Category: top 100 directors
BUSTER KEATON THE GENERAL, SHERLOCK JR., SEVEN CHANCES, OUR HOSPITALITY, STEAMBOAT BILL JR. Buster Keaton may be known primarily as a brilliant physical comedian, but he was also part scientist. He was fascinated with the idea of mechanism, and he...
LUIS BUNUEL UN CHIEN ANDALOU, THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE, THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, BELLE DE JOUR Surrealism, as displayed by the great Luis Bunuel, does not just mean that a bunch of crazy stuff happens (at least not always...
SERGIO LEONE THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA Many directors on the list are children of cinema, but few are as specific, or as subtle, with...
WONG KAR WAI IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, CHUNGKING EXPRESS, HAPPY TOGETHER, 2046 The French New Wave – the collection of directors, critics and director/critics who defined the dominant methods of interpreting film art – were largely inspired by American...
DARREN ARONOFSKY REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, BLACK SWAN, THE WRESTLER, THE FOUNTAIN, PI Darren Aronofsky has pulled off a rare feat. He started his career with Pi and Requiem for a Dream, two polarizing, deliberately off-putting films that tear open...
YASUJIRO OZU TOKYO STORY, LATE SPRING, EARLY SUMMER, FLOATING WEEDS Ozu’s pensive approach to filmmaking set him apart from many of his contemporaries. He took time to focus on smaller details of life, both with his dialogue, and with his...
ERROL MORRIS THE FOG OF WAR, THE THIN BLUE LINE, MR. DEATH Few others have put their stamp of the documentary like Errol Morris. Beginning in the 1980s, his bag of cinematic tricks—recreations, hypnotic music, unsettlingly intimate interviews—reasserted the medium...
STEVEN SODERBERGH TRAFFIC, SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE, OCEAN’S ELEVEN, OUT OF SIGHT, THE LIMEY It is difficult describing a Soderbergh film, even though his films are immediately recognizable. He moves from genre to genre seamlessly, never repeating himself. While he...
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI BLOW-UP, L’AVVENTURA, THE PASSENGER His inclusion on this list would be all but guaranteed were his career limited merely to that section which is most represented – the early 1960s. He did, after all, change film language forever,...
ABBAS KIAORSTAMI CLOSE-UP, TASTE OF CHERRY, CERTIFIED COPY, TEN While he may not be familiar to many Western audiences, Kiarostami is an artistic giant in his native Iran, and his reputation is spreading. Kiarostami stands out by crafting films that...
