Directors to follow
by emekaksoy | created - 2 months ago | updated - 1 month ago | PublicDirectors to follow based on their previous works
1. Francis Lawrence
Director | The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Francis Lawrence is an American filmmaker. He started directing over sixty music videos before he directed the cult classic Keanu Reeves film Constantine, I Am Legend and Water for Elephants. He also directed The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts 1 and 2, and Red ...
2. James Wan
Writer | Saw
James Wan (born 26 February 1977) is an Australian film producer, screenwriter and film director of Malaysian Chinese descent. He is widely known for directing the horror film Saw (2004) and creating Billy the puppet. Wan has also directed Dead Silence (2007), Death Sentence (2007), Insidious (2010)...
3. Michael Green
Writer | Logan
Michael Green was born on February 18, 1973 in Mamaroneck, New York, USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Logan (2017), Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and Blue Eye Samurai (2023). He is married to Amber Noizumi. They have two children.
4. 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 ...
5. Jordan Peele
Writer | Nope
Jordan Peele is an Oscar- and Emmy-winning director, writer, actor, producer, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions. Peele's first feature film, "Get Out," was a critically acclaimed blockbuster, recognized with four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. The film would earn Peele the ...
6. Mike Flanagan
Writer | The Fall of the House of Usher
Mike Flanagan is a prolific writer, director, and editor. He entered into an exclusive overall deal with Amazon Studios in 2023 for television projects (after a similar exclusive deal with Netflix from 2018-2022), and has made feature films for Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Netflix and more. ...
7. Greta Gerwig
Writer | Barbie
Greta Gerwig is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and director. She has collaborated with Noah Baumbach on several films, including Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination, and Mistress America (2015). Gerwig made her solo directorial debut ...
8. Dave Filoni
Producer | The Mandalorian
Dave grew up in Mt. Lebanon, a suburb southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was in the marching band, and was the starting goaltender for half of his senior year on the hockey team. He graduated from high school in 1992 and Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in 1996, where he played club ...
9. David Ayer
Producer | End of Watch
David Ayer is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. David Ayer was born in Champaign, Illinois and grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Bethesda, Maryland, where he was kicked out of his house by his parents as a teenager. Ayer then lived with his cousin in Los Angeles, ...
10. Guy Ritchie
Director | Sherlock Holmes
Guy Ritchie was born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, UK on September 10, 1968. After watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) as a child, Guy realized that what he wanted to do was make films. He never attended film school, saying that the work of film school graduates was boring and ...
11. 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), ...
12. Sam Hargrave
Actor | Extraction
Sam Hargrave is known for Extraction (2020), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Atomic Blonde (2017).
13. 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 ...
14. Matthew Vaughn
Producer | Kick-Ass
Matthew Vaughn is an English film producer and director. He is known for producing such films as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000) and for directing the crime thriller, Layer Cake (2004), the fantasy epic, Stardust (2007), the superhero comedy, Kick-Ass (2010), and the ...
15. 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 ...
16. Steven Caple Jr.
Director | The Land
Steven Caple Jr. is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best know for The Land (2016) and Creed II (2018).
Caple also direct the short film A Different Tree (2014).
The Land was his feature film debut.
His directorial debut was in the short film Process of Elimination (2011).
17. Dirk Maggs
Director | The Sandman
Dirk Maggs was born in February 1955 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for The Sandman (2020), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Show Live (2016) and Alien: Sea of Sorrows (2018).
18. Chad Stahelski
Producer | John Wick: Chapter 4
He came from a kick-boxing background; he entered the film field as a stunt performer at the age of 24. Before that, he worked as an instructor at the Inosanto Martial Arts Academy in California, teaching Jeet Kune Do/Jun Fan. After doing numerous roles in low budget martial art movies like Mission...
19. Aneesh Chaganty
Writer | Searching
Aneesh Chaganty is known for Searching (2018), Run (2020) and Missing (2023).
20. Matt Reeves
Producer | The Batman
Matthew George "Matt" Reeves was born April 27, 1966 in Rockville Center, New York, USA and is a writer, director and producer. Reeves began making movies at age eight, directing friends and using a wind-up camera. He befriended filmmaker J.J. Abrams when both were 13 years old and a public-access ...
21. 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, ...
22. J.J. Abrams
Producer | Lost
Jeffrey Jacob Abrams was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, the son of TV producer parents. At 15, he wrote the music for Don Dohler's Nightbeast (1982). In his senior year of college, he and Jill Mazursky teamed up to write a feature film, which became Taking Care of Business (1990)....
23. Joseph Kosinski
Director | Top Gun: Maverick
Joseph Kosinski is a director whose uncompromising style has quickly made a mark in the filmmaking zeitgeist. His four theatrical releases have grossed $2.2 billion worldwide and been nominated for 7 Academy Awards and 2 Grammys.
His film debut, "Tron: Legacy" for Walt Disney Studios, grossed $400 ...
24. David Leitch
Producer | Bullet Train
David Leitch is a billion dollar film director, actor, stuntman, writer, producer, and stunt coordinator. He co-directed John Wick (2014) with Chad Stahelski, on which he also served as producer. David directed Atomic Blonde (2017) starring Charlize Theron. David also directed the box office smash ...
25. 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...
26. 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 ...
27. Parker Finn
Director | Smile
Parker Finn is known for Smile (2022), Laura Hasn't Slept (2020) and The Hidebehind (2018).
28. Ti West
Director | Pearl
Ti West is most notable for directing horror films, as well as being an actor, writer, producer, and editor. Ti broke out, after directing various projects, in 2009, when he directed two feature films - 2009's The House Of The Devil and Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. Ti later directed, with his ...
29. Ari Aster
Director | Hereditary
Ari Aster is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is known for writing and directing the A24 horror films Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019). Aster was born into a Jewish family in New York City on July 15, 1986, the son of a poet mother and musician father. He has a ...
30. Rian Johnson
Producer | Knives Out
Rian Johnson was born in Maryland and at a young age his family moved to San Clemente, California, where he was raised. After graduating from high school, he went on to attend the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. His first feature film, Brick (2005), was released in 2005 ...
31. Joss Whedon
Producer | Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Joss Whedon is the middle of five brothers - his younger brothers are Jed Whedon and Zack Whedon. Both his father, Tom Whedon and his grandfather, John Whedon were successful television writers. Joss' mother, Lee Stearns, was a history teacher and she also wrote novels as Lee Whedon. Whedon was ...
32. Jaume Collet-Serra
Producer | The Shallows
Jaume Collet-Serra was born on March 23, 1974 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. At the age of 18, he moved to Los Angeles and attended Columbia College Hollywood, working as an editor on the side. Upon graduation, he began shooting music videos and caught the eye of several production ...
33. Joel Coen
Producer | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Joel Daniel Coen is an American filmmaker who regularly collaborates with his younger brother Ethan. They made Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail Caesar and other projects. Joel ...
34. 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 ...
35. Joe Russo
Director | Avengers: Endgame
Joseph Vincent Russo is an American filmmaker and producer who works alongside his brother Anthony Russo. They have directed You, Me and Dupree, Cherry and the Marvel films Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Endgame is one ...
36. Anthony Russo
Producer | Everything Everywhere All at Once
Anthony J. Russo is an American filmmaker and producer who works alongside his brother Joseph Russo. They have directed You, Me and Dupree, Cherry and the Marvel films Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Endgame is one of ...
37. David Yates
Director | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
David Yates was born on October 8, 1963 in St. Helens, Merseyside, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), The Legend of Tarzan (2016) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011).
38. Zack Snyder
Director | 300
Zachary Edward "Zack" Snyder (born March 1, 1966) is an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter, best known for action and science fiction films. Snyder made his feature film debut with the 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead and has gone on to be known for his comic book movies and ...
39. Bong Joon Ho
Writer | Snowpiercer
Bong Joon-ho is a South Korean filmmaker. The recipient of three Academy Awards, his filmography is characterized by emphasis on social themes, genre-mixing, black humor, and sudden tone shifts. He first became known to audiences and achieved a cult following with his directorial debut film, the ...
40. 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...
41. Yeon Sang-ho
Director | Busanhaeng
Yeon Sang-Ho is a South Korean director, and a screen writer, he was born in Seoul in 1978. He is graduated from Sangmyung University with a degree of Western Painting. He directed few short films as well Megalomania of D in 1997, followed by D-Day in 2000 and The Hell in 2003, then set up his own ...
42. Nia DaCosta
Writer | Candyman
Nia DaCosta was born on November 8, 1989 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Candyman (2021), Little Woods (2018) and The Marvels (2023).
43. Drew Goddard
Producer | The Martian
Drew Goddard was raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He attended Los Alamos High School in Los Alamos, New Mexico and graduated in 1993. He then attended the University of Colorado, and worked as a production assistant in L.A. after graduation. A spec script Drew wrote based on Six Feet Under (2001) ...
44. James Gunn
Writer | Guardians of the Galaxy
James Gunn was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, to Leota and James Francis Gunn. He is from a large Catholic family, with Irish and Czech ancestry. His father and his uncles were all lawyers. He has been writing and performing as long as he can remember. He began making 8mm films at the age ...
45. Michael Chaves
Director | The Curse of La Llorona
Michael Chaves is known for The Curse of La Llorona (2019), The Nun II (2023) and The Maiden (2016).
46. Kwang Il Han
Producer | The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf
Kwang Il Han is known for The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf (2021), Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge (2020) and The Boondocks (2005).
47. Ryan Murphy
Producer | Glee
Born November 9, 1965 in Indianapolis, Indiana, US as Ryan Patrick Murphy, he is an American writer, director, and producer, responsible for creating such hits as Nip/Tuck (2003), Glee (2009) and American Horror Story (2011). His mother, J. Andy Murphy, was a writer and communications worker and ...
48. Brad Falchuk
Writer | Glee
Brad Falchuk was born on March 1, 1971 in Newton, Massachusetts, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Glee (2009), American Horror Story (2011) and Pose (2018). He has been married to Gwyneth Paltrow since September 29, 2018. He was previously married to Suzanne Bukinik.
49. Tad Stones
Producer | Darkwing Duck
Tad Stones was born on May 28, 1952 in Burbank, California, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Darkwing Duck (1991), Aladdin (1994) and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (1989). He has been married to Lisa Anne Muscio since September 18, 1976. They have one child.
50. Jay Oliva
Art_department | Wonder Woman
Jay Oliva is an American Director, Producer, show-runner and senior illustrator. He resides in Los Angles, California where he began his career in animation working on Fox's animated series "Spider-Man" in 1996.
He became a Director on the CGI series "Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles"in ...
51. Sam Liu
Director | Batman: The Killing Joke
Sam Liu is known for Batman: The Killing Joke (2016), The Batman (2004) and Beware the Batman (2013).
52. Doug Murphy
Art_department | Son of Batman
Doug Murphy is known for Son of Batman (2014), Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) and X-Men: Evolution (2000).
53. John Erick Dowdle
Writer | No Escape
John grew up in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. After graduating St. Thomas Academy, an all-boys, military, Catholic highschool, John moved to Iowa City to attend the University of Iowa. There he would make the move from writing to film. Two years later, John moved to Manhattan to attend NYU's film ...
54. Joe Carnahan
Writer | Smokin' Aces
Joe Carnahan is an American film director and screenwriter. He was born in Michigan in 1969, and was raised in California. He attended Fairfield High School in Fairfield, California. He graduated in 1987, at the age of 18. He first attended the San Francisco State University, and later transferred ...
55. Patrick Hughes
Director | Red Hill
Australian-born writer, producer and director Patrick Hughes continues to establish himself as one of Hollywood's most in-demand filmmakers by bringing compelling material to global audiences anchored by striking visuals and comedic storytelling.
Upcoming, Hughes will debut THE HITMAN'S WIFE'S ...
56. Tim Miller
Producer | Love, Death & Robots
Tim Miller is an American animator, film director, creative director and visual effects artist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the work on his short animated film Gopher Broke. He made his directing debut with Deadpool. Miller is also famous for creating ...
57. Kevin Feige
Producer | Black Panther
Kevin Feige is an American film producer who has produced every Marvel Cinematic Universe film since Iron Man. He got his start as an associate and executive producer for the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films, Daredevil, The Punisher, Ang Lee's Hulk, the original X-Men trilogy, Blade: Trinity and Tim ...
58. Shawn Levy
Producer | Free Guy
Shawn Levy was born on July 23, 1968 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is a producer and director, known for Stranger Things (2016), Real Steel (2011), and the Night at the Museum franchise. He is the founder and principal of 21 Laps Entertainment. He is married to Serena Levy and they have four ...
59. 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 ...
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