Directors I follow

1. Takashi Miike

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, ...

2. 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 ...

3. Tony Scott

Producer | Domino

Tony Scott was a British-born film director and producer. He was the youngest of three brothers, one of whom is fellow film director Ridley Scott. He was born in North Shields, Northumberland, England to parents Jean and Colonel Francis Percy Scott. As a result of his father's career in the British...

4. Hal Hartley

Director | Trust

Hal Hartley is an American filmmaker, writer, director, producer, and composer who has made twelve feature films since 1988. Popularly associated with the American independent filmmaking scene of the early nineties, he went on to write and direct such films as No Such Thing (2001) for United ...

5. 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 ...

6. 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, ...

7. 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 ...

8. Sergey Solovyov

Writer | Sto dney posle detstva

Sergey Solovyov was born on August 25, 1944 in Kem, Karelo-Finnish SSR, USSR [now Republic of Karelia, Russia]. He was a writer and director, known for One Hundred Days After Childhood (1975), Spasatel (1980) and Chuzhaya belaya i ryaboy (1986). He was married to Tatyana Drubich, Marianna Kushnerova...

9. 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 ...

10. Aki Kaurismäki

Producer | Le Havre

Aki Kaurismäki did a wide variety of jobs including postman, dish-washer and film critic, before forming a production and distribution company, Villealfa (in homage to Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965)) with his older brother Mika Kaurismäki, also a film-maker. Both Aki and Mika are prolific ...

11. Jafar Panahi

Director | Taxi

Jafar Panahi (Born 11 July 1960) is an Iranian film director, screenwriter, and film editor, commonly identified with the Iranian New Wave film movement. After several years of making short films and working as an assistant director for fellow Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami, Panahi achieved ...

12. Philippe Grandrieux

Director | Un lac

Philippe Grandrieux born 1954 is a French film director and screenwriter. Grandrieux was born in Saint-Étienne. He studied film at the Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle in Belgium. He exhibited his first video work at Galerie Albert Baronian, Bruxelles. In the 1980s, he worked in ...

13. Peter Greenaway

Director | The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

Peter Greenaway trained as a painter and began working as a film editor for the Central Office of Information in 1965. Shortly afterwards he started to make his own films. He has produced a wealth of short and feature-length films, but also paintings, novels and other books. He has held several ...

14. 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 ...

15. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Director | Tokyo Sonata

Kiyoshi Kurosawa was born on July 19, 1955 in Kobe, Japan. He is a director and writer, known for Tokyo Sonata (2008), Pulse (2001) and Cure (1997).

16. Theodoros Angelopoulos

Director | Mia aioniotita kai mia mera

Theo Angelopoulos began to study law in Athens but broke up his studies to go to the Sorbonne in Paris in order to study literature. When he had finished his studies, he wanted to attend the School of Cinema at Paris but decided instead to go back to Greece. There he worked as a journalist and ...

17. 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 ...

18. Jean Eustache

Editor | La maman et la putain

Jean Eustache was born on November 30, 1938 in Pessac, Gironde, France. He was an editor and director, known for The Mother and the Whore (1973), My Little Loves (1974) and Les photos d'Alix (1982). He died on November 3, 1981 in Paris, France.

19. Cristi Puiu

Director | Aurora

Cristi Puiu was born on April 3, 1967 in Bucharest, Romania. He is a director and writer, known for Aurora (2010), Sieranevada (2016) and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005). He has been married to Anca Puiu since April 21, 1998. They have three children.

20. Cristian Mungiu

Producer | 4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile

Cristian Mungiu was born on April 27, 1968 in Iasi, Romania. He is a producer and writer, known for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), Graduation (2016) and Beyond the Hills (2012).

21. Corneliu Porumboiu

Writer | A fost sau n-a fost?

Corneliu Porumboiu was born on September 14, 1975 in Vaslui, Romania. He is a writer and director, known for 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006), The Whistlers (2019) and Police, Adjective (2009).

22. 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 ...

23. Olivier Assayas

Writer | Personal Shopper

Olivier Assayas is a French film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is best know for his films Demonlover (2002), Something in the Air (2012), Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) and Personal Shopper (2016).

Assayas is the son of French director/screenwriter Raymond Assayas, alias Jacques Rémy.

His ...

24. Kornél Mundruczó

Director | Jupiter holdja

Kornél Mundruczó was born on April 3, 1975 in Gödöllõ, Hungary. He is an actor and director, known for Jupiter's Moon (2017), White God (2014) and Pieces of a Woman (2020). He is married to Kata Wéber.

25. Sion Sono

Director | Ai no mukidashi

Shion Sono is a Japanese director, writer and poet. Born in Aichi Perfecture in 1961 he started his career working as a poet before taking his first steps in film directing. As a student he shot a series of short films in Super 8 and managed to make his first feature films in the late 80s and early...

26. Hiroshi Teshigahara

Director | Suna no onna

Hiroshi Teshigahara was born the son of Sofu Teshigahara who was the founder of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana (flower arrangement). In 1950, he graduated from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in oil painting. In 1958, he became the director of Sogetsu Art Centre and took a ...

27. 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 ...

28. 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...

29. Kon Ichikawa

Director | Inugami-ke no ichizoku

Kon Ichikawa has been influenced by artists as diverse as Walt Disney and Jean Renoir, and his films cover a wide spectrum of moods, from the comic to the overwhelmingly ironic and even the perverse. Ichikawa began his career as a cartoonist, and this influence is apparent in his skillful use of ...

30. 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.

31. Kôhei Oguri

Director | Doro no kawa

Kôhei Oguri was born on October 29, 1945 in Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture, Japan. He is a director and writer, known for Muddy River (1981), The Sting of Death (1990) and Sleeping Man (1996).

32. Yôjirô Takita

Director | Okuribito

Born in Takaoka, Toyama, Yojiro Takita came to international audiences' attention with the release of Okuribito ('Departures'), which won the Best foreign Language film awards at the Oscars in 2009. He had begun his directorial career in the 1980s with the 'chikan' ('molester') series depicting ...

33. Shinji Aoyama

Director | Yurîka

A director known for the thematic and visual bleakness of his work, Aoyama often sets his films in the Kyushu region from which he hails. He graduated from Rikkyo University and became known in 1996, but it was Eureka in 2000, which won him prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. Aoyama would continue ...

34. Lucile Hadzihalilovic

Writer | Innocence

Lucile Emina Hadzihalilovic was born on May 7, 1961 in Lyon, Rhône, France, to Bosnian parents and grew up in Morocco. She studied Art History and Film Directing at the IDHEC. She has been working in film industry since 1980's, as director, editor, writer and actress in both short and feature films...

35. Miguel Gomes

Director | Aquele Querido Mês de Agosto

Miguel Gomes was born in 1972 in Lisbon, Portugal. He is a director and writer, known for Our Beloved Month of August (2008), Arabian Nights: Volume 2 - The Desolate One (2015) and Tabu (2012).

36. Maurice Pialat

Director | À nos amours

Maurice Pialat was a French film director. Film critics have noted the naturalist style of his films, and their autobiographical elements.

Pialat obtained his first camera when only 16-years-old, but his early career involved creating documentary short films. His ambition was to become a painter and...

37. Leos Carax

Director | Holy Motors

Leos Carax made several short films and also wrote film criticism, then at the age of 24 years made a very strong first feature Boy Meets Girl (1984). The film played at the 1984 Cannes film festival and was a critical triumph. It paved the way for Carax's second feature Bad Blood (1986) (Bad Blood...

38. 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 ...

39. Hideo Nakata

Director | Honogurai mizu no soko kara

Born in Kinko-cho, Asakuchi-gun (present-day Asakuchi City), Okayama Prefecture. He is most familiar to Western audiences for his work on Japanese horror films such as Ring (1998), Ring 2 (1999) and Dark Water (2002). Several of these were remade in English as The Ring (2002), Dark Water (2005), ...

40. Sean Ellis

Director | Metro Manila

Sean Ellis was born in 1970 in Brighton, Sussex, England, UK. He is a director and writer, known for Metro Manila (2013) and Anthropoid (2016).

41. Michael Tully

Director | Ping Pong Summer

Michael Tully is known for Ping Pong Summer (2014), Don't Leave Home (2018) and Septien (2011). He has been married to Holly Herrick since October 22, 2011.

42. Kira Muratova

Director | Nastroyshchik

Kira Muratova was born on November 5, 1934 in Soroca, Romania [now Moldova]. She was a director and writer, known for Nastroyshchik (2004), Vtorostepennye lyudi (2001) and The Asthenic Syndrome (1989). She was married to Aleksandr Muratov and Yevgeni Golubenko. She died on June 6, 2018 in Odessa, ...

43. Aleksey German Jr.

Director | Bumazhnyy soldat

Aleksey German Jr. was born on September 4, 1976 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He is a director and writer, known for Paper Soldier (2008), Posledniy poezd (2003) and Under Electric Clouds (2015). He is married to Elena Okopnaya.

44. Sergey Loznitsa

Director | Donbass

Sergei Loznitsa, Ukrainian film maker, was born on September, 5th 1964 in Baranovichi, USSR. He grew up in Kiev, and in 1987 graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic with a degree in Applied Mathematics. In 1987-1991 Sergei worked as a scientist at the Kiev Institute of Cybernetics, specializing in ...

45. Alain Tanner

Director | Charles mort ou vif (petite fresque historique)

Alain Tanner was born on December 6, 1929 in Geneva, Switzerland. He was a director and writer, known for Charles, Dead or Alive (1969), In the White City (1983) and Return from Africa (1973). He was married to Janine Giudici. He died on September 11, 2022 in Geneva, Canton de Genève, Switzerland.

46. 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...

47. Wolfgang Becker

Director | Good Bye Lenin!

Wolfgang Becker was born on June 22, 1954 in Hemer, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He is a director and writer, known for Good Bye Lenin! (2003), Schmetterlinge (1988) and Child's Play (1992).

48. Veit Helmer

Director | Tuvalu

Veit Helmer was born on April 24, 1968 in Hannover, Lower Saxony, Germany. He is a director and producer, known for Tuvalu (1999), Surprise! (1995) and Absurdistan (2008).

49. Toshio Matsumoto

Director | Dogura magura

Matsumoto was born in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan and graduated from Tokyo University in 1955. His first short was Ginrin, which he made in 1955. His most famous film is Funeral Parade of Roses, featuring a transvestite trying to move up in the world of Tokyo Hostess clubs. Matsumoto published ...

50. 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, ...

51. Vladimir Kobrin

Director | Homo Paradoksum

Vladimir Kobrin was born on March 8, 1942 in Moscow, USSR. Vladimir is a director, known for Homo Paradoksum (1989), Gruppovoy Portret v Natyurmorte (1993) and The Last Dream of Anatoly Vasilyevich (1990).

52. Vladimir Maslov

Producer | Posledniy ronin

Born in 1981 in Moscow, he completed his studies at the Russian National Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). In 2014 he begins to work in film production. At the moment he is engaged in the production of the horror TV series "A Killer's Mind", written by Mike Omer for the KinoPoisk part of Yandex ...

53. Evgeniy Yufit

Director | Serebryanye golovy

Evgeniy Yufit was born on January 17, 1961 in Leningrad, RSFSR, USSR [now St. Petersburg, Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for Serebryanye golovy (1999), Pryamokhozhdenie (2005) and Ubitye molniey (2002). He died on December 13, 2016 in Petergof, Petrodvortsovyy rayon, St. Petersburg, ...

54. Amir Naderi

Writer | Vegas: Based on a True Story

Amir Naderi is one of the most influential figures of 20th century Persian cinema. He developed his knowledge of cinema by watching films at the theater where he worked as a boy, reading film criticism, and making relationships with leading film critics. He began his career with still photography ...

55. Shin'ya Tsukamoto

Actor | Tetsuo

Shin'ya Tsukamoto was born on January 1, 1960 in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. He is an actor and director, known for Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Vital (2004) and Tokyo Fist (1995).

56. 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 ...

57. Bruce Conner

Director | A Class Picture of the CCAC Film Class of '65 Actually Taught by Bruce Conner in the Tradition of Lumière

Bruce Conner was born in McPherson, Kansas, in 1933 and studied art at Wichita University, the University of Nebraska, the Brooklyn Art School, and the University of Colorado. Moving to San Francisco in 1957, Conner became involved with the Beatniks. He continued to live and work in San Francisco, ...

58. Fernando Arrabal

Writer | L'arbre de Guernica

Fernando Arrabal was born on August 11, 1932 in Melilla, Spanish Protectorate of Morocco, Spain. He is a writer and actor, known for L'arbre de Guernica (1975), Long Live Death (1971) and Odyssey of the Pacific (1982). He has been married to Luce Moreau since February 1, 1958.

59. Godfrey Ho

Director | The Ninja Squad

Godfrey Ho was born in 1948 in Hong Kong. He is a director and writer, known for The Ninja Squad (1986), Thunder of Gigantic Serpent (1988) and Challenge of the Ninja (1986).

60. Goran Markovic

Director | Sabirni centar

The son of actors Rade Markovic and Olivera Markovic, between 1965 and 1970 he studied film directing in Prague and then started working for television, directing documentaries and about fifty tv movies. His first theatrical feature was the critically acclaimed and financially successful Special ...

61. Lucía Puenzo

Writer | XXY

Lucía Puenzo was born on November 28, 1976 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is a writer and director, known for XXY (2007), The German Doctor (2013) and The Fish Child (2009).

62. Jesús Franco

Writer | Der Teufel kam aus Akasava

He was only six years old when he started composing music under the protection of his brother Enrique. After the Spanish Civil War he was able to continue his studies at the Real Conservatorio de Madrid, where he finished piano and harmony. Being a Bachelor of Law and an easy-read novel writer (...

63. James Benning

Director | RR

James Benning was born on December 28, 1942 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. He is a director and editor, known for RR (2007), 13 Lakes (2004) and Casting a Glance (2007).

64. Andy Warhol

Director | Blue Movie

Andrew Warhol's father, Ondrej, came from the Austria-Hungary Empire (now Slovakia) in 1912, and sent for his mother, Julia Zavackyová Warholová, in 1921. His father worked as a construction worker and later as a coal miner. Around some time, the family moved to Pittsburgh. During his teenage years...

65. Philippe Garrel

Writer | Les amants réguliers

Philippe Garrel was born on April 6, 1948 in Paris, France. He is a writer and director, known for Regular Lovers (2005), I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar (1991) and Liberté, la nuit (1984).

66. Nikolay Dostal

Director | Oblako-ray

Nikolay Dostal was born on May 21, 1946 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for Cloud-Paradise (1990), Zaveshchanie Lenina (2007) and The Monk and the Demon (2016). He died on January 18, 2023 in Russia.

67. Leni Riefenstahl

Producer | Das blaue Licht - Eine Berglegende aus den Dolomiten

Leni Riefenstahl's show-biz experience began with an experiment: she wanted to know what it felt like to dance on the stage. Success as a dancer gave way to film acting when she attracted the attention of film director Arnold Fanck, subsequently starring in some of his mountaineering pictures. With...

68. Gleb Panfilov

Director | Tema

Gleb Panfilov was born on May 21, 1934 in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia]. He was a director and writer, known for The Theme (1979), Vassa (1983) and Mat (1990). He was married to Inna Churikova. He died on August 26, 2023 in Russia.

69. Lucio Fulci

Writer | Lo squartatore di New York

Lucio Fulci, born in Rome in 1927, remains as controversial in death as he was in life. A gifted craftsman with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of dark humor, Fulci achieved some measure of notoriety for his gore epics of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but respect was long in coming.

Abandoning ...

70. Shunji Iwai

Writer | Love Letter

Having received his education at Yokohama National University, Shunji Iwai started out in the entertainment industry by directing music videos and television dramas, including the likes of Maria, Lunatic Love and Fireworks, for which he received the award for Best Newcomer from the Japanese ...

71. Jee-woon Kim

Director | Joheunnom nabbeunnom isanghannom

Kim Ji-woon was born in Seoul, South Korea. He began his career as an actor before becoming a stage director with productions such as "Hot Sea" in 1994 and "Movie, Movie" in 1995. He then began scripting for films, his first work, 97's "Wonderful Seasons" won Best Screenplay award at Korea's ...

72. Katsuhito Ishii

Director | Cha no aji

Katsuhito Ishii was born on December 31, 1966 in Niigata, Japan. He is a director and writer, known for The Taste of Tea (2004), Naisu no mori: The First Contact (2005) and Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003).

73. Shozin Fukui

Director | 964 Pinocchio

Shozin Fukui is known for 964 Pinocchio (1991), Rubber's Lover (1996) and Den-Sen (2006).

74. 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 ...

75. 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 ...

76. Michael Keaton

Actor | Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Quirky, inventive and handsome American actor Michael Keaton first achieved major fame with his door-busting performance as fast-talking ideas man Bill Blazejowski, alongside a nerdish morgue attendant (Henry Winkler), in Night Shift (1982). He played further comedic roles in Mr. Mom (1983), Johnny...

77. 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 ...

78. Roy Andersson

Director | En kärlekshistoria

Roy Arne Lennart Andersson is a Swedish film director, best known for his distinctive style of absurdist humor and melancholic depictions of human life. His personal style is characterized by long takes, and stiff caricaturing of Swedish culture and grotesque. Over his career Andersson earned ...

79. Godfrey Reggio

Director | Koyaanisqatsi

Godfrey Reggio is a pioneer of a film style that creates poetic images of extraordinary emotional impact for audiences worldwide. Reggio is prominent in the film world for his QATSI trilogy, essays of visual images and sound that chronicle the destructive impact of the modern world on the ...

80. Matthew Barney

Director | Drawing Restraint 9

Matthew Barney was born on March 25, 1967 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is a director and writer, known for Drawing Restraint 9 (2005), Cremaster 2 (1999) and The Cremaster Cycle (2003).

81. 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 ...

82. Nikos Nikolaidis

Writer | Proini peripolos

Nikos Nikolaidis was born on October 25, 1939 in Athens, Greece. He was a writer and director, known for Morning Patrol (1987), Ta kourelia tragoudane akoma... (1979) and O hamenos ta pairnei ola (2002). He died on September 5, 2007 in Athens, Greece.

83. Dusan Makavejev

Director | W.R. - Misterije organizma

Dusan Makavejev is the premier figure in Yugoslavian film history; his films are deeply rooted in his nation's painful postwar experiences and draw on important Yugoslavian cinematic and cultural models. Makavejev's work has violated many political and sexual taboos and invited censorship in dozens...

84. Michael Winterbottom

Director | A Mighty Heart

Michael took an English degree at Oxford then trained in film at Bristol and London breaking into television via the cutting room at Thames Television. He made his directorial debut with two documentaries on Ingmar Bergman His production of Love Lies Bleeding won the Silver Award at the 1993 New ...

85. 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 ...

86. Hardi Volmer

Director | Elavad pildid

Hardi Volmer was born on November 8, 1957 in Pärnu, Estonia. He is a director and writer, known for Living Images (2013), Pärnography: mees animatsoonist (2005) and Sõda (1987).

87. Kiur Aarma

Producer | Rodeo

Kiur Aarma was born on June 25, 1975 in Tallinn, Estonia. He is a producer and writer, known for Rodeo (2018), Disco and Atomic War (2009) and Jumalaga, rock'n'roll! (2023).

88. Gregory La Cava

Director | My Man Godfrey

A former cartoonist, Gregory La Cava entered films during WWI as an animator for Walter Lantz on such animated films as "The Katzenjammer Kids" series. Hired by the Hearst Corp. as the editor-in-chief for its International Comic Films division, La Cava switched to live-action films in the 1920s and...

89. Alain Robbe-Grillet

Writer | Un bruit qui rend fou

Born in Brest, France, in 1922, Alain Robbe-Grillet initially studied mathematics and biology. He graduated from the Paris-based Institut National Agronomique (National Institute of Agronomy) in 1945 and embarked on a career of scientific research in the tropics and in France. Then at age 30 he ...

90. 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 ...

91. Thomas Vinterberg

Director | Jagten

With Sidste omgang (1993) (Last Round), his graduation short from The National Film School of Denmark, Thomas Vinterberg got an early taste of critical success. He received the Jury's and Producers' Awards at the International Student Film Fest in Munich and won the 1st Prize at the Tel Aviv Film ...

92. Vladimir Kozlov

Writer | Anomie

Vladimir Kozlov was born in Mogilev, an industrial city in what was then the Belarussian Soviet Socialist Republic and is now the country of Belarus. He spent his childhood and adolescence on the suburbs of that city, witnessing the collapse of the Soviet empire and a bizarre mix of unbridled ...

93. Abram Room

Director | Nashestvie

Abram Room was born on June 28, 1894 in Vilna, Russian Empire [now Vilnius, Lithuania]. He was a director and writer, known for Nashestvie (1945), Sud chesti (1949) and Belated Flowers (1970). He died on July 26, 1976 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia].

94. Milan Steindler

Actor | Díky za kazdé nové ráno

Milan Steindler was born on April 12, 1957 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He is an actor and director, known for Díky za kazdé nové ráno (1994), Ready for the Grave (1990) and Stalingrad (1993).

95. Sebastián Silva

Writer | Tyrel

Sebastián Silva was born on April 9, 1979 in Santiago, Metropolitan Region, Chile. He is a writer and director, known for Tyrel (2018), The Maid (2009) and Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus (2013).

96. Antonin Artaud

Actor | La passion de Jeanne d'Arc

Antonin Artaud was born on September 4, 1896 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. He was an actor and writer, known for The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Lucrezia Borgia (1935) and Napoleon (1927). He died on March 4, 1948 in Ivry-sur-Seine, Val-de-Marne, France.

97. Claude Lelouch

Director | Un homme et une femme

He started off by making short films for television on which he was producer,screenwriter and cameraman. This was interrupted by military service in the army but only partly as he was put into the army film unit where he made over 100 films. Demobbed in 1960 he used family money for his first ...

98. 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 ...

99. Gillian Robespierre

Director | Obvious Child

Gillian Robespierre was born on June 29, 1978 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She is a director and writer, known for Obvious Child (2014), Landline (2017) and Untitled Divorce Comedy.

100. Evan Glodell

Special_effects | Bellflower

Evan Glodell is known for Bellflower (2011), Chuck Hank and the San Diego Twins and Canary.