I really enjoy Tim Burton movies; they’re wonderful to watch.
…also “The Commitments,” “Fame,” “Midnight Express,” and “Mississippi Burning,” among others. Also, didn’t he direct the “7-Up/14-Up/21-Up/35-Up” series?
Good pull, Euty.
well it has to be john Cassavetes for the road he has opened and then Jim Jarmush, Hal Hartley eventhough his latest movies are not very good
I am also looking forward to the new James Grey as “Little Odessa” was a favorite of mine.
wow not even one european director…mmmh there are a lot a like but none has really had a big impact on me.
Damn. That was Michael Apted.
Plastiktom- Jim Jarmush is great. I liked Mystery Train and Dead man is one of my favorites of all time.
I’ll stick to 10 (in no particular order):
Howard Hawks
Eric Rohmer
Stanley Donen
Michael Powell
Yasujiro Ozu
Buster Keaton
Alfred Hitchcock
Jean Renoir
Preston Sturges
Carl Dreyer
In no particular order:
Martin Scorsese
Francis Ford Coppola
Stanley Kubrick
Oliver Stone
Tim Burton
Rob Reiner
Roberto Benigni (check out his Italian flicks!)
There are other directors I highly enjoy, but have only seen one or two of their movies, so I can’t really say they are favorites. The ones above are directors whose names perk my attention in upcoming movies (for those that are still alive anyway).
Oh, I also want to echo
Kenneth Branagh
Ron Howard
The Coen Brothers
and
Steven Soderbergh
This M. Night Shyalaman will probably make it up there after a few more flicks…he’s got quite an eye for directing…he elicits exactly the audience reaction that he wants and that can be tough to do with today’s crowds.
Ok, I’m done now…
There are, of course, the wonderful Cohen brothers. All of their films are magnificent:
Blood Simple
Raising Arizona
Barton Fink
Fargo
The Big Lebowski
Hudsucker Proxy
Millers Crossing
(I’m sure I’m forgetting some other films)
Then, surely,Woody Allen must get some credit, and also Krzystof Kieslowski, the maker of Three Colors: Red, White, Blue.
The correct answers are Andrei/Andrej/Andrey Arsenevich Tarkovski/Tarkovsky and Carl Theodor Dreyer.
But thanks for playing.
Acceptable answers include:
[list]Alison Anders
Charles Burnett
John Cassavetes
Terence Davies
Carl Franklin
Peter Greenaway
Howard Hawks
Alfred Hitchcock
Jim Jarmusch
Stanley Kubrick
Mike Leigh
Kasi Lemmons
David Lynch
David Mamet
Elaine May
Jean Renoir
Douglas Sirk
Jacques Tourneur
Lars Von Trier
. . . and Yasujiro Ozu
Gotta go with Hitchcock. I’ve seen 11 of his movies and there has not been a single dud among them. I just don’t know any other director that’s so consistently good.
Kenneth Branagh is second. I’ve seen 5 of his movies and love all of them, including the ones everybody else hates.
When Spielberg is on, he’ll beat any man alive (*Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade *). But when he’s off, he can be deadly (E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).
It wouldn’t be honest for me to say Kubrick, I’ve only seen three of his films. But when all three were that brilliant, I figure the guy has to have something on the ball. (Spartacus, Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove).
I’ll pipe up for the other Sturges nobody else is mentioning: John Sturges. Very consistently good action director. The Law and Jake Wade is mediocre, but the minimalist gunfight at the end is truly classic. The best of the six movies by Sturges that I’ve seen was Bad Day at Black Rock.
I’ve only seen 4 Sergio Leone movies, but he has to be on my list for doing that rare thing, directing a trilogy that got * better * as it went along.
I admire you for speaking out against the evil that is Spielberg, but I can’t imagine you could make such a list and fail to include one of the most monumental gobblers of all time: that capital offense entitled Hook.
Only because I haven’t seen it. I hear 1941 and *The Lost World * are pretty rank too, but I won’t judge them without having seen them.
I don’t think Spielberg is evil, he’s just not consistently good.
I’ve been impressed with most of the choices put up there so far. You all have good taste. I’ll add in current Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai:
Days of Being Wild
Chungking Express
Ashes of Time
Happy Together
Fallen Angels
I’ve been extremely impressed with his work, particularly Chungking Express. He’s got a new movie coming out that I guess was a big hit at Cannes, although I haven’t seen it yet. I predict that we’ll start to hear a lot more about him in the next few years. Hong Kong film is starting to hit mainstream USA with John Woo, Jackie Chan, and Chow Yun Fat acting or directing in Hollywood pics, and films like the upcoming Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (directed by Ang Lee) set to make a big splash this side of the Pacific. Soon more artsy directors like Wong Kar Wai should have a wider market here.