The Best and Most Influential Directors of All-Time (The Rarest list on IMDB #SARCASM)

1. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Openly homosexual, he married twice; one of his wives acted in his films and the other served as his editor. Accused variously by detractors of being anticommunist, male chauvinist, antiSemitic and...

Rainer Werner Fassbinder could be titled as the Best German Director of all times (there aren't many good directors anyway). His Movie Welt am Draht (as it is called in German orginal) also known as World on Wire is a Master Piece on every aspect. World on Wire which nearly goes 4 Hours is one of the most relevant Sci-Fi Movies to hit the screen, why simple without this Movie we would'nt have seen Movies such as Blade Runner, Matrix .... In technical terms it was ahead of it's time as well as in aspect of it's Story, if you take a deep look at the Story you could even see it as The Matrix from the 1973, only with less (and i mean) less action, it concentrates more and stronger on the philosophic question them self as on the action (which does'nt mean it is a 4 hour sloooow paced boooring dokumentation), even for today standards it is whatchable, unless you found Movies like Inception boring, confusing and hard to understand (which i don't understand because it is not complicated and for my taste even a bit to much action). But if you are ready to take the Ride you will get Rewarded with an Amazing Master Piece of Cinema Art !.

2. Stanley Kubrick

Director | 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Sadie Gertrude (Perveler) and Jacob Leonard Kubrick, a physician. His family were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Romania, and Russia). Stanley was considered intelligent, despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would ...

It's Stanley Kubrick Pure Perfection in every single possible way of Cinema Art. From Lolita on his Rain of Genius began with every Film being perfect to his sad end. At his early films you could already see his talent.

Sadly he is dead and had two Movies (known of, there are more) that never got made or at least by him. The First one is his Napoleon Bonaparte Biopic which even got in pre production (you can check out test photos notes and more) and sadly never got made due to cost and the poor received Soviet version, there are plans thou of HBO producing it as a mini series (which is a bad idea but won't be as good as if he would have done it). His second never made movie which actualy got made but wasn't as good as it would have been by him is A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Steven Spielberg made it 2 Years after his Death but every Movie enthusiast could see that there where many areas which just laked the kind of finese Kubrick would have done (without even talking about the Cinematography nor the set decoration). It wasn't a bad Film but not a Great Film eather.

3. Orson Welles

Actor | Citizen Kane

His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was ...

One Word (ok actualy two) Citizen Kane, if you are a real Movie enthusiast and you watch Movies for more reasons then Entertainment, and are able to watch Black and White Movies you will probably Love this Movie. After i've read that this Movie is seen as The Best Movie ever made i thought this is just some critics BS, but then i heard the same thing say'd by Directors such as Martin Scorsese, Stephen Spielberg (and more). I Bought it and it lay'd around for about a year because i could'nt convince myself to watch it, i had prejudice against Black & White Films, but then the day came and i just thought *beep* it Now or Never, and after i was watching it id just blew my mind at what i just saw and i understood why it is seen as one of the most Important Movies of all time, from lightning to acting over directing, plot, character development pace, this Movie is just Perfect in every way (and i hope that this won't get any remake). I watched a lot of movies since then from earlyer years and if you compare it you see what this movie has done for the industry and it stil has some aspects that haven't been beaten to this day.

If i had to discribe it with one Word it would be: Brilliant

4. Alfred Hitchcock

Director | Psycho

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England. He was the son of Emma Jane (Whelan; 1863 - 1942) and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock (1862 - 1914). His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William Hitchcock (born 1890) and ...

5. Francis Ford Coppola

Producer | Apocalypse Now

Francis Ford Coppola was born in 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, but grew up in a New York suburb in a creative, supportive Italian-American family. His father, Carmine Coppola, was a composer and musician. His mother, Italia Coppola (née Pennino), had been an actress. Francis Ford Coppola graduated ...

6. Michael Cimino

Director | The Deer Hunter

Michael Cimino studied architecture and dramatic arts; later he filmed advertisements and documentaries and also wrote scripts until the actor, producer and director Clint Eastwood gave him the opportunity to direct the thriller Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974). But his biggest success was The Deer...

7. Akira Kurosawa

Writer | Kakushi-toride no san-akunin

After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943). Within a few years, Kurosawa had achieved sufficient stature to allow him greater...

8. Roman Polanski

Director | Chinatown

Roman Polanski is a Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few truly international filmmakers. Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933.

His parents returned to Poland from France in 1936, three years ...

9. Takeshi Kitano

Actor | Zatôichi

Takeshi Kitano originally studied to become an engineer, but was thrown out of school for rebellious behavior. He learned comedy, singing and dancing from famed comedian Senzaburô Fukami. Working as a lift boy on a nightclub with such features as comic sketches and striptease dancing, Kitano saw ...

10. Martin Scorsese

Producer | Killers of the Flower Moon

Martin Charles Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942 in Queens, New York City, to Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa) and Charles Scorsese, who both worked in Manhattan's garment district, and whose families both came from Palermo, Sicily. He was raised in the neighborhood of Little Italy, which later ...

11. Nicolas Roeg

Director | Don't Look Now

When he made his directorial debut in 1970, Nicolas Roeg was already a 23-year veteran of the British film industry, starting out in 1947 as an editing apprentice and working his way up to cinematographer twelve years later. He first came to attention as part of the second unit on David Lean's ...

12. Steven Spielberg

Producer | Schindler's List

One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, ...

He basicly created the Summer Blockbuster as known today with his little film called Jaws

13. Ridley Scott

Producer | The Martian

Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom ...

14. Oliver Stone

Director | JFK

Oliver Stone has become known as a master of controversial subjects and a legendary film maker. His films are filled with a variety of film angles and styles, he pushes his actors to give Oscar-worthy performances, and despite his failures, has always returned to success.

William Oliver Stone was ...

Has done a set of the Most Politicaly Controversial Films of all time, such as the All-Time Classic JFK (Which is still relevant, and not cleared what realy happened) and Salvador which depicted The US Sponsored the Death Squads in El Salvador, which is still today not fully covered by the us. He made also other controversial Movies but i would consider this two Movies as his most relevant

15. Terry Gilliam

Writer | Brazil

Terry Gilliam was born near Medicine Lake, Minnesota. When he was 12 his family moved to Los Angeles where he became a fan of MAD magazine. In his early twenties he was often stopped by the police who suspected him of being a drug addict and Gilliam had to explain that he worked in advertising. In ...

16. Charles Chaplin

Writer | The Great Dictator

Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the ...

17. John Carpenter

Writer | The Fog

John Howard Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, to mother Milton Jean (Carter) and father Howard Ralph Carpenter. His family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where his father, a professor, was head of the music department at Western Kentucky University. He attended Western Kentucky ...

18. Alan J. Pakula

Producer | Sophie's Choice

Alan J. Pakula was an American film director, writer and producer. He was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Best Director for All the President's Men (1976) and Best Adapted Screenplay for Sophie's Choice (1982).

He also directed Presumed Innocent (...

19. John McTiernan

Director | Die Hard

John McTiernan was born on January 8, 1951 in Albany, New York, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Die Hard (1988), Rollerball (2002) and Last Action Hero (1993). He has been married to Gail Sistrunk since 2012. He was previously married to Kate Harrington, Donna Dubrow and Carol Land.

One of the Most Important Action Film Directors of all time, He Made 3 4 Great Movies which whom 3 a Film Classic Master Pieces. Hist First was Predator featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger which showed that he was actualy able to do more then show his muscles, and which Showed The Pefect Cocktail of Sci-Fi, Horror, Action, Drama. His Second was Die Hard which is one of the most Important Modern Action Movies and in my opinion even the Best Action Movie ever. The Third is for some reason totaly underrated, unknown and bad reviewed Last Action Hero also featuring A. Schwarzenegger, this Movie is also totaly misunderstood by most people, most people see it and think it's just a bad kid Film with weird humour, but if you have watched a lot of Movies like my self you could see that it was in fact meant as some kind of a Satire of the whole Action genre, the story also hints at it [A young movie fan gets thrown into the movie world of his favourite action film character.], the Movie takes many Film Cliché's and makes fun of em without being to obvious, i would recommend you to watch it and enjoy the fun ride, pretty entertaining and garanty of Cineast"gasm" after watching it, unless you don't like Action Movies and are more into Indie/Art House Movies (In some way i would even put it in the Art House category). McTiernan also made one of the best Movie sequels ever (it's not a Master Piece, but a satisfying sequel) to his Die Hard franchise, the third instalment called Die Hard: With a Vengeance.

20. Guy Hamilton

Director | Live and Let Die

Typically British stiff-upper-lip war dramas and action adventure laced with moments of sophisticated comedy were Guy Hamilton's trademark. The son of a British diplomat, he spent most of his youth with his family in France, seemingly destined to be groomed for a career in the diplomatic service. ...

Has done one of the best Bond Movie ever and with that also one of the best Action movies, James Bond Goldfinger which has one of the most quoted (Film-Scene wise) ever, for example the golden girl laying dead on the bead.

21. Sergio Leone

Writer | Once Upon a Time in America

Sergio Leone was virtually born into the cinema - he was the son of Roberto Roberti (A.K.A. Vincenzo Leone), one of Italy's cinema pioneers, and actress Bice Valerian. Leone entered films in his late teens, working as an assistant director to both Italian directors and U.S. directors working in ...

22. Michael Mann

Producer | The Insider

As a director, screenwriter, and producer, four-time Academy Award nominee Michael Mann has established himself as one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers in American cinema. After writing and directing the Primetime Emmy Award-winning television movie The Jericho Mile (1979), Mann ...

23. David Lean

Director | Lawrence of Arabia

An important British filmmaker, David Lean was born in Croydon on March 25, 1908 and brought up in a strict Quaker family (ironically, as a child he wasn't allowed to go to the movies). During the 1920s, he briefly considered the possibility of becoming an accountant like his father before finding ...

Lawrence from Arabia, long story cut short Pure Perfect Adventure Epic Cinema, whatch the full 4 Hour Movie you won't even recognize you just watched the full 4 Hour's

24. Gordon Parks

Director | The Learning Tree

The pre-eminent American photojournalist of sub-Saharan descent. An acclaimed photographer for Life magazine from the late 40s through late 60s, he turned to directing films, his second of which, the blaxploitation movie Shaft (1971), achieved success at the box office. In 1989 his first film ...

Shaft a top class Thriller Action Blaxplotation Master Piece, Tarantino got inspired of it and with Shaft he invented practicly the whole Blaxplotation genre, featuring one of the best Movie Scores ever.

25. Ingmar Bergman

Writer | Smultronstället

Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born July 14, 1918, the son of a priest. The film and T.V. series, The Best Intentions (1992) is biographical and shows the early marriage of his parents. The film Sunday's Children (1992) depicts a bicycle journey with his father. In the miniseries Private Confessions (...

26. Jean-Luc Godard

Director | Bande à part

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on December 3, 1930, the second of four children in a bourgeois Franco-Swiss family. His father was a doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from a preeminent family of Swiss bankers. During World War II Godard became a naturalized citizen of ...

27. David Lynch

Writer | Twin Peaks

Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future ...

28. Fritz Lang

Actor | Le mépris

Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1890. His father managed a construction company. His mother, Pauline Schlesinger, was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when Lang was ten. After high school, he enrolled briefly at the Technische Hochschule Wien and then started to train as a painter. ...

29. Clint Eastwood

Actor | Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in ...

30. James Cameron

Writer | Avatar: The Way of Water

James Francis Cameron was born on August 16, 1954 in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States in 1971. The son of an engineer, he majored in physics at California State University before switching to English, and eventually dropping out. He then drove a truck to support his ...

31. Wes Craven

Writer | A Nightmare on Elm Street

Wes Craven has become synonymous with genre bending and innovative horror, challenging audiences with his bold vision.

Wesley Earl Craven was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Caroline (Miller) and Paul Eugene Craven. He had a midwestern suburban upbringing. His first feature film was The Last House on ...

32. Federico Fellini

Writer | Le notti di Cabiria

The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the ...

33. Dario Argento

Writer | Profondo rosso

Dario Argento was born on September 7, 1940, in Rome, Italy, the first-born son of famed Italian producer Salvatore Argento and Brazilian fashion model Elda Luxardo. Argento recalls getting his ideas for filmmaking from his close-knit family from Italian folk tales told by his parents and other ...

34. David Cronenberg

Actor | The Fly

David Cronenberg, also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early...

35. Spike Lee

Director | Do the Right Thing

Spike Lee was born Shelton Jackson Lee on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. Lee came from artistic, education-grounded background; his father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a schoolteacher. He attended ...

36. Terrence Malick

Writer | Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick was born in Ottawa, Illinois. His family subsequently lived in Oklahoma and he went to school in Austin, Texas. He did his undergraduate work at Harvard, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in philosophy in 1965.

A member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, he attended Magdalen ...

37. George Lucas

Writer | Star Wars

George Walton Lucas, Jr. was raised on a walnut ranch in Modesto, California. His father was a stationery store owner and he had three siblings. During his late teen years, he went to Thomas Downey High School and was very much interested in drag racing. He planned to become a professional racecar ...

THX 1138 a for its time technical Master Piece, if you watch it on Blu Ray today you won't recognise it's over 43 Years old. And of course Star Wars (i don't need to get in detail here)

38. William Friedkin

Director | To Live and Die in L.A.

Friedkin's mother was an operating room nurse. His father was a merchant seaman, semi-pro softball player and ultimately sold clothes in a men's discount chain. Ultimately, his father never earned more than $50/week in his whole life and died indigent. Eventually young Will became infatuated with ...

39. Wolfgang Petersen

Director | Das Boot

A controversial film maker, Wolfgang Petersen has at once been lauded for his professionalism and attention to detail and decried for turning out a string of standard commercial Hollywood blockbusters. The son of a naval officer, Petersen held a lifelong fascination with the sea and naval subjects....

Has made The Best War U-Boot (Submarine) Movie ever, many attempts by other directors to copy or even try to do something new but failed.

40. George A. Romero

Writer | Land of the Dead

George A. Romero never set out to become a Hollywood figure; by all indications, though, he was very successful. The director of the groundbreaking "Living Dead" films was born February 4, 1940 ,in New York City to Ann (Dvorsky) and Jorge Romero. His father was born in Spain and raised in Cuba, and...

Has made some of the best Horror, Zombie Movies of all time. Nearly every single film he has made are copied, payd homage to, or just simply remade. The Best Zombie Film ever made is Dawn of the Dead that what a surpirse got a remake that is also pretty entertaining, but if you look past the age (Effects Budget e.t.c) of the Original you'l see that it is far superiour then the remake and sadly to this day not reached.

41. Franklin J. Schaffner

Director | Planet of the Apes

Franklin J. Schaffner was one of the most innovative creative minds in the early days of American network television, utilizing a moving camera in the days when most television directors kept the camera static. His eye for visuals was developed in the dozens of live television programs he directed ...

42. Robert Redford

Actor | The Natural

Born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford, an accountant for Standard Oil, and Martha Redford, Charles Robert Redford, Jr. was a scrappy kid who stole hubcaps in high school and lost his college baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of ...

43. Alan Smithee

Director | Eternally Twilight: An AI's Guide to the Twilight Saga

'Alan Smithee' is a common pseudonym for directors whose film was clearly taken away from her/him and recut heavily against her/his wishes in ways that completely altered the film.

The Directors Guild contract generally does not permit a director to remove her/his name from films. The Directors ...

44. John Woo

Director | Ying hung boon sik

Born in southern China, John Woo grew up in Hong Kong, where he began his film career as an assistant director in 1969, working for Shaw Brothers Studios. He directed his first feature in 1973 and has been a prolific director ever since, working in a wide variety of genres before A Better Tomorrow ...

45. Sydney Pollack

Director | Tootsie

Sydney Pollack was an Academy Award-winning director, producer, actor, writer and public figure, who directed and produced over 40 films.

Sydney Irwin Pollack was born July 1, 1934 in Lafayette, Indiana, USA, to Rebecca (Miller), a homemaker, and David Pollack, a professional boxer turned pharmacist...

46. John Cassavetes

Actor | Rosemary's Baby

John Cassavetes was a Greek-American actor, film director, and screenwriter. He is considered a pioneer of American independent film, as he often financed his own films.

Cassavetes was born in New York City in 1929 to Nicholas John Cassavetes (1893-1979) and his wife, Katherine Demetre (1906-1983). ...

47. Lucio Fulci

Writer | Lo squartatore di New York

Lucio Fulci, born in Rome in 1927, remains as controversial in death as he was in life. A gifted craftsman with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of dark humor, Fulci achieved some measure of notoriety for his gore epics of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but respect was long in coming.

Abandoning ...

48. Alan Smithee