Filmmakers Worth Looking At

1. Howard Hawks

What do the classic films Scarface (1932), Twentieth Century (1934), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), His Girl Friday (1940), Sergeant York (1941), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Red River (1948) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and Rio Bravo (1959) have in...

What to Watch:

Scarface (1932) Twentieth Century (1934) Bringing Up Baby (1938) Only Angels Have Wings (1939) His Girl Friday (1940) Ball of Fire (1941) To Have and Have Not (1944) The Big Sleep (1946) Red River (1948) The Thing from Another World (1951) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) Rio Bravo (1959) El Dorado (1966)

2. Fritz Lang

Actor | Le mépris

Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. ...

What to Watch:

Destiny (1921) Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922) Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (1924) Metropolis (1927) Spies (1928) M (1931) The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933) Fury (1936) You Only Live Once (1937) Scarlett Street (1945) The Woman in the Window (1945) The Big Heat (1953) The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960)

3. Kenji Mizoguchi

Director | Ugetsu monogatari

Coming from a lower class family Mizoguchi entered the production company Nikkatsu as an actor specialized in female roles. Later he became an assistant director and made his first film in 1922. Although he filmed almost 90 movies in the silent era, only his last 12 productions are really known ...

What to Watch:

Osaka Elegy (1936) Sisters of the Gion (1936) The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939) Utamaro and His Five Women (1946) The Life of Oharu (1952) A Geisha (1953) Ugetsu Monogatari (1953) The Crucified Lovers (1954) Sansho Dayu (1954) Street of Shame (1956)

4. Jean Renoir

Writer | La règle du jeu

Son of the famous Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste, he had a happy childhood. Pierre Renoir was his brother, and Claude Renoir was his nephew. After the end of World War I, where he won the Croix de Guerre, he moved from scriptwriting to filmmaking. He married Catherine Hessling, for whom he ...

What to Watch:

La Chienne (1931) Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936) A Day in the Country (1936) The Grande Illusion (1937) The Human Beast (1938) The Rules of the Game (1939) The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) The River (1951) The Golden Coach (1952) French Cancan (1954)

5. Roberto Rossellini

Writer | Roma città aperta

The master filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, as one of the creators of neo-realism, is one of the most influential directors of all time. His neo-realist films influenced France's nouvelle vague movement in the 1950s and '60s that changed the face of international cinema. He also influenced American ...

What to Watch:

Rome, Open City (1945) Paisan (1946) Germany, Year Zero (1948) The Flowers of St. Francis (1950) Journey to Italy (1954) General Della Rovere (1959)

6. Martin Scorsese

Producer | Killers of the Flower Moon

Martin Charles Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942 in Queens, New York City, to Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa) and Charles Scorsese, who both worked in Manhattan's garment district, and whose families both came from Palermo, Sicily. He was raised in the neighborhood of Little Italy, which later ...

What to Watch:

Mean Streets (1973) Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) Taxi Driver (1976) The Last Waltz (1978) Raging Bull (1980) The King of Comedy (1982) After Hours (1985) The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) Goodfellas (1990) The Age of Innocence (1993) Casino (1995) The Aviator (2004) The Departed (2006) Shutter Island (2010) Hugo (2011) The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) Silence (2016)

7. David Cronenberg

Actor | The Fly

David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early...

What to Watch:

The Dead Zone (1983) Videodrome (1983) The Fly (1986) Dead Ringers (1988) Naked Lunch (1991) Existenz (1999) Spider (2002) A History of Violence (2005) Eastern Promises (2007)

8. Robert Bresson

Writer | Au hasard Balthazar

Robert Bresson trained as a painter before moving into films as a screenwriter, making a short film (atypically a comedy), Public Affairs (1934) in 1934. After spending more than a year as a German POW during World War II, he made his debut with Angels of Sin (1943) in 1943. His next film, The ...

What to Watch:

The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne (1945) Diary of a Country Priest (1951) A Man Escaped (1956) Pickpocket (1959) The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) Mouchette (1967) A Gentle Woman (1969) Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971) Lancelot of the Lake (1974) The Devil Probably (1977) L'Argent (1983)

9. Ernst Lubitsch

Director | To Be or Not to Be

From Ernst Lubitsch's experiences in Sophien Gymnasium (high school) theater, he decided to leave school at the age of 16 and pursue a career on the stage. He had to compromise with his father and keep the account books for the family tailor business while he acted in cabarets and music halls at ...

What to Watch:

The Love Parade (1929) The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) Trouble in Paradise (1932) The Merry Widow (1934) Ninotchka (1939) The Shop Around the Corner (1940) To Be or Not to Be (1942) Heaven Can Wait (1943)

10. Buster Keaton

Actor | The General

Joseph Frank Keaton was born on October 4, 1895 in Piqua, Kansas, to Joe Keaton and Myra Keaton. Joe and Myra were Vaudevillian comedians with a popular, ever-changing variety act, giving Keaton an eclectic and interesting upbringing. In the earliest days on stage, they traveled with a medicine ...

What to Watch:

Our Hospitality (1923) The Navigator (1924) Sherlock Jr. (1924) Seven Chances (1925) The General (1926) The Cameraman (1928) Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928)

11. Ingmar Bergman

Writer | Smultronstället

Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born July 14, 1918, the son of a priest. The film and T.V. series, The Best Intentions (1992) is biographical and shows the early marriage of his parents. The film Sunday's Children (1992) depicts a bicycle journey with his father. In the miniseries Private Confessions (...

What to Watch:

Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) The Seventh Seal (1957) Wild Strawberries (1957) The Virgin Spring (1960) Through a Glass Darkly (1961) The Silence (1963) Winter Light (1963) Persona (1966) Cries and Whispers (1972) Scenes From a Marriage (1973) Autumn Sonata (1978) Fanny and Alexander (1982)

12. Michelangelo Antonioni

Writer | Blow-Up

Together with Fellini, Bergman and Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni is credited with defining the modern art film. And yet Antonioni's cinema is also recognized today for defying any easy categorization, with his films ultimately seeming to belong to their own distinctive genre. Indeed, the ...

What to Watch:

Le Amiche (1955) L'Avventura (1960) La Notte (1961) L'Eclisse (1962) Red Desert (1964) Blowup (1966) The Passenger (1975)

13. Luis Buñuel

Writer | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education (which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior), and subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the ...

What to Watch:

Un Chien Andalou (1929) L'Age d'Or (1930) Land Without Bread (1933) Los Olvidados (1950) The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955) Nazarin (1959) The Young One (1960) Viridiana (1961) The Exterminating Angel (1962) Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) Simon of the Desert (1965) Belle de Jour (1967) The Milky Way (1969) Tristana (1970) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) The Phantom of Liberty (1974) That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)

14. Orson Welles

Actor | Citizen Kane

His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was ...

What to Watch:

Citizen Kane (1941) The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) The Stranger (1946) The Lady from Shanghai (1947) Macbeth (1948) The Third Man (1949) Othello (1952) Mr. Arkadin (1955) Touch of Evil (1958) The Trial (1962) Chimes at Midnight (1965) F for Fake (1973)

15. Errol Morris

Director | The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

His documentaries helped spur a rebirth of non-fiction film in the 80s & garnered wide critical success. But until 2003's "The Fog of War," Morris was shunned by the Academy Awards.

Morris' first two films won much acclaim (Gates of Heaven (1978) and Vernon, Florida (1981)). In the second movie, ...

What to Watch:

Gates of Heaven (1978) The Thin Blue Line (1988) A Brief History of Time (1991) Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997) Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999) The Fog of War (2003) Tabloid (2010) The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography (2016)

16. Jacques Rivette

Director | La Belle Noiseuse

Although François Truffaut has written that the New Wave began "thanks to Rivette," the films of this masterful French director are not well known. Rivette, like his "Cahiers du Cinéma" colleagues Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol and Éric Rohmer, did graduate to filmmaking but, like Rohmer...

What to Watch:

L'Amour fou (1969) Out 1 (1971) Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974) La Belle Noiseuse (1991) Up, Down, Fragile (1995)

17. Carl Theodor Dreyer

Writer | Gertrud

The illegitimate son of a Danish farmer and his Swedish housekeeper, Carl Theodor Dreyer was born in Copenhagen on the 3th of February, 1889. He spent his early years in various foster homes before being adopted by the Dreyers at the age of two. Contrary to popular belief (perhaps nourished by the ...

What to Watch:

The Parson's Widow (1920) Michael (1924) Master of the House (1925) The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) Vampyr (1932) Day of Wrath (1943) Ordet (1955) Gertrud (1964)

18. Max Ophüls

Director | La ronde

Director Max Ophüls was born Max Oppenheimer in Saarbrücken, Germany. He began his career as a stage actor and director in the golden twenties. He worked in cities such as Stuttgart, Dortmund, Wuppertal, Vienna, Frankfurt, Breslau and Berlin. In 1929 his son Marcel Ophüls was born in Frankfurt, ...

What to Watch:

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) La Ronde (1950) Le Plaisir (1952) The Earrings of Madame de… (1953) Lola Montès (1955)

19. Jean-Luc Godard

Director | Bande à part

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on December 3, 1930, the second of four children in a bourgeois Franco-Swiss family. His father was a doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from a preeminent family of Swiss bankers. During World War II Godard became a naturalized citizen of ...

What to Watch:

Breathless (1960) My Life to Live (1962) Contempt (1963) Band of Outsiders (1964) Alphaville (1965) Pierrot le Fou (1965) Masculin Féminin (1966) Weekend (1967) Histoire(s) du cinéma (1988)

20. Satyajit Ray

Writer | Pather Panchali

Satyajit Ray was born in Calcutta on May 2, 1921. His father, Late Sukumar Ray was an eminent poet and writer in the history of Bengali literature. In 1940, after receiving his degree in science and economics from Calcutta University, he attended Tagore's Viswa-Bharati University. His first movie ...

What to Watch:

Pather Panchali (1955) Aparajito (1956) Jalsaghar (1958) Apur Sansar (1959) Mahanagar (1963) Charulata (1964) Kapurush (1965) Mahapurush (1965) Nayak (1966) Shatranj Ke Khilari (1977)

21. Alfred Hitchcock

Director | Psycho

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England. He was the son of Emma Jane (Whelan; 1863 - 1942) and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock (1862 - 1914). His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William Hitchcock (born 1890) and ...

What to Watch:

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) The 39 Steps (1935) The Lady Vanishes (1938) Foreign Correspondent (1940) Rebecca (1940) Suspicion (1941) Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Lifeboat (1944) Spellbound (1945) Notorious (1946) Rope (1948) Strangers on a Train (1951) Dial M for Murder (1954) Rear Window (1954) To Catch a Thief (1955) The Trouble with Harry (1955) The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) The Wrong Man (1956) Vertigo (1958) North by Northwest (1959) Psycho (1960) The Birds (1963) Frenzy (1972) Family Plot (1976)

22. François Truffaut

Writer | La nuit américaine

French director François Truffaut began to assiduously go to the movies at age seven. He was also a great reader but not a good pupil. He left school at 14 and started working. In 1947, aged 15, he founded a film club and met André Bazin, a French critic, who became his protector. Bazin helped the ...

What to Watch:

The 400 Blows (1959) Shoot the Piano Player (1960) Jules and Jim (1962) Stolen Kisses (1968) The Wild Child (1970) Day for Night (1973)

23. Yasujirô Ozu

Writer | Tôkyô monogatari

Tokyo-born Yasujiro Ozu was a movie buff from childhood, often playing hooky from school in order to see Hollywood movies in his local theatre. In 1923 he landed a job as a camera assistant at Shochiku Studios in Tokyo. Three years later, he was made an assistant director and directed his first ...

What to Watch:

I Was Born, But... (1932) The Only Son (1936) There Was a Father (1942) Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) Late Spring (1949) Early Summer (1951) Tokyo Story (1953) Early Spring (1957) Tokyo Twilight (1957) Equinox Flower (1958) Floating Weeds (1959) Good Morning (1959) Late Autumn (1960) The End of Summer (1961) An Autumn Afternoon (1962)

24. Michael Powell

Director | Peeping Tom

The son of Thomas William Powell and Mabel (nee Corbett). Michael Powell was always a self-confessed movie addict. He was brought up partly in Canterbury ("The Garden of England") and partly in the south of France (where his parents ran a hotel). Educated at Kings School, Canterbury and Dulwich ...

What to Watch (Generally Directed Alongside Partner Emeric Pressburger):

The Thief of Bagdad (1940) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) A Canterbury Tale (1944) I Know Where I'm Going! (1945) A Matter of Life and Death (1946) Black Narcissus (1947) The Red Shoes (1948) The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) Peeping Tom (1960)

25. F.W. Murnau

Director | Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

F.W. Murnau was a German film director. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, and became a friend of director Max Reinhardt. During World War I he served as a company commander at the eastern front and was in the German air ...

What to Watch:

Nosferatu (1922) The Last Laugh (1924) Faust (1926) Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) City Girl (1930) Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931)

26. Michael Haneke

Writer | Caché

A true master of his craft, Michael Haneke is one of the greatest film artists working today and one who challenges his viewers each year and work goes by, with films that reflect real portions of life in realistic, disturbing and unforgettable ways. One of the most genuine filmmakers of the world ...

What to Watch:

The Seventh Continent (1989) Benny's Video (1992) The Piano Teacher (2001) Time of the Wolf (2003) Caché (2005) The White Ribbon (2009) Amour (2012)

27. Jan Svankmajer

Director | Otesánek

After studying at the Institute of Industrial Arts and the Marionette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s, Jan Svankmajer started working as a theatre director, chiefly in association with the Theatre of Masks and the Black Theatre. He first experimented with film-making after ...

What to Watch:

Alice (1988) Lesson Faust (1994) Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) Greedy Guts (2000) The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer (2003) Lunacy (2005) Surviving Life (2010)

28. Alejandro Jodorowsky

Writer | El Topo

Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in Tocopilla, Chile on February 17, 1929. In 1939 he moved to Santiago where he attended university, was a circus clown and a puppeteer. In 1953 he went to Paris and studied mime with Marcel Marceau. He worked with Maurice Chevalier there and made a short film, La ...

What to Watch:

El Topo (1970) The Holy Mountain (1973) Santa Sangre (1989) The Dance of Reality (2013) Endless Poetry (2016)

29. Akira Kurosawa

Writer | Kakushi-toride no san-akunin

After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943). Within a few years, Kurosawa had achieved sufficient stature to allow him greater...

What to Watch:

Drunken Angel (1948) Stray Dog (1949) Rashomon (1950) Ikiru (1952) The Seven Samurai (1954) Throne of Blood (1957) The Hidden Fortress (1958) The Bad Sleep Well (1960) Yojimbo (1961) Sanjuro (1962) High and Low (1963) Red Beard (1965) Dersu Uzala (1975) Kagemusha (1980) Ran (1985) Dreams (1990)

30. Federico Fellini

Writer | Le notti di Cabiria

The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the ...

What to Watch:

The White Sheik (1952) I Vitelloni (1953) La Strada (1954) Nights of Cabiria (1957) La Dolce Vita (1960) 8½ (1963) Juliet of the Spirits (1965) Fellini Satyricon (1969) Amarcord (1973)

31. Stanley Kubrick

Director | 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Sadie Gertrude (Perveler) and Jacob Leonard Kubrick, a physician. His family were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Romania, and Russia). Stanley was considered intelligent, despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would ...

What to Watch:

The Killing (1956) Paths of Glory (1957) Spartacus (1960) Lolita (1962) Dr. Strangelove (1964) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) A Clockwork Orange (1971) Barry Lyndon (1975) The Shining (1980) Full Metal Jacket (1987) Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

32. Alain Resnais

Director | Hiroshima mon amour

Alain Resnais was born on June 3, 1922 in Vannes, Morbihan, France. He was a director and editor, known for Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), Same Old Song (1997) and My American Uncle (1980). He was married to Sabine Azéma and Florence Malraux. He died on March 1, 2014 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, ...

What to Watch:

Statues Also Die (1953) Night and Fog (1956) Hiroshima, My Love (1959) Last Year at Marienbad (1961) Muriel (1963) I Love You, I Love You (1968) Providence (1977) My American Uncle (1980)

33. Walt Disney

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Walter Elias Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Flora Disney (née Call) and Elias Disney, a Canadian-born farmer and businessperson. He had Irish, German, and English ancestry. Walt moved with his parents to Kansas City at age seven, where he spent the majority of ...

What to Watch (On Behalf of the Company):

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Fantasia (1940) Pinocchio (1940) Dumbo (1941) Bambi (1942) Cinderella (1950) Alice in Wonderland (1951) Peter Pan (1953) Lady and the Tramp (1955) Sleeping Beauty (1959) 101 Dalmatians (1961) Mary Poppins (1964) The Jungle Book (1967) The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) The Little Mermaid (1989) Beauty and the Beast (1991) Aladdin (1992) The Lion King (1994) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) Mulan (1998) Tarzan (1999) Moana (2016) Zootopia (2016)

34. John Lasseter

Writer | Toy Story 2

Although born in Hollywood, John and his twin sister Johanna were raised in Whittier near Los Angeles. His parents were Jewell Mae (Risley), an art teacher, and Paul Eual Lasseter, a parts manager at a Chevrolet dealership. His mother's profession contributed to his interest in animation and ...

What to Watch:

Toy Story (1995) A Bugs Life (1998) Toy Story 2 (1999) Monsters Inc. (2001) Finding Nemo (2003) The Incredibles (2004) Ratatouille (2007) WALL-E (2008) Up (2009) Toy Story 3 (2010) Inside Out (2015) Finding Dory (2016) Toy Story 4 (2018)

35. Werner Herzog

Director | Fitzcarraldo

Director. Writer. Producer. Actor. Poet. He studied history, literature and theatre for some time, but didn't finish it and founded instead his own film production company in 1963. Later in his life, Herzog also staged several operas in Bayreuth, Germany, and at the Milan Scala in Italy. Herzog has...

What to Watch:

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) Heart of Glass (1976) Stroszek (1977) Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) Fitzcarraldo (1982) Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) My Best Fiend - Klaus Kinski (1999) Grizzly Man (2005) Rescue Dawn (2006) Encounters at the End of the World (2007) Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) Into the Abyss (2011)

36. Wim Wenders

Director | Der Himmel über Berlin

Wim Wenders is an Oscar-nominated German filmmaker who was born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders on August 14, 1945 in Düsseldorf, which then was located in the British Occupation Zone of what became the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany, known colloquially as West Germany until ...

What to Watch:

Alice in the Cities (1974) Kings of the Road (1976) Paris, Texas (1984) Wings of Desire (1987) Buena Vista Social Club (1999) Pina (2011) The Salt of the Earth (2014)

37. Billy Wilder

Writer | The Apartment

Originally planning to become a lawyer, Billy Wilder abandoned that career in favor of working as a reporter for a Viennese newspaper, using this experience to move to Berlin, where he worked for the city's largest tabloid. He broke into films as a screenwriter in 1929 and wrote scripts for many ...

What to Watch:

Five Graves to Cairo (1943) Double Indemnity (1944) The Lost Weekend (1945) Sunset Boulevard (1950) Ace in the Hole (1951) Stalag 17 (1953) Witness for the Prosecution (1957) Some Like It Hot (1959) The Apartment (1960)

38. Michael Curtiz

Director | Casablanca

Curtiz began acting in and then directing films in his native Hungary in 1912. After WWI, he continued his filmmaking career in Austria and Germany and into the early 1920s when he directed films in other countries in Europe. Moving to the US in 1926, he started making films in Hollywood for Warner...

What to Watch:

Captain Blood (1935) The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) The Sea Hawk (1940) Casablanca (1942) Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) Mildred Pierce (1945)

39. Masaki Kobayashi

Director | Seppuku

Masaki Kobayashi was born on February 14, 1916 in Hokkaido, Japan. He was a director and writer, known for Harakiri (1962), Samurai Rebellion (1967) and The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961). He died on October 4, 1996 in Tokyo, Japan.

What to Watch:

The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1959) The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959) The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961) Harakiri (1962) Kwaidan (1964) Samurai Rebellion (1967)

40. Charlie Kaufman

Writer | I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Avid reader Charlie Kaufman wrote plays and made short films as a young student. He moved from Massapequa, New York to West Hartford, Connecticut in 1972 where he attended high school. As a comedic actor, he performed in school plays and, after graduation, he enrolled at Boston University but soon ...

What to Watch:

Being John Malkovich (1999) Adaptation (2002) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Synecdoche, New York (2008) Anomalisa (2015)

41. Andrei Tarkovsky

Writer | Offret

The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which won the...

What to Watch:

Ivan's Childhood (1962) Andrei Rublev (1966) Solaris (1972) Mirror (1975) Stalker (1979) Nostalgia (1983) The Sacrifice (1986)

42. Christopher Nolan

Writer | Tenet

Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear, storytelling, acclaimed Academy Award winner writer/director/producer Sir Christopher Nolan CBE was born in London, England. Over the course of more than 25 years of filmmaking, Nolan has gone from low-budget independent films to working on some of the ...

What to Watch:

Memento (2000) Batman Begins (2005) The Prestige (2006) The Dark Knight (2008) Inception (2010) The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Interstellar (2014) Dunkirk (2017)

43. Charles Chaplin

Writer | The Great Dictator

Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the ...

What to Watch:

The Kid (1921) The Gold Rush (1925) The Circus (1928) City Lights (1931) Modern Times (1936) The Great Dictator (1940) Monsieur Verdoux (1947) Limelight (1952)

44. Steven Spielberg

Producer | Schindler's List

One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, ...

What to Watch:

Duel (1971) The Sugarland Express (1974) Jaws (1975) Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982) Poltergeist (1982) Empire of the Sun (1987) Schindler's List (1993) Saving Private Ryan (1998) A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) Munich (2005) Bridge of Spies (2015) The Post (2017)

45. Paul Greengrass

Director | United 93

Paul Greengrass started his filmmaking career with a super 8 camera he found in his art room in secondary school. Those short movies were animation horror films he made using old dolls, artist dummies, and the general art room clutter.

After studying in Cambridge University he got into Granada ...

What to Watch:

Bloody Sunday (2002) The Bourne Supremacy (2004) United 93 (2006) The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) Captain Phillips (2013)

46. Ridley Scott

Producer | The Martian

Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom ...

What to Watch:

The Duelists (1977) Alien (1979) Blade Runner (1982) Thelma & Louise (1991) Gladiator (2000) Black Hawk Down (2001) Matchstick Men (2003) The Assassination of Jesse James (2007) The Martian (2015) All the Money in the World (2017)

47. Tim Burton

Producer | Edward Scissorhands

Timothy Walter Burton was born in Burbank, California, to Jean Rae (Erickson), who owned a cat-themed gift shop, and William Reed Burton, who worked for the Burbank Park and Recreation Department. He spent most of his childhood as a recluse, drawing cartoons, and watching old movies (he was ...

What to Watch:

Vincent (1982) Frankenweenie (1984) Beetlejuice (1988) Edward Scissorhands (1990) Batman Returns (1992) The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) Ed Wood (1994) James and the Giant Peach (1996) Sleepy Hollow (1999) Big Fish (2003) Corpse Bride (2005) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

48. Terry Gilliam

Writer | Brazil

Terry Gilliam was born near Medicine Lake, Minnesota. When he was 12 his family moved to Los Angeles where he became a fan of MAD magazine. In his early twenties he was often stopped by the police who suspected him of being a drug addict and Gilliam had to explain that he worked in advertising. In ...

What to Watch:

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) Time Bandits (1981) Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) Brazil (1985) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) The Fisher King (1991) Twelve Monkeys (1995) Tideland (2005) The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (2009) The Zero Theorem (2013) The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)

49. Paul Thomas Anderson

Director | Punch-Drunk Love

Anderson was born in 1970. He was one of the first of the "video store" generation of film-makers. His father was the first man on his block to own a V.C.R., and from a very early age Anderson had an infinite number of titles available to him. While film-makers like Spielberg cut their teeth making...

What to Watch:

Hard Eight (1996) Boogie Nights (1997) Magnolia (1999) Punch-Drunk Love (2002) There Will Be Blood (2007) The Master (2012) Inherent Vice (2014) Phantom Thread (2017)

50. David Fincher

Director | Se7en

David Fincher was born in 1962 in Denver, Colorado, and was raised in Marin County, California. When he was 18 years old he went to work for John Korty at Korty Films in Mill Valley. He subsequently worked at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) from 1981-1983. Fincher left ILM to direct TV commercials...

What to Watch:

Se7en (1995) The Game (1997) Fight Club (1999) Panic Room (2002) Zodiac (2007) The Social Network (2010)

51. Peter Jackson

Producer | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Sir Peter Jackson made history with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, becoming the first person to direct three major feature films simultaneously. The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King were nominated for and collected a slew of awards from around the globe, with The ...

What to Watch:

Heavenly Creatures (1994) Forgotten Silver (1995) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) King Kong (2005) District 9 (2009) West of Memphis (2012)

52. Ethan Coen

Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

The younger brother of Joel, Ethan Coen is an Academy Award and Golden Globe winning writer, producer and director coming from small independent films to big profile Hollywood films. He was born on September 21, 1957 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In some films of the brothers- Ethan & Joel wrote, Joel...

What to Watch (Directed Along with Joel Coen):

Blood Simple (1984) Raising Arizona (1987) Miller's Crossing (1990) Barton Fink (1991) Fargo (1996) The Big Lebowski (1998) No Country for Old Men (2007) A Serious Man (2009) True Grit (2010) Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) Hail, Caesar! (2016)

53. James Whale

Director | Bride of Frankenstein

James Whale was an English film director, theatre director and actor. He is best remembered for his four classic horror films: Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). He also directed films in other genres, including what is ...

What to Watch:

Frankenstein (1931) The Old Dark House (1932) The Invisible Man (1933) The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Show Boat (1936)

54. David Lean

Director | Lawrence of Arabia

An important British filmmaker, David Lean was born in Croydon on March 25, 1908 and brought up in a strict Quaker family (ironically, as a child he wasn't allowed to go to the movies). During the 1920s, he briefly considered the possibility of becoming an accountant like his father before finding ...

What to Watch:

Brief Encounter (1945) Great Expectations (1946) Oliver Twist (1948) Hobson's Choice (1954) Summertime (1955) The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Doctor Zhivago (1965) A Passage to India (1984)

55. Robert Altman

Director | Gosford Park

Robert Altman was born on February 20th, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri, to B.C. (an insurance salesman) and Helen Altman. He entered St. Peters Catholic school at the age six, and spent a short time at a Catholic high school. From there, he went to Rockhurst High School. It was then that he started...

What to Watch:

MASH (1970) McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) The Long Goodbye (1973) California Split (1974) Nashville (1975) 3 Women (1977) The Player (1992) Short Cuts (1993) Gosford Park (2001)

56. John Ford

Director | The Quiet Man

John Ford came to Hollywood following one of his brothers, an actor. Asked what brought him to Hollywood, he replied "the train". He became one of the most respected directors in the business, in spite of being known for his westerns, which were not considered "serious" film. He won six Oscars, ...

What to Watch:

Stagecoach (1939) The Grapes of Wrath (1940) My Darling Clementine (1946) The Searchers (1956) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

57. David Lynch

Writer | Twin Peaks

Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future ...

What to Watch:

Eraserhead (1977) The Elephant Man (1980) Blue Velvet (1986) Twin Peaks (1990-1991) The Straight Story (1999) Mulholland Drive (2001)

58. Darren Aronofsky

Writer | Pi

Darren Aronofsky was born February 12, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Darren was always artistic: he loved classic movies and, as a teenager, he even spent time doing graffiti art. After high school, Darren went to Harvard University to study film (both live-action and animation). He won ...

What to Watch:

Pi (1998) Requiem for a Dream (2000) The Fountain (2006) The Wrestler (2008) Black Swan (2010) Noah (2014) Mother! (2017)

59. Vittorio De Sica

Director | Ladri di biciclette

Vittorio De Sica grew up in Naples, and started out as an office clerk in order to raise money to support his poor family. He was increasingly drawn towards acting, and made his screen debut while still in his teens, joining a stage company in 1923. By the late 1920s he was a successful matinee ...

What to Watch:

Shoeshine (1946) Bicycle Thieves (1948) Miracle in Milan (1951) Umberto D. (1952) Two Women (1960)

60. Alfonso Cuarón

Producer | Gravity

Alfonso Cuarón Orozco was born on November 28th 1961 in Mexico City, Mexico. From an early age, he yearned to be either a film director or an astronaut. However, he did not want to enter the army, so he settled for directing. He didn't receive his first camera until his twelfth birthday, and then ...

What to Watch:

A Little Princess (1995) Y Tu Mamá También (2001) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) Children of Men (2006) Gravity (2013)

61. Rob Reiner

Actor | All in the Family

Robert Reiner was born in New York City, to Estelle Reiner (née Lebost) and Emmy-winning actor, comedian, writer, and producer Carl Reiner.

As a child, his father was his role model, as Carl Reiner created and starred in The Dick Van Dyke Show. Estelle was also an inspiration for him to become a ...

What to Watch:

This Is Spinal Tap (1984) Stand by Me (1986) The Princess Bride (1987) When Harry Met Sally (1989) Misery (1990)

62. Sergio Leone

Writer | Once Upon a Time in America

Sergio Leone was virtually born into the cinema - he was the son of Roberto Roberti (A.K.A. Vincenzo Leone), one of Italy's cinema pioneers, and actress Bice Valerian. Leone entered films in his late teens, working as an assistant director to both Italian directors and U.S. directors working in ...

What to Watch:

A Fistful of Dollars (1964) For a Few Dollars More (1965) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

63. Nicolas Roeg

Director | Don't Look Now

When he made his directorial debut in 1970, Nicolas Roeg was already a 23-year veteran of the British film industry, starting out in 1947 as an editing apprentice and working his way up to cinematographer twelve years later. He first came to attention as part of the second unit on David Lean's ...

What to Watch:

Performance (1970) Walkabout (1971) Don't Look Now (1973) The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) Bad Timing (1980) The Witches (1990)

64. Park Chan-wook

Director | Oldeuboi

Park Chan-wook was born on August 23, 1963 in Seoul, South Korea. He is a producer and director, known for Oldboy (2003), The Handmaiden (2016) and Decision to Leave (2022). He is married to Eun-hee Kim. They have one child.

What to Watch:

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) Oldboy (2003) Three... Extremes (2004) Lady Vengeance (2005) Thirst (2009) The Handmaiden (2016)

65. Woody Allen

Writer | Annie Hall

Woody Allen was born on November 30, 1935, as Allen Konigsberg, in The Bronx, NY, the son of Martin Konigsberg and Nettie Konigsberg. He has one younger sister, Letty Aronson. As a young boy, he became intrigued with magic tricks and playing the clarinet, two hobbies that he continues today.

Allen ...

What to Watch:

Sleeper (1973) Love and Death (1975) Annie Hall (1977) Manhattan (1979) Zelig (1983) The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) Midnight in Paris (2011) Blue Jasmine (2013)

66. Shôhei Imamura

Director | Kuroi ame

Shohei Imamura's films dig beneath the surface of Japanese society to reveal a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath. Along with his colleagues Nagisa Ôshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Imamura began his serious directorial career as a member of the New Wave movement in Japan....

What to Watch:

The Insect Woman (1963) A Man Vanishes (1967) Vengeance Is Mine (1979) The Ballad of Narayama (1983) Black Rain (1989)

67. Michael Mann

Producer | The Insider

As a director, screenwriter, and producer, four-time Academy Award nominee Michael Mann has established himself as one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers in American cinema. After writing and directing the Primetime Emmy Award-winning television movie The Jericho Mile (1979), Mann ...

What to Watch:

Thief (1981) Crime Story (1986-1988) Manhunter (1986) The Last of the Mohicans (1992) Heat (1995) The Insider (1999)

68. Sidney Lumet

Director | 12 Angry Men

Sidney Lumet was a master of cinema, best known for his technical knowledge and his skill at getting first-rate performances from his actors -- and for shooting most of his films in his beloved New York. He made over 40 movies, often complex and emotional, but seldom overly sentimental. Although ...

What to Watch:

12 Angry Men (1957) Fail Safe (1964) Serpico (1973) Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Network (1976) Prince of the City (1981) The Verdict (1982) Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

69. William Wyler

Director | The Best Years of Our Lives

William Wyler was an American filmmaker who, at the time of his death in 1981, was considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema. The winner of three Best Director Academy Awards, second again only to Ford's four, Wyler's reputation has unfairly suffered as the...

What to Watch:

Dodsworth (1936) The Little Foxes (1941) The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) The Heiress (1949) Roman Holiday (1953) Ben-Hur (1959)

70. George Lucas

Writer | Star Wars

George Walton Lucas, Jr. was raised on a walnut ranch in Modesto, California. His father was a stationery store owner and he had three siblings. During his late teen years, he went to Thomas Downey High School and was very much interested in drag racing. He planned to become a professional racecar ...

What to Watch:

THX 1138 (1971) American Graffiti (1973) Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) Body Heat (1981) Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-1993)

71. Clint Eastwood

Actor | Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in ...

What to Watch:

High Plains Drifter (1973) The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) Pale Rider (1985) Unforgiven (1992) Mystic River (2003) Million Dollar Baby (2004) Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

72. Krzysztof Kieslowski

Writer | Trois couleurs: Bleu

Krzysztof Kieslowski graduated from Lódz Film School in 1969, and became a documentary, TV and feature film director and scriptwriter. Before making his first film for TV, Przejscie podziemne (1974) (The Underground Passage), he made a number of short documentaries. His next TV title, Personnel (...

What to Watch:

A Short Film About Killing (1988) A Short Film About Love (1988) Dekalog (1989) The Double Life of Veronique (1991) Three Colors: Blue (1993) Three Colors: Red (1994) Three Colors: White (1994)

73. John Cassavetes

Actor | Rosemary's Baby

John Cassavetes was a Greek-American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He is considered a pioneer of American independent film, as he often financed his own films.

Cassavetes was born in New York City in 1929 to Nicholas John Cassavetes (1893-1979) and his wife, Katherine Demetre (1906-1983). ...

What to Watch:

Shadows (1959) Faces (1968) A Woman Under the Influence (1974) Opening Night (1977) Love Streams (1984)

74. Sam Raimi

Director | Spider-Man

Highly inventive U.S. film director/producer/writer/actor Sam Raimi first came to the attention of film fans with the savage, yet darkly humorous, low-budget horror film, The Evil Dead (1981). From his childhood, Raimi was a fan of the cinema and, before he was ten-years-old, he was out making ...

What to Watch:

The Evil Dead (1981) Evil Dead 2 (1987) A Simple Plan (1998) Spider-Man (2002) Spider-Man 2 (2004) Drag Me to Hell (2009)

75. John Huston

Director | The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

An eccentric rebel of epic proportions, this Hollywood titan reigned supreme as director, screenwriter and character actor in a career that endured over five decades. The ten-time Oscar-nominated legend was born John Marcellus Huston in Nevada, Missouri, on August 5, 1906. His ancestry was English,...

What to Watch:

The Maltese Falcon (1941) Key Largo (1948) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) The Asphalt Jungle (1950) The African Queen (1951) The Misfits (1961) Fat City (1972) The Man Who Would Be King (1975) The Dead (1987)

76. Roman Polanski

Director | Chinatown

Roman Polanski is a Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few truly international filmmakers. Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933.

His parents returned to Poland from France in 1936, three years ...

What to Watch:

Knife in the Water (1962) Repulsion (1965) Rosemary's Baby (1968) Macbeth (1971) Chinatown (1974) The Tenant (1976) Death and the Maiden (1994) The Pianist (2002) The Ghost Writer (2010)

77. Ang Lee

Director | Xi yan

Born in 1954 in Pingtung, Taiwan, Ang Lee has become one of today's greatest contemporary filmmakers. Ang graduated from the National Taiwan College of Arts in 1975 and then came to the U.S. to receive a B.F.A. Degree in Theatre/Theater Direction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, ...

What to Watch:

The Wedding Banquet (1993) Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) Sense and Sensibility (1995) The Ice Storm (1997) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Brokeback Mountain (2005) Life of Pi (2012)

78. Agnès Varda

Director | Cléo de 5 à 7

Agnès Varda was born on May 30, 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on March 29, 2019 in Paris, France.

What to Watch:

La Pointe Courte (1955) Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) Le Bonheur (1965) Vagabond (1985) The Gleaners and I (2000) The Beaches of Agnès (2008)

79. Louis Malle

Director | Au revoir les enfants

Louis Malle, the descendant of a French nobleman who made a fortune in beet sugar during the Napoleonic Wars, created films that explored life and its meaning. Malle's family discouraged his early interest in film but, in 1950, allowed him to enter the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies ...

What to Watch:

Elevator to the Gallows (1958) Murmur of the Heart (1971) Lacombe, Lucien (1974) My Dinner with Andre (1981) The Fire Within (1983) Au revoir les enfants (1987)

80. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Writer | Faustrecht der Freiheit

Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Openly homosexual, he married twice; one of his wives acted in his films and the other served as his editor. Accused variously by detractors of being anticommunist, male chauvinist, antiSemitic and...

What to Watch:

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) World on a Wire (1973) Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) Fox and His Friends (1975) The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) Veronika Voss (1982)

81. Peter Weir

Director | Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Peter Weir was born on August 21, 1944 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He is a director and writer, known for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), The Way Back (2010) and Witness (1985). He has been married to Wendy Stites since 1966. They have two children.

What to Watch:

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) The Last Wave (1977) The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) Witness (1985) Dead Poets Society (1989) The Truman Show (1998) Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

82. Pedro Almodóvar

Writer | Hable con ella

The most internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel was born in a small town (Calzada de Calatrava) in the impoverished Spanish region of La Mancha. He arrived in Madrid in 1968, and survived by selling used items in the flea-market called El Rastro. Almodóvar couldn't study ...

What to Watch:

Law of Desire (1987) Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) All About My Mother (1999) Talk to Her (2002) Bad Education (2004) Volver (2006) Broken Embraces (2009) The Skin I Live In (2011) Julieta (2016)

83. Mike Leigh

Director | Secrets & Lies

Mike Leigh is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design and the London School of Film Technique. He began his career as a theatre ...

What to Watch:

High Hopes (1988) Life Is Sweet (1990) Naked (1993) Secrets & Lies (1996) Topsy-Turvy (1999) Vera Drake (2004) Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) Another Year (2010) Mr. Turner (2014)

84. Josef von Sternberg

Director | The Devil Is a Woman

Josef von Sternberg split his childhood between Vienna and New York City. His father, a former soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army, could not support his family in either city; Sternberg remembered him only as "an enormously strong man who often used his strength on me." Forced by poverty to drop ...

What to Watch:

Underworld (1927) The Docks of New York (1928) The Last Command (1928) The Blue Angel (1930) Morocco (1930) Dishonored (1931) Shanghai Express (1932) The Scarlet Empress (1934)

85. Chuck Jones

Actor | Gremlins

Starting as a cel washer, Chuck Jones worked his way up to animator and then director at the animation division of Warner Bros. He is famous for creating such beloved cartoon characters as Wile E. Coyote, Henery Hawk, Pepé Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, Ralph Wolf, Road Runner, Sam Sheepdog, Sniffles,...

What to Watch:

Rabbit Seasoning (1952) Duck Amuck (1953) One Froggy Evening (1955) What's Opera, Doc? (1957) Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966)

86. Otto Preminger

Actor | Stalag 17

Otto Ludwig Preminger was born in Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary. His father was a prosecutor, and Otto originally intended to follow his father into a law career; however, he fell in love with the theater in his 20's and became one of the most imaginative stage producers and directors. He was ...

What to Watch:

Laura (1944) Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) Bonjour Tristesse (1958) Anatomy of a Murder (1959) Advise & Consent (1962)

87. Éric Rohmer

Director | Ma nuit chez Maud

Admirers have always had difficulty explaining Éric Rohmer's "Je ne sais quoi." Part of the challenge stems from the fact that, despite his place in French Nouvelle Vague (i.e., New Wave), his work is unlike that of his colleagues. While this may be due to the auteur's unwillingness to conform, ...

What to Watch:

La Collectionneuse (1967) My Night at Maud's (1969) Claire's Knee (1970) Love in the Afternoon (1972) The Green Ray (1986) A Tale of Winter (1992) A Summer's Tale (1996) A Tale of Autumn (1998)

88. Milos Forman

Director | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Milos Forman was born Jan Tomas Forman in Caslav, Czechoslovakia, to Anna (Svabova), who ran a summer hotel, and Rudolf Forman, a professor. During World War II, his parents were taken away by the Nazis, after being accused of participating in the underground resistance. His father died in ...

What to Watch:

Lovers of a Blonde (1965) The Firemen's Ball (1967) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) Amadeus (1984) The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)

89. Hayao Miyazaki

Writer | Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi

Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan's greatest animation directors. The entertaining plots, compelling characters, and breathtaking visuals in his films have earned him international renown from critics as well as public recognition within Japan.

Miyazaki started his career in 1963 as an animator at the ...

What to Watch:

The Castle of Cagliostro (1979) Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) My Neighbor Totoro (1988) Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) Porco Rosso (1992) Whisper of the Heart (1995) Princess Mononoke (1997) Spirited Away (2001) Howl's Moving Castle (2004) Ponyo (2008) The Secret World of Arrietty (2010) The Wind Rises (2013)

90. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Director | Memoria

Apichatpong Weerasethakul (b. 1970, Bangkok) grew up in Khon Kaen, a city in the north east of Thailand. He has a degree in Architecture from Khon Kaen University and a Master of Fine Arts in Filmmaking from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has been making films and videos since the ...

What to Watch:

Mysterious Object at Noon (2000) Blissfully Yours (2002) Tropical Malady (2004) Syndromes and a Century (2006) Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) Cemetery of Splendor (2015)

91. Pier Paolo Pasolini

Writer | Il Decameron

Pier Paolo Pasolini achieved fame and notoriety long before he entered the film industry. A published poet at 19, he had already written numerous novels and essays before his first screenplay in 1954. His first film Accattone (1961) was based on his own novel and its violent depiction of the life ...

What to Watch:

Accattone (1961) Mamma Roma (1962) The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) Theorem (1968) Arabian Nights (1974) Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

92. Andrzej Wajda

Director | Katyn

Andrzej Wajda is an Academy Award-winning director. He is the most prominent filmmaker in Poland known for The Promised Land (1975), Man of Iron (1981), and Katyn (2007).

He was Born on March 6, 1926, in Suwalki, Poland. His mother, Aniela Wajda, was a teacher at a Ukrainian school. His father, ...

What to Watch:

A Generation (1955) Kanał (1957) Ashes and Diamonds (1958) The Promised Land (1975) Man of Iron (1981) Katyń (2007)

93. Ken Loach

Director | I, Daniel Blake

Unlike virtually all his contemporaries, Ken Loach has never succumbed to the siren call of Hollywood, and it's virtually impossible to imagine his particular brand of British socialist realism translating well to that context.

After studying law at St. Peter's College, Oxford, he branched out into ...

What to Watch:

Cathy Come Home (1966) Kes (1969) Family Life (1971) Hidden Agenda (1990) Riff-Raff (1991) Raining Agenda (1993) Land and Freedom (1995) My Name Is Joe (1998) Sweet Sixteen (2002) The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) Looking for Eric (2009) The Angels' Share (2012) I, Daniel Blake (2016)

94. Brian De Palma

Director | Body Double

Brian De Palma is one of the well-known directors who spear-headed the new movement in Hollywood during the 1970s. He is known for his many films that go from violent pictures, to Hitchcock-like thrillers. Born on September 11, 1940, De Palma was born in Newark, New Jersey in an Italian-American ...

What to Watch:

Phantom of the Paradise (1974) Carrie (1976) Blow Out (1981) Scarface (1983) The Untouchables (1987) Carlito's Way (1993)

95. Sam Peckinpah

Writer | The Wild Bunch

"If they move", commands stern-eyed William Holden, "kill 'em". So begins The Wild Bunch (1969), Sam Peckinpah's bloody, high-body-count eulogy to the mythologized Old West. "Pouring new wine into the bottle of the Western, Peckinpah explodes the bottle", observed critic Pauline Kael. That ...

What to Watch:

Ride the High Country (1962) The Wild Bunch (1969) The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) Straw Dogs (1971) Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

96. Denis Villeneuve

Director | Dune

Denis Villeneuve is a French Canadian film director and writer. He was born in 1967, in Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada. He started his career as a filmmaker at the National Film Board of Canada. He is best known for his feature films Arrival (2016), Sicario (2015), Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), ...

What to Watch:

Polytechnique (2009) Incendies (2010) Enemy (2013) Prisoners (2013) Sicario (2015) Arrival (2016) Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

97. Danny Boyle

Director | 127 Hours

Daniel Francis Boyle is a British filmmaker, producer and writer from Radcliffe, Greater Manchester. He is known for directing 28 Days Later, 127 Hours, Trainspotting, T2 Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, Millions, Shallow Grave, The Beach, Yesterday, and Steve Jobs. He won many awards for ...

What to Watch:

Trainspotting (1996) 28 Days Later (2002) Sunshine (2007) Slumdog Millionaire (2008) 127 Hours (2010) Steve Jobs (2015) T2 Trainspotting (2017)

98. Chris Marker

Writer | Twelve Monkeys

Chris Marker was born on July 29, 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a writer and director, known for 12 Monkeys (1995), Sans Soleil (1983) and Third Side of the Coin (1960). He died on July 29, 2012 in Paris, France.

What to Watch:

Statues Also Die (1953) La Jetée (1962) The Lovely Month of May (1963) Grin Without a Cat (1977) Sunless (1983) The Last Bolshevik (1992) Level Five (1997) The Case of the Grinning Cat (2004)

99. John Boorman

Producer | Hope and Glory

John Boorman attended Catholic school (Salesian Order) although his family was not, in fact, Roman Catholic. His first job was for a dry-cleaner. Later, he worked as a critic for a women's journal and for a radio station until he entered the television business, working for the BBC in Bristol. ...

What to Watch:

Point Blank (1967) Deliverance (1972) Excalibur (1981) Hope and Glory (1987)

100. Richard Linklater

Director | Waking Life

Self-taught writer-director Richard Stuart Linklater was born in Houston, Texas, to Diane Margaret (Krieger), who taught at a university, and Charles W. Linklater III. Richard was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. ...

What to Watch:

Dazed and Confused (1993) Before Sunrise (1995) Waking Life (2001) School of Rock (2003) Before Sunset (2004) Before Midnight (2013) Boyhood (2014)