My Top 10 Favorite Directors of All Time

It feels kind of weird that I haven't done a list of my favorite directors since I've been blogging about film for so long.  So, I finally decided to do it.

My rule is that I have to have seen at least three movies from the director for them to qualify for my list.  So, even though I like the one or two films I've seen from them, I sadly could not include Sofia Coppola, Akira Kurosawa, Woody Allen, Denis Villeneuve (though hopefully I can remedy that with the upcoming release of Blade Runner 2049), or Alejandro Inarritu.  

Before I get into the actual list, here are my honorable mentions, which I think are fantastic directors, but they just couldn't fit into the top 10:

Richard Linklater, Tim Burton, Sidney Lumet, Terry Gilliam, Francis Ford Coppola, Frank Capra, Billy Wilder, John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, Alfonso Cuaron, John Ford, Oliver Stone, and Wes Anderson.

I should clarify that these directors aren't what I consider to be the absolute greatest or influential directors. These are only my personal favorites.

10. Edgar Wright

Favorite Film I've Seen:  Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Dude, this guy's style is amazing.  He combines comedy with any other genre seamlessly.  Hot Fuzz and The World's End are very well-written and directed action comedies.  Shaun of the Dead is probably the best horror comedy I've seen (no offense to Abbot and Costello).  Though Scott Pilgrim, an adaptation of a graphic novel with lots of neat video game-like visuals, is my personal favorite, I think his best might be this past summer's Baby Driver.  It gives us the high energy, precise visual comedy, and colorful characters were used to, but then gives the biggest curveball of all time for a crime comedy...the actions actually have consequences?!  It's a relatively new film, so I won't spoil it.  But I haven't seen a bad movie from Wright yet.  His filmography is very small compared to other directors, but his first five films have all been amazing.  Who else can claim that?

9. Christopher Nolan

Favorite Film I've Seen: The Dark Knight

For awhile, I just knew him as "the Batman guy." Then I saw Inception and The Prestige, and I knew who this guy was. He truly is the thinking man's blockbuster director. Memento was what really sold me on him, though. The fact that such smart, well-shot, and well-acted film could be made with so few resources was mind-blowing to me at the time. But, as I said, The Dark Knight is still my favorite. The fact that a superhero movie could be this grim and smart, yet still strike big at the box office is fantastic. Also, Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker is one of the best I've ever seen. (And no, this performance was not the cause of his death. Please stop spreading this lie. It's not only dishonest, it's disrespectful.) Yeah, we did notice the style getting a little old by the time Interstellar came around, and I have my issues with that movie, too. People are still debating whether his recent artful departure, Dunkirk, is a good example of "show, don't tell," as opposed to his other movies which explain a lot, or if it left things out due to laziness. I'm still in the middle myself, and I probably need to watch it again when it's released on digital and hard copy to decide for sure. But either way I land, nothing will keep me from loving all his other classics!

8. Alfred Hitchcock

Favorite Film I've Seen: either Psycho or North by Northwest

I won't say too much about Hitchcock, as I don't think there's much I can say that any other cinephile or film professor hasn't said about him. But it is true that this man remains the "Master of Suspense" all these years later. The man revolutionized many things about storytelling and cinematography, making the full use of the film medium to have us squirming in our seats. And most of his films have lost none of their flair even 60-70 years later.

7. Quentin Tarantino

Favorite Film I've Seen: Pulp Fiction

I can hear the collective film school cry of outrage now.  "What?!  How could you put Tarantino over Hitchcock?!!!"  Keep calm, these are my favorites, I'm not saying QT is objectively better. I just enjoy him more.  I know his style isn't for everyone, and I actually don't agree with a lot of his philosophies, both in regards to film and the rest of the world.  But I admire how he just kind of always makes what he wants to make and lets the audience decide for themselves how they want to take it.  That's the mark of a true artist, I think.  Maybe he is just getting kicks by splattering blood everywhere and dropping f- and n-words like it's his job (wait, it is), but you can't deny the guy has a real love for the art of cinema, which he shows with every single frame, which could be either his own or lifted from another film.  He makes his movies in kind of the same way Orson Welles did Citizen Kane actually:  He takes his favorite elements from his favorite films and mashes them together into a film that redefines the genre.  

6.  Steven Spielberg

Favorite Film I've Seen:  That's hard.  Probably Jaws.

The guy kind of redefined film for better or worse.  Jaws basically invented the summer blockbuster.  Spielberg followed up with many more box-office successes that were innovative at the time, like E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jurassic Park, and the Indiana Jones franchise.  But, he's not all box-office bait.  He's also made some important historical films like Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, both of which earned him the Best Director Oscar and the former also won Best Picture.  The guy has revolutionized film in more ways than one.  Some have called him out for being too sappy, manipulative, and formulaic.  To be fair, his films have been a bit on the generic side in more recent years, but there's still no denying his influence and that film would not be the same without his contributions.

5.  Stanley Kubrick

Favorite Film I've Seen:  A Clockwork Orange (please don't call the cops)

Has anyone influenced cinema more than this man?  Where would sci-fi be without 2001:  A Space Odyssey?  Where would haunted house stories be without The Shining?  Stanley Kubrick is a true artist if there ever was one:  Never compromising, never settling for okay.  His eye for detail is unparalleled.  Every single thing in the frame is put there on purpose.  But he's not entirely style over substance.  His films always seem to have a message, even if you sometimes have to dig a little deeper than the surface to find it.  Like Hitchcock, anything I say is repetition when it comes to praising Kubrick.  But, if you have yet to be inducted into his hypnotic line-up, I'd say give it a go.  Start with Dr. Strangelove, it's a tad lighter than most of his other films. 

4.  The Coen Brothers

Favorite Film I've Seen:  either O Brother, Where Art Thou? or No Country For Old Men

These guys are probably the quirkiest on this list.  A lot of people see them as guys who make strange, often depressingly dark movies that have no point.  But there is almost always a point (when they're not just trying to be silly).  Most if not all of their movies center around the folly of man's hubris.  These guys keep trying to concoct all these "clever" schemes to control their world, and in the end, we see that it was just pointless.  In the case of Fargo and No Country For Old Men, greed is shown to always lead to trouble, usually involving murder.  But probably the brothers' most iconic character is The Dude from The Big Lebowski, who doesn't try to control anything and just lives his life how he likes.  It could be argued they promote a deeply nihilistic worldview, but their preaching against pride and materialism could go for all walks of life.  That and their memorably quirky characters and snappy dialogue will suck you in, no matter how weird their movies are.

3.  David Fincher

Favorite Film I've Seen:  either Fight Club or The Social Network

The guy is messed up.  But it's always for a purpose.  However, one should not expect that purpose to always be crystal clear.  It's always hiding beneath the surface.  The story is told as it should be, then the viewer is left to decipher it.  Now it's true Fincher doesn't typically write his movies, but his director stamp is all over them nonetheless.  He can take any actor and make them act out a performance that hits you right in the gut.  The cinematography is a strange hybrid of raw and stylized, as are the soundtracks from his films.  His movies are mainly cautionary tales about the darkness of the human soul, but every once in awhile we get bit of hope from him that the good people can still overcome it.

2.  Paul Thomas Anderson

Favorite Film I've Seen:  Magnolia

It's pretty simple.  This guy also examines the corruption of the soul.  But his films like to especially focus on the corruption of power.  There Will Be Blood did it in spectacular fashion with Daniel Day-Lewis' Daniel Plainview.  Boogie Nights shows both the highs and soul-crushing lows of the pornography industry.  And my favorite, Magnolia, shows many people's sin finally come to light, until a literal plague from God motivates some of them to seek redemption.  And that's exactly the kind of arc I like.

1.  Martin Scorsese

Favorite Film I've Seen:  Goodfellas

Pretty much everything I like about the previous directors comes together into one.  The artistic filmmaking, the incredible acting, the engrossing writing, the cautionary tales of evil, and an unabashed love for the art of cinema (most prominently displayed in his only family film, Hugo).  It's all here.  A lot of guys like him for his gangster flicks like Goodfellas, The Departed, and Casino.  And I like them too.  But he's not just a one-trick pony.  He's done films in just about every genre there is, and while not all of them are masterpieces, they're all good films at the very least.  I recognize every single one of his tropes, but I never get tired of them.  What's so interesting is that even though a lot of his characters are sick, they have a strange relatability about them.  I'm thinking particularly of Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver.  He was made to reflect Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader's loneliness.  But the character still struck a chord with audiences and they felt his struggle.  And that's what I like.  He shows the mind of people that most decent citizens wouldn't give the time of day.  But he helps us understand the most despicable of people, and by extension reveals deeper truths about all of humanity that few other directors, if any, can truly capture.