The Director's Thread!

[Matt Mortem]

I didn't see a thread on this in the film lounge, so I thought I'd make one. This is a place to discuss your favorite directors, maybe post interviews and things that make you admire that director so much. I'll start by listing a few of my favorites:

1. David Cronenberg

2. Jim Jarmusch

3. David Fincher

[Soapy]

David Lynch and Wes Anderson are two of my favorites.

Last time I checked Lynch is currently writing his next movie, so I'm looking forward to hearing more on that.

[weezerspider]

Paul Thomas Anderson is my favorite director. His next film, Inherent Vice, is supposed to start filming this month and Joaquin Phoenix and Benecio Del Toro are attached. I'm extremely excited. I rank his films:

1. There Will Be Blood
2. The Master
3. Boogie Nights
4. Magnolia
5. Punch Drunk Love
6. Sidney/Hard Eight

I also love Spielberg. He's always working on something. He's got too many films to rank, but my favorites of his are:

1. Schindler's List
2. Saving Private Ryan
3. Raiders Of The Lost Ark
4. Jaws
5. Jurassic Park
6. Catch Me If You Can
7. Minority Report
8. E.T.
9. Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade
10. Lincoln

My other favorite director is Martin Scorsese. I'm extremely pumped for The Wolf Of Wallstreet coming out later this year and his next film with Andrew Garfield. My favorite of his films are:

1. Taxi Driver
2. The King Of Comedy
3. Goodfellas
4. The Departed
5. Raging Bull
6. Gangs Of New York
7. The Aviator
8. Casino
9. Mean Streets
10. Shutter Island

Lastly I love Tarantino. I really hope his next film goes away from the whole revenge motif, he's covered that enough. I'd rank his films:

1. Pulp Fiction
2. Reservoir Dogs
3. Django Unchained
4. Inglorious Basterds
5. Jackie Brown
6. Kill Bill
7. Kill Bill 2
8. Death Proof

[Spider-Aziz]

Weird, but I don't really have a favorite director, I like/love some movies by some directors, but not a huge fan of the work of one of them
If anyone, I might consider Sam Raimi, cause of my childhood shows like Hercules the Legendary Journeys and its spinoff series

[jonathancrane]

Tim Burton

1. Ed Wood
2. Sleepy Hollow
3. Batman Returns
4. Big Fish
5. Alice in Wonderland
6. Batman
7. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
8. Sweeney Todd

John Carpenter

1. Halloween
2. Big Trouble in Little China
3. The Fog
4. Escape From New York
5. In the Mouth of Madness
6. The Thing
7. Prince of Darkness

Stanley Kubrick

1. The Shining
2. 2001
3. A Clockwork Orange
4. Dr. Strangelove

David Lynch

1. Blue Velvet
2. Lost Highway
3. Eraserhead
4. Elephant Man
5. Mulholland Drive

The Coen Brothers

1. No Country for Old Men
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Burn After Reading
4. O Brother Where Art Thou

John Ford

1. The Searchers
2. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
3. Fort Apache
4. Stagecoach

[childeroland]

Edward Yang -- a poet of the city, whose films build up slowly but inexorably, analyzing their characters and their interrelationships minutely, patiently building tapestries made of nuance that are always more than the sum of their parts. Standouts: Yi Yi, A Brighter Summer Day, Taipei Story.

Hou Hsiao-Hsien - another leading director of the New Taiwan cinema movement, both as a historian (his trilogy, consisting of A City of Sadness, The Puppetmaster, and Good Men, Good Women) and as a chronicler of ordinary life in transition (Millennium Mambo, Three Times, Goodbye South Goodbye). Stunning cinematography, films that demand but reward patience as you watch private and public moments accumulate into the most intense cinematic experiences.

Terrence Malick -- one of the few directors dedicated to trying to touch the ineffable. Standouts: Days of Heaven, The Tree of Life, The Thin Red Line.

Tian Zhuangzhuang -- Fifth Generation director who criticisms of Communism has landed him in trouble with the government again and again. But his masterpiece The Blue Kite, his remake of Springtime in a Small Town, and his first major film September combine the most searching dramas of family life with the larger political contexts that help shape them in all sorts of damaging ways.

Park Chan-wook -- His Vengeance Trilogy, Thirst, and Joint Security Area are superb thriller classics. The kind of rollercoaster rides Hollywood always tries to provide and usually fails to.

Kim Ji-woon -- masterpieces in the Western (The Good, the Bad, and the Weird) horror (A Tale of Two Sisters) thriller/suspense (I Saw the Devil) black comedy (The Quiet Family), crime drama (A Bittersweet Life).

Akira Kurosawa -- introduced the world (or the parts that weren't already aware) to Japanese cinema. Directed maybe the greatest action film ever (Seven Samurai), the best Shakespeare adaptations (Throne of Blood, Ran), maybe the best film about a doctor ever made (Red Beard), two of the best crime films (Stray Dogs, High and Low, arguably Rashomon), and on and on. Dominated whatever genre he decided to.

Steven Spielberg -- defined cinema for generations of American filmgoers. Even with Star Wars, without Raiders, Jaws, Close Encounters, E.T., Poltergeist, Jurassic Park, not to mention the things he's produced, movies would not look the same today, for better or worse. They just wouldn't.

Hayao Miyazaki -- the best animator the world has ever produced (Walt Disney being a close second). Puts pure enchantment on film with nary a misstep. Standouts -- Spirited Away, Mononoke-Hime, Castle in the Sky, Castle of Cagliostro. All engrossing adventure stories that never, ever grow tired no matter how many times you see them. Of today's other animators, only Pixar and Brad Bird are on his level, and only when they're firing on all cylinders.

Yasujiro Ozu - devastating portraits of different generations trying to relate to and understand each other. Standouts -- Tokyo Story, Floating Weeds.

[Matt Mortem]

Originally Posted by childeroland

Hayao Miyazaki -- the best animator the world has ever produced (Walt Disney being a close second). Puts pure enchantment on film with nary a misstep. Standouts -- Spirited Away, Mononoke-Hime, Castle in the Sky, Castle of Cagliostro. All engrossing adventure stories that never, ever grow tired no matter how many times you see them. Of today's other animators, only Pixar and Brad Bird are on his level, and only when they're firing on all cylinders.

Great choice. Miyazaki's films are always fantastic.

[Snow Queen]

1. Stanley Kubrick
1. The Shining
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey
3. A Clockwork Orange
4. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
5. Full Metal Jacket

2. Christopher Nolan
1. The Dark Knight/The Dark Knight Rises
3. Memento
4. Inception
5. The Prestige
6. Batman Begins
7. Following
8. Insomnia

3. David Fincher
1. Fight Club
2. Se7en
3. Zodiac
4. The Social Network
5. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

4. Steven Spielberg
1. Schindler's List
2. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
3. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
4. Munich
5. Lincoln
6. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

5. Quentin Tarantino
1. Inglourious Basterds
2. Django Unchained
3. Pulp Fiction
4. Kill Bill, Volume 1
5. Kill Bill, Volume 2
6. Reservoir Dogs

6. Martin Scorsese
1. The Departed
2. Taxi Driver
3. Hugo
4. Goodfellas

7. JJ Abrams
1. Star Trek Into Darkness
2. Star Trek
3. Super 8
4. Mission Impossible III

[moviedoors]

My favorite above all others: The Coen Brothers.

My first favorite director: James Cameron

An overly long random list of the others I love:

John Carpenter
David Cronenberg
Stanley Kubrick
Michael Curtiz
Akira Kurosawa
FW Murnau
Terence Fisher
Howard Hawks
Steven Spielberg
Alfred Hitchcock
Quentin Tarantino
Christopher Nolan
Takashi Miike
Takashi Kitano
Martin Scorsese
Early Francis Ford Coppola

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

Nicolas Winding Refn, Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, and James Whale.















"We don’t do radio plays or plays. We do movies, which is about what you see. Or what you don’t see.”

[gwynplaine]

^ Great pictures, Blitzkrieg Bop

[gwynplaine]

Don Siegel:
_ Invasion of the Body Snatchers
_ The Killers
_ Coogan's Bluff
_ Dirty Harry
_ Charley Varrick
_ The Shootist
_ Escape from Alcatraz

Sam Peckinpah:
_Ride the High Country
_Major Dundee
_The Wild Bunch
_Ballad of Cable Hogue
_Straw Dogs
_The Getaway
_Pat Garett & Billy the Kid
_Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Hal Ashby:
_Harold & Maude
_The Last Detail
_Shampoo
_Being There

Brian De Palma:
_Phantom of the Paradise
_Carrie
_Blow Out
_Scarface
_Carlito's Way

Charlie Chaplin:
_The Kid
_Gold Rush
_City Lights
_Modern Times
_The Great Dictator

Stanley Kubrick:
_Dr. Strangelove
_2001
_Clockwork Orange
_Barry Lyndon
_The Shining

Martin Scorsese:
_Mean Streets
_Taxi Driver
_Raging Bull
_Goodfellas
_Casino
_Cape Fear

Steven Spielberg:
_Duel
_Jaws
_Raiders of the Lost Ark
_E.T.
_Schindler's List
_Saving Private Ryan

Milos Forman:
_Loves of a Blond
_Fireman's Ball
_Taking Off
_One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
_Hair
_Amadeus

Woody Allen:
_Take the Money and Run
_Bananas
_Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex
_Sleeper
_Love and Death
_Annie Hall
_Purple Rose of Cairo
_Crimes and Misdemeanors
_Sweet and Lowdown
_Matchpoint
_Vicky Cristina Barcelona


Billy Wilder:
_Double Indemnity
_Sunset Blvd
_Witness to the Prosecution
_Some Like It Hot
_The Apartment

[CConn]

I don't have time to go into anything in detail right now but Ingram Bergman, Paul Thomas Anderson and Terrance Mallick are perfection.

[Max J Power]

Some of my very favorites:

-The Coen brothers are my #1 pick. Their movies have everything I could possibly want--compelling drama, smart humor, deep characters and themes, entertaining plots, great acting performances, and stunning visuals. A majority of their movies is great or better, and the rest are at good at the very least. They also hold special importance for me because they were the first filmmakers who made me look at films more in-depth.

-Quentin Tarantino was the next director I got really into. Pulp Fiction ties Fargo for the "movie that made the biggest impact on the way I looked at movies" award, and most of his other ones are great too. Every new movie he comes out with feels bold in a different way than the ones before it, though I do agree he's played out revenge themes at this point. I'll still look forward to whatever he makes next.

-Wes Anderson doesn't get enough credit. I feel like he's mostly known for quirkiness, but his films are so much more than that. They have so much genuine emotion beneath the jokes, and there are so many great character moments and funny lines to catch on repeat viewings. Except for Fantastic Mr. Fox, which I just loved immediately, I've liked every Anderson movie more the second time I saw it.

-Alexander Payne is the most underrated director today. Rarely do I get big laughs and emotionally hard-hitting scenes in the same movie, but Payne does it again and again. His characters always feel very realistic and well-developed. Many of them are not initially likable but become relatable as their stories progress; and it works great every time.

-I love Woody Allen's brand of humor and I have a certain appreciation for his cynicism, which often leads to stories that challenge conventional audience expectations. His "earlier funny movies" are hilarious, and his more "mature" ones are very thought-provoking. He has a few movies that might have benefitted from a little less cynicism, and some of his movies are overly similar to each other, but there's still a wealth of good times to be had with Allen. I've seen more of his films than any other director.

-Among classic directors, I think Alfred Hitchcock makes the most entertaining movies. They're both masterful from an artistic standpoint and extremely fun to watch. Most of the ones I've seen did not feel dated at all, and several (especially Vertigo and Rope) really pushed the boundaries of the classic Hollywood era.

-Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. I'm tired of typing, so I'll just say that the sheer volume of great movies these two have made--and in a wide variety of genres--is incredible.

Some others I like a lot, with a couple favorite movies from each:

Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away)
Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner)
Stanley Kubrick (The Shining, Paths of Glory)
Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life, Days of Heaven)
Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight, Sex Lies & Videotape)
David Fincher, (Zodiac, The Social Network, Seven)
Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation.)
Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity, Ace in the Hole)
Jason Reitman (Up in the Air, Young Adult)
James Cameron (Aliens, Terminator 2)
Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz)

[CConn]

J.Whale was incredible.

[DyeLorean]

Kubrick, Spielberg, Hitchcock and Zemeckis (not counting his terrible motion capture phase) cover most of the things I like about movies.
And I could add Fincher. I love how he uses the camera.

[Wyrminarrd]

My all time favorite director has to be James Cameron, he's made some incredible films like:

Terminator
Terminator 2
Aliens
Abyss

Filling out my top three directors list would be:

Christopher Nolan & Steven Spielberg

[Mandon Knight]

My favourite director of all time is Alfred Hitchcock, an innovator, an amazing eye for shot compisition, a great visual story teller (he could build story and character out of the simplist approach). A great technical director too, he knew what he wanted and how to build the scene and frame a shot beautifully.

His only 'let down', he was not an actor's director, he understood his characters very well, just not the people playing them sadly.