Favourite directors

[mattc]

It'd be interesting to note how many of these nominations are mostly writer/directors (I'm too ignorant to say, apart from a few obvious ones).

[Bez]

O.k. not a real favourite but Peter Yates as one of the few who have directed a film about cycling - Breaking Away.

He also directed Bullitt.

Incidentally OP but http://uk.geocities.com/mikstar123/films.html#Cycling Films. Main List....

No. 42 Belleville Rendezvous is great - no idea what No. 11 is like.

[nicknack]

Andrei Tarkovsky
Terry Gilliam
Werner Herzog
Mel Brooks

[Deano]

Powell and Pressburger.

Ken Loach.

Coen Brothers.

And I've enjoyed everything I've seen directed by Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain and Requiem for a Dream).

[Flying_Monkey]

Too many, but here's a few...

Fritz Lang - Metropolis, M, Dr Mabuse, oh and he also invented film noir... the most important director ever IMHO
Alfred Hitchcock - he was every bit as good as his reputation
Otto Preminger - another great hardboiled director, but far more than that
John Huston
Akira Kurosawa - even his later films are mesmerising
Lindsay Anderson - the best British film director ever?
Alan Pakula - particularly The Parallax View...
Werner Herzog - the craziest, most egotistical, most brutal... but what films!
Francis Ford Coppola - the best US director of big movies of recent years
Bertrand Tavernier - L.627 is the best cop film of all time. See it if you don't believe me.
Jim Jarmusch - Ghost Dog is my favourite
Patrice Leconte - he is very sentimental and frankly wierd about women, but I love his work...
Spike Lee - such an amazingly talented director sometimes overwhelmed by his own politics, but anyone who can make films as diversely brilliant as Do the Right Thing, Inside Man and When the Levees Broke is alright by me...
Hayao Miyazaki - the king of Japanese animation
Coen Brothers - most of the time they are the bleakest but funniest author-directors around...
Ki-duk Kim - my current favourite Korean director
Kore-Eda Hirokazu - the best of a very good crop of young Japanese directors around. Try Afterlife, Nobody Knows, or Still Walking.

[Mr Larrington]

Quentin Tarantino.  Srsly.

[hubner]

A few not mentioned so far:

Sergio Leone - the best western ever; Once Upon a Time in the West

J Lee Thompson - Ice Cold In Alex, Tiger Bay etc

Cavalcanti - Went The Day Well (1942)

Howard Hawks

Sam Fuller - Pickup on South Street (1953), The Crimson Kimono (1959) etc

Anthony Mann

Jules Dassin - Brute Force (1947), Night and the City etc

Jacques Tourneur - Night of the Demon, Out of the Past etc

Jean-Pierre Melville

Roger Corman

Martin Scorsese - Mean Streets etc

Francois Truffaut - The 400 Blows etc

Wang Xiaoshuai - Beijing Bicycle etc

Joseph Losey

Robert Aldrich

[LEE]

Tarantino because he not only wrote Pulp Fiction but he invented a new style of film in the process of directing it as well.

Ridley Scott for combining film noir and epic set design (Blade Runner, Alien)

Hitchcock for his ability to make something out of nothing (the proof of this can be found in any attempted remake of one of his films)

Yimou Zhang for House of the Flying Daggers.  It's the most stunning looking film I've ever seen.

Kevin Smith for Clerks.  Like Tarantino, he wrote it and directed it.  Like Tarantino he based it around superb, natural dialogue.

Woody Allen.  I got hooked when I saw Sleeper many years ago.  I know it's slapstick but it's great slapstick.  Not only did he invent a style but he wrote and starred as well. Manhattan is of course visually stunning as well as funny.

Stanley Kubrick for 2001 a Space Odyssey. (co)Written and Directed.  A film so far ahead of it's time and so beautiful it's hard to believe it's 40 years old.  The 'Space Shuttle' docking sequence set to "The Blue Danube" could be my favourite film moment ever.

David Lynch for The Elephant Man.  I don't care if the critics think it's sentimental and a bit 'hammed up', I think it's a beautiful film.


A common theme is seems to be my liking for writer/directors, maybe it's because only the writer can really bring the dream to life.

[Bollards]

Powell & Pressburger - A Canterbury Tale is a work of genius.

[Really Ancien]

Christopher Guest. His style of improvisation and editing with an ensemble cast is as close to reality as it gets. Enormously influential in the digital age.
Who can forget this scene from 'Best in Show'.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/6i9Mcj-pUaI&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/6i9Mcj-pUaI&rel=1</a>

Damon.

[Really Ancien]

Hard to see why Ang Lee hasn't been mentioned. I suppose it's because his films range across so many boundaries. 'The Ice Storm' is my favourite.

Damon.

[LEE]

Hard to see why Ang Lee hasn't been mentioned. I suppose it's because his films range across so many boundaries. 'The Ice Storm' is my favourite.

Damon.

I was going to mention him but thought that the visually stunning "Crouching Tiger" was out-visually-stunninged by "Flying Daggers"

[Really Ancien]

I was thinking more of Sense and Sensibility.

Damon.

[Really Ancien]

Charles Laughton, although it was probably his inexperience that allowed his lighting cameraman  Stanley Cortez - : to create such lovely effects. Too much control probably inhibits the input of the technicians, which is why I'm not that big a fan of the cult of the director.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/-N9LnkKQfuc&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/-N9LnkKQfuc&rel=1</a>

Damon.

[Really Ancien]

Андре́й Арсе́ньевич Тарко́вский,
Francois Truffaut,
Mike Leigh,
Mel Brooks.

Damon.

[Jakob]

Hard to see why Ang Lee hasn't been mentioned. I suppose it's because his films range across so many boundaries. 'The Ice Storm' is my favourite.

Damon.

I was going to mention him but thought that the visually stunning "Crouching Tiger" was out-visually-stunninged by "Flying Daggers"

You serious? I found that it tried too hard and could never really convince me the same way that 'Hero' did. Visuals have to be connected to a story for it to work. Especially the 15 minute death/fight sequence in the snow had me and my girlfriend shouting "Die already" at the TV.

[Really Ancien]

I'm trying hard to remember the death/fight sequence in Sense and Sensibility, the Ice Storm or even Brokeback Mountain.

Damon.

[ChrisO]

I compiled a Top Ten films list with my wife last night - largely because we introduced Lawrence of Arabia to our 12 year old who couldn't believe we even liked it (his Top 10 features I Robot and other action films).

I was struggling to decide which one or possibly all of Apocalypse Now, Dr Strangelove, Lolita and Barry Lyndon so I suppose I must add Kubrick.

The conclusion was Apocalypse Now definitely and Dr Strangelove possibly.

[Jakob]

I'm trying hard to remember the death/fight sequence in Sense and Sensibility, the Ice Storm or even Brokeback Mountain.

Damon.

I was referring to 'Flying Daggers', Sorry.

[Hot Flatus]

Bertrand Tavernier - L.627 is the best cop film of all time. See it if you don't believe me.

Watching this at the moment.

It's a steaming turd.

[LEE]

I'm trying hard to remember the death/fight sequence in Sense and Sensibility, the Ice Storm or even Brokeback Mountain.

Damon.

All 3 would have benefitted from one.

[Andrew Br]

Bergman ?
Altman ?

[onb]

Havnt been all the way through this thread but Ridley Scott does it for me he always seems to get lighting spot on.

[Mr Larrington]

Altman ?

Wanted badly to be killed for the abortion that was O.C. And Stiggs

[Really Ancien]

Sidney Lumet.
I've just been watching some of Network from 1976.
Sidney Lumet
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/5jmuhZY2mgs&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/5jmuhZY2mgs&rel=1</a>

Damon.