Favorite Director?

Ang Lee isn't really an auteur, on account of the fact that he has written only 3 of the 13 movies he has directed.

I'm not sure that you understand the "auteur theory" since the French lionized both Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock as early auteurs although they rarely received any screenwriting credits. What about Scorsese and Spielberg? You don't see a unifying theme, in both content and visuals, in both of their bodies of work?

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I don’t know. The list keeps growing. I can not single out a specific director but my favorites include:

Martin Scorsese
Akira Kurosawa
Billy Wilder
Sidney Lumet
Woody Allen
Spike Lee
Alfred Hitchcock
Werner Herzog
John Huston
John Ford
Stanley Kubrick
Arthur Penn
Robert Altman
Steven Spielberg

There are of course many fine directors but these for me show the greatest consistency in producing excellent film after excellent film.

Werner Herzog.

I know about the auteur theory, but I'm kind of a critic toward it. I think the director needs to be the writer of the film as well in order to be an actual auteur. If the director doesn't write the story he is directing, it technically isn't his story, and can only be stylized to a certain extent. I think that the people that came up with the original auteur theory are a bit wacked out and selfish, and I think it needs to be revised. I think that Spielberg and Scorsese only direct movies with cliche conventions so they will be able to sell the movie, which in my opinion creates similar themes throughout their bodies of work.

Wow. That's about a 97 on the ignorance scale. Every single sentence is full of incorrect information.

But as you were.

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Read my edit, that is more of what I was trying to say.

It's OK. We don't hate you. Continue to share.

I don't know why you're having a go at him, Pike. At least the information he is sharing are drawn from conclusions HE came up with...

Anyways, I sort of see where Brandaddy is coming from. I used to think that a true auteur needed to have contributed to the original script. But I have grown out of that. What Mark indicated was right. The director is the most powerful person in the process of film making. It's up to him/her to reinterpret the screenplay they are filmmaking from. And they can also change certain things they disagree with within the script as well.

A good example of this is Mary Harron's American Psycho. She came on board with Christian Bale in mind for the titular role. However, before she had shown any interest in the film, the studio execs had Leonardo DiCaprio in mind for the lead with David Cronenberg or Paul Verhoeven possibly directing. It was originally going to be a straight up adaptation into a conventional stalk 'n' slash horror show. But Harron's version reinterpreted the script to making it a black comedy with biting satire on the 80s yuppie culture.

An auteur, at least to me, is all about the thematic flow between a director's work. Look at Stanley Kubrick's work and see how each of his films flow into one. Same with Christopher Nolan. I won't go there because I have exhausted that man's name, and I think people realise how beautiful his work is anyways. An auteur can be identified by the visual process of his/hers film, too. John Woo and auteur are rarely mentioned in the same paragraph, but I consider him to be one. Most pretentious people wouldn't admit that because his films tend not to communicate well with the 'cerebral'. However, if you look at his signature shots and recurring themes, you can make a case for him.

I agree with The Prestige, I used to think that an auteur had to have at least helped in the screenwriting process. An Auteur is a really vague term and I've seen it been thrown around a lot. My cinema teacher gave me a very dim description on what an Auteur actually is, or where the term came from. I watch directors like Michel Gondry, where his films are so concrete in style, and begin to question more of the Hollywood directors on whether it is their style, or if they like to include long action sequences so film goers won't get bored.

I like really didn't like the dark night, but I did enjoy Christopher Nolan's other work. The dark night seemed like it had too many themes that conflicted with one another.

Terence Mallick (Badlands)
Oliver Stone (Platoon)
Kubrick (The Killing)

i like sooo

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Quentin Tarantino - death proof is ace.

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Quentin Tarantino is my favorite director.
The guy knows how to write such realistic dialogue, and it's all funny and quotable.
His filmmaking style is simple, but direct, with a slap-in-your-face attitude. I love Pulp Fiction to death and count it as one of my all-time favorite movies. I'm also a big fan of all his other films: Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, and Death Proof. I'm looking forward for his next film Inglorious Bastards starring Brad Pitt.

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Hideaki Anno, George A. Romero, Isao Takahata, James Cameron, Quentin Tarentino, Ridley Scott.

Martin Scorcese, David Lean, Stanley Kubrick. Any of these guys...

They are all philosophers in their own way. You can study their films for a consistent theme.

Yeah, Hitchcock and Capra are both great. They explain two very different philosophies toward life and offer an interesting portrait of the 30's and 40's.

David Lynch I guess. I like many films that leave room for the imagination especially in the bizarre, surreal, and creepy way that he does it.

Runners up would be:
Hitchcock
Scorsese
John Carpenter
Stuart Gordon
Cronenberg
Jeunet & Caro
Fritz Lang
Kubrick

No such list can ever be complete or accurate but here are some of my favorites.

The order in which they appear is more or less my preference to them as Directors.

I have listed movies for each in the order of what I feel is their best work. Top of the list being the best.




M. Night Shyamalan
Lady in the Water (2006)
The Village (2004)
Unbreakable (2000)
Signs (2002)

Ridley Scott
Blade Runner (1982)
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Alien (1979)
Gladiator (2000)
Hannibal (2001)
Legend (1985) with original score by Jerry Goldsmith
Black Rain (1989)

Joel Coen
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Raising Arizona (1987)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
No Country for Old Men (2007)

Sergio Leone
The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly (1968)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
A Fistful of Dynamite (1971) aka Duck, You Sucker

Richard Attenborough
Gandhi (1982)
Magic (1978)
A Bridge Too Far (1977)
Shadowlands (1993)
Chaplin (1992)
Young Winston (1972)

Stanley Kubrick
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Paths of Glory (1957)

Akira Kurosawa
Seven Samurai (1954)
Ran (1985)
The Bodyguard (1961)
Rashômon (1950)

Sam Peckinpah
The Wild Bunch (1969)
The Getaway (1972)
Junior Bonner (1972)
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Wes Anderson
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

Terry Gilliam
Brazil (1985)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
The Fisher King (1991)

David Lean
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Oliver Twist (1948)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)

Arthur Penn
Little Big Man (1970)
The Missouri Breaks (1976)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
The Chase (1966)
The Miracle Worker (1962)

Peter Weir
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Gallipoli (1981)
Dead Poets Society (1989)

Steven Spielberg
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Schindler's List (1993)
Jaws (1975)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
1941 (1979)

John Huston
Moby Dick (1956)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
The African Queen (1951)
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)
The Unforgiven (1960)

Michael Curtiz
Casablanca (1942)
The Comancheros (1961)
The Egyptian (1954)
Francis of Assisi (1961)
Captain Blood (1935)
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Francis Ford Coppola
Rumble Fish (1983
The Outsiders (1983)
The Godfather: Part II (1974)
The Godfather (1972)

Franklin J. Schaffner
Papillon (1973)
The Boys from Brazil (1978)
Patton (1970)
Planet of the Apes (1968)

John Sturges
The Great Escape (1963)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
The Magnificent Seven (1960)

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Lately, I'm really liking Joe Wright. Other favorites include:

Alejandro González Iñárritu
Jonathan Demme
Terrence Malick
David Fincher
Ridley Scott
Christopher Nolan
Ingmar Bergman
Anthony Minghella
Jane Campion

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Martin Scorsese
Alfred Hitchcock
Steven Speilberg
Francis Ford Coppola
Stanley Kubrick
Frank Capra
Micheal Bay
Oliver Stone
Quentin Terrentino
Billy Wilder