Top 50 Directors

Below are my 50 favorite directors, and a list of my favorite films from each. Please feel free to check back on this list as it will be updated with changes periodically:

1. Terrence Malick

• Badlands
• Days of Heaven
• The New World
• The Thin Red Line
• The Tree of Life

2. Werner Herzog

• Aguirre, the Wrath of God
• The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans
• Bells From the Deep
• Cobra Verde
• Encounters at the End of the World
• Even Dwarfs Started Small
• The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
• Fata Morgana
• Fitzcarraldo
• Lessons of Darkness
• Little Dieter Needs to Fly
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
• Nosferatu the Vampyre
• Rescue Dawn
• Stroszek
• Where the Green Ants Dream
• The White Diamond
• Wings of Hope

3. Ermanno Olmi

• La Cotta
• I Fidanzati
• Genesis: The Creation and the Flood
• Il Posto
• Time Stood Still
• The Tree of Wooden Clogs

4. Wong Kar-wai

• 2046
• As Tears Go By
• Ashes of Time
• Chungking Express
• Days of Being Wild
• Fallen Angels
• The Follow
• Happy Together
• My Blueberry Nights

5. Michelangelo Antonioni

• L’avventura
• Blowup
• L’Eclisse
• Il Grido
• La Notte
• The Passenger
• Red Desert

6. John Ford

• 3 Bad Men
• The Grapes of Wrath
• The Iron Horse
• Just Pals
• The Long Voyage Home
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
• Mogambo
• My Darling Clementine
• Rio Grande
• Sergeant Rutledge
• Stagecoach
• The Sun Shines Bright
• Young Mr. Lincoln

7. Anthony Mann

• Border Incident
• God’s Little Acre
• Man of the West
• The Naked Spur
• Raw Deal
• The Tall Target
• The Tin Star
• Winchester ’73

8. Jon Jost

• All the Vermeers in New York
• The Bed You Sleep In
• Last Chants For a Slow Dance
• Slow Moves

9. Frank Borzage

• 7th Heaven
• Lazybones
• Little Man, What Now?
• Lucky Star
• Man’s Castle
• The Mortal Storm
• The River
• Street Angel

10. Budd Boetticher

• Buchanan Rides Alone
• Comanche Station
• Decision at Sundown
• Ride Lonesome
• Seven Men From Now
• The Tall T

11. Andrei Tarkovsky

• Andrei Rublev
• Ivan’s Childhood
• The Mirror
• Nostalghia
• Offret
• Solaris
• Stalker
• Voyage in Time

12. Claire Denis

• 35 Rhums
• Beau Travail
• Chocolat
• L’Intrus
• Nenette and Boni
• No Fear, No Die
• Trouble Every Day

13. Alfred Hitchcock

• The 39 Steps
• Dial M for Murder
• Frenzy
• I Confess
• The Lady Vanishes
• Marnie
• North by Northwest
• Psycho
• Rebecca
• Rope
• Spellbound
• Strangers on a Train
• Vertigo
• The Wrong Man

14. David Gordon Green

• All the Real Girls
• George Washington
• Snow Angels
• Undertow

15. Kelly Reichardt

• Meek’s Cutoff
• Ode
• Old Joy
• River of Grass
• Wendy and Lucy

16. Robert Bresson

• Au Hasard Balthazar
• Diary of a Country Priest
• Four Nights of a Dreamer
• A Gentle Woman
• Lancelot of the Lake
• A Man Escaped
• Mouchette
• Pickpocket
• The Trial of Joan of Arc

17. Wim Wenders

• Alice in the Cities
• The American Friend
• Kings of the Road
• Notebook on Cities and Clothes
• Paris, Texas
• The State of Things
• Wings of Desire
• Wrong Move

18. Dimitri Kirsanoff

• Arrière-saison
• Brumes d’automne
• Death of a Stag
• Ménilmontant
• Rapt

19. Olivier Assayas

• Boarding Gate
• Clean
• Demonlover
• Irma Vep
• Late August, Early September
• Quartier des Enfants Rouges (from Paris, I Love You)
• Summer Hours

20. Yasujiro Ozu

• An Autumn Afternoon
• Good Morning
• I Was Born, But…
• Late Spring
• The Story of Floating Weeds
• Tokyo Story

21. Carl Theodor Dreyer

• Day of Wrath
• Ordet
• The Passion of Joan of Arc

22. Ingmar Bergman

• Autumn Sonata
• Hour of the Wolf
• The Seventh Seal
• Through a Glass Darkly
• To Joy
• The Virgin Spring
• Wild Strawberries
• Winter Light

23. Michael Winterbottom

• The Claim
• Code 46
• Genova
• In This World
• I Want You
• A Mighty Heart

24. Michael Mann

• Collateral
• The Last of the Mohicans
• Manhunter
• Miami Vice
• Thief

25. Mike Leigh

• Another Year
• Bleak Moments
• Happy-Go-Lucky
• Naked

26. Krzysztof Kieslowski

• The Decalogue
• The Double Life of Veronique
• Railway Station
• Three Colors: Blue
• Three Colors: Red

27. Lynne Ramsay

• Kill the Day
• Ratcatcher
• Small Deaths
• We Need to Talk About Kevin

28. Jean Vigo

• L’Atalante
• A Propos de Nice
• Zero for Conduct

29. Jean Epstein

• Les berceaux
• Chanson d’Armor
• Coeur fidèle
• Finis terrae
• The Three-Sided Mirror

30. Robert Altman

• Images
• The Long Goodbye
• McCabe & Mrs. Miller
• Nashville

31. F.W. Murnau

• City Girl
• Faust
• The Last Laugh
• Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

32. Sergio Leone

• Duck, You Sucker
• A Fistful of Dollars
• For a Few Dollars More
• The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly
• Once Upon a Time in the West

33. Hou Hsiao-hsien

• Dust in the Wind
• Goodbye South Goodbye
• Millennium Mambo
• A Summer at Grandpa’s
• Three Times

34. Clint Eastwood

• Bronco Billy
• High Plains Drifter
• Letters From Iwo Jima
• Million Dollar Baby
• The Outlaw Josey Wales
• A Perfect World
• Unforgiven
• White Hunter Black Heart

35. Steven Soderbergh

• Bubble
• Che: Part Two
• Contagion
• The Girlfriend Experience
• Haywire
• Solaris

36. Peter Weir

• Dead Poets Society
• Gallipoli
• The Last Wave
• Picnic at Hanging Rock
• The Plumber
• The Truman Show
• The Way Back
• Witness

37. Buster Keaton

• Convict 13
• The Frozen North
• The Goat
• The ‘High Sign’
• Neighbors
• One Week
• The Play House
• Seven Chances
• The Scarecrow
• Sherlock Jr.
• Steamboat Bill, Jr.

38. William A. Wellman

• Beggars of Life
• Frisco Jenny
• Night Nurse
• Other Men’s Women
• Track of the Cat
• Yellow Sky

39. Alfonso Cuaron

• Children of Men
• Great Expectations
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Parc Monceau (from Paris, I Love You)

40. Charles Chaplin

• City Lights
• The Gold Rush
• The Kid
• Modern Times

41. Wes Anderson

• Bottle Rocket
• The Darjeeling Limited
• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
• The Royal Tenenbaums
• Rushmore

42. Stanley Kubrick

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Barry Lyndon
• Paths of Glory
• The Shining

43. Jacques Tourneur

• Canyon Passage
• Cat People
• I Walked With a Zombie
• Stars in My Crown
• Wichita

44. Nicolas Roeg

• Don’t Look Now
• The Man Who Fell to Earth
• Walkabout
• The Witches

45. William Dieterle

• The Devil and Daniel Webster
• I’ll Be Seeing You
• Portrait of Jennie

46. Francis Ford Coppola

• Apocalypse Now
• The Conversation
• The Godfather
• The Godfather: Part II

47. Paul Thomas Anderson

• Punch Drunk Love
• There Will Be Blood

48. Agnes Varda

• Cleo From 5 to 7
• Du côté de la côte
• Le Bonheur
• L’opéra-mouffe
• Vagabond

49. Otto Preminger

• Anatomy of a Murder
• Bunny Lake is Missing
• Fallen Angel
• Laura
• Where the Sidewalk Ends

50. Francois Truffaut

• The 400 Blows
• Antoine and Colette
• Shoot the Piano Player
• Stolen Kisses