Greatest Film Director in your opinion?

sxt

My vote goes to Andrei Tarkovsky

That famous director Ingmar Bergman said he was the greatest and Igmar wasn't too bad himself. "“A miracle. Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.”

The equally renowned Akira Kurosawa would praise his “unusual sensitivity [as] both overwhelming and astounding. It almost reaches a pathological intensity. Probably there is no equal among film directors ”

The Majority of the movies he made are stone cold classics. He wrote all his movies. Three of his movies are in the top 50 sight and sound "greatest movies of all time"

"Ivan’s Childhood" "Stalker" "Solaris " "Andrei Rublev" "The Mirror" are among his most famous movies


Tarkovsky eschewed conventional narrative and plot, and instead sought to illuminate the essence of the unconscious through a patient, enigmatic and reflective cinema that for many borders on poetic divinity.


They are all Great .Who do you consider the Greatest?


* list is made from Directors with most Films in Sight and Sound top 250 movies ,plus a few nowadays Directors included.

tigger123

Poll needs more David Fincher.

IvaBigWun

tigger123 wrote: »

Poll needs more David Fincher.

I came in here just to post that

Looper007

tigger123 wrote: »

Poll needs more David Fincher.

The Only two stinkers he's made for me is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (I just can't seem to love that movie) and Alien 3. He's made two alright films in the remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo (it's better shot then the Swedish Version but The Swedish one is a lot down and dirty for me plus I think Daniel Craig was miscast) and Panic Room.

But Everything else is top notch especially Fight Club, Seven and Zodiac. If Fincher is getting added then Paul Thomas Anderson deserves to be there.


Anyway my vote goes to Stanley Kubrick. Aside from his debut film, the man never made a bad film or average film, The Killing, Paths of Glory, Dr Strangelove, 2001, Clockwork Orange, Barry Lydon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket are all classic films. Eyes wide Shut, Spartacus and Lolita are very good films. He reinvented the way we looked at film and pushed the boundaries of the form and was way ahead of his time plus he never repeated himself.

Drexel

Spielberg for me. Close encounter of the 3rd kind is one or my favourite films ever.

The quality of all his work over the years is very high.

I've not heard of everyone on the list tho I will admit

Technocentral

1. Hitchcock
2. David Lean
3. Woody Allen
4. Billy Wilder
5. Spielberg
6. Orson Welles
7. Powell and Pressburger (I know that's two but they came as a team)
8. Coens (See 7).
9. Ridley Scott
10. Kubrick.

Technocentral

You don't rate Wilder OP? "Apartment" to choose just one of his films is perfection.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Hitchcock and Spielberg are my 2 favourite directors as they understand first and foremost that cinema is about entertainment and they delivered that constantly.

Harry Palmr

(attempts to look like a hipster) What? No Sergei Eisenstein?

A few others who are notable omissions. - Billy Wilder, Sidney Lumet, Michael Powell, Luis Buñuel

As for the topic - well its impossible to say. Is it better to have dazzled for a short time/now and again or have a career at a high level which is steadier but not quite as bright? I dunno.

John Frankenheimer was fantastic for about 7 years of a 40+ year career a but I'd take the films made in that period over almost anyone else's Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Seven Days in May (1964) The Train (1965) Seconds (1966) French Connection II (1975) Black Sunday (1977) He also made some unutterable ****e the like of which would leave you wondering how he could veer so wildly between highs and lows.

Some directors you really wish had jacked it in much earlier. Scorsese, Coppola and Spielberg all fall into that category. In an earlier era they'd have kept their eye on the ball for longer rather than spread themselves across several different roles in various media. The world didn't really care about Taken or Falling Skies for example and nor should have Spielberg. While if Walter Hill had died in 1982 everyone would be acclaiming him as a talent who was taken too young, the same could be said for William Freidkin

Obviously Orson Welles was good enough to be remembered for more than advertising Port.

e_e

I had to go with Ozu. Can't think of many other directors who created a form that is entirely their own, perfected it and somehow managed to maintain that perfection for their last ten (!!!!!) or so movies. A remarkable body of work.

Curly Judge

sxt wrote: »

My vote goes to Andrei Tarkovsky

That famous director Ingmar Bergman said he was the greatest and Igmar wasn't too bad himself. "“A miracle. Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.”

The equally renowned Akira Kurosawa would praise his “unusual sensitivity [as] both overwhelming and astounding. It almost reaches a pathological intensity. Probably there is no equal among film directors ”

The Majority of the movies he made are stone cold classics. He wrote all his movies. Three of his movies are in the top 50 sight and sound "greatest movies of all time"

"Ivan’s Childhood" "Stalker" "Solaris " "Andrei Rublev" "The Mirror" are among his most famous movies


Tarkovsky eschewed conventional narrative and plot, and instead sought to illuminate the essence of the unconscious through a patient, enigmatic and reflective cinema that for many borders on poetic divinity.


They are all Great .Who do you consider the Greatest?


* list is made from Directors with most Films in Sight and Sound top 250 movies ,plus a few nowadays Directors included.

Any list that would leave out William Wyler is, in my opinion, sadly lacking.

e_e

tigger123 wrote: »

Poll needs more David Fincher.

Obviously great director but I find him to be a little glib at times, especially with some of the material he chooses to work on.

Think him and Nolan need a few decades too, they don't yet have a body of work that stands up to others on that list imo.

Looper007

Harry Palmr wrote: »

(attempts to look like a hipster) What? No Sergei Eisenstein?

A few others who are notable omissions. - Billy Wilder, Sidney Lumet, Michael Powell, Luis Buñuel

Both Sadly overlooked on these kind of lists by many cinephiles

Wilder went on in the span of 26 years (his peak from 44 to 70) had done Double Indemnity , The Lost Weekend (first Hollywood film on Addiction), A Foreign Affair, Sunset Boulevard (a scathing attack on Hollywood, that took some nerve at that time), Ace in the Hole, Stalag 17, Sabrina, The Seven Year Itch, Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Fortune Cookie and The Private life of Sherlock Holmes. He won 6 Oscars. He Co wrote all of time. That's just mind blowing. One of the Greatest for sure.

Lumet, His Debut was the classic 12 Angry Men, then add The Pawnbroker, Fail Safe, The Hill, The Offence, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Prince of the City, The Verdict, and his last film Before the Devil Knows you're Dead. He was very hit and miss but his hits were amazing.

Looper007

e_e wrote: »

Obviously great director but I find him to be a little glib at times, especially with some of the material he chooses to work on.

Think him and Nolan need a few decades too, they don't yet have a body of work that stands up to others on that list imo.

Nolan and Fincher both have amazing body of Works right now as does Paul Thomas Anderson but I agree maybe another ten years time they probably get on this list. But part of me thinks from guys who bought us Fight Club, Memento, Seven, The Dark Knight, Zodiac, Inception, The Social Network and Interstellar, I'm not that upset if they are on the list.

PressRun

Kubrick, for me.

Paul Thomas Anderson will go down as one of the greats too, I reckon, and I'd place him above Fincher and Nolan, tbh.

Chain Smoker

Harry Palmr wrote: »

John Frankenheimer was fantastic for about 7 years of a 40+ year career a but I'd take the films made in that period over almost anyone else's Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Seven Days in May (1964) The Train (1965) Seconds (1966) French Connection II (1975) Black Sunday (1977) He also made some unutterable ****e the like of which would leave you wondering how he could veer so wildly between highs and lows.

Hope I'm not being patronising by recommending these, but it'd be well worth checking out some of the Playhouse 90 stuff, he directed a heap of them. Considering it all had to be done on live television, it's very impressive and undoubtedly played a huge part in sculpting him into the director he became.

johnny_ultimate

Greatest director? Honestly I'd be hard pressed to narrow it down to twenty. How does one compare the early masters like Murnau, Dreyer, Lang and Vigo with the New Waves ones like Varda, Godard, Imamura? Where do the great formalists and humanists - Ozu, Mizoguchi, Rosselini, Yang, Ray etc... - and the great innovators - Welles, Renoir, Eisenstein, Hitchcock - fit in? It's almost impossible to pit the psychologically complex, probing likes of Kubrick, Tarr, Akerman, and Tarkovsky against the peerless cinematic comedians like Chaplin, Tati and Keaton (who, frankly, could be just as probing and challenging in their own wonderful ways). Then there's your 70s auteurs (Coppolla, Altman, Cassavattes), your 'documentarians' and essayists (Marker, Lanzmann), the many great directors who haven't had the luxury of decades of study and appreciation and are still going strong.

Honestly trying to pick a single director out of cinema history is impossible, futile even. Sure we all have our favourites - Tati, Ozu, Mizoguchi and Bergman boxsets would be my desert island discs, if placed in some bizarre, contrived castaway situation (Bunuel would have done a good job with that setup!). But yeah, there's not just one greatest - there are dozens.

brevity

I think Wes Anderson deserves a mention. I've always found his films to bring a great spirit of adventure and fun. I love the way he frames his shots, how he pauses on scenes and waits for the person or object to leave the frame. His transitions are always quite inventive as well.

Probably not going to beat the greats but he is one one of my favorite directors along with Spielberg and Fincher.

sxt

Yeah , Greatest director tag line was hyperbole. Definitely should not have included directors in the middle of their career. Re directors missed out on the list. Hundreds of equally worthy and more worthy , I know. Like all lists - completely arbitrary. boards would only give me 25!


I wanted a list of great Directors in one list. mission accomplished. A list of directors some may know and some may yet to discover


A list with contemporary directors would have been more fun.

OldeCinemaSoz

Cronenberg.

triple nipple

Is there nothing to be said for Ang Lee ?

brianregan09

No Tarantino....for shame

bullvine

No James Cameron on the list? He may have lost his rep with Titanic/Avatar but his early work was groundbreaking

Harry Palmr

Ah yes Piranha 2:Flying Killlers, I saw that at the cinema believe it or not (I can't).

Technocentral

bullvine wrote: »

No James Cameron on the list? He may have lost his rep with Titanic/Avatar but his early work was groundbreaking

Surely you need a good few classic films to be a great director, I could be missing something, but apart from Aliens and T1 & 2 his other stuff is crap?

Technocentral

brianregan09 wrote: »

No Tarantino....for shame

Most overrated director ever probably. Absolutely despise him and his hard on for violence.

Rjd2

For Tree Of Life, Badlands, The Thin Red Line and Days Of Heaven, Malick deserves a nomination.

Looper007

Technocentral wrote: »

Most overrated director ever probably. Absolutely despise him and his hard on for violence.

His first films are all masterpieces, I thought Kill Bill 1 was fun but aside from Django Unchained, I do feel he's been on cruise control.

But he did change cinema in the 90's so he deserves his place on that list.

Adamantium

tigger123 wrote: »

Poll needs more David Fincher.

As much as I like Nolan, I always think when when watching almost any of his films: "Man, If this had been given to Fincher, people would be losing their minds"

If Interstellar had been done by him, good lord. It may have well been a 2001 contender.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGtVthP1b2Q

MagicMarker

What, no Jerry Bruckheimer?

Looper007

Adamantium wrote: »

If Interstellar had been done by him, good lord. It may have well been a 2001 contender.

Disagree with you on this.

But it is one of the greatest films in the last 20 years and Nolan is just as good a director as Fincher even better in some cases, plus Nolan is money while I love Fincher his films aren't always big money box office hits. Nolan is the equal of Fincher, people only give Fincher the nod on here cause his films are darker and more disturbing but how Nolan got films like The Prestige, Inception and even Interstellar made is mind blowing. Nolan is a master director.

e_e

The thing that Fincher and Tarantino lack for me is any real humanity or insight, the thing that often marks the greatest of movies imo. Some of Kubrick gets there even with him often being dimissed as a cold director. I'd love to see Fincher makes something on the level of a 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barry Lyndon, Paths of Glory or Eyes Wide Shut.

GreNoLi

Wong Kar Wai/Takeshi Kitano anyone?

don ramo

i read it best recently that Nolan would be the better film maker being more involved in the writing of the films he makes, but Fincher would be the better director, and id agree with that,

odd though that Finchers first film was made in 1992 and Nolans was 1998, yet both have only put out about 10 directed films, Tarantino aswell has similar output,

funny how 3 guys who have collectively given us roughly 60 hours worth of entertainment over 20 years can have such influence in our lives

None of my favourite directors are even on the list!

Friedkin, Stone, Mann, Cronenberg, Sidney freakin Lumet!, Don Siegal

bullvine

Technocentral wrote: »

Surely you need a good few classic films to be a great director, I could be missing something, but apart from Aliens and T1 & 2 his other stuff is crap?

I think calling the rest of Cameron's films crap is a little over the top, I am no fan of Titanic or Avatar but I think we can appreciate there place in movie history, they set the bar for big budget movies on their release.

bullvine

bullvine wrote: »

I think calling the rest of Cameron's films crap is a little over the top, I am no fan of Titanic or Avatar but I think we can appreciate there place in movie history, they set the bar for big budget movies on their release.

Considering The Abyss, Aliens and Terminator would all be considered classics by now anyway there is certainly a place for James Cameron.

Tom.D.BJJ

Went through the list twice and didn't see Sergio Leone. Can someone double check for me, because i must be blind.

nokia69

No Coen brothers on the list WTF

don ramo

nokia69 wrote: »

No Coen brothers on the list WTF

theres no a lot of top directors on the list,

Buzz Meeks

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Greatest director? Honestly I'd be hard pressed to narrow it down to twenty. How does one compare the early masters like Murnau, Dreyer, Lang and Vigo with the New Waves ones like Varda, Godard, Imamura? Where do the great formalists and humanists - Ozu, Mizoguchi, Rosselini, Yang, Ray etc... - and the great innovators - Welles, Renoir, Eisenstein, Hitchcock - fit in? It's almost impossible to pit the psychologically complex, probing likes of Kubrick, Tarr, Akerman, and Tarkovsky against the peerless cinematic comedians like Chaplin, Tati and Keaton (who, frankly, could be just as probing and challenging in their own wonderful ways). Then there's your 70s auteurs (Coppolla, Altman, Cassavattes), your 'documentarians' and essayists (Marker, Lanzmann), the many great directors who haven't had the luxury of decades of study and appreciation and are still going strong.

Honestly trying to pick a single director out of cinema history is impossible, futile even. Sure we all have our favourites - Tati, Ozu, Mizoguchi and Bergman boxsets would be my desert island discs, if placed in some bizarre, contrived castaway situation (Bunuel would have done a good job with that setup!). But yeah, there's not just one greatest - there are dozens.

No need to be embarrassed.
If you don't know the answer just admit it.

Free Hat

I'm going to vote for Kubrick. So many wonderful films but 2001, The Shining and A Clockword Orange are amongst my favourite films.

Goodshape

A vote for Stanley Kubrick, but I can't claim to have studied all the directors (or even seen some of those) on the list.

But I love Kubrick. Diverse catalogue of themes and genres, always immaculately constructed and beautifully captured. A director that knew how – and very importantly where – to put the damn camera down and leave it alone.

This video highlighting his use of one-point perspective is a nice (short) watch: https://vimeo.com/48425421

Technocentral

Free Hat wrote: »

I'm going to vote for Kubrick. So many wonderful films but 2001, The Shining and A Clockword Orange are amongst my favourite films.

Plus Stranglove still doesn't feel too dated.

bullvine

Tom.D.BJJ wrote: »

Went through the list twice and didn't see Sergio Leone. Can someone double check for me, because i must be blind.

Holy God, can't believe hes off the list and its taken 3 pages for someone to notice. A realistic contender for the greatest ever!

bullvine

Whats the opinion on Coppola? His early work aside, he has made a lot of poor films, really poor films in the last 30 years.

Is that a controversial opinion.

Decuc500

bullvine wrote: »

Whats the opinion on Coppola? His early work aside, he has made a lot of poor films, really poor films in the last 30 years.

Is that a controversial opinion.

Coppola hasn't made a lot of films in the last 30 years. He's not exactly prolific. I really liked his Dracula and I think the Godfather Part 3 got way more stick than it deserved. Possibly no director could live up to the films he made in the 70's though.

No William Friedkin on the list? I'd have him on it just for his 70's output alone. Why isn't Sorcerer available on blu-ray yet?

bullvine

Decuc500 wrote: »

Coppola hasn't made a lot of films in the last 30 years. He's not exactly prolific. I really liked his Dracula and I think the Godfather Part 3 got way more stick than it deserved. Possibly no director could live up to the films he made in the 70's though.

No William Friedkin on the list? I'd have him on it just for his 70's output alone. Why isn't Sorcerer available on blu-ray yet?

I agree with Friedkin but I suppose his later films have tarnished him unfairly, I have never seen Sorcerer or Rampage. I don't think Rampage is available on Bluray either.

bullvine

bullvine wrote: »

I have never seen Sorcerer or Rampage.

You havent lived brah!

bullvine

Deleted User wrote: »

You havent lived brah!

I have a copy of Rampage but the picture quality is awful, its possible I have seen Sorcerer as child but don't remember it.

I watched both a month or two again. Sorcerer has probably the best stunt scene I have ever witnessed in a movie. Rampage is also very cool