Directors

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

CinemaRian — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:53:22 GMT

My list of the ten best directors:

1. Francis Ford Coppola

2. Stanley Kubrick

3. Ingmar Bergman

4. Buster Keaton

5. Carl Theodore Dreyer

6. Peter Jackson

7. Sir David Lean

8. Neil Jordan

9. Michael Curtiz

10. Vittorio De Sica

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

kristen — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:54:17 GMT

Kudos to you for watching "Toby Dammit", one of Fellini's best. Anyway, if you can get your hands on it, watch Fellini's Casanova.

My 10 Best Directors List-

1. Federico Fellini

2. Andrei Tarkovsky

3. Charlie Chaplin

4. Stanley Kubrick

5. Werner Herzog (best living director)

6. Woody Allen

7. Wong Kar-Wai

8. Jean Luc Godard

9. David Lynch

10. Maybe Jacques Rivette

The fact that M. Night Shamalan even made the list is disgraceful. And though most people might not know of him, Hiroshi Teshigahara is a great filmmaker and should be included in the list.

Re:Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

leeroy711 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:05:39 GMT

Does nobody think that Jean-Pierre Juenet deserves to be on this list?

I also think that Spike Jonze directed two masterpieces (niether one was called Jackass) and that's more than I can say for Fincher.

The Coen brothers should have made the top ten - no excuses.

Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

NakedLunchRadioShow — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 06:58:35 GMT

Hey I am sorry to be so negative, but that list of the Top 100 Directors was ridiculous. First of all I could have deleted half the names on this list. O.k. Charlie Chaplin. Hello? Where on the list is he? I did not see Gus Van Sant and what about Pier Paolo Pasolini? Derek Jarman, Jules Dasin, Jean Cocteau, & Sergio Leone were all missing? Of course as you all mentioned Terry Gilliam was also missing on this list. I am sure I can sit here and think of a dozen other international film directors who weren’t mentioned. Also any list that omits Stanley Kubrick on the top 5 cannot be taken seriously.

I totally agree with everything that Sonofkinski had to say about the list. You know your cinema! :)

Ricky D

Naked-lunch.org

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

Risselada — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:31:20 GMT

Seems like a point that continues to come up in every thread in this group. Due to laziness and to avoid being redundant, I would suggest scouring through some of the other threads to see my and other folks comments on this. Although Jim, I thought I remembered that you were a part of those other conversations as well.

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

JimBell — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:48:38 GMT

It's fun to play Top 10, but we have to be careful when it become counterproductive. Is Steve Nash one of the 10 best basketball players in the world? There are not too many variables when we see Steve on the court with four team mates. Is Margaret Atwood one of the 10 best novelists writing today? Although it takes a few years to read enough books to answer that question, we know that Margaret wrote her books solo, maybe with some help from a frightened editor. Is Neil Jordon--or insert the name of another director--one of the top 10 directors? Egads! As the word "director" implies, he is trying to coordinate dozens and often hundreds of people. He doesn't control the budget, he may not control the final editing--he may, in fact, simply be one of the more substantial cogs in a multi-tooth wheel.

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

indieabby88 — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:35:22 GMT

Dr_Gor:
Anyhow, I was VERY pleasantly surprised to see Peter Jackson at number 9! This is a well deserved honor for this underestimated little director from New Zealand! I thought 'King Kong' was a failure but I saw that coming a mile away! You can NOT remake a 'masterpiece' and expect it to be better than the original! When will these guys figure this out? And if you dismiss his earlier, splattery 'gore-fests', or exploitation fare like 'Heavenly Creatures', you are left with only one thing... "The Lord Of The Rings" ! I am pleased to see that I am not the only one to propel Mr. Jackson right to the front of my 'favorite directors' list based ONLY on the magnificent job he did of bringing this trilogy to life!

Am I the only one who's liked pretty much all of Jackson's body of work? I can't say I enjoyed "Dead Alive" too much...it's hard for me to watch that movie without feeling a little sick. But I loved "Heavenly Creatures," and "King Kong," got a fair amount of enjoyment out of "The Frighteners" and am a huge fan of LOTR. I think he deserved to be on the list as well, but perhaps for more reasons than just the famed trilogy.

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

Risselada — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:49:01 GMT

Dr_Gor:
Now try to compare that to if you were the director of a 'minimalistic' movie like Night Of The Living Dead or Psycho ... Who do you think had the more difficult job?

Well probably Jackson's job was more difficult. Although even that's hard to say though. He certainly had the resources behind him to make everything happen. I'm not too certain about the story of Night of the Living Dead, but I know a lot of independent filmmakers have the hardest time because they have few people helping them sometimes. It's hard to find money and people are always backing out and cutting your budget and telling you how to do it. Plus you have to do all of the shit work yourself. No doubt Peter Jackson was able to assign people to do all the different jobs. He very well may have done many hands on things, but the point is he had all the help if he wanted it.

Now the question about whether or not it was more difficult for one person or another is a different question from how much credit the director deserves for the final project. Again, with an independent film with a smaller cast, the director probably was responsible for a much higher percentage of what you see. Just a guess. Of course they had thousands of people working on the Lord of the Rings movies, but some of them spent years making some model that you probably only see for two seconds.

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

Dr_Gor — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:42:58 GMT

I can understand your point, Rizzo, in that in some 'epic' movies like this with a lot of money involved the 'producers' can take over the reins from a director and make all the final desicions. I can assure you that this was not the case with TLOTR ! This was Peter Jackson's DREAM since he started making movies! To either make a 'live action' version of TLOTR or a remake of King Kong ! I can go into detail here, but the bottom line is, at the end of the day it is YOUR name on that movie screen! The director, at least in this case, is the last person responsible for what you finally see on the screen. That means that Peter Jackson spent a good 3 years (!) sitting at the editing table to make sure that this trilogy was up to HIS standards! I think it definately shows!

Now try to compare that to if you were the director of a 'minimalistic' movie like Night Of The Living Dead or Psycho ... Who do you think had the more difficult job?

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

Risselada — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:59:07 GMT

Dr_Gor:
And if you dismiss his earlier, splattery 'gore-fests', or exploitation fare like 'Heavenly Creatures', you are left with only one thing... "The Lord Of The Rings" ! I am pleased to see that I am not the only one to propel Mr. Jackson right to the front of my 'favorite directors' list based ONLY on the magnificent job he did of bringing this trilogy to life!

I generally tend to assume however that the larger a movie is in terms of budget and people involved, the less credit you can give towards the director on the film. Do you think that's true? It's obviously not a hard rule, but I think in general it's true. And if you think about the Lord of the Rings movies, have there ever been a series of movies that had more people involved?? Maybe the director is even MORE important in a situation like this though. Not entirely sure.

Re:Re:Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

Dr_Gor — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:58:03 GMT

Ok. Here I am, late to the party as usuall! I was pleasantly surprised by this 'Total Films' list. I was pleased to see ALMOST all of my favorite Horror Movie directors represented! Carpenter, DePalma, Romero, Kubrick, Raimi, HITCHCOCK, Hawks, Siegel, Tarantino, Freidkin et al. I like all the films of Shyamalan, most notably 'Signs', and I think his spot on the list is well deserved. Most noteably missing are Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper.... but then what else would you expect coming from me? ....

Anyhow, I was VERY pleasantly surprised to see Peter Jackson at number 9! This is a well deserved honor for this underestimated little director from New Zealand! I thought 'King Kong' was a failure but I saw that coming a mile away! You can NOT remake a 'masterpiece' and expect it to be better than the original! When will these guys figure this out? And if you dismiss his earlier, splattery 'gore-fests', or exploitation fare like 'Heavenly Creatures', you are left with only one thing... "The Lord Of The Rings" ! I am pleased to see that I am not the only one to propel Mr. Jackson right to the front of my 'favorite directors' list based ONLY on the magnificent job he did of bringing this trilogy to life!

Also, I was sad to see the 'Italian-Horror' genre all but unmetioned... I think Argento could have made the list, at least...

Re:Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

pippin06 — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:08:05 GMT

indieabby88:
I
If you need any evidence of how Shyamalan views himself and his work, just watch "Lady in the Water" where he kills off the snobby film critic character, clearly an embodiment of all the folks who (quite rightly) said his post-"Sixth Sense" films were stinkers. That's not passive-agressive. Not at all. Even more frustratingly, it shows that Shyamalan is one of those people who isn't going to try and take his critics' words to heart, thus meaning his films are probably never going to get any better than they are right now.

I know I'm in the minority, but I didn't think Lady in the Water was that bad. In fact, I kind of liked it. I thought the snobby Bob Balaban character was a book critic? He was the character you initially thought was going to be the great inspirational leader that would write some sort of treatise and make a delible impression on mankind, only to be thrown that it was actually Shyamalan's character. In fact, I thought the ego in this film was the fact that Night played the savior (to be). Unless I'm thinking of the wrong character.

I really feel that none of his films are really that bad. The fact that they, again, prompt so much controversy is probably worth something in itself. What is interesting about Shyamalan's movies is that they are never what they seem to be. I think the Village suffered from the wrong sort of marketing: it was advertised to be a horror tale and ended up being a morality play with spooky elements. Lady in the Water is as much about a mystical girl washing up in a tenement pool as it is about faith and believing in oneself and believing in possibilities, no matter how outrageous. It's probably the worst of his flicks, but it beats a goodly number of films available for viewing in the here and now.

And I think Signs is far from a stinker. I thought it was dumb to show the aliens in the end, since it worked so much better as a suggestion, but it was a very very good movie.

Maybe Shyamalan is simply too esoteric. But see, that's probably what he believes himself. It's his ego and his high estimation of his own talent (propped up by media praise for the Sixth Sense) that probably keeps his movies from being appreciated on a wider scale.

Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

JimBell — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:21:32 GMT

Rewatched Faling Down a few months ago, and I liked it every bit as much as the first time. I searched out a Schumacher interview with a reputable magazine, and the director spoke very astutely about the film.

Somewhat like with authors, we want to categorize directors and make our world neater. But some can be terrible one year and really good not long after.

JIMBELL

Re:Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

Risselada — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 03:40:25 GMT

indieabby88:
If you need any evidence of how Shyamalan views himself and his work, just watch "Lady in the Water" where he kills off the snobby film critic character, clearly an embodiment of all the folks who (quite rightly) said his post-"Sixth Sense" films were stinkers. That's not passive-agressive. Not at all. Even more frustratingly, it shows that Shyamalan is one of those people who isn't going to try and take his critics' words to heart, thus meaning his films are probably never going to get any better than they are right now.

It's too bad because I think there is some talent there. I wonder how well he would do at directing someone else's script.

Re:Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

indieabby88 — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:31:49 GMT

Risselada:
I don't know too much about Schumacher, but from everything I've heard from Shaymalan, he thinks pretty highly of himself and his movies. And I highly doubt if you asked him about The Village that he would say he intended it to be "a stupid movie with little purpose" even if that's really what it is.

If you need any evidence of how Shyamalan views himself and his work, just watch "Lady in the Water" where he kills off the snobby film critic character, clearly an embodiment of all the folks who (quite rightly) said his post-"Sixth Sense" films were stinkers. That's not passive-agressive. Not at all. Even more frustratingly, it shows that Shyamalan is one of those people who isn't going to try and take his critics' words to heart, thus meaning his films are probably never going to get any better than they are right now.

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

pippin06 — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:13:01 GMT

Schumacher also directed A Time to Kill, and that's a decent film. It's not artsy, or anything, but it's pretty true to the Grisham book it's based on, if you go in for that sort of thing. Again, he's not universally bad, though I don't know as I'd call him apple to Shyamalan's apple. They are two different directors with their own individual set of faults, I think, though I vastly prefer Shyamalan to Schumacher (and Batman and Robin is a very good reason why).

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

sonofkinski — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 04:53:40 GMT

That's FUNNY!

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

joem18b — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 02:01:02 GMT

sonofkinski:
It IS "amok", isn't it? Never feels right to type, but I'd swear I've read it as such...

amok vs amuck

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

sonofkinski — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:50:20 GMT

Having a wife looking like Barbara Hershey on one of her good days ('Boxcar Bertha' through ' 'The Stunt Man') is reason enough to be able to enjoy a Joel Schumacher film.

It IS "amok", isn't it? Never feels right to type, but I'd swear I've read it as such...

'Tigerland': never viewed. You know why ('Batman Forever').

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

joem18b — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:33:50 GMT

I watched Falling Down again lately and liked it as much. But then I get stuck in traffic by Lockheed every day, wear glasses and short-sleeved white shirts, my wife looks like Barbara Hershey on one of her good days, and I've been thinking about running amok or amuck with my Daisy since the housing bubble burst.

Also kind of liked Tigerland.

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

sonofkinski — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:23:56 GMT

joem: That movie ages really poorly, but I really do identify with the "guilty pleasure" attraction of it. It's my favorite Joel Schumacher film. I just said "favorite Joel Schumacher film". Now I'm going to burn off all of my body hair.

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

joem18b — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:13:07 GMT

Schumacher makes "Falling Down," I can forgive some bad movies.

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

sonofkinski — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:37:32 GMT

All you really need to know about Schumacher: 'Batman & Robin'.

And that's just the tip of the dirtloaf.

Isn't his name literally "shoe maker" in German? If only...

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

Risselada — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 02:01:01 GMT

GradysGhost:
It's also a stupid movie with very little purpose, but that's all The Lost Boys or The Village were ever really meant to be.

I don't know too much about Schumacher, but from everything I've heard from Shaymalan, he thinks pretty highly of himself and his movies. And I highly doubt if you asked him about The Village that he would say he intended it to be "a stupid movie with little purpose" even if that's really what it is.

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

GradysGhost — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 23:56:37 GMT

I agree with pippin06 on the vast majority of his points.

I kinda see Shyamalan as the new Joel Schumacher. Shall we compare?

Schumacher's Flatliners -- A fun movie with an eye for grandiosity about death and the afterlife, whatever it is. It turns into a sort of horror flick with heart as the film wears on. The characters find themselves haunted by the horrors they've commited themselves, but find redemption in the act of apology.

Compare to Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense -- A really fun movie with a focus on the individual about death and the afterlife, whatever it is. In the end it's remembered as a horror film, but it has a sort of heart as well. A small child brings realization to a middle-aged man who never realized he'd actually passed away, and brings a sort of redemption to his mother who always doubted her own mother.

Schumacher's The Lost Boys -- This makes for one hell of a popcorn flick and it's got a popular cast: The Two Coreys (as they are called) and the slightly less popular but still recognizable Diane Weist. It's a stupid movie with very little purpose.

Compare to Shyamalan's The Village -- I found the movie to be entertaining, if a little predictable (or a lot predictable) with a few cast members who'd been getting a fair amount of press at the time like Adrien Brody. The movie didn't really have anything new to say. You know, it's all about how man cannot suppress his very nature of hostility and how any society has always crumbled from the Greeks to the Romans to maybe America? It's also a stupid movie with very little purpose, but that's all The Lost Boys or The Village were ever really meant to be.

One more: Schumacher's Batman Forever. Stop cringing. It does you no good. Batman Forever was a cheap attempt to capitalize on a successful franchise. The movie made good money, I'm sure, but it's generally regarded as the second worst Batman movie to date (the worst being Batman and Robin).

Then look at Shyamalan's Lady in the Water. Again with Paul Giamatti, good actor that he is, in a role that makes him look childish. In a way it's a continuation of a franchise because that's how it was advertised. The wording in the trailer is probably close to, "An M. Night Shyamalan Film." People went to see it because he directed. In a way, it's a franchise. But it's not a very good movie in any way, shape, or form.

I see a lot of commonalities between the two, and I think we just need to watch Shyamalan's films for the entertainment value and overlook his frequent plot holes, his trademark plot twists, and his hack style. I can watch his movies just for fun in the same way that I can't say no to a viewing of The Lost Boys.

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

pippin06 — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 02:11:56 GMT

That's a funny story, Jim. And a good point. Since I have no major opinion on either list, the only thing I would remark is that so rarely do the publications that publish these lists also publish the criteria as to how they arrived at the lists. However, words are never wasted, even in speculation, which is what we are best left with here as to what Total Film was thinking.

Call me devil's advocate, but I think time will tell on M. Night Shyamalan. The fact that he draws so much controversy in the here and now is probably going to lead to some sort of posthumous epic status in the future, provided films endure. It's Murphy's law. I don't think he's the greatest, but I appreciate his films and his type of filmmaking. He's got his own style, anyway, and just because his ego has inflated far beyond the scope of his talent doesn't mean he doesn't have talent to speak of. The Sixth Sense is a great flick anyway.

I suspect the same thing will happen for Terry Gilliam. He's the black sheep of Hollywood right now, though, so any love he might deserve will probably not be given to him until he's not around to hear or appreciate it himself. Everything's political. He spends lots of money on making his movies, but he doesn't get big audiences. Posterity will probably put him on lists in the future, saying he's a "groundbreaker" and a "visionary." That's what his fans say now. It'll happen...eventually.

I was fascinated by the Total Film list mostly because of the nicknames. Like I said, I have no major opinion about positioning or the content of this list or the other one posted by Risselada. I don't feel I've seen the required number of films to really be qualified to make a judgment on either list. I thought it was interesting enough to discuss here, though. Lists are always controversial because of the people who fancy themselves experts enough to make the lists to begin with. That's why they're fun! :-)

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

JimBell — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 07:29:11 GMT

Having read the major review on cordless drills, I told the guy at House of Tools that I wanted a DeWalt drill, and he burst into laughter, saying, "If I sold a hundred of each drill, I would get 3 Makita's back, 3 Bosch's back, and maybe 40 DeWalts within the year."

Why the difference? ?The offical drill testing review forcused on torque and battery longevity (what they could test); the HOuse of Tools guy focused on repair record (what he could know about).

The same goes for lists of directors: If you don't list your evaluation criteria, there will be a lot of spinning wheels and wasted words.

Peace,

JIMBELL

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

indieabby88 — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 04:43:12 GMT

That's true. Still, I think most people would agree that M. Night Shyamalan doesn't belong on any list of great directors, no matter the audience.

And Murnau really ought to be on the Total Film list.

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

sonofkinski — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:57:34 GMT

It's probably obvious to say, but each (and every) list has to be aware of its audience. One appearing in a popcorn (?) mag like Total Film is better off serving its readership by championing the director of 'Fight Club' over, say, the short film experimentation of Stan Brakhage. A niche 'net list like They Shoot Pictures is more likely to draw fire based on the exclusion of the latter from people that...well, post and blog on Spout.

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

Risselada — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:47:24 GMT

indieabby88:
M. Night Shyamalan's place on this list is also a mystery to me. The more I look at this list I think it's a mixture of actual great directors with directors who have a place in modern pop culture, whether or not that place is positive.

Yeah, and I think this is evidenced by the fact that Peter Jackson and David Fincher are in the top 10!!!!!!!!!! They don't even make the They Shoot Pictures list at all!

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

indieabby88 — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:13:53 GMT

There are some on that list I agree with, and others I don't. I can see that some of the directors on the list are there simply because they "have" to be, like George Lucas, whose latest examples of directing, namely one "Star Wars" prequel trilogy, showed narrowness of vision and too much dependency on special effects over acting, even though he had a pretty damn good cast. He wouldn't make my list of greatest directors, that's for sure.

Neither, for that matter, would Baz Luhrmann. I've never understood people's attraction to his movies, which I find ridiculously over-the-top. "Moulin Rouge" has become increasingly bearable with repeated viewings, but mostly because of the beautiful production values. "Romeo + Juliet" I thought, was far from impressive, just one more nail in Shakespeare's coffin.

M. Night Shyamalan's place on this list is also a mystery to me. The more I look at this list I think it's a mixture of actual great directors with directors who have a place in modern pop culture, whether or not that place is positive.

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

sonofkinski — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:42:36 GMT

"I will admit that it does suck that Terry Gilliam isn’t on either of these!"

Seriously -- what's going on?

I was going to add Jacques Tourner as an exclusion, and saw that They Shoot Pictures did it for me. Then I see names like Fassbinder, Pasolini, and Antonioni. If anything, the notion of "no tough cuts" seems a bit....wrong.

I was reading an essay collection ('A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again') by this author named David Foster Wallace, and in one he spends time on the circuit with a young American tennis player who's ranked #79 in the world. A quote:

"You are invited to try to imagine what it would be like to be among the hundred best in the world at something. At anything. I have tried to imagine; it's hard."

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

Risselada — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:45:45 GMT

schulen:
I don't see the point of such an expansive list.
Trying to word this properly... the 100 greatest directors is, essentially, name every director you can think of with more than one great film under his belt and then order them, right?
Obviously that's not strictly, across the books true, but if you're allowing for 100 directors, you're not making any tough cuts. It's really just, think of directors.
As for the top 10, the important part, I don't see anything very risky there. PJ and Fincher haven't earned their way on there yet, but other than that, it's the list you usually hear.
Generally, at least.

I would say there are a lot of tough cuts to make. In some ways I think it would be almost easier to make a list of the top 10 directors. Yeah there are some tough cuts, but you know who the top tier directors are so you know what you have to pick from. When you start getting past 50, you have a pretty gigantic pool of directors to choose from and I think the decision gets very tough.

There is another list of greatest directors from the website. They Shoot Pictures Don't They?
http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_top100directors.htm

There are 45 differeces between that list and this one from Total Film. Some of them rather surprising. The Total Film list obviously favors more recent directors.

Here is a list of all of the directors who appear on both lists.

Alfred Hitchcock
Martin Scorsese
Steven Spielberg
Howard Hawks
Francis Ford Coppola
Orson Welles
Ingmar Bergman
Stanley Kubrick
Akira Kurosawa
Quentin Tarantino
Billy Wilder
John Ford
Michael Powell (& Emeric Pressburger)
David Cronenberg
Joel and Ethan Coen
Woody Allen
David Lynch
Jean Renoir
Robert Altman
Sam Peckinpah
Luis Buñuel
Terrence Malick
Yasujiro Ozu
Carol Reed
Roman Polanski
Sergio Leone
James Cameron
Ridley Scott
David Lean
Frank Capra
Preston Sturges
François Truffaut
Werner Herzog
Krzysztof Kieslowski
Fritz Lang
Brian De Palma
John Huston
Nicholas Ray
Jean-Luc Godard
John Cassavetes
Robert Bresson
Federico Fellini
Michael Curtiz
Sergei Eisenstein
Nicolas Roeg
Milos Forman
Kenji Mizoguchi
George Romero
Satyajit Ray
James Whale
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Buster Keaton
DW Griffith
Wong Kar-Wai
George Lucas

Here is a list of all of the directors listed on the They Shoot Pictures list, but not on the Total Film list:

Charles Chaplin
F. W. Murnau
Andrei Tarkovsky
Michelangelo Antonioni
Vittorio De Sica
Roberto Rossellini
Max Ophüls
Jean Vigo
Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
Luchino Visconti
Alain Resnais
Ernst Lubitsch
Bernardo Bertolucci
Marcel Carné
Victor Fleming
Abbas Kiarostami
George Cukor
R. W. Fassbinder
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Jaques Tati
Douglas Sirk
Leo McCarey
Vincente Minnelli
Elia Kazan
Joseph von Sternberg
Erich von Stroheim
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Jacques Rivette
Jacques Tourneur
William Wyler
Wim Wenders
Chris Marker
Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Alexander Dovzhenko
King Vidor
Stan Brakhage
Jacques Demy
Eric Rohmer
Jean Cocteau
Sidney Lumet
Robert Flaherty
Otto Preminger
Theo Angelopoulos
George Stevens
Glauber Rocha

Here is a list of all of the directors listed on the Total Film list, but not on the They Shoot Pictures list:

Peter Jackson
David Fincher
Steven Soderbergh
Paul Thomas Anderson
Clint Eastwood
Tim Burton
Hayao Miyazaki
Michael Mann
Jean-Pierre Melville
Christopher Nolan
Rob Reiner
Ang Lee
Alexander Payne
Mike Leigh
Sam Fuller
Robert Wise
Michael Haneke
Don Siegel
Spike Lee
Hal Ashby
Sam Raimi
John Carpenter
Richard Linklater
Bryan Singer
Ken Loach
Pedro Almodóvar
Alexander Mackendrick
John Sayles
Tony Scott
William Friedkin
Cameron Crowe
John Woo
Lars Von Trier
Gus Van Sant
Peter Weir
Curtis Hanson
Paul Verhoeven
Alan J Pakula
M Night Shyamalan
Baz Luhrmann
John Sturges
Sofia Coppola
Abel Ferrara

I will admit that it does suck that Terry Gilliam isn’t on either of these!

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

sonofkinski — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 20:18:10 GMT

The "important" part of the list comes directly from its expansiveness, I think. I read about a number of directors that I now want to check out way outside of the Top Ten. The Top Ten, if anything, is the part that interests me the least. It's like any rock magazine trotting out an "...of All Time" list featuring, yet again, The Beatles, Nirvana, and Radiohead. Yay.

Anyway, the nicknames are novel and the "If you must see just one..." example for each is both helpful and interesting given some of the choices made (James Cameron's original 'The Terminator' is picked -- which I like -- as is Sam Peckinpah's 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' -- which I don't (over 'The Wild Bunch' and 'Straw Dogs'?)).

Random thoughts as I scroll:

95. George Lucas: It's good to see The Bearded One's directorial work not get overrated. The original 'Star Wars' is what it is, 'American Graffiti' has its charms, and 'THX 1138' is a bore. Much more important as a producer and idea "mash-up" man.

82. James Whale: A little low on the list, as usual. Whale's consistently passed over when you think about just how influential -- and still fantastic -- 'Frankenstein' and 'Bride of Frankenstein' are. Probably needs a fuller catalogue to get too high, but he's always in the shadows of the monsters.

74. Tony Scott: Ugh.

67. Federico Fellini: '8 1/2', 'Satyricon', 'La Dolce Vita', 'Juliet of the Spirits', 'La Strada', and an awesome segment in the anthology film 'Spirits of the Dead' based on a Poe story called "Never Bet the Devil Your Head". Fellini needs a bump up the list.

52. Michael Haneke: Instant credibility. 'Cache' and 'The Piano Teacher' are great.

32. Christopher Nolan: #32? Really? Above Fritz Lang, Werner Herzog, and Roman Polanski? Are you sure? For just three movies? Hmm.

13. Billy Wilder: I can't believe it took me until last night to see 'Sunset Boulevard'. Amazing film.

12. Quentin Tarantino: Trade spots with Fellini and I've got no beef.

1. Alfred Hitchcock: Word.

The list made me want to pick at it (obviously), so it does its job.

Notable exclusions:

Terry Gilliam (did I just miss him on the list? WTF?)

Park Chanwook (I'll take 'Lady Vengeance' and 'Oldboy' over 'Memento' and 'Batman Begins', at least.)

Andrei Tarkovsky ('Solaris', 'Stalker', 'The Mirror')

Dario Argento (slightly overrated in general, but can't deny his 'eye'.)

Takashi Miike (greatness that crosses and melts together genres. 'Ichi the Killer', 'Audition', etc.)

Re: Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

schulen — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 19:53:33 GMT

I don't see the point of such an expansive list.

Trying to word this properly... the 100 greatest directors is, essentially, name every director you can think of with more than one great film under his belt and then order them, right?

Obviously that's not strictly, across the books true, but if you're allowing for 100 directors, you're not making any tough cuts. It's really just, think of directors.

As for the top 10, the important part, I don't see anything very risky there. PJ and Fincher haven't earned their way on there yet, but other than that, it's the list you usually hear.

Generally, at least.

Total Film's Greatest Directors Ever List

pippin06 — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:57:29 GMT

A new list by some random publication has been published...imagine that?!?

http://www.totalfilm.com/features/the_greatest_directors_ever_-_part_1

I thought it was simply tailor-made for this group. While you may or may not agree with the order, I liked how they described each director with interesting nicknames and an interesting list, too. Thoughts?