In order (if you can)
Vittorio De Sica, Robert Bresson, Frank Capra, Luchino Visconti, Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, John Cassavetes, Ingmar Bergman, John Huston, Akira Kurosawa, Elia Kazan, Robert Altman, Billy Wilder, Aki Kaurismaki, William Wyler, Paul Mazursky, Sidney Lumet, Abbas Kiarostami, Stanley Kubrick
I’m not so much into movies that I can come up with a list, but I know Terry Gilliam would be on it.
Stanley Kubrick, Fred Zinneman, Akira Kurasawa, John Huston, Rouben Mamoulian, Chuck Jones, Stephen Spielberg, John Carpenter, Nicholas Meyer, Robert Wise, Merian C, Cooper, George Lucas (Yes, really), Woody Allen, The combination of (Zucker, Zucker, and Abrahams). Not in that order.
Hitchcock, Chaplin, Keaton, Hawks, Altman, Wilder, Bergman, Allen, Gilliam, Scorsese, Tati, Kurosawa, Miyazaki, Brad Bird, Nick Park, John Sayles, Louis Malle, Bill Forsyth, Burton, the Coens, Tarantino, Orson Welles, et. al.
I rarely pay attention to directors. But Birdman was directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, and I found that memorable.
In alphabetical order:
Frank Borzage
Luis Buñuel
Philippe de Broca
Hideo Gosha
Fritz Lang
Joseph H. Lewis
Carol Reed
Joseph von Sternberg
Jacques Tourneur
Edgar G. Ulmer
Orson Welles
Paul Verhoeven , William Friedkin, Abel Ferrara.
Not all of their movies are good of course, but when on top of their game they can’t be beat for entertainment (and there are some obscure absolute gems in their back catalog)
In no particular order: Hitchcock, Coppola, Lynch, Scorsese, Spielberg. Probably of all these, Coppola.
I have so many favorites that I will only mention the two very best: Billy Wilder and Akira Kurosawa.
Luis Bunuel, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Fritz Lang, F.W Murnau, Buster Keaton, Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, James Whale, Jim Jarmusch, Alfred Hitchcock, William Dieterle, Kenneth Anger, William Frankenheimer.
Ok, I said I would only name my two favorites, but you named the next ones on my list, Lang, Murnau, Lubitsch, Jarmusch and Hitchcock. But you missed Kubrick ;).
ETA: and Aki Kaurismäki.
I neglected Karel Zeman and Siu-Tung Ching.
That would be John.
Alan Smithee.
David Lynch
Orson Welles
**** those two stand head and shoulders above all others in my pantheon. Then…
John Carpenter
John Huston
Michael Curtiz
William Wyler
John Ford
***** and then most of the others listed above. Except for Spielberg. I hate that cheap-shot manipulative bastard.
Clint Eastwood
Rob Reiner
Tim Burton
Richard Donner
Penny Marshall
John Badham
Ron Howard (yes, I said it)
Akira Kurosawa
Steven Spielberg
Quentin Tarantino
Christopher Nolan
They’re pretty commercial, but I like almost all of their movies and if they put something out I’ll probably go see it without even watching what the plot is about and who stars in it.
Other directors I’m keeping my eyes on as of now: Cary Joji Fukunaga, Gareth Edwards and J.J. Abrams
All of the above (the ones I know) I think are great. I’ll add Peter Weir to the list.
Damn. Knew I’d forget some. How could I have forgotten Hitchcock, Sayles, Fritz Lang, and others. I’d also like to throw in a vote for Robert Zemeckis.
The Coen brothers need to be on the list.