10 Great Directors

NOTE: These aren't my top 10 directors, just 10 off the top of my head that I want to write a paragraph on. Also I need to have seen at least four of the director's films.

There have been countless number of people who have yearned to direct a film (myself included) and while many of them want to be great ones, very few ever are. But what does it mean to be a great director? Well obviously you need to make great films but who decides if your films are great? Many audiences goers know the name of Hitchcock and Spielberg and most will tell you that they are great, even though many critics have dismissed Spielberg as a director on an artistic level.

There are directors admired by select groups of people. Brian De Palma's films were often dismissed by critics as they were coming out during the late 70s and early 80s (even being nominated for four worst director nominations at the razzies) but there are now groups of people who champion him as one of the great directors from the New Hollywood movement (myself, Tarantino and Edgar Wright included).

Then there are THE greats. The ones that have inspired most film makers who come after them. These are the Fords, the Kubricks, the Bergmans, the Godards and the Welleses to name a few. However I don't believe every director the critics and cinephiles adore deserve my appraisal the same way so below I have listed just 10 of my favorites. Some are widely seen as great, some as guilty pleasure and some require a refined taste. So here are 10 directors I perceive as great and their best movies in my opinion are in bold.

(From L to R

Top Row: Wilder, Kurosawa, Godard, Aronofsky, Malick

Bottom Row: Hithcock, Haneke, Fincher, De Palma, Coens)

1. Michael Haneke

(Best movies: Code Unknown, Piano Teacher, Cache, White Ribbon, Amour)

No matter what Haneke film you've seen you will know that his films aren't the ones you watch on a date, for a laugh or when you're brain dead. His films are confronting as they go where society doesn't want go not only in conversation but in out own thoughts too. The violence represented in his films aren't violence for the sake violence but when said violence turns up it'll send your mind spinning with questions you never would've thought you would ever ask.

2. Terrence Malick

(Best movies: Thin Red Line, The Tree of Life, Knight of Cups)

No other film maker working today is as poetic as Malick. No other film maker is rewriting the language of film today the way Malick is. While his latest efforts have been criticised as being to self indulgent or even self parody, I believe that those beliefs are coming from people who don't want interact with a movie but would rather just escape. Malick doesn't want his audience to watch his films for an escapism. He wants to show you the world the way only he can.

3. Brian De Palma

(Best movies: Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Carlito's Way)

Brian De Palma haters are a plenty but there are plenty of lovers too. Some say he's a guilty pleasure and others just think he's a great filmmaker full stop. You might know him as modern Alfred Hitchcock as he deals with similar ideas, themes and concepts. Look at any of his films from the 70s and 80s and you'll you see a resemblance. Fortunately his work began to evolve after the early 80s to become a great film maker in his own right and grow from the shadow of Hitchcock which he had put himself under.

4. Billy Wilder

(Best movies: Double Indemnity, Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment)

While some of his contemporaries like Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock often went for the fancy and hard to achieve effects and stellar cinematography in their movies, Wilder's were very script based. He didn't start using colour in his films until the 1960s when Hithcock had been using it for a decade before that. He was also more consistent than Hithcock as he had a high period of almost 20 years where he kept knocking out of the park compared to Hitchcock who had his share of misses.

5. Alfred Hitchcock

(Best movies: Notorious, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Psycho)

But I don't hate Hitchcock, quite the contrary in fact. I think what he was able to do and reveal about ourselves through his movies during the hays code was nothing short of brilliant. He was able to thrill us like so few have ever before or after him, all while showing us our voyeuristic instincts which are imprinted on to everyone whether they like it or not.

6. Darren Aronofsky

(Best Movies: Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan)

I don't think there is a director working today who makes his movies as immersive as Aronofsky. Each of his films take us somewhere we didn't know we wanted or needed to go. Requiem for a Dream shows the effect of drugs. The Wrestler takes us inside the life of a wrestler who only wants to find someone to share his life with. Black Swan, well, Black Swan is the most immersive body horror movie possibly ever.

7. David Fincher

(Best movie: Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac, The Social Network)

An interest in photography and film from a young age, didn't go to film school, had early hiccups in their feature film career, no I'm not talking about Stanley Kubrick but rather his predecessor (or at least one of them). David Fincher is known as a director who demands for perfection and his movies show for it. Fincher has found the balance between box office success and critical success and it's shown in box office recepits and Oscar nominations.

8. Jean Luc Godard

(Best movies: Breathless, Contempt, Masculine Feminine, Weekend)

Easily the most (in)famous figure of the French New Wave from the early 60s. He made a staggering 15 films between 1960 and 1967. It is hard for me choose a favorite Godard film as I have a pool of them instead of singular movie. You might be wondering why I admire Godard? Well no one ever made films like he did. In terms of people who have been innovators in cinema there are really only four people, the Lumiere brothers, DW Griffith and Godard himself. He took the rules of cinema that were almost 50 years old and re-envisioned them so that now basically everyone who came after him is influenced by him.

9. Akira Kurosawa

(Best movies: Rashomon, Seven Samurai, High and Low, Ran)

Along with Bergman, Fellini and Tarkovsky, Kurosawa is the most prolific non-english director to ever be behind the camera. He is the reason we have the modern day action film, which he invented with Seven Samurai and no one has ever been able to top since. He is also the master of Samurai cinema (Ran, Yojimbo) and even one of the greats when it comes to dramas (Ikiru, The Bad Sleep Well).

10. Joel and Ethan Coen

(Best movies: Raising Arizona, The Man who Wasn't There, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading)

There are no directors in the main stream who have twisted film language to make their films the way true auteurs have today. These brothers produce, write, direct and edit their films and their idiosyncratic style shows in each of their films. The Coens are directors who strive for perfection but only do a couple takes of a shot (they do a lot of planning). With 17 feature films under their belts it's hard for their fans to decide on their best film.

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These are 10 directors that I really like. I have plenty more directors that I can write about so another 10 could be on its way.

(here's some hints at who I might do next...

Milkshakes

Silencio

Fin

Law, Flowers and Lovers

Time)