Filmmakers Worth Looking At

101. Jim Jarmusch

Moved to New York City at the age of seventeen from Akron, Ohio. Graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in English, class of '75. Without any prior film experience, he was accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts, New York.

What to Watch:

Stranger Than Paradise (1984) Down by Law (1986) Mystery Train (1989) Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) Broken Flowers (2005) Paterson (2016)

102. D.W. Griffith

Director | The Birth of a Nation

David Wark Griffith was born in rural Kentucky to Jacob "Roaring Jake" Griffith, a former Confederate Army colonel and Civil War veteran. Young Griffith grew up with his father's romantic war stories and melodramatic nineteenth-century literature that were to eventually shape his movies. In 1897 ...

What to Watch:

The Birth of a Nation (1915) Intolerance (1916) Broken Blossoms (1919) Way Down East (1920) Orphans of the Storm (1921)

103. Victor Sjöström

Actor | Smultronstället

Victor Sjöström was born on September 20, 1879, and is the undisputed father of Swedish film, ranking as one of the masters of world cinema. His influence lives on in the work of Ingmar Bergman and all those directors, both Swedish and international, influenced by his work and the works of ...

What to Watch:

The Outlaw and His Wife (1918) The Phantom Carriage (1921) He Who Gets Slapped (1924) The Scarlet Letter (1926) The Wind (1928)

104. Sergei Eisenstein

Director | Ivan Groznyy

The son of an affluent architect, Eisenstein attended the Institute of Civil Engineering in Petrograd as a young man. With the fall of the tsar in 1917, he worked as an engineer for the Red Army. In the following years, Eisenstein joined up with the Moscow Proletkult Theater as a set designer and ...

What to Watch:

Battleship Potemkin (1925) Strike (1925) October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928) Alexander Nevsky (1938) Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1944) Ivan the Terrible, Part II (1958)

105. Abbas Kiarostami

Writer | Copie conforme

Abbas Kiarostami was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1940. He graduated from university with a degree in fine arts before starting work as a graphic designer. He then joined the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, where he started a film section, and this started his career ...

What to Watch:

Where Is the Friend's Home? (1987) Close-Up (1990) Life, and Nothing More... (1992) Through the Olive Trees (1994) Taste of Cherry (1997) The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) Ten (2002) Certified Copy (2010)

106. James Cameron

Writer | Avatar: The Way of Water

James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his ...

What to Watch:

The Terminator (1984) Aliens (1986) The Abyss (1989) Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) True Lies (1994) Titanic (1997) Avatar (2009)

107. Quentin Tarantino

Writer | Reservoir Dogs

Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.

In January of...

What to Watch:

Reservoir Dogs (1992) True Romance (1993) Natural Born Killers (1994) Pulp Fiction (1994) Jackie Brown (1997) Sin City (2005) Inglorious Basterds (2009) Django Unchained (2012) The Hateful Eight (2015)

108. Guillermo del Toro

Writer | El laberinto del fauno

Guillermo del Toro was born October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. Raised by his Catholic grandmother, del Toro developed an interest in filmmaking in his early teens. Later, he learned about makeup and effects from the legendary Dick Smith (The Exorcist (1973)) and worked on making his ...

What to Watch:

Cronos (1993) The Devil's Backbone (2001) Hellboy (2004) Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) Crimson Peak (2015)

109. Robert Zemeckis

Writer | Back to the Future

A whiz-kid with special effects, Robert is from the Spielberg camp of film-making (Steven Spielberg produced many of his films). Usually working with writing partner Bob Gale, Robert's earlier films show he has a talent for zany comedy (Romancing the Stone (1984), 1941 (1979)) and special effect ...

What to Watch:

Back to the Future (1985) Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) Forrest Gump (1994) Contact (1997) Cast Away (2000) Flight (2012)

110. Tod Browning

Director | Dracula

Belonging to a well-situated family, Charles Browning fell in love at the age of 16 with a dancer of a circus. Following her began his itinerary of being clown, jockey and director of a variety theater which ended when he met D.W. Griffith and became an actor. He made his debut in Intolerance (1916)...

What to Watch:

The Unholy Three (1925) The Unknown (1927) Dracula (1931) Freaks (1932) The Devil-Doll (1936)

111. Jean-Pierre Dardenne

Producer | Deux jours, une nuit

After studying drama in the arts institute, Jean Pierre Dardenne and his brother Luc made some videos about the rough life in blue-collar small towns in the Wallonie. After their meeting with filmmaker Armad Gatti and cinematographer Ned Burgess, they decided to enter in the movie business.

In 1978 ...

What to Watch (Directed Alongside Luc Dardenne):

The Promise (1996) Rosetta (1999) The Son (2002) The Child (2005) Lorna's Silence (2008) The Kid with a Bike (2011) Two Days, One Night (2014)

112. Jim Henson

Soundtrack | The Muppet Show

Jim Henson never thought that he would make a name of himself in puppetry; it was merely a way of getting himself on television. The vehicle that achieved it was Sam and Friends (1955), a late-night puppet show that was on after the 11:00 news in Washington DC. It proved to be very popular and ...

What to Watch:

Sesame Street (1969) The Muppet Show (1976) The Muppet Movie (1979) Fraggle Rock (1983) The Storyteller (1988)

113. Robert Wise

Director | West Side Story

Robert Earl Wise was born on September 10, 1914 in Winchester, Indiana, the youngest of three sons of Olive R. (Longenecker) and Earl Waldo Wise, a meat packer. His parents were both of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) descent. At age nineteen, the avid moviegoer came into the film business through an ...

What to Watch:

The Curse of the Cat People (1944) The Body Snatcher (1945) Born to Kill (1947) The Set-Up (1949) The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Executive Suite (1954) Run Silent, Run Deep (1956) Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) I Want to Live! (1958) West Side Story (1961) The Haunting (1963) The Sound of Music (1965) The Sand Pebbles (1966)

114. Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Director | Biutiful

Alejandro González Iñárritu (ih-nyar-ee-too), born August 15th, 1963, is a Mexican film director.

González Iñárritu is the first Mexican director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and by the Directors Guild of America for Best Director. He is also the first Mexican-born ...

What to Watch:

Amores Perros (2000) 21 Grams (2003) Babel (2006) Biutiful (2010) Birdman (2014) The Revenant (2015)

115. Steven Soderbergh

Director | Sex, Lies, and Videotape

Steven Andrew Soderbergh was born on January 14, 1963 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, the second of six children of Mary Ann (Bernard) and Peter Soderbergh. His father was of Swedish and Irish descent, and his mother was of Italian ancestry. While he was still at a very young age, his family moved to ...

What to Watch:

Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) Out of Sight (1998) The Limey (1999) Erin Brockovich (2000) Traffic (2000) Ocean's Eleven (2001) Contagion (2011) Side Effects (2012) Behind the Candelabra (2013) Logan Lucky (2017)

116. Chantal Akerman

Director | Les rendez-vous d'Anna

Chantal Akerman was born on June 6, 1950 in Brussels, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for The Meetings of Anna (1978), I, You, He, She (1974) and A Couch in New York (1996). She was married to Sonia Wieder-Atherton. She died on October 5, 2015 in Paris, France.

What to Watch:

I, You, He, She (1974) Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (1975) News From Home (1977) Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (1978) From the East (1993) No Home Movie (2015)

117. Joe Berlinger

Producer | Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills

Academy Award, eight-time Emmy nominated, and Peabody, DGA, and Sundance winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger has been a pioneering force in nonfiction filmmaking for over three decades. In a recent Bloomberg profile, Berlinger was described as a "true crime hit factory" for Netflix, whose work has "...

What to Watch (Generally Directed Along with Bruce Sinofsky):

Brother's Keeper (1992) Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996) Paradise Lost 2: Revelations (2000) Some Kind of Monster (2004) Crude (2009) Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2011) Under African Skies (2012)

118. Oliver Stone

Director | JFK

Oliver Stone has become known as a master of controversial subjects and a legendary film maker. His films are filled with a variety of film angles and styles, he pushes his actors to give Oscar-worthy performances, and despite his failures, has always returned to success.

William Oliver Stone was ...

What to Watch:

Platoon (1986) Wall Street (1987) Born on the Fourth of July (1989) JFK (1991) Nixon (1995)

119. Alex Gibney

Producer | Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Alex Gibney was born on October 23, 1953 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) and The Looming Tower (2018). He has been married to Anne Gibney since August 14, 1982. They have three ...

What to Watch:

Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012) We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (2013) Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015) Zero Days (2016)

120. Wes Anderson

Director | Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wesley Wales Anderson was born in Houston, Texas. His mother, Texas Ann (Burroughs), is an archaeologist turned real estate agent, and his father, Melver Leonard Anderson, worked in advertising and PR. He has two brothers, Eric and Mel. Anderson's parents divorced when he was a young child, an ...

What to Watch:

Rushmore (1998) The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Moonrise Kingdom (2012) The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

121. Nicholas Ray

Director | Rebel Without a Cause

Nicholas Ray was born Raymond Nicholas Kienzle in 1911, in small-town Galesville, Wisconsin, to Lena (Toppen) and Raymond Joseph Kienzle, a contractor and builder. He was of German and Norwegian descent. Ray's early experience with film came with some radio broadcasting in high school. He left the ...

What to Watch:

They Live by Night (1948) In a Lonely Place (1950) On Dangerous Ground (1951) The Lusty Men (1952) Johnny Guitar (1954) Rebel Without a Cause (1955) Bigger Than Life (1956)

122. Ousmane Sembene

Writer | Moolaadé

The first film director from an African country to achieve international recognition, Ousmane Sembene remains the major figure in the rise of an independent post-colonial African cinema. Sembene's roots were not, as might be expected, in the educated élite. After working as a mechanic and ...

What to Watch:

Borom Sarret (1963) Black Girl (1966) Mandabi (1968) Xala (1975) Guelwaar (1992) Faat Kiné (2000) Moolaadé (2004)

123. Mike Newell

Director | Four Weddings and a Funeral

Mike Newell was born on March 28, 1942 in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Donnie Brasco (1997). He is married to Bernice Stegers. They have three children.

What to Watch:

Dance with a Stranger (1985) Enchanted April (1991) Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) Donnie Brasco (1997) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

124. Ron Howard

Producer | Arrested Development

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard is one of this generation's most popular directors. From the critically acclaimed dramas A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Apollo 13 (1995) to the hit comedies Parenthood (1989) and Splash (1983), he has created some of Hollywood's most memorable films.

Howard ...

What to Watch:

Splash (1984) Parenthood (1989) Apollo 13 (1995) A Beautiful Mind (2001) Cinderella Man (2005) Frost/Nixon (2008) Rush (2013)

125. Frank Capra

Director | It's a Wonderful Life

One of seven children, Frank Capra was born on May 18, 1897, in Bisacquino, Sicily. On May 10, 1903, his family left for America aboard the ship Germania, arriving in New York on May 23rd. "There's no ventilation, and it stinks like hell. They're all miserable. It's the most degrading place you ...

What to Watch:

It Happened One Night (1934) Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) Lost Horizon (1937) You Can't Take It with You (1938) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

126. George Miller

Producer | Mad Max: Fury Road

George Miller is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer, and former medical doctor. He is best known for his Mad Max franchise, with Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) being hailed as amongst the greatest action films of all time. Aside from the Mad Max ...

What to Watch:

Mad Max (1979) Mad Max 2 (1981) Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Lorenzo's Oil (1992) Babe (1995) Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

127. Claude Chabrol

Director | Le beau Serge

Claude Chabrol was born on June 24, 1930 in Paris, France. He was a director and writer, known for Le Beau Serge (1958), La Cérémonie (1995) and Story of Women (1988). He was married to Aurore Chabrol, Stéphane Audran and Agnès Goute. He died on September 12, 2010 in Paris, France.

What to Watch:

Le Beau Serge (1958) The Cousins (1959) The Beast Must Die (1969) Le Boucher (1970) A Judgement in Stone (1995)

128. James L. Brooks

Writer | Broadcast News

James L. Brooks was born on May 9, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Broadcast News (1987), As Good as It Gets (1997) and Terms of Endearment (1983). He was previously married to Holly Holmberg Brooks and Marianne Catherine Morrissey.

What to Watch:

Terms of Endearment (1983) Broadcast News (1987) Big (1988) The Simpsons (1989) As Good as It Gets (1997) The Simpsons Movie (2007) The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

129. Marcel Carné

Director | Le quai des brumes

Marcel Carné, the son of a cabinet maker, entered the movies as the assistant of Jacques Feyder. At the age of 25 he directed his first movie Jenny (1936). Colaborating with the writer Jacques Prévert, the decorator Alexandre Trauner, the musician and composer Maurice Jaubert and the actor Jean ...

What to Watch:

Hôtel du Nord (1938) Port of Shadows (1938) Daybreak (1939) Les Visiteurs du Soir (1942) Children of Paradise (1945)

130. Henri-Georges Clouzot

Writer | Le salaire de la peur

Beginning his film career as a screenwriter, Henri-Georges Clouzot switched over to directing and in 1943 had the distinction of having his film The Raven (1943) banned by both the German forces occupying France and the Free French forces fighting them, but for different reasons. He shot to ...

What to Watch:

Le Corbeau (1943) Quai des Orfèvres (1947) The Wages of Fear (1953) Les Diaboliques (1955) The Mystery of Picasso (1956)

131. George Cukor

Director | My Fair Lady

George Cukor was an American film director of Hungarian-Jewish descent, better known for directing comedies and literary adaptations. He once won the Academy Award for Best Director, and was nominated other four times for the same Award.

In 1899, George Dewey Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of...

What to Watch:

Dinner at Eight (1933) Little Women (1933) Camille (1936) Gone with the Wind (1939) The Women (1939) The Philadelphia Story (1940) Gaslight (1944) Adam's Rib (1949) Born Yesterday (1950) A Star Is Born (1954) My Fair Lady (1964)

132. Miklós Jancsó

Director | Csillagosok, katonák

Miklos Jancsó was born in 1921 in Vac, Hungary. His mother Angela Poparada was Romanian and his father Sandor Jancsó Hungarian. Jancsó received a degree in Law from the University of Cluj-Napoca in 1944. After fighting in WWII and a brief period as a POW, he chose to join the Film and Theater ...

What to Watch:

The Round-Up (1966) The Red and the White (1967) Silence and Cry (1968) Red Psalm (1972) Electra, My Love (1974)

133. Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Writer | All About Eve

Born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on February 11, 1909, Joseph Leo Mankiewicz first worked for the movies as a translator of intertitles, employed by Paramount in Berlin, the UFA's American distributor at the time (1928). He became a dialoguist, then a screenwriter on numerous Paramount ...

What to Watch:

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) A Letter to Three Wives (1949) All About Eve (1950) Julius Caesar (1953) The Barefoot Contessa (1954) Sleuth (1972)

134. Leo McCarey

Director | An Affair to Remember

Leo McCarey was born on October 3, 1896 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a director and writer, known for An Affair to Remember (1957), Going My Way (1944) and Love Affair (1939). He was married to Virginia Stella Martin. He died on July 5, 1969 in Santa Monica, California, USA.

What to Watch:

Duck Soup (1933) Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) The Awful Truth (1937) Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) Love Affair (1939) The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)

135. Jean-Pierre Melville

Writer | Le samouraï

The name "Melville" is not immediately associated with film. It conjures up images of white whales and crackbrained captains, of naysaying notaries and soup-spilling sailors. It is the countersign to a realm of men and their deeds, both heroic and villainous. It is the American novel, with its ...

What to Watch:

The Silence of the Sea (1949) Bob le flambeur (1956) Léon Morin, Priest (1961) Le Doulos (1962) Second Breath (1966) Le Samouraï (1967) Army of Shadows (1969) The Red Circle (1970)

136. Vincente Minnelli

Director | An American in Paris

Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, his father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, Minelli worked in the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set ...

What to Watch:

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) Father of the Bride (1950) An American in Paris (1951) The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) The Band Wagon (1953) Lust for Life (1956)

137. Nagisa Ôshima

Director | Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Nagisa Oshima's career extends from the initiation of the "Nuberu bagu" (New Wave) movement in Japanese cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s, to the contemporary use of cinema and television to express paradoxes in modern society. After an early involvement with the student protest movement in ...

What to Watch:

Cruel Story of Youth (1960) Violence at Noon (1966) Death by Hanging (1968) Boy (1969) The Ceremony (1971) In the Realm of the Senses (1976) Empire of Passion (1978) Gohatto (1999)

138. Douglas Sirk

Director | Schlußakkord

Film director Douglas Sirk, whose reputation blossomed in the generation after his 1959 retirement from Hollywood filmmaking, was born Hans Detlef Sierck on April 26, 1897, in Hamburg, Germany, to a journalist. Both of his parents were Danish, and the future director would make movies in German, ...

What to Watch:

All I Desire (1953) Magnificent Obsession (1954) All That Heaven Allows (1955) Written on the Wind (1956) The Tarnished Angels (1958) Imitation of Life (1959)

139. Luchino Visconti

Writer | Il gattopardo

Born in his ancestral palazzo, situated in the same Milanese square as both the opera house La Scala and the Milan Cathedral, Luchino Visconti (1906 - 1976) was raised under the auspices of aristocratic privilege, theater and Catholicism. This triangulation of monuments would create an equally ...

What to Watch:

Obsession (1943) La Terra Trema (1948) Senso (1954) White Nights (1957) Rocco and His Brothers (1960) The Leopard (1963) The Damned (1969)

140. William A. Wellman

Director | A Star Is Born

William Wellman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter-director of the original A Star Is Born (1937), was called "Wild Bill" during his World War I service as an aviator, a nickname that persisted in Hollywood due to his larger-than-life personality and lifestyle.

A leap-year baby born in 1896 on the 29th...

What to Watch:

Wings (1927) The Public Enemy (1931) Nothing Sacred (1937) A Star Is Born (1937) Beau Geste (1939) The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) Battleground (1949)

141. Kar-Wai Wong

Director | Yi dai zong shi

Wong Kar-wai (born 17 July 1956) is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylised, emotionally resonant work, including Ah fei zing zyun (1990), Dung che sai duk (1994), Chung Hing sam lam (1994), Do lok tin si (1995), Chun gwong ...

What to Watch:

Days of Being Wild (1990) Chungking Express (1994) Fallen Angels (1995) In the Mood for Love (2000) 2046 (2004)

142. Francis Ford Coppola

Producer | Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola was born in 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, but grew up in a New York suburb in a creative, supportive Italian-American family. His father, Carmine Coppola, was a composer and musician. His mother, Italia Coppola (née Pennino), had been an actress. Francis Ford Coppola graduated ...

What to Watch:

Patton (1970) The Godfather (1972) The Conversation (1974) The Godfather Part II (1974) Apocalypse Now (1979)

143. John Schlesinger

Director | Midnight Cowboy

Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger, who was born in London, on February 16, 1926, was the eldest child in a solidly middle-class Jewish family. Berbard Schlesinger, his father, was a pediatrician, and his mother, Winifred, was a musician. He served in the Army in the Far East during World War ...

What to Watch:

A Kind of Loving (1962) Billy Liar (1963) Midnight Cowboy (1969) Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) Marathon Man (1976)

144. René Clair

Writer | Le silence est d'or

René Clair was born on November 11, 1898 in Paris, France. He was a writer and director, known for Man About Town (1947), Beauties of the Night (1952) and The Grand Maneuver (1955). He was married to Bronia Clair. He died on March 15, 1981 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France.

What to Watch:

Under the Roofs of Paris (1930) Freedom for Us (1931) Le Million (1931) I Married a Witch (1942) And Then There Were None (1945)

145. Patricio Guzmán

Director | Nostalgia de la luz

Patricio Guzmán was born on August 11, 1941 in Santiago, Chile. He is a director and writer, known for Nostalgia for the Light (2010), The Battle of Chile: Part I (1975) and The Southern Cross (1991).

What to Watch:

The Battle of Chile: Part 1: The Insurrection of the Bourgeoisie (1975) The Battle of Chile: Part 2: The Coup d'Etat (1976) The Battle of Chile: Part 3: The Power of the People (1979) Chile, Obstinate Memory (1997) The Pinochet Case (2001) Nostalgia for the Light (2010) The Pearl Button (2015)

146. John Woo

Director | Ying hung boon sik

Born in southern China, John Woo grew up in Hong Kong, where he began his film career as an assistant director in 1969, working for Shaw Brothers Studios. He directed his first feature in 1973 and has been a prolific director ever since, working in a wide variety of genres before A Better Tomorrow ...

What to Watch:

A Better Tomorrow (1986) The Killer (1989) Bullet in the Head (1990) Hard Boiled (1992) Face/Off (1997) Red Cliff (2008)

147. Mikio Naruse

Director | Ukigumo

Considered a major figure of Japan's 'golden age of cinema', Mikio Naruse was a filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer who directed 89 films in the period 1930 to 1967. Although Naruse's work is lesser known in the twenty-first century than those of his contemporaries Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi...

What to Watch:

Wife! Be Like a Rose! (1935) Meshi (1951) Late Chrysanthemums (1954) Sound of the Mountain (1954) Floating Clouds (1955) When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960) Yearning (1964) Two in the Shadow (1967)

148. Georges Méliès

Director | À la conquête du pôle

Georges Méliès was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema.

Méliès was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, ...

What to Watch:

The Astronomer's Dream (1898) The Four Troublesome Heads (1898) A Trip to the Moon (1902) The Devilish Tenant (1909) The Conquest of the Pole (1912)

149. Guy Maddin

Director | The Heart of the World

Guy Maddin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Herdis Maddin (a hair-dresser) and Charles "Chas" Maddin (grain clerk and general manager of the Maroons, a Winnipeg hockey team). Maddin studied economics at the University of Winnipeg, working as a bank manager, house painter, and photographic...

What to Watch:

The Heart of the World (2000) Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2002) Cowards Bend the Knee (2003) The Saddest Music in the World (2003) Brand upon the Brain! (2006) My Winnipeg (2007) The Forbidden Room (2015)

150. John Carpenter

Writer | The Fog

John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, to mother Milton Jean (Carter) and father Howard Ralph Carpenter. His family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father, a professor, was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. He attended Western Kentucky ...

What to Watch:

Dark Star (1974) Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) Halloween (1978) Escape from New York (1981) The Thing (1982) Starman (1984) Big Trouble in Little China (1986) They Live (1988)

151. Jirí Trnka

Writer | Sen noci svatojánské

A graduate of Prague's School of Arts and Crafts, in 1936 he created a puppet theater, which was disbanded after the outbreak of WWII. During the war he designed stage sets and illustrated children's books. In 1945 he set up an animation unit with several collaborators at the Prague film studio; ...

What to Watch:

The Czech Year (1947) The Emperor's Nightingale (1949) Prince Bayaya (1950) Old Czech Legends (1953) A Midsummer Night's Dream (1959) The Cybernetic Grandma (1962) The Hand (1965)

152. Paul Verhoeven

Director | RoboCop

Paul Verhoeven graduated from the University of Leiden, with a degree in math and physics. He entered the Royal Netherlands Navy, where he began his film career by making documentaries for the Navy and later for TV. In 1969, he directed the popular Dutch TV series, Floris (1969), about a medieval ...

What to Watch:

Turkish Delight (1973) Soldier of Orange (1977) The Fourth Man (1983) RoboCop (1987) Total Recall (1990) Black Book (2006) Elle (2016)

153. Lars von Trier

Writer | Dancer in the Dark

Probably the most ambitious and visually distinctive filmmaker to emerge from Denmark since Carl Theodor Dreyer over 60 years earlier, Lars von Trier studied film at the Danish Film School and attracted international attention with his very first feature, The Element of Crime (1984). A highly ...

What to Watch:

The Kingdom (1994) Breaking the Waves (1996) Dance in the Dark (2000) Dogville (2003) Antichrist (2009) Melancholia (2011)

154. Alan Parker

Director | Evita

The son of Elsie Ellen, a dressmaker, and William Leslie Parker, a house painter, Alan Parker was a London advertising copywriter in the 1960s and early 1970s with Collett Dickenson Pearce (CDP), an ad agency. He formed a partnership with David Puttnam as his producer (Puttnam had been a ...

What to Watch:

Midnight Express (1978) Pink Floyd - The Wall (1982) Angel Heart (1987) Mississippi Burning (1988) The Commitments (1991)

155. D.A. Pennebaker

Director | Dont Look Back

D.A. Pennebaker was born on July 15, 1925 in Evanston, Illinois, USA. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Don't Look Back (1967), The War Room (1993) and Unlocking the Cage (2016). He was married to Chris Hegedus, Kate Taylor and Sylvia Bell. He died on August 1, 2019 in Sag Harbor, ...

What to Watch:

Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back (1967) Monterey Pop (1968) Town Bloody Hall (1979) 101 (1989) The War Room (1993) Startup.com (2001)

156. Peter Bogdanovich

Director | The Last Picture Show

Peter Bogdanovich was conceived in Europe but born in Kingston, New York. He is the son of immigrants fleeing the Nazis, Herma (Robinson) and Borislav Bogdanovich, a painter and pianist. His father was a Serbian Orthodox Christian, and his mother was from a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. Peter ...

What to Watch:

Targets (1968) The Last Picture Show (1971) What's Up, Doc? (1972) Paper Moon (1973) Mask (1985)

157. Francesco Rosi

Writer | Cadaveri eccellenti

His father was a shipowner. After school, Rosi initially began studying law, which he soon dropped out to work as a broadcast journalist and book illustrator in Naples. From 1944 to 1945 he worked for "Radio Napoli". In the immediate post-war years, Rosi moved to Rome, where he came into contact ...

What to Watch:

Salvatore Giuliano (1962) Hands over the City (1963) The Mattei Affair (1972) Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979) Carmen (1984)

158. Nick Park

Writer | The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Nick Park was born on December 6, 1958 in Preston, Lancashire, England, UK. He is a writer and producer, known for Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), Chicken Run (2000) and Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993).

What to Watch:

Creature Comforts (1989) A Grand Day Out (1989) The Wrong Trousers (1993) A Close Shave (1995) Chicken Run (2000) Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) Early Man (2018)

159. Tsai Ming-liang

Director | Qingshaonian Nuozha

Born in Kuching, Malaysia, he graduated from the Drama and Cinema Department of the Chinese Cultural University of Taiwan and worked as a theatrical producer and TV director. His second feature film, Vive L'Amour (1994), won the Golden Lion (best picture) at the 1994 Venice Film Festival. His ...

What to Watch:

Rebels of the Neon God (1992) Vive L'Amour (1994) What Time Is It There? (2001) Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006) Stray Dogs (2013)

160. Hsiao-Hsien Hou

Producer | Cike Nie Yin Niang

Of the ten films that Hsiao-Hsien Hou directed between 1980 and 1989, seven received best film or best director awards from prestigious international films festivals in Venice, Berlin, Hawaii, and the Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes. In a 1988 worldwide critics' poll, Hou was championed ...

What to Watch:

A Summer at Grandpa’s (1984) The Time to Live and the Time to Die (1985) Dust in the Wind (1986) A City of Sadness (1989) The Puppetmaster (1993) Flowers of Shanghai (1998) Café Lumière (2003) Three Times (2005) Flight of the Red Balloon (2007) The Assassin (2015)

161. Kenneth Anger

Director | Fireworks

Kenneth Anger grew up in Hollywood and started out as a child actor, but his interest in filmmaking was evident at an early age: he made his first film, Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat (1941) , at age 14.

Anger developed into one of the pioneers of the American underground film movement. His ...

What to Watch:

Fireworks (1947) Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) Scorpio Rising (1964) Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) Lucifer Rising (1972) Rabbit's Moon (1972)

162. Takeshi Kitano

Actor | Zatôichi

Takeshi Kitano originally studied to become an engineer, but was thrown out of school for rebellious behavior. He learned comedy, singing and dancing from famed comedian Senzaburô Fukami. Working as a lift boy on a nightclub with such features as comic sketches and striptease dancing, Kitano saw ...

What to Watch:

Violent Cop (1989) Sonatine (1993) Kids Return (1996) Fireworks (1997) Zatōichi (2003)

163. Jane Campion

Writer | Bright Star

Jane Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and now lives in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Having graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975, and a BA, with a painting major, at Sydney College of the Arts in 1979, she began filmmaking in the early...

What to Watch:

Sweetie (1989) An Angel at My Table (1990) The Piano (1993) Bright Star (2009) Top of the Lake (2013)

164. Kore-eda Hirokazu

Director | Manbiki kazoku

Born in Tokyo in 1962. Originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 went on to become an assistant director at T.V. Man Union. Snuck off set to film Mou hitotsu no kyouiku - Ina shogakkou haru gumi no kiroku (1991). His first feature, Maborosi (1995), ...

What to Watch:

Maborosi (1995) After Life (1998) Nobody Knows (2004) Still Walking (2008) I Wish (2011) Like Father, Like Son (2013) Our Little Sister (2015) After the Storm (2016)

165. Agnieszka Holland

Director | Pokot

Having graduated from FAMU in Prague film (1971), Agnieszka Holland returned to Poland and began her film career working with Krzysztof Zanussi as assistant director, and Andrzej Wajda as her mentor. Her first feature film was PROVINCIAL ACTORS (1978), one of the flagship pictures of the "cinema of...

What to Watch:

Europa Europa (1990) Olivier, Olivier (1992) The Secret Garden (1993) In Darkness (2011) Burning Bush (2013)

166. Zhangke Jia

Producer | Jiang hu er nü

Zhangke Jia was born on May 24, 1970 in Fenyang, Shanxi, China. He is a producer and director, known for Jiang hu er nü (2018), A Touch of Sin (2013) and Mountains May Depart (2015). He has been married to Tao Zhao since January 7, 2012.

What to Watch:

Platform (2000) The World (2004) Still Life (2006) 24 City (2008) A Touch of Sin (2013) Mountains May Depart (2015)

167. Jacques Tati

Writer | Playtime

The comic genius Jacques Tati was born Taticheff, descended from a noble Russian family. His grandfather, Count Dimitri, had been a general in the Imperial Army and had served as military attaché to the Russian Embassy in Paris. His father, Emmanuel Taticheff, was a well-to-do picture framer who ...

What to Watch:

The Big Day (1949) Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953) Mon Oncle (1958) Playtime (1967) Trafic (1971)

168. Frank Borzage

Director | Bad Girl

Frank Borzage was born on April 23, 1894 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Bad Girl (1931), 7th Heaven (1927) and No Greater Glory (1934). He was married to Juanita Scott, Edna Skelton and Rena Rogers. He died on June 19, 1962 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, ...

What to Watch:

7th Heaven (1927) Street Angel (1928) Lucky Star (1929) A Farewell to Arms (1932) Man's Castle (1933) Three Comrades (1938) The Mortal Storm (1940)

169. Richard Attenborough

Actor | Jurassic Park

Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough of Richmond-upon-Thames, was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Mary (née Clegg), a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Frederick Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic administrator who was a don at Emmanuel College and wrote a ...

What to Watch:

Oh! What a Lovely War (1969) Magic (1978) Gandhi (1982) Cry Freedom (1987) Shadowlands (1993)

170. Spike Lee

Director | Do the Right Thing

Spike Lee was born Shelton Jackson Lee on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. Lee came from artistic, education-grounded background; his father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a schoolteacher. He attended ...

What to Watch:

She's Gotta Have It (1986) Do the Right Thing (1989) Malcolm X (1992) 25th Hour (2002) Inside Man (2006) Chi-Raq (2015)

171. Jonathan Demme

Director | The Silence of the Lambs

Jonathan Demme was born on February 22, 1944 in Baldwin, Long Island, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Philadelphia (1993). He was married to Joanne Howard and Evelyn Purcell. He died on April 26, 2017 in ...

What to Watch:

Handle with Care (1977) Melvin and Howard (1980) Stop Making Sense (1984) Something Wild (1986) The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Philadelphia (1993) The Manchurian Candidate (2004) Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006) Rachel Getting Married (2008)

172. M. Night Shyamalan

Producer | Lady in the Water

Born in Puducherry, India, and raised in the posh suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, M. Night Shyamalan is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor, known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots.

He is the son of Jayalakshmi, a Tamil ...

What to Watch:

The Sixth Sense (1999) Unbreakable (2000) Signs (2002) The Visit (2015) Split (2016)

173. John Waters

Writer | Pecker

Growing up in Baltimore in the 1950s, John Waters was not like other children; he was obsessed by violence and gore, both real and on the screen. With his weird counter-culture friends as his cast, he began making silent 8mm and 16mm films in the mid-'60s; he screened these in rented Baltimore ...

What to Watch:

Multiple Maniacs (1970) Pink Flamingos (1972) Female Trouble (1974) Polyester (1981) Hairspray (1988)

174. Edward Yang

Writer | Yi yi

Born on November 6, 1947 in Shanghai, China, Edward Yang has become one of the most talented international filmmakers of his generation. Along with Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Tsai Ming-Liang, Yang ranks among the leading artists of the Taiwanese New Wave, and one of the world's most brilliant auteurs. ...

What to Watch:

A Summer at Grandpa’s (1984) Taipei Story (1985) The Terrorizers (1986) A Brighter Summer Day (1991) That Day on the Beach (1991) A Confucian Confusion (1994) Mahjong (1996) Yi Yi: A One and a Two (2000)

175. Kaneto Shindô

Writer | Ichimai no hagaki

Kaneto Shindô was born on April 22, 1912 in Hiroshima, Japan. He was a writer and director, known for Postcard (2010), The Naked Island (1960) and A Last Note (1995). He was married to Nobuko Otowa and Miyo Shindo. He died on May 29, 2012 in Hiroshima, Japan.

What to Watch:

Children of Hiroshima (1952) The Naked Island (1960) Onibaba (1964) Kuroneko (1968) Tree Without Leaves (1986)

176. Jacques Demy

Soundtrack | Les parapluies de Cherbourg

Jacques Demy was born on June 5, 1931 in Pontchâteau, Loire-Atlantique, France. He was a director and writer, known for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and A Room in Town (1982). He was married to Agnès Varda. He died on October 27, 1990 in Paris, France.

What to Watch:

Lola (1961) Bay of Angels (1963) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) Donkey Skin (1970)

177. Cecil B. DeMille

Producer | The Ten Commandments

His parents Henry C. DeMille and Beatrice DeMille were playwrights. His father died when he was 12, and his mother supported the family by opening a school for girls and a theatrical company. Too young to enlist in the Spanish-American War, Cecil followed his brother William C. de Mille to the New ...

What to Watch:

Don't Change Your Husband (1919) Why Change Your Wife? (1920) The Affairs of Anatol (1921) Manslaughter (1922) The Ten Commandments (1923) The King of Kings (1927) Cleopatra (1934) The Ten Commandments (1956)

178. Raoul Walsh

Editor | The Birth of a Nation

Raoul Walsh's 52-year directorial career made him a Hollywood legend. Walsh was also an actor: He appeared in the first version of W. Somerset Maugham's "Rain" renamed Sadie Thompson (1928) opposite Gloria Swanson in the title role. He would have played the Cisco Kid in his own film In Old Arizona ...

What to Watch:

The Thief of Bagdad (1924) The Big Trail (1930) The Roaring Twenties (1939) High Sierra (1941) The Strawberry Blonde (1941) Gentleman Jim (1942) White Heat (1949)

179. Pablo Larraín

Producer | No

Pablo Larraín was born in Santiago, Chile. He is a director, writer and producer, known for Spencer (2021), Jackie (2016), El Club (2015), NO (2012), among others. Together with his brother Juan de Dios Larraín, they founded Fabula in 2004, one of the most prolific production companies in Latin ...

What to Watch:

Tony Manero (2008) No (2012) The Club (2015) Jackie (2016) Neruda (2016)

180. Yimou Zhang

Director | Ying xiong

Yimou Zhang was born on November 14, 1951 in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. He is a director and writer, known for Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Curse of the Golden Flower (2006). He has been married to Ting Chen since December 2011. They have three children. He was previously married to ...

What to Watch:

Red Sorghum (1987) Ju Dou (1990) Raise the Red Lantern (1991) The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) To Live (1994) Not One Less (1999) The Road Home (1999) Hero (2002) House of Flying Daggers (2004) Coming Home (2014)

181. Claire Denis

Director | High Life

The films of Claire Denis frequently explore the fragile connections between people and the ways in which the most seemingly inconsequential relationship can have life-changing effects. At the heart of Denis' cinema is a fascination with the delights and difficulties of belonging and otherness, the...

What to Watch:

Chocolat (1988) Nénette et Boni (1996) Beau Travail (1999) The Intruder (2004) 35 Shots of Rum (2008) White Material (2009)

182. Kelly Reichardt

Director | Wendy and Lucy

Kelly Reichardt was born and raised in Miami-Dade Country, Florida, to a family of police officers. She had an interest in photography from a very young age. She started by using her father's camera, which he used for photographing crime scenes. She went to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in ...

What to Watch:

River of Grass (1994) Old Joy (2006) Wendy and Lucy (2008) Meek's Cutoff (2010) Night Moves (2013) Certain Women (2016)

183. Ben Wheatley

Director | Free Fire

Ben Wheatley was born in May 1972 in Billericay, Essex, England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Free Fire (2016), Kill List (2011) and Sightseers (2012).

What to Watch:

Down Terrace (2009) Kill List (2011) Sightseers (2012) A Field in England (2013) High-Rise (2015) Free Fire (2016)

184. Edgar Wright

Director | Shaun of the Dead

Edgar Howard Wright (born 18 April 1974) is an English director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. He is best known for his comedic Three Flavours Cornetto film trilogy consisting of Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and The World's End (2013), made with recurrent collaborators Simon Pegg...

What to Watch:

Shaun of the Dead (2004) Hot Fuzz (2007) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) The World's End (2013) Baby Driver (2017)

185. Kathryn Bigelow

Director | Zero Dark Thirty

A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. At 20, she won a scholarship to the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She was given a studio in a former Offtrack Betting building, literally in an old bank vault, where she made art and waited to be ...

What to Watch:

Near Dark (1987) Point Break (1991) The Hurt Locker (2008) Zero Dark Thirty (2012) Detroit (2017)

186. Taika Waititi

Producer | What We Do in the Shadows

Taika Waititi, also known as Taika Cohen, hails from the Raukokore region of the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand, and is the son of Robin (Cohen), a teacher, and Taika Waititi, an artist and farmer. His father is Maori (Te-Whanau-a-Apanui), and his mother is of Ashkenazi Jewish, Irish...

What to Watch:

Boy (2010) What We Do in the Shadows (2014) Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

187. Kenneth Branagh

Actor | Henry V

Kenneth Charles Branagh was born on December 10, 1960, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to parents William Branagh, a plumber and carpenter, and Frances (Harper), both born in 1930. He has two siblings, William Branagh, Jr. (born 1955) and Joyce Branagh (born 1970). When he was nine, his family ...

What to Watch:

Henry V (1989) Dead Again (1991) Much Ado About Nothing (1993) Hamlet (1996)

188. William Friedkin

Director | To Live and Die in L.A.

Friedkin's mother was an operating room nurse. His father was a merchant seaman, semi-pro softball player and ultimately sold clothes in a men's discount chain. Ultimately, his father never earned more than $50/week in his whole life and died indigent. Eventually young Will became infatuated with ...

What to Watch:

The Boys in the Band (1970) The French Connection (1971) The Exorcist (1973) Sorcerer (1977) To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) Bug (2006)

189. Sean Baker

Writer | Red Rocket

Sean Baker is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He is an award-winning writer/director/producer known for Take Out (2004), Prince of Broadway (2008), Starlet (2012), Tangerine (2015), and The Florida Project (2017). Sean's latest feature, Red Rocket, premiered at Cannes on July 14, 2021...

What to Watch:

Take Out (2004) Prince of Broadway (2008) Starlet (2012) Tangerine (2015) The Florida Project (2017)

190. Stanley Donen

Director | Charade

Inspired by Fred Astaire's dancing in Flying Down to Rio (1933), Stanley Donen (pronounced 'Dawn-en') attended dance classes from the age of ten. He later recalled that the only thing he wanted to be was a tap dancer.

He was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to Helen Pauline (Cohen) and Mordecai ...

What to Watch:

On the Town (1949) Royal Wedding (1951) Singin' in the Rain (1952) Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) It's Always Fair Weather (1955) Funny Face (1957) The Pajama Game (1957) Indiscreet (1958) Charade (1963) Bedazzled (1967) Two for the Road (1967)

191. Peter Watkins

Director | The War Game

Peter Watkins began his career in advertising as an assistant producer and turned to amateur filmmaking in the late 1950s. In the mid-'60s he was commissioned by BBC-TV to make two feature-length docudramas incorporating a quasi-newsreel style and nonprofessional actors. The second of these, The ...

What to Watch:

Culloden (1964) The War Game (1965) Punishment Park (1971) Edvard Munch (1974) La Commune (2000)

192. Takashi Miike

Director | Jûsan-nin no shikaku

Takashi Miike was born in the small town of Yao on the outskirts of Osaka, Japan. His main interest growing up was motorbikes, and for a while he harbored ambitions to race professionally. At the age of 18 he went to study at the film school in Yokohama founded by renowned director Shôhei Imamura, ...

What to Watch:

Audition (1999) Ichi the Killer (2001) Gozu (2003) 13 Assassins (2010) Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011) Blade of the Immortal (2017)

193. Ava DuVernay

Writer | Queen Sugar

A director, producer, writer, marketer and film distributor, Ava DuVernay made her feature film debut with the documentary This is the Life (2008), a history on hip hop movement that flourished in Los Angeles in the 1990's. This was followed by series of television music documentaries which ...

What to Watch:

I Will Follow (2010) Middle of Nowhere (2012) Selma (2014) 13th (2016) A Wrinkle in Time (2018)

194. Stephen Frears

Director | Dangerous Liaisons

Stephen started off in a career in the legal profession before switching to work as an assistant stage manager at London's Royal Court which led to work as an assistant director on films by Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson He directed his first short in 1967 and his feature debut, Gumshoe, in 1971....

What to Watch:

Dangerous Liaisons (1988) The Grifters (1990) My Beautiful Laundrette (1995) High Fidelity (2000) Dirty Pretty Things (2002) The Queen (2006) Philomena (2013)