Who Are Your Favorite Directors

[MoviePosterBid.com]

Film Directors.. some are great.. others are Ed Wood

I have a number of favorites.. you can always tell who your favorites are because you have lots of their DVD's

Probably my single favorite director is William Wyler, followed closely by Fritz Lang. But I have many other favorites.. here is a list of my faves.. of course, it is not in order (if I could ever create one) and it certainly, incomplete.  But these are directors whose body of work always thrills me

Henry King
John Sturges
Robert Wise
Orson Welles
David Lean
Carol Reed
Clint Eastwood
Tarantino
John Ford (no list is complete without)
Jean Cocteau (Orpheus is one of my top ten favorite movies)
John Huston
Stanley Kubrick
Steven Spielberg
Hitchcock (though less than most of the others..)
Charlie Chaplin
John Frankenheimer
Akira Kurasawa

there are many others.. But for instance, James Whale - most of my love for his work is based on 2 films and Sam Peckinpah, Oliver Stone, Edgar G. Ulmer and M. Kight Shamalayan are in a similar situation, so I didn't want to put them on the list. The director above, like Wyler and Lang - I literally love all of their films.

I'm sure I could list at least a dozen others.. who do you like the most!!!

[easyenders]

Ten off the top of my head in no particular order

Billy Wilder
Alfred Hichcock
Luis Bunuel
Ken Loach
Shane Meadows
Don Siegel
Sidney Kubrick
Howard Hawks
Wong Kar-Wai (only for two films, but what two films 'Chungking Express', and 'Fallen Angels'.
Robert Rossen (likewise for 'The Hustler', and 'Body and Soul'.

Oh! need to make room there somewhere for Jess Franco.......

[Harry Caul]

Kubrick is hands down my favorite... but I probably respect both him and Welles equally.  Here are a few more you missed off the top of my head:

Leone
Scorcese
Coppola
Laughton (one hit wonder)
Antonioni
Godard
Fellini
Malick
Soderbergh

I'm sure we are all still missing a ton.

[Bruce]

Aargh! Two of the absolute greatest directors, who like Rodney Dangerfield get no respect because they aren't auteurs, are missing from these lists!

Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh. I'll stack their bodies of work against any of the above!

Bruce

[kovacs01]

Leone
Yamada
Kurosawa
Eastwood
Romero
Park
Argento
Cronenberg
Carpenter
Scorcese
Coppola
Gilliam
Coen Bros
Fincher
Wilder
Lynch
Nolan
Boyle
Aronofsky
Ford
Ritchie

I am sure there are others..............

[brude]

I love all of the aforementioned directors (especially James Whale)... but where was...
.....
Frank Capra
Terry Gilliam
Ridley Scott
Alan Parker

Today's filmmakers are nothing to sneeze at either.  Here are some of my favorites:

David Fincher
Zack Snyder
Guillermo Del Toro
Gore Verbinski
Peter Jackson

[Harry Caul]

A few more that haven't been mentioned now that I've had some caffeine: 

Bergman
Chaplin
Lumet
Polanski
D.W. Giffith
Milos Forman
Altman
Jean Renoir
Cukor
Eisenstein
Murnau
Frankenheimer   
Spike Lee
Jean Cocteau
Mike Nichols
Buster Keaton
Fritz Lang
Max Ophuls

And good call on Michael Curtiz Bruce!  I've read that due to his incredible versatility and his tendency to not stamp each movie with his Style (capital S), that he was often overlooked by the early film schools.  As such he is not really known as an Auteur director... despite having made some of the best movies of all time.

[kovacs01]

I think Mel Brooks probably deserves a place among these names as well.....seriously (as hard as it is to put that word next to anything Mel Brooks).

[Mondo Hazardo]

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Orson Welles
Luis Bunuel

More recent:
Martin Scorsese
Terry Gilliam
Coen Brothers

[Mondo Hazardo]

Oh, let's not forget Luchino Visconti!

[CSM]

GUY RITCHIE (pre and post Madonna)

[Ari]

Love CSM reply,

Polanski
Argento
Bava
Fulci (yah I know)
Mattei (yeah I REALLY know)
Terrence Fisher
And of course TED V MIKELS (screw you all, he is the bomb)

[eatbrie]

I will only cover modern times (directors working post 1970), because most of the all-time greats have already been named in this thread.

The following people, IMHO, have the most outstanding body of work.  Some (that I mentioned) have made one masterpiece but deserve to be named.

Woody Allen
Pedro Almodovar
Luc Besson
Tim Burton
James Cameron
John Carpenter
Joel Coen
Francis Ford Coppola
David Cronenberg
Frank Darabont
Brian De Palma
Clint Eastwood
Milos Forman
Mel Gibson
Jean-Luc Godard
Alfred Hitchcock
John Hughes
Jim Jarmusch
Stanley Kubrick
John Landis
Fritz Lang
John Lasseter (and the Pixar team)
Sergio Leone
Sidney Lumet
David Lynch
Sydney Pollack
Otto Preminger
Robert Redford
Rob Reiner
Martin Scorsese
Ridley Scott
Steven Spielberg
Quentin Tarantino
François Truffaut
Wim Wenders
Billy Wilder
Robert Zemeckis

[Dr Hackenbush]

All my favorites have been named already by others, but let me add one name that's missing: John Woo (for "The Killer" & "Hard Boiled"). Hm, I don't think anyone mentioned John Cassavetes, either

[idioteque]

From Japan:

Mizaguchi - Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff
Miyazaki - My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Ponyo

[CSM]

Some more:

Fritz Lang
Robert Siodmak
Edward Dmytryk
Jacques Tourneur
Robert Wise
Billy Wilder
Jules Dassin
Howard Hawks
Anthony Mann

[CSM]

And for a "director of light"

John Alton

[MoviePosterBid.com]

I'm surprised that some great directors who aren't named

William "Wild Bill" Wellman
Victor Fleming
Erich Von Stroheim
Has F.W. Murnau been mentioned?
Tod Browning
Francois Truffaut
Jean Luc Goddard
Robert Aldrich
is Barry Levinson mentioned?


just more off teh top of my head

[Ari]

What I find funny is Rich always spells THE as TEH. Kinda cute

[Mondo Hazardo]

Miike Takeshi
Chan-Wook Park
Alex de la Iglesia
Nikita Mikhalkov

[easyenders]

I'd surely recognize Days of Being Wild, 2046 and In the Mood, as well, in listing Wong Kar-Wai.

Granted although the other two rank high as personal favourites. Some other directors not yet mentioned:
Todd Solondz for 'Happiness', 'Welcome to the Dollhouse' 
Paul Thomas Anderson
Alan Clarke
Mike Leigh
and not forgetting Marcel Carne

[kovacs01]

My favorite modern director is Yoji Yamada, and it isnt really close.  He is not really modern, but his older stuff is not known internationally.

He might top the list on the merits of Twilight Samurai alone, but add to that Love and Honor, The Hidden Blade, Kaabee, and Ototo.  Amazing body of work.

[paul waines]

James Whale, with out a doubt. Also Roy William Neill, Charles Barton, Earl.C.Kenton, not to forget Rowland.V.Lee. Sorry I know i'm just mentioning directors of films I like.     

[brude]

Oops, almost forgot

Andrei Tarkovsky.

[Dr Hackenbush]

Don't think anyone has mentioned Louis Malle yet