Like all my lists, they change everyday
1. Stanley Kubrick
2. Akira Kurosawa
3. Martin Scorsese
4. Quentin Tarantino
5. Andrei Tarkovski
6. Hayao Miyazaki
7. Francis Ford Coppola
8. Billy Wilder
9. Robert Altman
10. Werner Herzog
1-Stanley Kubrick. I like cinema because of him, so enough said.
2-Gaspar Noé. With only 3 films it may be too much put him in second place, but i think he still has some good years to come, and i feel like 2 of his movies (i hate Irreversible) are the movies i would like to do if i was a director.
3-Quentin Tarantino. Fascinating personality. This guy is an inspiration for everyone who loves cinema and wants to make cinema as he never went to college or made specific studies on cinema. It is for me the official entertainment director. His films are often liked by a very different kind of people and this is another thing i like about him, i can talk about him with some of my friends who are not much into cinema,
4-Sergio Leone. If anyone doubt if the guy was talented or only passion, should re-watch Once upon a time in America, someone who doesn’t have talent can’t do this.
5-Michael Haneke. I have a similar feeling than with Noe, the kind of things Haneke tries to explore and show are the same ones i am looking for.
6-David Lynch. It’s along with Kubrick, the director i pick for represent post-modernism. Too bad he isn’t doing more movies.
7-Roman Polanski. I like the fact that he has actually made plenty of different genres: drama, romantic, noir, comedy, historic, terror, mainstream style, underground style… This is another guy who has what it takes to show the worst of human kind.
8-Robert Bresson. I can’t compare Kubrick to anyone else, and i can’t compare Bresson to anyone else. -Both are completely different tho-. Yes, they sure had influences from another artists, but they created a new whole style which is impossible to copy. Bresson is one of the few who (in my opinion) wanted to show life as it is and succeed with it. Also this is another fascinating personality, the fact that he always had low budgets, his lack of interest in cinema, his philosophy with actors and many more.
9-Wong Kar-wai. A visionary, imo. He is not understood right now by almost everyone, but will maybe in 2046.
10-Martin Scorsese. Another guy who simply LOVE film and transmits this to you by documentaries, interviews etc..
i don’t like his movies from Casino until now, but he is my favorite American director of his generation above Coppola, De Palma, Eastwood, Allen etc..
I don’t put them in my tops because i don’t like them as much as this others. But i respect Kaurismaki, Jarmusch and Kiarostami, his movies are an example of good films with low budgets.
Also like personalities of Buñuel or Von Trier, obviously interested in the things they wanted to show, more than his films, what they wanted to show.
I always change my top10 anyway, this is only right now May 2 2012.
Alphabetically:
Luis Bunuel
Federico Fellini
Alfred Hitchcock
Krzysztof Kieslowski
Fritz Lang
Kenji Mizoguchi
Max Ophuls
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Nicholas Ray
Douglas Sirk
In alphabetical order:
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Howard Hawks
Alfred Hitchcock
Akira Kurosawa
Fritz Lang
Kenji Mizoguchi
Yasujiro Ozu
Nicolas Roeg
Douglas Sirk
Billy Wilder
Tough… in no real order:
Bunuel, Ozu, Truffaut, Godard, Welles, Hitchcock, Mizoguchi, Polanski, Renoir and Kurosawa.
In alphabetical order:
Michelangelo Antonioni
Ingmar Bergman
Luis Buñuel
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Federico Fellini
Akira Kurosawa
Louis Malle
Kenji Mizoguchi
Roberto Rossellini
Andrei Tarkovsky
Paul Schrader
Michael Haneke
Andrei Tarkovsky
Robert Bresson
Ingmar Bergman
Yasujiro Ozu
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Kenji Mizoguchi
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Jean Cocteau
An abstract of the mood I’m in…not something I’d like to see as definite, of course.
1. Jean Renoir
2. Akira Kurosawa
3. Ingmar Bergman
4. Luis Bunuel
5. Robert Altman
6. Michelangelo Antonioni
7. Orsin Welles
8. Werner Herzog
9. Wong Kar Wai
10. Hayao Miyazaki
1. Preston Sturges
2. Andrei Tarkovsky
3. Sergei Paradjanov
4. Robert Bresson
5. Bela Tarr
6. Taviani Brothers
7. Ernst Lubitsch
8. Robert Siodmak
9. Ingmar Bergman
10. Dardenne Brothers
In no particular order:
Stanley Kubrick
Alfred Hitchcock
John Ford
Sergio Leone
Hayao Miyazaki
David Lynch
David Cronenberg
James Whale
Joel and Ethan Coen
Quentin Tarantino
Alphabetically:
Basil Dearden
Yasuharu Hasebe
Anthony Mann
Toshio Masuda
Russ Meyer
Jack Starrett
Koji Wakamatsu
William A. Wellman
William Witney
Karel Zeman
Honorable Mention:
John Flynn
Ngai Kai Lam
10. Federico Fellini and Woody Allen (I’m cheating)
9. Jean Vigo
8. Akira Kurosawa
7. Jim Jarmusch
6. Jean- Pierre Melville
5. Stanely Kubrick
4. Orson Welles
3. Michelangelo Antonioni
2. Terrance Malick
1. Jean-Luc Godard
And I forgot Resnais, Scorsese, Renior, Ozu, Coppola, Leone, Malle, PT Anderson Suzuki, Truffaut and many more… (I technically did a top 20 list with 21 directors, oops)
THE TOP 10
Stanley Kubrick
Louis Malle
Nicolas Roeg
Charles Chaplin
Gus Van Sant
Alfred Hitchcock
Jean-Luc Godard
Robert Altman
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Harmony Korine
RUNNER UPS:
Chantal Akerman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jean Cocteau, Brian De Palma, David Lynch, Paul Morrissey, Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, John Waters
THE TOP TEN:
Ingmar Bergman/ Stanley Kubrick
Woody Allen
Brian De Palma
Steven Spielberg
Lars von Trier
Alfred Hitchcock
Roman Polanski
Francous Truffaut
David Lynch
Lukas Moodysson
Runner ups: Pedro Almodóvar, P.T. Anderson, Roy Andersson Michelangelo Antonioni, Apichatpog Weerasethakul, Susanne Bier, Catherine Breillat, Robert Bresson, Luis Bunuel, James Cameron, David Cronenberg, Sofia Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola, Federico Fellini, David Fincher, Michael Haneke, Peter Jackson, Krzystiof Kieslowski, Terrence Malick, Hayao Miyazaki, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, Douglas Sirk, Zack Snyder, Whit Stillman, Quentin Tarantino, Andrej Tarkovskij and Peter Weir.
Great list as expected, Lars Ole. But where is Martin Scorsese??
10. Paul Thomas Anderson
9. Federico Fellini
8. Nicholas Ray
7. Abbas Kiarostami
6. Alfred Hitchcock
5. Andrei Tarkovsy
4. Jean Luc Godard
3. Apichatpong Weeresthakul
2. Michelangelo Antonioni
1. Stanley Kubrick
I need to see more from Bergman, Bunuel, Renoir, Ozu, Fassbinder, Passolini, Fritz Lang and Dreyer.
And I’m ashamed to say I’ve never seen a film by Mizoguchi.
@Trond: Thanks ;) Scorsese should be on the list, of course. Bertolucci and Fassbinder as well…
@Hocetheo
I’ve only seen two from Mizoguchi and I’d call him on of my all time favorite filmmakers. I don’t think there is a number of movies you need to see from a filmmaker before you can call them one of your favorites.
I want to ask you this: I loved Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and see that Apichatpong Weeresthakul is your number 3. What else should i see from him?
1. Federico Fellini
2. Wes Anderson
3. Luis Bunuel
4. Paul Thomas Anderson
5. Stanley Kubrick
6. Orson Welles
7. Terrence Malick
8. Stanley Kubrick
9. Martin Scorsese
10. Alfonso Cuaron
@Loverofcinema Tropical Malady is probably most similar, and my second favourite (behind Boonmee). And like that film, as with all Weeresthakul films, if you give it your full attention, you will be handsomely rewarded. After that you should check out Syndromes and a Century. Blissfully Yours is interesting, but a little more raw and underdeveloped than his later films.
Polanski
Cronenberg
Louis Malle
Brian de Palma
Kurosawa
Peter Weir
Bertolucci
Buñuel
Kubrick
Alan Parker
Polanski
Kubrick
Herzog
Von Trier
Hitchcock
Fellini
Paul Thomas Anderson
Woody Allen
Robert Altman
Svankmajer
Bunuel
Lynch
Welles
Antonioni
Godard
Tarkovsky
Fellini
Polanski
Jarmusch
Haneke
No order, except probably Bunuel at #1.
Stanley Kubrick
Alejandro Jodorowsky
David Cronenberg
Quentin Tarantino
Martin Scorsese
Cheh Chang
John Woo
John Boorman
Sam Peckinpah
Akira Kurosawa
In no particular order:
John Ford
Akira Kurasawa
William Wyler
William Wellman
Mervyn Leroy
Hideo Gosha
Stanley Kubrick
Billy Wilder
John Huston
Jean Renoir
I forgot Elia Kazan and Raoul Walsh. I guess I have to do a top 12 greatest directors…
1. Andrei Tarkovsky
2. Béla Tarr
3. Jacques Rivette
4. Ingmar Bergman
5. Krzysztof Kieślowski
6. Stanley Kubrick
7. Jean-Luc Godard
8. Alain Resnais
9. Robert Bresson
10. John Cassavetes
MY TOP TEN (based on arbitrary choices)
1. A director you’ve heard about but never seen any of their films – Luchino Visconti
2. Director of the first foreign film you ever saw – David Cronenberg (because you can’t get any more foreign than Canada as a 13-14 year old American boy watching satellite TV when his parents are asleep). Well technically Ishiro Honda but I don’t count him because it was the Americanized version of Godzilla and it was too well molested by U.S. censors to be really deemed “foreign”.
3. A female director – Mary Harron
4. A director you have mixed feelings over – Ridley Scott
5. A director you loved as a kid – George Lucas
6. A director you think should be or should have been able to do more than they have/had or were allowed – Nicholas Ray (because “City Blues” sounded like it would’ve been pretty damn interesting in his hands)
7. A director who you would resurrect from the dead, even by the darkest means, just to see them make one of their unproduced films – Rainer Werner Fassbinder (because I want to see him do “Cocaine”, the film and if he so desires the literal kind)
8. A director you’re interested in because you know little or nothing about the country they’re from or their style of filmmaking – Apichatpong Weerasethakul (because I know nothing of Thailand or Thai cinema – I’m purely a Japanese fanatic but have become interested in seeing what has been had in Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand – and I’ve only seen the short Ashes)
9. A director you used to like, but don’t now, and why – Steven Spielberg (I used to love his films as a kid, then I grew up…)
10. A director who you haven’t been catching up on very well – Charlie Chaplin (I only started with The Gold Rush and that was a year and a half ago!)
1. Coen brothers
2. Woody Allen
3. Steven Spielberg
4. Sam Mendes
5. Quentin Tarantino
6. Paul Thomas Anderson
7. George Clooney
8. Sidney Lumet
9. Stanley Kubrick
10. Martin Scorsese
hmgurny
1. Godard
2. Gary Marshall