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The directors on this list are ranked according to their lifetime success (awards & nominations), their directing skill, along with their ability to inspire generations of directors after them. To me, accuracy when making a Top 10/Top 100 all time list is extremely important.
- Stanley Kubrick. Best Movie Directors • Stanley Kubrick. So, here we are. Why is Stanley Kubrick the best movie director of all time? Well, we don't have 3 hours to explain everything so here's a brief argument for this decision.
- Alfred Hitchcock. Best Movie Directors • Alfred Hitchcock. There's a scene in Hitchcock, the biography starring Anthony Hopkins, where Alfred Hitchcock stands outside a packed theater as an audience watches Psycho for the first time.
- Akira Kurosawa. Best Movie Directors • Akira Kurosawa. You don't have to understand Japanese culture or be a scholar of the country's Sengoku period to appreciate what Akira Kurosawa's work means.
- Steven Spielberg. Best Movie Directors • Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg has been directing for over 50 years and shows no signs of stopping. Looking at his career, it's not just the sheer number of movies he's directed (30+), it's the amount of greatness on that list.
- Colin Mccormick
- Martin Scorsese. Succeeding the mobster-genre expert Francis Ford Coppola is Martin Scorsese. He's picked up the torch for keeping the genre (as well as psychological character studies like Taxi Driver) compelling today and is even now releasing highly-anticipated movies.
- Stanley Kubrick. Stanley Kubrick is one of the movie industry's best directors for effectively adapting unique source materials. This has led him to direct a variety of genres in movies, with his works having predominantly been characterized by grim realism and dark humor.
- Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock's work is undoubtedly one of the most studied subjects in film classes across the world. His influence in movies has permeated to this day in some form when it comes to things like cinematography and establishing an atmosphere.
- Steven Spielberg. In terms of sheer mainstream appeal, Steven Spielberg has given audiences a wide variety of movies that capture that feel of "Hollywood magic."
Apr 6, 2024 · Discover the minds behind cinematic masterpieces and their impact on film. Explore the history, legacy and future of the greatest directors of all time.
- Rosa Escandon
- Steven Spielberg
- Martin Scorsese
- Alfred Hitchcock
- James Cameron
- Spike Lee
- Quentin Tarantino
- Paul Thomas Anderson
- Christopher Nolan
- Stanley Kubrick
- Alfonso Cuarón
Pick an age, any age. Now remember what it was like seeing a particular Spielberg movie for the first time. As children, we believed in E.T.; as adolescents, we couldn’t get enough of Indiana Jones’ adventures or Jurassic Park’s larger-than-life dinosaurs or the terrifying shark in Jaws. As adults, we wept while watching the senseless deaths in Sch...
After calling the shots for more than 40 years, most directors would quietly recede from work and just participate in anniversary panels. Thankfully, Scorsese has never been most directors. From his early work of 1973’s Mean Streets and 1974’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore to his most recent 2019 epic The Irishman, Scorsese has continued to stay ...
Hitchcock will forever be one of the greats because of his sheer brilliance in his craft. His movies unfold with the utmost confidence, enabling audiences to put their blind trust in him. And his set-pieces—the terrifying shower scene in 1960’s Psycho, the swooping crop duster in 1959’s North by Northwest, the swarm of birds in, well, 1963’s The Bi...
The appropriate descriptor is titanic—and that’s not just a reference to his behemoth 1997 movie of the same name. Cameron is the director who can tackle mammoth projects with sky-high budgets and turn them into awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping wonders. And even if the Titanic never hit the iceberg, he would go down as a legend (if not the king of the w...
A Spike Lee Joint equals a deep exploration of race relations, media, urban crime and politics at the highest levels. Indeed, Lee isn’t just a magnificent original filmmaker, he’s a master at using the medium as an instrument for social change. And films such as Do the Right Thing (1989), Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992), 4 Little Girls (1997)...
There’s an easy way to distinguish between the eras of cinema: Before Pulp Fiction and after Pulp Fiction. That’s how much Tarantino’s non-linear-structured and super-cool 1994 opus impacted the industry and his peers. Though he’s made just nine movies in less than 30 years (including the Oscar-nominated Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 2019), the ...
A true auteur in every sense of the word, Anderson infuses raw energy in his multi-layered work while also serving up a visual cinematic flair and unique insights about love, death and abandonment. A PTA film—his highly ambitious, original masterworks include 1997’s Boogie Nights, 1999’s Magnolia, 2007’s There Will Be Blood, 2012’s The Master, 2014...
The king of cerebral blockbusters, Nolan is worshipped by audiences and critics for being one of the most original and imaginative directors in the business. He’s not only unafraid to challenge fans with overly complex narratives, he packs intense themes of morality, identity and time into each work of art. And as evidenced in mainstream hits The D...
The Shining (1980). A Clockwork Orange (1971). 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Full Metal Jacket (1987). Eyes Wide Shut (1999). His films left us with deep psychological scars, and yet we kept coming back for more. Kubrick himself was never one for convention, forever experimenting with genres, themes and styles. (He also helmed the classics Spartacu...
He ignited his career with the coming-of-age road-trip charmer Y Tu Mama Tambien in 2002 and only became bolder and more impressive from there. Cuarón has taken on jaw-dropping science fiction (Children of Men, Gravity), crafted a poignant black-and-white love letter to his Mexican childhood (2018’s Roma, for which he earned his second Best Directo...
This included three Academy Awards® (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture), two Golden Globes (Best Director and Best Motion Picture-Drama), three BAFTAs (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film and Viewers' Choice), a Directors Guild Award, a Producers Guild Award and a New York Film Critics Circle Award.
Every decade since 1992, Sight and Sound has complemented its celebrated critics’ poll by formally sounding out the world’s leading directors on the ten films they believe to be the greatest of all time.
