Directors are the masterminds, the people who allot a year or two or ten of their entire lives working on a series of images, one that lasts two hours. These are the people who are rolled out onto the red carpet and, in all of their grandeur, receive much-deserved credits for their films of masterpiece, or somewhat deserved comments about the flaws in their mediocre films.These are the people who receive the most attention in film, the good and the bad. Here are the top eight directors of all time, the ones that have taken more than their fair share of good attention.
8. Frank Capra
Capra made his name doing films during the Golden Age of Hollywood, considered to be during the ’30s and ’40s with It Happened One Night, It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Capra was one of the most creative directors of his time, directing several films that have lasted as some of the world’s best films for over 80 years.
7. Joel Coen
One of the best directors of the modern age of film, Coen made his name alongside his brother Ethan, and they soon became known as the Coen brothers after successful films in the ‘90s such as Fargo and The Big Lebowski. They have continued their success in the 21st century with O Brother Where Art Thou, based off the classic Odysseus, and Inside Llewyn Davis, which came out recently in December 2013.
6. Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is the creator of the acclaimed Godfather series, which is the extent of his major success in cinema, but the Godfather movie series is known as the best of all time. The Godfather Part II is the only sequel to appear in the AFI 100 Years…100 Movies list, also being ranked as high as 32 while the series’ first movie is second on the list only behind Citizen Kane. Coppola also started the popularization of Italian-American organized crime films, which were continued by directors such as Martin Scorsese.
5. Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino, a master of pop culture and homages, is a director with more influences than most, creating movies in many different genres just to put his spin on that genre. His first success, Reservoir Dogs, is Tarantino’s first of many crime films and is resemblant of a play with a setting of one room, with the only exterior being flashbacks. Next came his most successful film, Pulp Fiction, which famously mixes comedy and violence in a stylized manner, has a nonlinear storyline, and is viewed by some as the greatest film of all time. Tarantino created several more bloody crime homages such as Jackie Brown in the blaxploitation genre, Kill Bill in the samurai genre and Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained as westerns. Tarantino is famous for collaborating with Samuel L. Jackson, who appeared in Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained.
4. Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick is widely recognized as the father of science fiction. However, throughout his career he has made jumps from genre to genre. At the beginning of his career, Kubrick created Spartacus, an acclaimed epic, and Lolita, a comedy drama based off the novel by Vladimir Nabokov. After that, Kubrick ventured into science fiction with Cold War slapstick Dr. Strangelove, futuristic 2001: A Space Odyssey and ultra-violent A Clockwork Orange. Kubrick then directed one final masterpiece, The Shining, which is known as one of the best horror films of all time. Surprisingly, Kubrick never won an Academy Award for Best Director.
3. Martin Scorsese
Scorsese is one of the best crime film directors in cinematic history. Collaborating with actors Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Leonardo DiCaprio for multiple films, Scorsese’s trademarks include troubled men, crime, violence, guilt, redemption and Italian-American culture. Scorsese’s first film success, Taxi Driver, included De Niro, his first of eight Scorsese films which was the beginning of his use of conflicted men and insanity. De Niro supposedly saved Scorsese’s life by motivating him to quit his destructive cocaine habit and create a new film about a boxer who gets into legal troubles, Raging Bull, which was the debut of the Scorsese/De Niro/Pesci combination. Scorsese continues a long string of crime films since Taxi Driver to today’s Wolf of Wall Street with Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed and Gangs of New York in between.
2. Steven Spielberg
One of the unique things about Spielberg is him being the only director in history to have so many movies that are highly critically acclaimed. Titles known by many such as E.T, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List and so many others can be attributed to Spielberg’s name — perhaps the best director of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. Spielberg is most well known for tackling humanist issues such as war, terrorism and the Holocaust, along with creating ordinary characters that come into contact with extraordinary things, such as in E.T, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the Indiana Jones series.
1. Alfred Hitchcock
The master of suspense, the inventor of terror and the modern horror movie, Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most influential directors of the twentieth century and is one of the highest contributing international directors to cinema, pioneering some of the most famous and inventive camera angles. Creating several classic films such as Psycho, The Birds and Vertigo, Hitchcock is deservedly one of the best directors to have lived, and in my mind, the very best due to his unparalleled understanding of the human psyche, along with his talent to keep an audience on the edge of their seats.
By Luke Chval
Who is your favorite director? Did he/she make my list?
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