Relatively Simple Thread: Your Top 10 Directors of All Time
We have a lot of more specific and sometimes complex threads going around. After we all spent years practicing to become true blue movie buffs, it might be fun to just go back to roots and say "here's a top ten list for ya'."
Based on every movie I've seen so far, here's mine, along with my personal footnotes: 1. Coppola. I consider his entire 70's run to be a tetralogy of flawlessness. Also, there's Tetro, the most "Coppola" thing you will ever see, and it all has meaning and style. Sometimes Coppola struggles to match substance with style, but his sense of mystique and cinematography is unmatched. And of course, after so many misfires, he was the perfect director to get for Dracula. 2. Kurosawa. I can't think of another director who works so well with "character" whenever the focus is necessary, except maybe Billy Wilder. And he's made it perfectly clear that he can handle more than just historical dramas with movies like Ikiru and High an Low. He's the kind of director where you just gotta sit through the whole length of his epics if you're a true fan. Controversial opinion: Red Bear beats Ran. And more personally, I feel closer to Dad when I watch them. He always wanted to show me some samurai movies before his death, but could never find them. 3. Tarkovsky. I admit I'm not quite as sold on his slow cinema works as I am with Bela Tarr. But his experimental movies and historical movies are seriously heavy hitters. You can imagine how much I related to Andrei Rublev for its focus on art itself. It's like the inner me was freakin' out for three hours like Gusto Gummi high on his own paint. Solaris got me to check out the book, which is also incredble, and my favorite is The Mirror for its unique premise and perfect delivery. 4. Miyazaki. I remember when I was first shown Spirited Away in school. I fell in love. Once I became a REAL movie buff, Miyazaki was pretty top priority. Around that time, my sister got a couple Ghibli movies for her kids: Totoro and Ponyo. Great stuff, but the best Miyazaki movies are the weirder ones IMO, not the modernized Little Mermaid or the cute but lacking in plot Totoro. Both are still great on their own, though. 5. Fellini. I caught 8 1/2 on YouTube and I was sold. After that came La Dolce Vita, which flt like a spiritual parent to The Player. Fellini's sense of art comes from his ability to read and create people and their thoughts. Everything about his best movies is about working around the more absurd aspects of his characters. This is especially true for more personal movies like Amarcord and La Strada, and more surreal movies like 8 1/2. 6. Hitchcock. I'm a sucker for excitement. Maybe I haven't seen all of his essential classics, but Hitchcock was my favorite director for a while before switching over to Coppola. He's one of those directors twhose got a bunch of movies that I just have to go back to on occasion, because it makes it easier to compare all of the best of his movies with each other. 7. Raimi. Yes I'm putting Sam Raimi of all people this high. Raimi is all about putting his personality into his works, the horror, the comedy, etc. You can sense both the Evil Dead and Spider-Man influences just bleeding out in Doctor Strange 2, which might make it my new favorite personal movie (tied with Aliens). However, I find his best movie no to be in his typical style: A Simple Plan. Thrilled me to death. 8. Spielberg. Spielberg can make a good movie out of any style he touches. Maybe he's most well known as a sci-fi director, but the man understands the art of genre without falling flat on his face into the terror of the trope. We're talking reinventions of genre conventions here, and it typically pays off. 9. Welles. The guy understands balance between story and art, and I admire how he doesn't allow himself anything less, as evidenced by his constant arguing with studio executives and the fact that he had many unfinished projects and still put out some very clever ones with incredibly interesting characters. 10. Wilder. The guy understands both comedy and thrills (sorry, Hitchcock, but Champagne fell on its ass). Whenever his characters aren't deeply intriguing, they're riotous. He can even combine the two well enough for comfort, such as in the war comedy Stalag 17, which had a jovial presence and a deep mystery with a great climax. For a man to get both tones so right so often is IMO a very impressive feat. |
Re: Relatively Simple Thread: Your Top 10 Directors of All Time
I'm gonna be a basic bitch
Martin Scorsese Paul Thomas Anderson David Fincher Coen brothers Stanley Kubrick Steven Spielberg Quentin Tarantino Alfred Hitchcock Christopher Nolan Edgar Wright |
Re: Relatively Simple Thread: Your Top 10 Directors of All Time
Finally another example of something that is simple but not easy (besides dieting)
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Re: Relatively Simple Thread: Your Top 10 Directors of All Time
Difficult. This list might be different tomorrow:
1. Kurosawa 2. Lang 3. Bergman 4. Dreyer 5. Kieslowski 6. Hitchcock 7. Welles 8. Tarkovsky 9. Wilder 10. Kalatozov |
Re: Relatively Simple Thread: Your Top 10 Directors of All Time
Alfred Hitchcock
Martin Scorsese Steven Spielberg Stanley Kubrick Ingmar Bergman Woody Allen Quentin Tarantino Wes Anderson Christopher Nolan David Fincher |
Sidney Lumet
The Coens Alexander Payne Martin Scorsese Steven Spielberg Robert Wise Mel Brooks Stanley Kubrick Guillermo Del Toro Richard Linklater No order and likely to change daily. |
Kubrick
Cassavetes Dreyer Fassbinder Hitchcock Bergman Godard Altman Suzuki Welles |
And it's always nice to have Raimi's A Simple Plan given some props. The first two Dead films are unbeatable, but that one is right behind them
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Originally Posted by crumbsroom (Post 2387770)
And it's always nice to have Raimi's A Simple Plan given some props. The first to Dead films are unbeatable, but that one is right behind them
It's fun to imagine/realize he could've made films like that basically whenever he wanted to, he just felt like mostly making other stuff. Very talented guy. |
Originally Posted by Yoda (Post 2387771)
Yeah, it holds up, too. Kind of like Coen Lite. I've heard people mistakenly think it's part of their filmography more than once (and it makes sense, they worked together just a few years earlier).
It's fun to imagine/realize he could've made films like that basically whenever he wanted to, he just felt like mostly making other stuff. Very talented guy. Crimewave is a super underrated film. Definitely not for everyone, but if youre on its wavelength it's weirdo magic |
Yeah, I don't know about Raimi's later films (I disliked everything he made after Army of Darkness that I've seen) but his The Evil Dead Trilogy is really good.
https://youtu.be/NL6mioAlpJk As you might know (or not?!), I'm a big fan of Hong Kong cinema. Even based on just that trailer, you can see how much HK movies were inspired by The Evil Dead! This shot of something gliding low on the ground - I saw it later in HK movies. These special effects, probably freeze-frame made of plasticine - monsters in Chinese Ghost Story are also made like that AFAIK. And this whole theme of a ghost/zombie/whatever - it's in dozens of HK ghost movies. It doesn't look the same, but the feel is similar. I actually feel like rewatching The Evil Dead Original Trilogy now. And there are two new films, too, with one of them released this year. I'm a little bit afraid these two later films will be disappointing (not directed by Raimi and all) but I might go after them after finishing the original trilogy. If I ever rewatch it, that is. I have many films I should rewatch but still haven't! So yeah, Raimi is a nice guy. But one of the top 10 directors of all time? Naaah. |
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Alphabetical by last name since it's too hard to rank them. I also included what I think is a good introductory movie for each one.
Robert Bresson - Pickpocket Francis Ford Coppola - The Conversation Werner Herzog - Aguirre, The Wrath of God Takeshi Kitano - Sonatine Stanley Kubrick - Paths of Glory Akira Kurosawa - Throne of Blood David Lynch - Eraserhead Jean-Pierre Melville - Le Samourai Hayao Miyazaki - My Neighbor Totoro Andrei Tarkovsky - Solaris |
Re: Relatively Simple Thread: Your Top 10 Directors of All Time
Off the top of my head, and in no order other than the first one...
1. Kubrick 2. Coens 3. Kurosawa 4. Hitchcock 5. Bong 6. Bergman 7. Fincher 8. Lynch 9. Tarantino 10. PTA And as I browse the other posts, I keep remembering others that could easily make that Top 10... James Cameron, Billy Wilder, Sidney Lumet, Spielberg. So yeah... |
Alphabetical:
Michael Curtiz Clint Eastwood John Huston Elia Kazan Anthony Mann Vincent Minnelli Douglas Sirk Billy Wilder Robert Wise William Wyler |
Re: Relatively Simple Thread: Your Top 10 Directors of All Time
Always quite subject to change:
Hitchcock Wilder Eastwood Scorsese Miyazaki Spielberg Ford Ozu Kazan Nolan |
Should be a countdown list contender
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Re: Relatively Simple Thread: Your Top 10 Directors of All Time
MY top ten directors.
Coen Bros |
Not in any particular order:
Ozu Fassbinder Fuller Kieslowski Jarman (this has strong recency bias, oh well) Henenlotter Bergman Weir Kurosawa Varda |
Originally Posted by John W Constantine (Post 2388000)
Should be a countdown list contender
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