Movie Directors' Top Films

[pauldrach]

Page 1: Lenny Abrahamson, J. J. Abrams, Andrew Adamson, Alexandre Aja, Chantal Akerman, Fatih Akın, Robert Aldrich, Grigori Aleksandrov, James Algar, Woody Allen, Pedro Almodóvar, Robert Altman, Alejandro Amenábar, Lindsay Anderson, Michael Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Paul W. S. Anderson, Wes Anderson, Roy Andersson
Page 2: Theodoros Angelopoulos, Kenneth Anger, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Nimród Antal, Emile de Antonio, Michelangelo Antonioni, Judd Apatow, Michael Apted, Gregg Araki, Denys Arcand, Dario Argento, Andrea Arnold, Jack Arnold, Darren Aronofsky, Dorothy Arzner, Hal Ashby, Anthony Asquith, Olivier Assayas, Richard Attenborough, Jacques Audiard, Bille August, Claude Autant-Lara, Tex Avery, John G. Avildsen, David Ayer
Page 3: Héctor Babenco, Lloyd Bacon, John Badham, Roy Ward Baker, Ralph Bakshi, Aleksei Balabanov, Boris Barnet, Paul Bartel, Yevgeni Bauer, Noah Baumbach, Mario Bava, Michael Bay, Warren Beatty, Jacques Becker, Marco Bellocchio, Roberto Benigni, Robert Benton, Bruce Beresford, Peter Berg, Ingmar Bergman, Busby Berkeley
Page 4: Claude Berri, Bernardo Bertolucci, Luc Besson, Susanne Bier, Kathryn Bigelow, Steve Binder, Brad Bird, J. Stuart Blackton, Bertrand Blier, Don Bluth, Budd Boetticher, Peter Bogdanovich, Sergei Bondarchuk, Bong Joon-Ho, Jan de Bont, John Boorman, Walerian Borowczyk, Frank Borzage
Page 5: Danny Boyle, Stan Brakhage, Kenneth Branagh, Catherine Breillat, Robert Bresson, Martin Brest, Philippe de Broca, Albert Brooks, James L. Brooks, Mel Brooks, Richard Brooks, Clarence Brown, Tod Browning, Luis Buñuel, Charles Burnett, Tim Burton, Michael Cacoyannis, James Cameron
Page 6: Martin Campbell, Jane Campion, Frank Capra, Leos Carax, Marcel Carné, John Carpenter, John Cassavetes, Nick Cassavetes, Enzo G. Castellari, William Castle, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Claude Chabrol, Youssef Chahine, Jackie Chan, Chang Cheh, Charles Chaplin, Chen Kaige, Stephen Chow, Benjamin Christensen, Věra Chytilová
Page 7: Michael Cimino, René Clair, Bob Clampett, Bob Clark, Jack Clayton, René Clément, Ron Clements & John Musker, Edward F. Cline, George Clooney, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jean Cocteau, Joel & Ethan Coen, Rob Cohen, Chris Columbus, Luigi Comencini, Bill Condon, Jack Conway, Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack
Page 8: Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia Coppola, Sergio Corbucci, Roger Corman, George P. Cosmatos, Costa-Gavras, Pedro Costa, Alex Cox, Wes Craven, Charles Crichton, John Cromwell, David Cronenberg, Cameron Crowe, Alfonso Cuarón, George Cukor
Page 9: Michael Curtiz, Stephen Daldry, Georgiy Daneliya, Tage Danielsson, Joe Dante, Frank Darabont, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Jules Dassin, Delmer Daves, Terence Davies, Andrew Davis, Basil Dearden, Roy Del Ruth, Cecil B. DeMille, Jonathan Demme, Jacques Demy, Claire Denis, Brian De Palma
Page 10: Maya Deren, Vittorio De Sica, André Desplechin, André De Toth, Lav Diaz, William K. L. Dickson, William Dieterle, Walt Disney & Ub Iwerks, Edward Dmytryk, Pete Docter, Xavier Dolan, Roger Donaldson, Stanley Donen, Richard Donner, Bill Douglas, Gordon Douglas, Alexander Dovzhenko, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Dennis Dugan, John Duigan, Lena Dunham, Guru Dutt, Julien Duvivier, Allan Dwan, Clint Eastwood, Blake Edwards, Atom Egoyan
Page 11: Sergei M. Eisenstein, Roland Emmerich, Cy Endfield, Nora Ephron, Jean Epstein, Víctor Erice, Jean Eustache, Asghar Farhadi, Bobby & Peter Farrelly, John Farrow, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jon Favreau, Paul Feig, Federico Fellini, Abel Ferrara, Marco Ferreri, Louis Feuillade, David Fincher
Page 12: Terence Fisher, Robert J. Flaherty, Dave Fleischer, Richard Fleischer, Victor Fleming, Bryan Forbes, John Ford, Miloš Forman, Marc Forster, Bill Forsyth, Bob Fosse, Hollis Frampton, Georges Franju, John Frankenheimer, Stephen Frears, Friz Freleng, William Friedkin, Toshiya Fujita, Kinji Fukasaku, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Lucio Fulci, Samuel Fuller
Page 13: Antoine Fuqua, Leonid Gaidai, Abel Gance, Luis García Berlanga, Philippe Garrel, Aleksei German, Sr., Pietro Germi, Clyde Geronimi & Hamilton Luske, Ritwik Ghatak, Mel Gibson, Lewis Gilbert, Burt Gillett, Terry Gilliam, Jonathan Glazer, John Glen, Jean-Luc Godard, Bobcat Goldthwait, Michel Gondry, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Stuart Gordon, Edmund Goulding, F. Gary Gray, James Gray
Page 14: David Gordon Green, Peter Greenaway, Paul Greengrass, D. W. Griffith, Christopher Guest, Sacha Guitry, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Alice Guy-Blaché, Taylor Hackford, Lasse Hallström, Robert Hamer, Guy Hamilton, David Hand, Michael Haneke, Mia Hansen-Løve, Curtis Hanson, Catherine Hardwicke, Renny Harlin, Hal Hartley, Wojciech Has, Henry Hathaway
Page 15: Howard Hawks, Todd Haynes, Amy Heckerling, Monte Hellman, Cecil Hepworth, Werner Herzog, George Roy Hill, Jack Hill, Walter Hill, Arthur Hiller, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Alfred Hitchcock, Agnieszka Holland, Ishirō Honda, Hong Sang-Soo, Tobe Hooper, Tom Hooper, Dennis Hopper, Mamoru Hosoda, Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Page 16: Ron Howard, King Hu, John Hughes, John Huston, Kon Ichikawa, Álex de la Iglesia, Shōhei Imamura, Hiroshi Inagaki, Rex Ingram, Jūzō Itami, Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Joris Ivens, James Ivory, Peter Jackson, Wilfred Jackson, Steve James, Miklós Jancsó, Derek Jarman, Jim Jarmusch, Humphrey Jennings, Anders Thomas Jensen, Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Page 17: Norman Jewison, Jia Zhangke, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Roland Joffé, Rian Johnson, Joe Johnston, Chuck Jones, Terry Jones, Spike Jonze, Neil Jordan, Mikhail Kalatozov, Raj Kapoor, Phil Karlson, Lawrence Kasdan, Matti Kassila, Philip Kaufman, Aki Kaurismäki, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Elia Kazan, Buster Keaton, Abdellatif Kechiche, William Keighley
Page 18: Irvin Kershner, Fyodor Khitruk, Marlen Khutsiev, Abbas Kiarostami, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Kim Jee-Woon, Kim Ki-Duk, Henry King, Keisuke Kinoshita, Takeshi Kitano, Elem Klimov, Alexander Kluge, Masaki Kobayashi, Satoshi Kon, Andrei Konchalovsky, Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda, Hirokazu Koreeda, Harmony Korine, Henry Koster, Grigori Kozintsev, Stanley Kramer, Peter Kubelka, Stanley Kubrick, Lev Kuleshov, Akira Kurosawa, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Emir Kusturica
Page 19: Gregory La Cava, René Laloux, Ringo Lam, John Landis, Fritz Lang, Walter Lang, Yorgos Lanthimos, Claude Lanzmann, John Lasseter, Francis Lawrence, David Lean, Patrice Leconte, Mimi Leder, Ang Lee, Lee Chang-Dong, Spike Lee, Mike Leigh, Mitchell Leisen, Claude Lelouch, Kasi Lemmons, Umberto Lenzi, Robert Z. Leonard, Sergio Leone
Page 20: Mervyn LeRoy, Richard Lester, Barry Levinson, Shawn Levy, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Jerry Lewis, Joseph H. Lewis, Doug Liman, Richard Linklater, Anatole Litvak, Liu Chia-Liang, Frank Lloyd, Ken Loach, Joshua Logan, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, Joseph Losey
Page 21: Ernst Lubitsch, George Lucas, Baz Luhrmann, Sidney Lumet, Auguste & Louis Lumière, Ida Lupino, David Lynch, Adrian Lyne, Seth MacFarlane, Juliusz Machulski, Alexander Mackendrick, Guy Maddin, Dušan Makavejev, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Terrence Malick, Louis Malle, Djibril Diop Mambéty
Page 22: Rouben Mamoulian, James Mangold, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Anthony Mann, Daniel Mann, Delbert Mann, Michael Mann, Chris Marker, Garry Marshall, George Marshall, Penny Marshall, Rob Marshall, Lucrecia Martel, Sergio Martino, Yasuzō Masumura, Archie Mayo, Albert & David Maysles, Paul Mazursky, Leo McCarey, Tom McCarthy, Winsor McCay, McG, Adam McKay, Norman McLaren, Norman Z. McLeod
Page 23: Steve McQueen, John McTiernan, Fernando Meirelles, Jonas Mekas, George Melford, Georges Méliès, Jean-Pierre Melville, Sam Mendes, Jiří Menzel, Russ Meyer, Nancy Meyers, Oscar Micheaux, Takashi Miike, Nikita Mikhalkov, Lewis Milestone, John Milius, David Miller, George Miller, Anthony Minghella
Page 24: Vincente Minnelli, Kenji Misumi, Hayao Miyazaki, Kenji Mizoguchi, José Mojica Marins, Mario Monicelli, Lukas Moodysson, Michael Moore, Nanni Moretti, Errol Morris, Paul Morrissey, Robert Mulligan, Cristian Mungiu, Andrzej Munk, F. W. Murnau, Mira Nair, Mikio Naruse, Ronald Neame, Jean Negulesco, Mike Newell, Fred Niblo
Page 25: Jeff Nichols, Mike Nichols, Gaspar Noé, Christopher Nolan, Chris Noonan, Yuriy Norshteyn, Phillip Noyce, Sidney Olcott, Manoel de Oliveira, Laurence Olivier, Ermanno Olmi, Marcel Ophüls, Max Ophüls, Nagisa Ōshima, Frank Oz, François Ozon, Yasujirō Ozu, G. W. Pabst, José Padilha, Marcel Pagnol, Alan J. Pakula
Page 26: George Pal, Jafar Panahi, Sergei Parajanov, Park Chan-Wook, Nick Park, Alan Parker, Trey Parker, Gordon Parks, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Paweł Pawlikowski, Alexander Payne, Sam Peckinpah, Arthur Penn, D. A. Pennebaker, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Tyler Perry, Wolfgang Petersen, Elio Petri
Page 27: Todd Phillips, Maurice Pialat, Roman Polański, Sydney Pollack, Gillo Pontecorvo, Edwin S. Porter, Michael Powell (& Emeric Pressburger), Otto Preminger, Alex Proyas, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Cristi Puiu, Bob Rafelson, Sam Raimi, Harold Ramis, Lynne Ramsay, Brett Ratner, Nicholas Ray, Satyajit Ray
Page 28: Robert Redford, Carol Reed, Matt Reeves, Godfrey Reggio, Kelly Reichardt, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Lotte Reiniger, Karel Reisz, Wolfgang Reitherman, Ivan Reitman, Jason Reitman, Jean Renoir, Alain Resnais, Carlos Reygadas, Tony Richardson, Leni Riefenstahl, Dino Risi, Guy Ritchie
Page 29: Martin Ritt, Jacques Rivette, Jay Roach, Mark Robson, Glauber Rocha, Robert Rodríguez, Nicolas Roeg, Éric Rohmer, George A. Romero, Stuart Rosenberg, Francesco Rosi, Herbert Ross, Roberto Rossellini, Robert Rossen, Eli Roth, Jean Rouch, Alan Rudolph, Raúl Ruiz
Page 30: David O. Russell, Ken Russell, Anthony & Joe Russo, Eldar Ryazanov, Walter Salles, Mark Sandrich, Carlos Saura, Claude Sautet, John Sayles, Franklin J. Schaffner, Jerry Schatzberg, Fred Schepisi, John Schlesinger, Volker Schlöndorff, Paul Schrader, Joel Schumacher, Ettore Scola, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Tony Scott
Page 31: George Seaton, Henry Selick, Ousmane Sembène, Mack Sennett, Tom Shadyac, Ben Sharpsteen, Lynn Shelton, Jim Sheridan, Kaneto Shindō, Makoto Shinkai, M. Night Shyamalan, George Sidney, Don Siegel, Bryan Singer, Tarsem Singh, John Singleton, Robert Siodmak, Douglas Sirk, Abderrahmane Sissako, Alf Sjöberg, Victor Sjöström, Jerzy Skolimowski, Chris Smith, Kevin Smith, Michael Snow
Page 32: Zack Snyder, Michele Soavi, Steven Soderbergh, Alexander Sokurov, Todd Solondz, Barry Sonnenfeld, Paolo Sorrentino, Penelope Spheeris, Steven Spielberg, Andrew Stanton, Josef von Sternberg, George Stevens, Robert Stevenson, Ben Stiller, Mauritz Stiller, Whit Stillman, Oliver Stone, Jean-Marie Straub (& Danièle Huillet), Erich von Stroheim
Page 33: John Sturges, Preston Sturges, Seijun Suzuki, Jan Švankmajer, Isao Takahata, Quentin Tarantino, Andrei Tarkovsky, Béla Tarr, Frank Tashlin, Jacques Tati, Norman Taurog, Bertrand Tavernier, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, Julie Taymor, André Téchiné, Shūji Terayama, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Betty Thomas, J. Lee Thompson, Richard Thorpe, Johnnie To, Guiseppe Tornatore
Page 34: Guillermo del Toro, Jacques Tourneur, Maurice Tourneur, Lars von Trier, Jan Troell, François Truffaut, Tsai Ming-Liang, Tsui Hark, Jon Turteltaub, Edgar G. Ulmer, Roger Vadim, W. S. Van Dyke, Melvin Van Peebles, Gus Van Sant, Agnès Varda, Matthew Vaughn, Gore Verbinski, Paul Verhoeven, Dziga Vertov
Page 35: Charles Vidor, King Vidor, Denis Villeneuve, Thomas Vinterberg, Luchino Visconti, František Vláčil, Lana & Lilly Wachowski, David Wain, Taika Waititi, Andrzej Wajda, Raoul Walsh, Charles Walters, James Wan, Wang Bing, Andy Warhol, John Waters, Peter Watkins, Lois Weber, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Paul Wegener, Peter Weir, Orson Welles
Page 36: William A. Wellman, Wim Wenders, Lina Wertmüller, James Whale, Ben Wheatley, Joss Whedon, Bo Widerberg, Robert Wiene, Billy Wilder, Nicolas Winding Refn, Michael Winterbottom, Robert Wise, Frederick Wiseman, Wong Kar-Wai, John Woo, Edward D. Wood, Jr.
Page 37: Sam Wood, Edgar Wright, Joe Wright, William Wyler, Boaz Yakin, Sadao Yamanaka, Edward Yang, David Yates, Peter Yates, Wilson Yip, Terence Young, Masaaki Yuasa, Yuen Woo-Ping, Franco Zeffirelli, Robert Zemeckis, Zhang Yimou, Fred Zinnemann, Rob Zombie, Zucker, Abrahams & Zucker, Andrzej Żuławski, Andrey Zvyagintsev, Edward Zwick, Terry Zwigoff

Criteria: The movies were ranked according to their influence, their initial and lasting popularity, as well as their initial and lasting acclaim. Most lists rank the director's ten greatest films, while some directors with a particularly small filmography only have five films listed. Feature films, TV films, documentaries, short films, experimental films, essay films, TV miniseries and TV series that were created mainly by the director in question were all eligible.

Co-editors: Deany, PBR Streetgang, Sodacake, AgentAJD, erikk, Tiny Tim

Lists I've looked at but haven't sent to lew yet:

Tinto Brass (1933-)
1. Caligula (1979)
2. Salon Kitty (1976)
3. Trasgredire (2000)
4. The Voyeur (1994)
5. The Key (1983)
6. Chi lavora è perduto (1963)
7. Paprika (1991)
8. Così fan tutte (1992)
9. Nerosubianco (1969)
10. Dropout (1970)

Louis C.K. (1967-)
1. Louie (2010-)
2. Hilarious (2010)
3. Chewed Up (2008)
4. Live at the Beacon Theater (2011)
5. Horace and Pete (2016)
6. Lucky Louie (2006)
7. Oh My God (2013)
8. Live at the Comedy Store (2015)
9. Louis C.K. 2017 (2017)
10. Pootie Tang (2001)

Gerard Damiano (1928-2008)
1. Deep Throat (1972)
2. The Devil in Miss Jones (1973)
3. The Story of Joanna (1975)
4. Memories Within Miss Aggie (1974)
5. Never So Deep (1981)
6. Let My Puppets Come (1976)
7. The Satisfiers of Alpha Blue (1980)
8. Fantasy (1979)
9. Throat... 12 Years After (1984)
10. Teenie Tulip (1970)

Ruggero Deodato (1939-2022)
1. Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
2. The House on the Edge of the Park (1980)
3. Ultimo mondo cannibale (1977)
4. Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man (1976)
5. The Barbarians (1987)
6. Cut and Run (1985)
7. Waves of Lust (1975)
8. The Atlantis Interceptors (1983)
9. Body Count (1987)
10. Phantom of Death (1988)

Fernando Di Leo (1932-2003)
1. Caliber 9 (1972)
2. The Italian Connection (1972)
3. The Boss (1973)
4. Mister Scarface (1976)
5. Kidnap Syndicate (1975)
6. Naked Violence (1969)
7. Shoot First, Die Later (1974)
8. Seduction (1973)
9. To Be Twenty (1978)
10. Slaughter Hotel (1971)

Peter R. Hunt (1925-2002)
1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
2. Death Hunt (1981)
3. Shout at the Devil (1976)
4. Gold (1974)
5. The Last Days of Pompeii (1984)
6. Gulliver's Travels (1977)
7. Assassination (1987)
8. Wild Geese II (1985)
9. Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star (1986)
10. The Beasts Are on the Street (1978)

Shunya Itō (1937-)
1. Female Convict 701: Scorpion (1972)
2. Female Convict Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972)
3. Female Convict Scorpion: Beast Stable (1973)
4. To Trap a Kidnapper (1982)
5. Gray Sunset (1985)
6. Labyrinth of Flower Garden (1988)
7. Lupin III: Farewell to Nostradamus [with Takeshi Shirato & Nobuo Tomizawa] (1995)
8. Pride: The Fateful Moment (1998)
9. Hakujasho (1983)
10. The Glass Cape (1989)

Lloyd Kaufman (1945-)
1. The Toxic Avenger [with Michael Herz] (1984)
2. Class of Nuke 'Em High [with Richard W. Haines] (1986)
3. Tromeo and Juliet (1996)
4. Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)
5. Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000)
6. Terror Firmer (1999)
7. The Toxic Avenger Part II [with Michael Herz] (1989)
8. Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. [with Michael Herz] (1990)
9. The First Turn-On! [with Michael Herz] (1983)
10. Squeeze Play! (1979)

William Lustig (1955-)
1. Maniac (1980)
2. Maniac Cop (1988)
3. Vigilante (1983)
4. Maniac Cop 2 (1990)
5. Relentless (1989)
6. Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence (1993)
7. Uncle Sam (1996)
8. Hit List (1989)
9. The Violation of Claudia (1977)
10. Hot Honey (1978)

Lucky McKee (1975-)
1. May (2002)
2. The Woman (2011)
3. Red (2008)
4. The Woods (2006)
5. Masters of Horror: Sick Girl (2006)

Amando de Ossorio (1918-2001)
1. Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971)
2. Return of the Evil Dead (1973)
3. Night of the Seagulls (1975)
4. The Ghost Galleon (1974)
5. Malenka, the Vampire's Niece (1969)
6. The Loreley's Grasp (1974)
7. Night of the Sorcerers (1974)
8. The Possessed (1975)
9. The Sea Serpent (1984)
10. Tomb of the Pistolero (1964)

Proposed updates:

Alexandre Aja
The year behind "Crawl" should be colored black.

Jackie Chan
The year of #10 "Dragon Lord" should be changed to 1982.

Stanley Kubrick
Spartacus up?

Make consistent with decade lists:

John Carpenter
Christopher Nolan
Ridley Scott?
Wong Kar-Wai
Zhang Yimou

RIP:

Jim Abrahams (1944-2024)
Kenneth Anger (1927-2023)
Michael Apted (1941-2021)
Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022)
Roger Corman (1926-2024)
Terence Davies (1945-2023)
Richard Donner (1930-2021)
William Friedkin (1935-2023)
Jean-Luc Godard (1930-2022)
Monte Hellman (1929-2021)
Norman Jewison (1926-2024)
Kim Ki-Duk (1960-2020)
Jiří Menzel (1938-2020)
Paul Morrissey (1938-2024)
Alan Parker (1944-2020)
Wolfgang Petersen (1941-2022)
Bob Rafelson (1933-2022)
Carl Reiner (1922-2020)
Ivan Reitman (1946-2022)
Carlos Saura (1932-2023)
Joel Schumacher (1939-2020)
Michael Snow (1928-2023)
Jean-Marie Straub (1933-2022)
Bertrand Tavernier (1941-2021)
Paolo Taviani (1931-2024)
Melvin Van Peebles (1932-2021)
Lina Wertmüller (1928-2021)

Directors with proposed lists that I haven't looked into yet:

Hideaki Anno (Sherick, p. 77)
Martin McDonagh (Dubrow, p. 79)
Michael Ritchie (Tim, p. 73)

Postponed:

Noribumi Suzuki