Best Directors of All-Time, Official Presentation

This went very similar to the actors for me where my criteria started as : talent assessment, uniqueness, historical importance on US cinema (sorry but you have to narrow it down or it won't get done at all) and personal preference.........at a certain point it was all personal preference though.

I would guess the top 5 would be something like :

Spielberg, Scorsese, Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Coppola

I'd be shocked if Lumet or Tarkovsky end up ranking higher than Spielberg. People barely ever talk about Lord Andrei on here. 

So to start with, I have to give big, big thanks to the 36 people who made this list possible 

01 Johnny_Hellzapoppin
02 stephen
03 JangoB
04 thomasjerome
05 redhawk1 
06 mhynson27
07 idioticbunny
08 countjohn
09 Joaquim
10 Mattsby
11 The_Cake_of_Roth
12 thelistenercanon
13 Ban
14 Ugolin
15 pacinoyes
16 Tyler
17 Pelle
18 Pavan90
19 chris3
20 matheusf
21 Film Socialism
22 TheAlwaysClassy
23 Martin Stett
24 Viced
25 ibbi
26 therealcomicman117
27 pendragon
28 Tommen_Saperstein
29 raygittes07
30 coop032
31 jimmalone
32 DeepArcher
33 urbanpatrician
34 Sharbs
35 finniussnrub
36 ingmarhepburn

A total of 223 Directors received at least one mention.

The highest amount of appearances was 26 ballots out of a possible 36 for one Director, who missed the Top 3 anyway.


103 Directors received one single mention.

Throughout the course of the voting we had 5 different leaders, which is two more than in Actress and four more than in Actor.

Unless I'm mistaken, the Top 50 features 15 different nationalities.

#50: William Friedkin

Points: 57
No. of Ballots: 5
Highest Ranking: 6th on one ballot

“I consider myself just another member of the crew, the highest paid member of the crew. ”

#49: Denis Villeneuve

Points: 59
No. of Ballots: 6
Highest Ranking: 12th on two ballots

“Film is pop art. It's not whether it's auteur cinema or not, that's a false distinction. Cinema is cinema. ”

#48: Alfonso Cuarón

Points: 61
No. of Ballots: 6
Highest Ranking: 10th on one ballot

“When people see some depth you never intended that's really cool, you just put on a face and say "Oh, yeah, that was deep". What are you going to say? I'm just a moron with luck? ”

#47: Jean Renoir

Points: 62
No. of Ballots: 4
Highest Ranking: 3rd on one ballot

“The saving grace of the cinema is that with patience and a little love we may arrive at that wonderfully complex creature which is called man. ”

#46: Michelangelo Antonioni

Points: 63
No. of Ballots: 5
Highest Ranking: 7th on one ballot

“When I am shooting a film I never think of how I want to shoot something; I simply shoot it. My technique, which differs from film to film, is wholly instinctive and never based on prior considerations.”

#39 (Tie): François Truffaut

Points: 84
No. of Ballots: 6
Highest Ranking: 13th on three ballots

“Film lovers are sick people. ”

#39 (Tie): Jean-Luc Godard

Points: 84
No. of Ballots: 6
Highest Ranking: 4th on one ballot

“There is no point in having sharp images when you've fuzzy ideas. ”

#39 (Tie): Wes Anderson

Points: 84
No. of Ballots: 8
Highest Ranking: 7th on one ballot

“That's the kind of movie that I like to make, where there is an invented reality and the audience is going to go someplace where hopefully they've never been before. The details, that's what the world is made of. ”

#38: Peter Weir

Points: 85
No. of Ballots: 8
Highest Ranking: 3rd on one ballot

“I'm still amazed how you can put your pen down and think not a line can be changed... You've finally got it right. You pick it up ten days later, and it's all so bad. ”

#37: John Carpenter

Points: 89
No. of Ballots: 8
Highest Ranking: 2nd on one ballot

“In France, I'm an auteur; in Germany, a filmmaker; in Britain; a genre film director; and, in the USA, a bum. ”

#36: Mike Leigh

Points: 90
No. of Ballots: 6
Highest Ranking: 1st on one ballot

“I like my films. I can't understand directors who don't watch their films after they've made them. If you don't like them, how the fuck can you expect anyone else to? ”

#35: Yasujiro Ozu

Points: 92
No. of Ballots: 8
Highest Ranking: 4th on one ballot

“I have formulated my own directing style in my head, proceeding without any unnecessary imitation of others.”

#34: Charles Chaplin

Points: 93
No. of Ballots: 9
Highest Ranking: 9th on two ballots

“I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career. ”

#33: David Cronenberg

Points: 99
No. of Ballots: 8
Highest Ranking: 3rd on one ballot

“My dentist said to me the other day: I've enough problems in my life, so why should I see your films? ”

#32: Luis Bunuel

Points: 103
No. of Ballots: 8
Highest Ranking: 2nd on one ballot

“Nothing would disgust me more morally than winning an Oscar. ”

#31: Michael Haneke

Points: 107
No. of Ballots: 9
Highest Ranking: 7th on three ballots

“Films that are entertainments give simple answers but I think that's ultimately more cynical, as it denies the viewer room to think. If there are more answers at the end, then surely it is a richer experience.”

I would have liked to see Weir higher, but he's in pretty good company.

Damn fine bunch thus far. Very few complaints.

I guess I can't complain about Haneke because I've only seen three of his films. But Amour and Piano Teacher definitely didn't live up to the hype

He's extremely clinical to the point of frigidity, and there are times where I feel like he treats characters less like humans and more like zoo attractions. I don't adore Amour or The Piano Teacher as much as most (Riva and Huppert are great but not, like, all-time good like some people say), but I definitely see the appeal.