking upon my list, I feel deeply disatisfied. Clumping filmographies into decades doesn’t feel right. Nor choosing a supreme number one.
30s: Chaplin (even if I feel I should put someone less indebt to silent film, but City Lights & Modern Times are my two faves and they are both 30s films)
40s: Welles
50s: Hitchcock
60s: Bergman
70s: Coppola
80s: Scorsese (esp. if we can cheat and put Goodfellas as an 80s film)
90s: Tarantino
00s: tough one…if we could combine Charlie Kaufman/Spike Jonze/Gondry into one person (and cheat and say Being John Malkovich is an 00s film) than that…if not than Malick if we can include Tree of Life
Fun.
1890 – 1900 Lumiere Bro’s
1900-1910 Georges Melies/ Segundo de Chomon
1910-1920 D.W Griffith / Victor Sjostrom
1920-1930 Man Ray / Georg Wilhelm Pabst
1930-1940 Sadao Yamanaka / Jean Renoir
1940-1950 Carl Theodor Dreyer / Alfred Hitchcock
1950-1960 Heinosuke Gosho / Yasujiro Ozu
1960-1970 Stanley Kubrick / Ingmar Bergman
1970-1980 Andrei Tarkovsky / Werner Herzog // * Fassbinder & Hans Jurgen Syberberg* (really close seconds)
1980 – 1990 Hou Hsiao Hsien / Andrzej Zulawski (Antonio Reis Honorable Mention)
1990- 2000 Edward Yang / Abbas Kiarostami
2000- 2010 Tsai Ming-Liang / Jia Zhangke
Santino
I agree that Haneke really owned the 2000s. The Piano Teacher, Cache, and The White Ribbon could all be included in a top ten list of best films from the decade. Not sure any other director can have such a distinction of both quantity and quality.