Ken Loach

“A movie isn't a political movement, a party or even an article. It's just a film. At best it can add its voice to public outrage.”

Anthony Mann

"Primarily known for his Westerns, Mann portrayed a world of violence against some of the most striking natural vistas in cinema history. His crime films are gritty and real, and all his work reflects an exploration of the complex psychology of the human soul." —William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

“I am never quite sure whether I am one of the cinema's elder statesman or just the oldest whore on the beat.”

Dorothy Arzner

Ernst Lubitsch

“There are a thousand ways to point a camera, but really only one.”

Kevin Macdonald

“I always wanted to be a journalist. But I couldn’t even get a job as a trainee reporter. So I taught English for a while, traveled, and drifted into making documentaries.”

Jeremy Thomas

William Dieterle

Steve McQueen

“My influences come from real life. I’m not interested in cinema for cinema’s sake. I’m interested in life—what one does and how one interacts.”

Elaine May

“The only thing experience teaches you is what you can't do. When you start, you think you can do anything. And then you start to get a little tired.”

Carl Theodor Dreyer

“Nothing in the world can be compared to the human face. There is no greater experience in a studio than to witness the expression of a sensitive face under the mysterious power of inspiration. To see it animated from inside, and turning into poetry.”

Shôhei Imamura

“I show true things using fictional techniques but maintaining truthfulness — that's where my approach differs from Ozu. He wanted to make film more aesthetic. I want to make it more real. He aspired toward a cinematic nirvana. When I was his assistant, I was very opposed to him, but now, whilst still not liking his films, I'm much more tolerant. As for me, I'd like to destroy this premise that cinema is fiction.”

Alain Resnais

“I'm always in search of special nonrealistic language that has musicality. ”

Tim Burton

“I've always loved the idea of fairy tales, but somehow I never managed to completely connect with them. What interests me is taking those classic images and themes and trying to contemporize them a bit. I believe folk tales and fairy tales have some sort of psychological foundation that makes that possible.”

Bob Fosse

“Dance expresses joy better than anything else.”

Ousmane Sembène

“I am really unable to talk about my life – I don’t know my life. I’ve travelled a lot and this is the life that I have lived, but that doesn’t mean that I know myself.”

Spike Lee

“I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.”

Chantal Akerman

“When people ask me if I am a feminist film maker, I reply I am a woman and I also make films.”

Krzysztof Zanussi

“My cinema above all comes from literature, and, in this sense, it becomes a kind of a human language. The idea of the visual component in film as dominant has always evoked my skepticism.”

Jerzy Kawalerowicz

[On his film Quo Vadis] "It is about a growing religion in opposition to barbarianism. It humanized the barbarian world, and that is what the film is about. I am always looking for universal problems in my films."