Relatively Simple Thread: Your Top 10 Directors of All Time

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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.



If I had a steak, I would f**k it!
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



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Finally another example of something that is simple but not easy (besides dieting)
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



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



Alfred Hitchcock
Martin Scorsese
Steven Spielberg
Stanley Kubrick
Ingmar Bergman
Woody Allen
Quentin Tarantino
Wes Anderson
Christopher Nolan
David Fincher



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
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.



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



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
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.



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.



  1. Ingmar Bergman
  2. Stanley Kubrick
  3. John Carpenter
  4. Martin Scorsese
  5. Jean-Pierre Melville
  6. Orson Welles
  7. Alfred Hitchcock
  8. Jack Arnold
  9. Billy Wilder
  10. Ridley Scott



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



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...
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MY top ten directors.
Coen Bros
Stephen Spielberg
Stanley Kubric
Ridley Scott
John Carpenter
Chris Nolan
Clint Eastwood
Guillermo del Toro
Michael Mann
Denis Villeneuve



Not in any particular order:

Ozu
Fassbinder
Fuller
Kieslowski
Jarman (this has strong recency bias, oh well)
Henenlotter
Bergman
Weir
Kurosawa
Varda