My Top 5 Directors

Suspense is often associated with Alfred Hitchcock and for a good reason. However, Leone took it one step ahead showing how to do something more with that suspense. By stretching the tension way beyond the obvious and solving it with an explosion of adrenaline, he created some of the most thrilling scenes the world has ever seen.

Unlike Fincher and Aronofsky who made their best work quite early in their careers, Leone is a director who didn't stop getting better.
He started by doing swords-and-sandals movies with The Last Days of Pompeii (which was originally directed by Mario Bonnard, who fell ill before finishing shooting) and his first full credited work: The Colossus of Rhodes. Though he shows some abilities here that would made him universally known as a genius later, the Colossus of Rhodes is not exactly a masterpiece.
It's in 1964, with the first film of the Dollars trilogy, A Fistfull of Dollars, that he makes his first big impact. The movie is usually considered the first important spaghetti western, a subgenre that would be immensely proliferous during the next 10 years. The movie was also the first collaboration between Leone and Clint Eastwood, on the role of the Man with No Name, and more importantly the first collaboration between Leone and the musical genius of Ennio Morricone, in my opinion the best duo in the history of cinema.


After the Dollars Trilogy - finishing with the famous The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - he directed 2 more spaghetti westerns: Once Upon a Time in the West, one of my favourite movies of all time, and Duck, You Sucker who created shock at the time of its release because of the last scene - a poetic and metaphoric threesome.
His last and most ambitious film is Once Upon a Time in America, my favourite gangster movie of all time, and a tremendous masterpiece with a full lenght of almost 4 hours.
Sergio Leone is one of the most influential directors of all time, playing a big part on the work of a lot of modern director especially Quentin Tarantino.

How I rate his movies:

Il Colosso di Rodi (1961) +
Per un Pugno di Dollari (1964)
Per qualche Dollaro in pił (1965) +
Il buono, il brutto,il cattivo (1966)
C'era una volta il West (1968)
Gił la Testa (1971) -
Once Upon a Time in America

When I grow up, I want to be just like Sergio Leone. Old with a bushy beard but still badass and still loving to create amazing shots of barren landscape with a wide lens, combing it with intense close-ups, stylish shoot-outs executed with grace, making "spaghetti sauce" spill out all over the place as a man with no name spits out an epic one-liner.

Here's what I wrote about Leone in my own Top Directors thread:

I love OUATITW and TGTBATU. I need te rewatch OUATIA, it has been years. I can see me being a big Leone fan once I watch these movies a couple more times.

Don't know why I didn't comment on Aronofsky. I kind of have the same relationship with him I do with Kubrick. He has a couple of movies I think are very good and a couple I don't like at all, and then some meh stuff. I want to see the greatness and keep watching these two men's work but I have yet to fall in love with any of their work. I still need to see Requiem, but have seen the rest.

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Letterboxd

Requiem is his best film. See it as fast as possible. Don't know if you'd like the frantic editing though.

I don't think that Aronofsky has made a bad film yet, but it's kind of hard for me to give him full praise because of how much he lifts from Satoshi Kon. If you combined Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream, you end up with Perfect Blue. The Requiem scene where she screams in the bathtub is pretty close to shot for shot. You can call it an homage or whatever you want, but I think it's being shady to take a lot of your best work from someone else that 90% of the people watching your movie have never heard of.

Again, we agree on everything except one movie! XD For a Few Dollars More is the better of the Dollars Trilogy IMO, followed closely by TGTBTU.

You should definitely complete your list Gats!!!

As Gatsby said, you should definitely see Requiem! I think it's the movie that better defines Aronofsky's filmmaking style!

What hv you not seen by Kubrick, btw?

Barry Lyndon and The Killing. I have only seen half of Eyes Wide Shut as well.

I never hear anyone talk about the stuff on IMDB that came before The Killing either, are they essential?

About EWS, it depends on where you stopped... Did you see the crazy orgy scene?

Barry Lyndon is a masterpiece IMO, but so are almost every of Kubrick films so I'm a little biased about that...
As for The Killing, it's a very good noir but not a movie I'd call essential.

The ones made before that are pretty bad, even Kubrick hated them, especially the 1st one.

For Kubrick, I really only like Lolita. I can definitely appreciate 2001. And I dislike EWS and definitely Strangelove. Other than that I've only seen Killers Kiss which is fairly meh. I should see another soon.

U haven't watched Clockwork Orange? Do it! Now!!!

Don't do it!

I can't now, but I will make that my next Kubrick then.

By the way, very nice list so far!

You... How dare you say that about A Clockwork Orange? May the wrath from Heaven & Hell fall upon you!!!

How nice of you! Thanks!

If you think that about Aronofsky, then you probably won't like the next director on this list!

QT

Everyone knows the story: a young cinephile quits highschool to pursue his cinema dream, starts working on a video rental store and writing his scripts on part time and BOOM!!! the world is presented to Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and many more incredible movies that turned the young cinephile into the most respected director alive.
He changed the independent film industry for good, creating an unique style thanks to his brilliant non-linear scripts (he may be one of the best movie writers of all time), incredibly violent and bloody scenes, exceptional use of soundtrack, frequent references to hundreds of movies and to pop culture, etc...

Tarantino is the man who made me fall in love with cinema in the first place. I watched Pulp Fiction when I was 16 and I knew I had seen something different the moment the final credits rolled in the screen. Until this day it's still my favourite movie of all time.
After that, I've seen his entire filmography countless times and no matter how many new directors I know, how much more of a cinephile I become I will always come back to Quentin Tarantino!

How I rate his movies:

Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Pulp Fiction (1994) +
Jackie Brown (1997) -
Kill Bill vol.1 (2003)
Kill Bill vol. 2 (2004)
Death Proof (2007) +
Inglorious Basterds (2009)
Django Unchained (2012) +

Very nice! QT is one of the best in the business.

I feel like you've answered this before but do you think you're going to do a top movies list so you can list your favorites?