Not to be a film snob or anything, but really shouldn't favourite film directors have more than a couple of films you may like, or even that they have made.
Not to be a film snob or anything, but really shouldn't favourite film directors have more than a couple of films you may like, or even that they have made.
I can remember when it was ever so trendy to namedrop Malick as a favourite after only two films.
We can assume people base their judgements on what output they've seen of them, which is understandable. Maybe they haven't seen the full CV, but three or four films is a good indication you like the way they work. It wouldn't hurt to investigate more of course.
De Palma, Bergman, Kubrick, Haneke, Whale, Antonioni, btw.
Not to be a film snob or anything, but really shouldn't favourite film directors have more than a couple of films you may like, or even that they have made.
Not necessarily. Alfonso Cuarón for example hasn't made all that many films but if I like all of them and include some of them in my all-time favourites then I could rightly say he's one of my favourite directors.
I could also say that Guillermo Del Toro, Terry Gilliam, Park Chan-wook or Zhang Yimou are amongst my favourite directors even though I'm not particularly fussed about some of their films because they create visually or thematically distinct movies.
Not to be a film snob or anything, but really shouldn't favourite film directors have more than a couple of films you may like, or even that they have made.
For my list I posted earlier, I named a couple of well-known films for posters who may not recognise directors' names. I had assumed the others did theirs for the same reason.
That said, I don't see anything wrong with deciding a director is a favourite after seeing just one or two films. Sometimes the director's style just clicks. Love at first sight, I suppose?
One of my favourite directors has made only four films so far, but I watch her films at least five times. Each film has a layered bundle of ideas, techniques and thematic symbols, so each viewing is basically a treasure hunt. A comfort watch, too.
I can remember when it was ever so trendy to namedrop Malick as a favourite after only two films.
Tarantino would be another example too, after Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. I certainly considered him one of my favourites back then before he had directed anything more, and still do now.
the usual names mentioned several times above and certainly great but also ....
billy wilder
terrence fisher
russ meyer
micheal powell
eric rohmer
kurosawa (7 sammurai)
roger cormans poe films
cecil b de mille king of the epics
tarkovsky especially solaris and stalker but not his last film the sacrifice which was a mess .....
...... and john slessinger ...... but hitchcock would be top of the list despite his many often discussed faults ........
Hitchcock,John Ford,John Huston and Gerald Thomas of old time films.
The only film directors currently working that i will watch their next film, regardless of plot, are Katheryn Bigelow and Andrew Dominik.
Woody Allen would have been the first name down for me for years but i was emotionally scarred after watching Vicky,Cristina Barcelona and haven't felt the same towards him since.
My favourite films list comes from a wide variety of directors, but if I were to name some whose films I consistently like I would name
Peter Weir (Witness, the Truman Show, Dead Poets' Society),
Milos Forman (Amadeus, One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest, Hair)
Ron Howard (Apollo 13, Rush).
For Weir you could always add Gallipoli (one of the most heart wrenching anti-war films I've ever seen) and Picnic at Hanging Rock and for Forman - Ragtime and Fireman's Ball.
I can't think of a solitary Howard film I've not enjoyed.
Ken Russell, Brian DePalma, Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Dario Argento at this point of thinking. There are others whose work I consistently enjoy - Michael Powell, Josef Von Sternberg, Vincente Minnelli, Fritz Lang, John Huston for example - but given a choice between two films to watch I'd always go with one by those 5.
Sofia Coppola. I feel like her attention to detail is outstanding, every time I watch one of her films I see things that I hadn't noticed before, so every viewing feels like the first time. I also think she brings out the best in her actors, which is awesome.
For Weir you could always add Gallipoli (one of the most heart wrenching anti-war films I've ever seen) and Picnic at Hanging Rock...
Great director. I'd also add The Year Of Living Dangerously, Mosquito Coast, Fearless and Master & Commander. Might not be to everyone's taste, but always solid and well-made.
Federico Fellini
David Lean
Vittorio de Sica
Stanley Kubrick
Hayao Miyazaki
Milos Forman
Pedro Almodóvar
Fritz Lang
Gérard Corbiau
Jean-Jacques Annaud
Juraj Jakubisko
Patrice Chéreau
Hitch - what more can you say? A very distinctive director. So many films to his name.
Altman - I love The Player, Short Cuts, Nashville and M*A*S*H*. Gosford Park is not bad as well.
Fincher - He might have had a rocky start with Alien 3, but Se7en, The Game and Fight Club really put him on the map.
Soderbergh - I loved sex, lies and videotape and Traffic. A shame that he has now retired.
Coppola - The man who gave us The Godfather, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now. Just a shame that he hasn't done any work of recent which is up to that high standard.
David Lean - I love Great Expectations, Bridge of the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia. He could always do "big", but saying that things like Brief Encounters and Blithe Spirit show that he could do smaller scale.
Michael Powell - Made the magical A Matter of Life and Death, The red Shoes, The Life of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going and Peeping Tom. A very unique director.
Billy Wilder - For The Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot. He could do amasing thrillers as well as comedies. I also love the satire of Sunset Boulevard - that film is bleak as hell. Even some of his later work is pretty distinctive - Fedora has a similar take on Hollywood as Sunset Boulevard.
Chris Nolan - I don't think I have ever seen a bad film from him. He is most famous for Batman, but checkout his first film - Following. That is a curio.
Scorsese - For Mean Streets and Taxi Driver alone, he'll be on this list. Some of his other films haven't resonated with me as much, but he always seems to be experimenting as a director - looks at things like Kundun and Hugo. Maybe not vintage Scorsese, but they have their moments.
Comments
Chan-wook Park - Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr Vengence, Stoker
Andrew Dominik - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Killing Them Softly, Chopper
Sergio Leone - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West
bryan singer(x-men 1 & 2, first class 2 soon)
joss whedon(avengers,serenity)
martin scorsese(gangs of new york,departed,shutter island,goodfellas)
ridley scott(black hawk down, gladiator)
quentin tarantino(reservoir dogs,kill bill)
We can assume people base their judgements on what output they've seen of them, which is understandable. Maybe they haven't seen the full CV, but three or four films is a good indication you like the way they work. It wouldn't hurt to investigate more of course.
De Palma, Bergman, Kubrick, Haneke, Whale, Antonioni, btw.
Not necessarily. Alfonso Cuarón for example hasn't made all that many films but if I like all of them and include some of them in my all-time favourites then I could rightly say he's one of my favourite directors.
I could also say that Guillermo Del Toro, Terry Gilliam, Park Chan-wook or Zhang Yimou are amongst my favourite directors even though I'm not particularly fussed about some of their films because they create visually or thematically distinct movies.
For my list I posted earlier, I named a couple of well-known films for posters who may not recognise directors' names. I had assumed the others did theirs for the same reason.
That said, I don't see anything wrong with deciding a director is a favourite after seeing just one or two films. Sometimes the director's style just clicks. Love at first sight, I suppose?
One of my favourite directors has made only four films so far, but I watch her films at least five times. Each film has a layered bundle of ideas, techniques and thematic symbols, so each viewing is basically a treasure hunt. A comfort watch, too.
James Cameron
Tim Burton
They just produce that magic element into their movies that i love!
J.J. Abrams
Danny Boyle
David Fincher
Ridley Scott
Edgar Wright
Tarantino would be another example too, after Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. I certainly considered him one of my favourites back then before he had directed anything more, and still do now.
Good call ... I forgot to put him on my list
Tarantino
Hitchcock
David Fincher
If American Hustle is as good as it looks, David O. Russell could add to the list thanks to the superb Silver Linings Playbook.
But since then his movies have gotten worse with each one .
Hitchcock and De Palma are usually pretty good
billy wilder
terrence fisher
russ meyer
micheal powell
eric rohmer
kurosawa (7 sammurai)
roger cormans poe films
cecil b de mille king of the epics
tarkovsky especially solaris and stalker but not his last film the sacrifice which was a mess .....
...... and john slessinger ...... but hitchcock would be top of the list despite his many often discussed faults ........
The only film directors currently working that i will watch their next film, regardless of plot, are Katheryn Bigelow and Andrew Dominik.
Woody Allen would have been the first name down for me for years but i was emotionally scarred after watching Vicky,Cristina Barcelona and haven't felt the same towards him since.
Robert Zemeckis
James Cameron
George Lucas
True visionaries and without them my cinema experience would have been a bore.
Peter Weir (Witness, the Truman Show, Dead Poets' Society),
Milos Forman (Amadeus, One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest, Hair)
Ron Howard (Apollo 13, Rush).
For Weir you could always add Gallipoli (one of the most heart wrenching anti-war films I've ever seen) and Picnic at Hanging Rock and for Forman - Ragtime and Fireman's Ball.
I can't think of a solitary Howard film I've not enjoyed.
Good choices.
Robert Zemeckis
Great director. I'd also add The Year Of Living Dangerously, Mosquito Coast, Fearless and Master & Commander. Might not be to everyone's taste, but always solid and well-made.
David Lean
Vittorio de Sica
Stanley Kubrick
Hayao Miyazaki
Milos Forman
Pedro Almodóvar
Fritz Lang
Gérard Corbiau
Jean-Jacques Annaud
Juraj Jakubisko
Patrice Chéreau
Lisa Cholodenko
John Carpenter
David Fincher
Altman - I love The Player, Short Cuts, Nashville and M*A*S*H*. Gosford Park is not bad as well.
Fincher - He might have had a rocky start with Alien 3, but Se7en, The Game and Fight Club really put him on the map.
Soderbergh - I loved sex, lies and videotape and Traffic. A shame that he has now retired.
Coppola - The man who gave us The Godfather, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now. Just a shame that he hasn't done any work of recent which is up to that high standard.
David Lean - I love Great Expectations, Bridge of the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia. He could always do "big", but saying that things like Brief Encounters and Blithe Spirit show that he could do smaller scale.
Michael Powell - Made the magical A Matter of Life and Death, The red Shoes, The Life of Colonel Blimp, I Know Where I'm Going and Peeping Tom. A very unique director.
Billy Wilder - For The Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot. He could do amasing thrillers as well as comedies. I also love the satire of Sunset Boulevard - that film is bleak as hell. Even some of his later work is pretty distinctive - Fedora has a similar take on Hollywood as Sunset Boulevard.
Chris Nolan - I don't think I have ever seen a bad film from him. He is most famous for Batman, but checkout his first film - Following. That is a curio.
Scorsese - For Mean Streets and Taxi Driver alone, he'll be on this list. Some of his other films haven't resonated with me as much, but he always seems to be experimenting as a director - looks at things like Kundun and Hugo. Maybe not vintage Scorsese, but they have their moments.