Who do you think are the top 20 greatest directors all time?

I'm doing 30. Feel free to follow suit, or do top 5, 10, 40, whatever you want.

30. Paul Thomas Anderson
29. Maurice Tourneur
28. Kalatazov
27. Malick
26. Nuri Bilge Ceylan
25. Ming-liang Tsai
24. Resnais
23. Visconti
22. Nicholas Roeg
21. Leone

20. Kar-Wai Wong
19. Scorsese
18. Demy
17. Ford Copolla
16. Ridley Scott
15. Welles
14. Keaton
13. Lynch
12 Godard
11. Carol Reed

10. Spielberg
9. DW Griffith
8. Abel Gance
7. Kurosawa
6. Lean
5. Kubrick
4. Dreyer
3. Kaneto Shindô
2. Antonioni
1. Hitchcock

I reserve the right to change this, particularly outside the top 6.

I'll be doing a list reveal of my top 100 every year. This is last year's:


https://www.movieforums.com/communit...=100+directors

I would add Bresson and Tarantino somewhere. Bresson probably somewhere in the middle, Tarantino nearer the tail end.

Here is my top 5 greatest directors:

Stanley Kubrick
Martin Scorsese
Steven Spielberg
Hayao Miyazaki
Quentin Tarantino

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1. Stanley Kubrick
2. Ingmar Bergman
3. Alfred Hitchcock
4. Billy Wilder
5. Akira Kurosawa
6. Charlie Chaplin
7. John Huston
8. Steven Spielberg
9. Martin Scorcese
10. Jean-Pierre Melville
11. Woody Allen
12. John Cassavettes
13. Quentin Tarantino
14. Ernst Lubitsch
15. William Wyler
16. David Lean
17. Jean-Luc Godard
18. Joel and Ethan Coen
19. Ridley Scott
20. Louis Malle
21. Rainer Fassbinder
22. Andrei Tarkovsky
23. Bernardo Bertolucci
24. Paul Thomas Anderson
25. Federico Fellini

Billy Wilder's a great shout.
and Cassavettes.

Vittorio De Sica
Luchino Visconti
Ingmar Bergman
John Cassavetes
John Huston
Elia Kazan
Ken Loach
Mike Leigh
Aki Kaurismaki
Frank Capra
William Wyler
Robert Altman
Hiroshi Teshigahara
Federico Fellini
Akira Kurosawa
Eric Rohmer
Stanley Kubrick
Billy Wilder
John Ford
Paul Mazursky

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Finally, someone put Bergman.

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Kalatazov

1930



1931


1939


1955





1957

Incidentally, Malik's Days of Heaven (1978) was at the very least I would say influenced by Kalatazov's Soviet film The First Echelon (1955).
You might even call it a remake.

Satyajit Ray also has to be in there

1955 (low budget)





1960

Melville of course should always be mentioned. I’ll also toss out Hou Hsien-Hsiao. Personal favorite.
Stanley Kwan. I’m a fan of Youssef Chahine as well. Mizoguchi. Kinoshita. Fukasaku.
So many greats.

Interesting. I'll look into some of these some time.

This is near impossible... but 20 huh? My top pick is solid and has been for over 20 years. My top 5 are pretty firm too. My top 10 are solidified, but maybe... just maybe some cracks could be found... now 11 through 20... could be on loose gravel and subject to change or My mood...

OK, here goes:

1. Howard Hawks
2. Werner Herzog
3. Stanley Kubrick
4. Jean Luc Godard
5. John Ford
6. Orson Welles
7. Elia Kazan
8. Michaelangelo Antonioni
9. Paul Thomas Anderson
10. Billy Wilder
11. John Huston
12. David Lean
13. Ingmar Bergman
14. Jim Jarmusch
15. William Wyler
16. Powell and Pressburger
17. Ernst Lubitsch
18. David Lynch
19. Vincente Minnelli
20. Lars von Trier or Roman Polanski... could flip a coin.

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Cool to see these blokes on your list as they are often overlooked when naming the greatest filmmakers of all time and they each made my list too.