Thread: Favourite Movie Directors

Originally Posted by MacLeod

It's very easy to bring to mind the directors of your favourite dozen movies, but less easy to go beyond that and think about directors who you like despite their lesser works.

So, do I like the works of John Houston? Or do I just happen to like The African Queen, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Maltese Falcon? Or Humphrey Bogart?

Yesterday, I watched Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and decided that there was too much about it that irritated, though there were some pleasures. In fact, working my way through a Blu-Ray boxed set of his Hollwood movies, I'm increasingly of the opinion that his moral ambiguities (Stewart drugging Day, and the obsessive Scottie in Vertigo) are despicable.

Ridley Scott has a great visual sense (Alien, Legend, Black Rain), but Prometheus and its sequel are examples of such stupid story-telling!

Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood) and Raoul Walsh (White Heat, They Died With Their Boots On, and The Naked and The Dead, are two of my favourites from the golden era, but they made so many that I've not seen - how would I know which are their lesser works to judge them by?

Two whose movies I have enjoyed are Michael Mann (Last of the Mohicans, Heat, Collateral) and Peter Weir (Picnic at Hanging Rock, Witness and Master and Commander), who are not prolific at all and not, apparently active.

It's difficult not to conclude that the "auteur theory" is grossly overrated. Watch enough of some directors' movies, and common themes and approaches emerge, but as they often work with the same writers, editors and cinematographers, that's hardly surprising. So, do I like the directors? Or is it just that my story interests coincide with theirs?

Scott has been cursed with some truly awful scripts in the last 15 years. Not that any of his movies had dynamite ones but you can view the descent in Hollywood screenwriting as a whole through the prism of his movies. The Alien sequels he directed are truly awful but thoroughly beautiful films with interesting ideas. They'll remain one of Hollywood's big 'what if?'s.

I'll add Roger Corman.

Originally Posted by Rogerx

Isn't he called king of the B movies?

How about "The Pope of Pop Cinema" for a title!!? LOL!!!

What's he up to these days? https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...listic-1251762

Another vote for Kubrick, have a guilty spot for Tarantino. Others:

Francis Ford Coppola
Hayao Miyazaki
Damien Chazelle
Martin Scorsese
Brad Bird
Wes Anderson

Originally Posted by Varick

I don't think there is any need to feel guilty about liking Tarantino. I love most of his stuff (albeit Jackie Brown and wasn't too thrilled with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). Sure, there are a few times (such as in the Kill Bill movies) where I'm like, "Yeah, OK, I get it... You're cool!!!!" but I still love the stuff non-the-less.

Onto the OP:

Besides Q.T., I'd have to add:
- The Coen Brothers
- David Lynch
- Clint Eastwood
- Tim Burton. Just something about his stuff I dig.
- John Frankenheimer
- Wes Anderson (Love that quirky, dry, odd humor)

I like a lot of Ridley Scott films, but I also think there are plenty of his brother Tony's movies that are really good: "True Romance, Crimson Tide, Out of the Furnace, Spy Game, etc" I think Tony often has a grit in some of his movies that Ridley lacks. I find Ridley more polished, which is fine is some cases. But maybe I still wouldn't put him in this list.

V

Haha true, he is a pretty good director, just not as well respected as legends like Kubrick and Hitchcock (yet).

Top 10 would probably be...

1. Orson Welles
2. Alfred Hitchcock
3. Ingmar Bergman
4. Fritz Lang
5. Andrei Tarkovsky
6. Federico Fellini
7. Theo Angelopoulos
8. Billy Wilder
9. Akira Kurosawa
10. Stanley Kubrick

Originally Posted by AfterHours

Top 10 would probably be...

1. Orson Welles
2. Alfred Hitchcock
3. Ingmar Bergman
4. Fritz Lang
5. Andrei Tarkovsky
6. Federico Fellini
7. Theo Angelopoulos
8. Billy Wilder
9. Akira Kurosawa
10. Stanley Kubrick

Billy Wilder is a legend, Some Like it Hot is the best comedy ever! (or one of...)