Your top 10 movie directors of all time? Here's mine

Share with us your top 10 directors, here's mine:

Number One! Martin Scorsese

I don't think there is anything else to say, one if not the most profilic director of all time. All of his films are very enjoyable, and they deliver a lot of great performances and characters, I'm a big fan of the Leo Era and the DeNiro era, he is truly one if not the most consistent director of all time, and has tackled a lot of genres with depth and heart. My favorite one: The Departed. Most underrated: Cape Fear. Worst: Color of Money (which is still a good movie).

2. Christopher Nolan (tied probably i guess)

My favorite trilogy comes from Nolan, so does my favorite CBM and three of my favorite movies of all time, TDK, Inception and Batman Begins. I like his style, and how he tackled genres with complex and enterteining movies with a very high rewatch value. I think his last movie was his worst, so i hope he gets back on track after it. Best: The Dark Knight. Worst: Tenet. Most underrated: The Dark Knight Rises (fantastic film).

3 (or 2) Quentin Tarantino

While Nolan is all about concepts, Tarantino is all about characters, story and dialogues. I consider him to be the best writer at the moment, and he has one of the best filmography out any director. His last movie was pretty great, and I'm always a big fan of his style, and endings. I'd say that he has two of my favorite movies: Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained and P4P one if not the most consistent filmography besides two misses: Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Hateful Height (which i enjoyed). Best: Pulp Fiction. Worst: Kill Bill. Vol. 2 Most Underrated: Jackie Brown (one of his best films for sure)

4. David Fincher

Finch is definitely the best director who has gotten better after years, every single one of his movies (except Panic Room) was thrilling from start to finish, he tends to have plot-driven movies with interesting characters that are very pessimistic. I'm a big fan of Se7en and The Social Network and his camera work. I just finished watching Mank, and i thought it was a step down from Gone Girl but still a solid 8. Best: Se7en. Worst: Panic Room. Most Underrated: The Game.

5. James Cameron

The king of blockbusters and sci-fi movies, is one of my favorite directors since i watched T1 and T2. He delivers interesting themes over simple and enterteining blockbusters, imo he's talented on technology and action more than most CBM director out of here. His filmography has zero misses and just one single meh film which was Avatar. T2 is definitely the best action movie of all time, and True Lies is a classic imo. Best: Terminator 2. Worst: Avatar. Most Underrated: True Lies.

6. Denis Villenueve

Denis Villenueve is older than almost everyone here, but has only officially risen to one of the most innovative and interesting filmakers of the 21th century. I'm a big fan of Prisoners (best thriller since Se7en and Silence of the lambs) and Blade Runner 2049 (more interesting and better crafted than the original), his worst film is Enemy and is still pretty good. I look forward to Dune, which should destroy Lynch's turd and consolidate him as one of the all-time greats. Best: Prisoners. Worst: Enemy. Most underrated: Sicario.

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7. David Lynch

Even if Blue Velvet is an absolute turd and one of the worst movies i have ever seen, the rest of his filmography is unique, challenging and interesting. Complex and weird stories about people. I think most people won't know who he is here so i'll just reccomend to see Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive (and not his two turds named Dune and Blue Velvet). Best; Mulholland Drive. Worst: Blue Velvet. Most underrated: Lost Highway.

8. Paul Thomas Anderson

Even if The Master was pretentious and the Sandler movies was absolute garbage, the rest of his filmography is great. and he has two masterpices: TWBB and Boogie Nights, with one, if not the greatest performance from a leading actor ever. Substance over style, but his movies often lack rewatchability. Best: Boogie Nights. Worst: Punk Drunch Love. Most underrated: Mangolia.

9. Steven Spielberg

Only reason he's low is because i haven't actually seen most of his movies. But the Indiana Jones trilogy and Schindler's List are enough to be here. His films are often enjoyable and for everyone, but he can direct masterpieces like Schindler's List when he wants.

10. Francis Ford Coppola

This was an hard choice, Coppola of 80s is actually the best of the bunch in my opinion, but his resume isn't that strong mostly because he has like 4 bad movies after Dracula. I enjoyed Conversation and Apocalypse now, but the main reason he's one of my favorite has to be for the godfather trilogy and the first two which were epic masterpieces. Best: Godfather. Most underrated: Dracula (except for Keanu's acting). Worst: Twixt.

That was my list, what's ours?

@wolverinebatmanftw@skywalker95@killbilly@mrmonster@donwayneii@escrow@kanyecosby@wesat@johnbrief@vishop_

Thoughts?

It’s a good list for modern directors, but there is a noticeable absence of older directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder, Akira Kurosawa, Frank Capra, and John Ford.

Pretty decent. The people in it are right, while the order will depend on personal opinion.

@doomquestz: good list got a few overlaps with mine

1. Steven Spielberg
2. Martin Scorsese
3. Alfred Hitchcock
4. Sergio Leone
5. Quentin Tarantino
6. Francis Ford Coppola
7. James Cameron
8. The Coen Brothers
9. David Fincher
10. Guillermo del Toro

Great list. I'll probably do mine later.

@mrmonster: Didn't you prefer Nolan (and to a lesser extent Fincher) to Cameron and TDK to T2? Nice list anyways.

I haven't seen many of their films unfortunately. I have seen only Full Metal Jacket, Shining and Eyes Wide Shut made by Kubrick and just Psycho from Hitchcock. Only one i have seen are Coppola and Lynch and Scorsese from the old directors. And saw a few off Craven/Carpenter stuff which was good, but not great.

Thanks. What's ours?

Exactly, i mostly base it off consistency and ratings i guess. Because there are movies i rated with a 3 (Twixt) or 4 (Blue Velvet) but they're not enough to ruin stuff like Godfather etc.

Never going to be comfortable with just 10 directors, but for the sake of fun, here's 10 in no order, based on a "if I put one of their films randomly, without just choosing a favorite, how much would I enjoy it?" criteria:

• Orson Welles
• Akira Kurosawa
• Satyajit Ray
• Andrei Tarkovsky
• Billy Wilder
• David Fincher
• John Carpenter
• Wong Kar-wai
• Jean Pierre Melville
• Luschino Visconti

Haven't been much impressed with Carpenter to be honest, i'd still put him above Romero or Cronenberg though. His 80s stuff is pretty good, but i tried watching some of his lastest films and they're pretty terrible. Halloween and The Thing are great but i don't think he is as good compared to how influental he was in the genre.

Mostly solid list. Though IMO Cameron doesn't belong here.

Hard to pick ten, but here's some of the first names that come to mind in no specific order: Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Charlie Kaufman, Robert Bresson, Abbas Kiarostami, Krzysztof Kieślowski, David Lynch, Werner Herzog.

Honorable Mention: Bi-Gan: He's only made two films so far, and I've only seen one, but it was really great. Looking forward to his future films.

I said that at one point, but the more I think about his last couple movies, the more I question just how high he deserves to rank.

He's still a great director, and I'm definitely gonna continue watching his movies, it's just that I don't think I'd put him so high on my favorites anymore.

Why doesn't he belong here? His movies have aged well and have very high rewatchability, I rewatch them every year except Titanic and Avatar which are his worst I guess.

@doomquestz:

I quite like T2 and Aliens, but having said that, not a single one of his films have impressed me as much as the best works of some of the other directors here (i.e. Scorsese's Taxi Driver, Nolan's Inception, Villeneuve's BR2049, Anderson's There Will Be Blood etc etc.)

What are "8/10" or "9/10" directors for you?

@doomquestz: My top 10 directors of all time are, in no particular order:

1. Stanley Kubrick
2. Steven Spielberg
3. Martin Scorsese
4. Denis Villeneuve
5. The Coen Brothers
6. Quentin Tarantino
7. Paul Thomas Anderson
8. Christopher Nolan
9. David Fincher
10. Sidney Lumet

8/10 directors I'd say are:

• Tim Burton
• Peter Jackson
• James Cameron

9 would be most of the ones in my top 10.

@skywalker95: Oh great list, I'm surprised that you like Villenueve more than i do. I'm very hyped about Dune, i think he can do a LOTR level movie if it delivers, he hasn't failed once in his career. It will be better than Mank or Tenet for sure.

Would you have Finch or Nolan in your top 10 or closer?

Regarding Jackson, i agree because of the Hobbit and some awful movies even if LOTR trilogy is good. Burton too, not about Cameron but that's an opinion.

@wolverinebatmanftw: Just saying that directing is not equivalent to movie quality.

Cameron did a lot for cinema with special effects and for the sci-fi genre and can direct great action scenes. I'd say that‘s enough to consider him an all-time great.

1. Alfred Hitchcock

2. Stanley Kubrick (just cause Hitchcock made more movies that I love than Kubrick)

3. Akira Kurosawa

4. Ingmar Bergman

5. Federico Fellini

6. Andrei Tarkovsky (This motherfucker made only 7 movies, yet literally all of them are phenomenal. Has to be here)

7. Martin Scorsese

8. John Ford

9. Sergio Leone

1) Steven Spielberg

2) Martin Scorsese

3) James Cameron

4) Francis Ford Coppola

5) Quentin Tarantino

6) Ridley Scott

7) Christopher Nolan

8) Denis Villeneuve

9) Peter Jackson

10) Robert Zemeckis

1. Christopher Nolan - so many amazing movies. No bad movies.

2. Stanley Kubrick - I like Nolan’s movies more.

3. Peter Jackson - Amon Hen is like the best directed sequence ever.

4. Orson Welles - looking solely at Citizen Kane he is the best but I’ve heard that it’s his only notable movie.

5. Quinten Tarantino

6. Martin Scorsese - It’s hard to compare him with Tarantino.

7. Nicholas Roeg

8. Sam Raimi - he doesn’t have better movies than Reeves but there’s more raw expression of creativity.

9. Rob Reiner - I should probably have seen more than 2 of his movies before ranking him.

10. Matt Reeves

Honorable Mentions:

Denis Villeneuve

Damien Chazelle

Robert Eggars

James Cameron

Christopher Mcquarrie

1. Christopher Nolan
2. Quentin Tarantino
3. Guillermo Del Toro
4. Martin Scorcese
5. Denis Villeneuve
6. Akira Kurosawa
7. Steven Spielberg
8. Peter Jackson
9. Stanley Kubrick
10. James Cameron

Honourable mention to Ridley Scott.

Of course, entirely subjective taste.

I'll comment on the Nolan and Welles one. Welles has a ton of great movies beyond just Citizen Kane. They're just not as well known because...well, of course they're not. But you should check out all of them.

As for Nolan, I'd say a better pick is Tarkovsky. He's made 7 movies and they're basically all masterpieces

@brogokudestroys: I don’t like watching subtitled movies.

Quinten Tarantino deserves to be in a top 10 directors list like Pauly Shore deserves to be on a best actor list and Gigli deserves to be in a top 10 movie list.

Martin Scorcese

Stanley Kubrick

Akira Kurosawa

Sergio Leone

Quentin Tarantino

Are 5 names which come to my mind. Not in order.

I don't think I have a Top 10 yet. I just recently heavily got into movies.