Best Movie Directors and Their Movies

[diebitter]

Herzog - I've yet to see his most significant films - Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre - but I've seen enough of Herzog to know a great film maker when I see one. My favourite of the movies I have seen of his is the remake of 'Nosferatu', with Klaus Kinski as the lead. It's atmospheric, visually stunning, and has an languid,icy air and tempo that is mesmeric. I think it's massively underrated in the horror genre, mainly because it really is a fine piece of art.

Kurosawa - Seven Samurai. Many consider Ran better, but Seven Samurai is to me his greatest movie, as it has a greater humanity to it (IMO).

Anthony Mann - Winchester 73. Mann made several films with James Stewart, but I consider this the best. Beautiful scenery, fine plot and dialogue, and Stewart playing a darker character than usual (this was beore Hitchcock got his hands on Stewart, remember). Mann was a wonderful, and maybe not much mentioned these days, director. And although Kubrick is credited with Spartacus, I think huge, beautiful chunks of that movie has Mann's fingerprints all over them. He was fired by Douglas and Kubrick replaced him, btw.

David Cronenberg - The Fly. Not only one of the great horror movies, but one of the great movies.

James Cameron - Aliens. One of the best action films ever made. That simple. And this is about the guy that also made Terminator 2.

Ridley Scott - Blade Runner. Again, many good films to his name, but Blade Runner was both a great movie and hugely influential, even to this day.

Powell & Pressburger - A Matter of Life and Death. All the films these guys made are worth watching more than once, but I consider this their best one.

Hitchcock - Psycho. Yep, it even surpasses Vertigo for me. Why? Because o the timing. Hitchcock choreographs the action in such a way it never quite happens when you expect it, so you always get caught out, never mind how many times you've seen it. Just shows a mastery of the medium.

[DrewDevil]

No one has mentioned the two greatest directors of all time, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Are they too "mainstream" for anyone to admit?

Scorsese is best known for Goodfellas, Raging Bull, etc., but I also think the Age of Innocence is a masterpiece.

Spielberg---wow. Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders, E.T. ... and Schindler's List, just to name a few.

[Moneyline]

It seems my idea of a great director is different from that of other loungers. Here's a quick list of directors and their most notable work (to me). Some of these directors are well revered by the film school set, others are not.

Coen Brothers: Big Lebowski

Larry Cohen: Q: The Winged Serpent

Tarantino: Pulp Fiction

Sergio Leone: The Good the Bad and the Ugly

Russ Meyer: Up!

Howard Hawkes: El Dorado

Monte Hellman: Cockfighter

Jack Hill: Coffy

Herzog: Aguirre: The Wrath of God

Errol Morris: The Thin Blue Line

Paul Verhoeven: Soldier of Orange

Barbara Kopple: American Dream

[Enrique]

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David Cronenberg - The Fly. Not only one of the great horror movies, but one of the great movies.


[/ QUOTE ]

I love Cronenberg. I have seen many of his films, but my favorite isn't the Fly. My favorite is Dead Ringers. Loved it.

Other directors I love:
Kubrick - Clockwork Orange
Hitchcock - My favorite is Vertigo, but I have loved many of his films.
Scorcese- My favorite is Taxi Driver.
Truffaut - I love the Antoine Doniel series
Richard Linklater- Love Before Sunrise

There are some movies I love but I wouldn't say I love the director:
Examples:
-Ran by Kurosawa
-Amelie by someone
-Run Lola Run

I am probably missing many other movies (and directors) I love but I am writing this in haste.

[rothko]

[ QUOTE ]
No one has mentioned the two greatest directors of all time, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Are they too "mainstream" for anyone to admit?

Scorsese is best known for Goodfellas, Raging Bull, etc., but I also think the Age of Innocence is a masterpiece.

Spielberg---wow. Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders, E.T. ... and Schindler's List, just to name a few.

[/ QUOTE ]

ugh, was hoping nobody would mention spielberg, but suppose that was asking too much.

[Dominic]

Off the to pf my head...

Krystof Kieslowski - Trois Coleurs: Rouge
Just an astounding piece of film making. It's like a fantastic mystery wrapped up in a novel with characters worthy of Dostoevsky. Incredible.

John Huston - The Man Who Would Be King
Hard to pick just one...but this is one of the greatest adventure films in movie history. Michael Caine and Sean Connery doing Kipling. Fantastic.

John Sayles - Matewan
Another great American filmmaker. I love this one for the complete world Sayles creates - 1920s West Virgina - with a minimal budget. Beautifully shot, composed and acted. It's Sayles' masterpiece

David Lean - Dr. Zhivago
It's probably not as good as Lawrence of Arabia, but there's just something so incredibly epic about this movie...it's so astoundingly perfect, every frame is just right. And Julie Christie is among the most beautiful women ever.

David Cronenberg - Videodrome
One of the most disturbing movies ever made. A career performance from James Woods, and Cronenberg's usual themes of human isolation, the evils of technology, and the decay of the flesh. Mind-blowing visuals.

Jean Pierre Melville - Le Cercle Rouge
Perhaps the greatest of the French gangster films. Melville's films all had this sense of melancholy and of not being able to escape fate...devastating and thrilling all at the same time.

Patrice Leconte - The Hairdresser's Husband
Goofy, romantic, sad and totally original. Leconte's story of a man who really loves to get his hair cut is completely perfect in every way.

John Woo - Bullet in the Head
Woo's "Deer Hunter," told from the viewpoint of three would-be black marketeers from Hong Kong during the height of the Vietnam War. Epic in scope and not as "fun" as his other films, but a wonder to behold.

Kai War Wong - In the Mood for Love
What an absolutely amazing motion picture. I thought no one could surprise me with their framing until I saw this movie...utterly original and gorgeous. It's like a 1940s Film Noir mixed with Douglas Sirk at his most melodramatic and sprinkled with just the right amount of Asian sensibility. Fantastic.

John Boorman - Hope & Glory
WWII as told from the point of view of a little British boy during the Blitz. In other words - a fantastic adventure! If you've never seen this one, you must check it out.

[KDawg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No one has mentioned the two greatest directors of all time, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Are they too "mainstream" for anyone to admit?

Scorsese is best known for Goodfellas, Raging Bull, etc., but I also think the Age of Innocence is a masterpiece.

Spielberg---wow. Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders, E.T. ... and Schindler's List, just to name a few.

[/ QUOTE ]

ugh, was hoping nobody would mention spielberg, but suppose that was asking too much.

[/ QUOTE ]


with a career as big budgeted, long, and prolific as his, it was an inevitable

for scorsese, I wouldn't say it's his best film ever, but hardly anybody knows about his short from the new York Stories disc- life lessons

pedro almodovar- all about my mother

coen brothers- tie(cause I really can't choose) Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink

Sidney Lumet- Dog Day Afternoon

akira Kurosawa- rashomon

roman polanski- chinatown

[KDawg]

[ QUOTE ]


Jean Pierre Melville - Le Cercle Rouge
Perhaps the greatest of the French gangster films. Melville's films all had this sense of melancholy and of not being able to escape fate...devastating and thrilling all at the same time.



[/ QUOTE ]


good god I love this film. I haven't seen army of shadows yet, but this film is a blow away film and is soooo deep. I'd rank it up there with great gangster films period. Almost right after seeing it, I went out and bought it, I just had to have it that bad

[Zeno]

1.Roger Corman.

He made movies that made money and made hiss-tore-ree!

It Conquered the World is one of his earliest and best. The name says a lot.

It Conquered the World is a 1956 science fiction film about an alien from Venus trying to take over the world with the help of a disillusioned human scientist. It was directed by Roger Corman, written by Lou Rusoff (with uncredited contributions by Charles B. Griffith), and starred Peter Graves, Lee van Cleef, Beverly Garland, and Sally Frasier. The film was the inspiration of a song by Frank Zappa, Cheepnis and was later featured on an episode of the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000, which mocked the film.


2. Russ Meyers. Just the name says it all.

Faster Pussycat - Kill Kill

FASTER PUSSYCAT, KILL! KILL! is the story of a new breed of SUPERWOMEN emerging out of the ruthlessness of our times. We are introduced to three BUXOM Go-Go girls: VARLA, ROSIE, and BILLIE, wildly dancing the Watusi before the leers, jeers and lecherous come-ons of their drooling all-male audience. The violence, implicit in the girls' tease, is quickly moved out of the microcosmic bar into the outside world as they literally let go of themselves, embarking on a wild, violent, deadly journey of vengeance on all men. VARLA, the outrageously abundant KARATE MASTER leader of the pack, breaks the arms and back of one man, runs her Porsche over two others, grinds a fourth, a muscleman, against a wall and, eventually, deliberately goes down the path of her own self-destruction, dragging her two BUXOTIC cohorts along with her.

3. John Cole. Not yet a director but when I send him my movie script he will become one and make the greastest moving picture since the end of the silent era.

Le Misanthrope

[rothko]

[ QUOTE ]
Kai War Wong - In the Mood for Love
What an absolutely amazing motion picture. I thought no one could surprise me with their framing until I saw this movie...utterly original and gorgeous. It's like a 1940s Film Noir mixed with Douglas Sirk at his most melodramatic and sprinkled with just the right amount of Asian sensibility. Fantastic.

[/ QUOTE ]

have you seen 2046 yet? what about days of being wild? will have to watch in the mood for love, as you say it's the best.