Directors
by diomoraes | created - 11 months ago | updated - 20 hours ago | Public
1. Charles Burnett
Director | Killer of Sheep
Born in Vicksburg, Mississippi on April 13, 1944, Charles Burnett moved with his family to the Watts area of Los Angeles at an early age. He describes the community of having a robust mythical connection with the South as a result of having so many Southern transplants, an atmosphere which has ...
2. 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 ...
3. Marie Kreutzer
Director | Corsage
Marie Kreutzer was born on December 4, 1977 in Graz, Styria, Austria. She is a director and writer, known for Corsage (2022), The Ground Beneath My Feet (2019) and The Fatherless (2011).
4. Jim Jarmusch
Director | Paterson
Moved to New York City at the age of seventeen from Akron, Ohio. Graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in English, class of '75. Without any prior film experience, he was accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts, New York.
5. Melvin Van Peebles
Actor | The Shining
Melvin Van Peebles was born on August 21, 1932 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Shining (1997), Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) and Don't Play Us Cheap (1972). He was married to Maria Marx. He died on September 21, 2021 in Manhattan, New York City, New ...
6. Kevin Macdonald
Director | The Last King of Scotland
Kevin Macdonald was born on October 28, 1967 in Glasgow, Scotland, UK. He is a director and producer, known for The Last King of Scotland (2006), The Mauritanian (2021) and How I Live Now (2013). He has been married to Tatiana Macdonald since July 2, 1999. They have three children.
7. Lee Daniels
Producer | Precious
Lee Daniels gave his parents an early Christmas present when he entered the world on December 24, 1959; unfortunately, the Philadelphia native was to have a difficult relationship with his police officer father who later reacted violently to his son's sexuality. Despite the brutality of his ...
8. Shola Lynch
Producer | Free Angela and All Political Prisoners
Shola Lynch is known for Free Angela and All Political Prisoners (2012), Chisholm '72: Unbought & Unbossed (2004) and Untitled Yusuf D Jackson/Yucaipa Companies Project. She has been married to Vincent Morgan since September 1, 2006.
9. Agnès Varda
Director | Cléo de 5 à 7
Agnès Varda was born on May 30, 1928 in Ixelles, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985) and Faces Places (2017). She was married to Jacques Demy. She died on March 29, 2019 in Paris, France.
10. Ava DuVernay
Writer | Queen Sugar
A director, producer, writer, marketer and film distributor, Ava DuVernay made her feature film debut with the documentary This is the Life (2008), a history on hip hop movement that flourished in Los Angeles in the 1990's. This was followed by series of television music documentaries which ...
11. Spike Jonze
Producer | Her
Spike Jonze made up one-third (along with Andy Jenkins and Mark Lewman) of the triumvirate of genius minds behind Dirt Magazine, the brother publication of the much lamented ground-breaking Sassy Magazine. These three uncommon characters were all editors for Grand Royal Magazine as well, under the ...
12. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Writer | Gabbeh
Mohsen Makhmalbaf is known as one of the most influential filmmakers and founders of the new wave of Iranian cinema in the world today.
Many of his films like Salam Cinema, A Moment Of Innocence, Gabbeh, Kandahar and The President have been widely well received across the globe and have brought him ...
13. Cédric Ido
Writer | La gravité
Cédric Ido was born on October 22, 1980 in Paris, France. He is an actor and writer, known for The Gravity (2022), Twaaga (2013) and Oussekine (2022).
14. Mike Mills
Director | Beginners
Mike Mills was born in 1966, Berkeley, California. He graduated from Cooper Union, 1989.
He works as a filmmaker, graphic designer and artist. As a filmmaker, Mike has completed a number of music videos, commercials, short films, documentaries, and the feature film Thumbsucker (2005). Architecture ...
15. Aki Kaurismäki
Producer | Le Havre
Aki Kaurismäki did a wide variety of jobs including postman, dish-washer and film critic, before forming a production and distribution company, Villealfa (in homage to Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965)) with his older brother Mika Kaurismäki, also a film-maker. Both Aki and Mika are prolific ...
16. Lars von Trier
Writer | Dancer in the Dark
Probably the most ambitious and visually distinctive filmmaker to emerge from Denmark since Carl Theodor Dreyer over 60 years earlier, Lars von Trier studied film at the Danish Film School and attracted international attention with his very first feature, The Element of Crime (1984). A highly ...
17. M. Night Shyamalan
Producer | Lady in the Water
Born in Puducherry, India, and raised in the posh suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, M. Night Shyamalan is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor, known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots.
He is the son of Jayalakshmi, a Tamil ...
18. Roberto Manhães Reis
Director | Nipo Brasil - O Jeito Japonês de Ser Brasileiro
Roberto Manhães Reis is known for Nipo Brasil - O Jeito Japonês de Ser Brasileiro (2005), Gilda Brasileiro = Against Oblivion (2018) and Ich bin Louisa Jules (2013).
19. Julian Schnabel
Director | Before Night Falls
Julian Schnabel was born on October 26, 1951 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is a director and writer, known for Before Night Falls (2000), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) and At Eternity's Gate (2018). He was previously married to Olatz López Garmendia and Jacqueline Schnabel.
20. Hideo Sekigawa
Director | Hyoryû shitaî
Hideo Sekigawa was born on December 1, 1908 in Sado, Niigata, Japan. He was a director and writer, known for Hyoryû shitaî (1959), Shonen tanteidan: Kabutomushi no yoki (1957) and Atarashii Pekin (1957). He died on December 16, 1977.
21. Justine Triet
Director | Anatomie d'une chute
Justine Triet is a graduate from the Paris National School of Fine Arts. Since then, she has directed a couple of films dealing with the place of the individual within a group: Sur place (2007) was shot right in the middle of the 2006 student protest; Solférino (2009) was filmed during the ...
22. Michelangelo Antonioni
Writer | Blow-Up
Together with Fellini, Bergman and Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni is credited with defining the modern art film. And yet Antonioni's cinema is also recognized today for defying any easy categorization, with his films ultimately seeming to belong to their own distinctive genre. Indeed, the ...
23. Celine Song
Writer | Past Lives
Celine Song was born in 1988 in South Korea. She is a writer and director, known for Past Lives (2023), The Wheel of Time (2021) and Working in the Theatre (1976). She has been married to Justin Kuritzkes since June 11, 2016.
24. Ken Loach
Director | I, Daniel Blake
Unlike virtually all his contemporaries, Ken Loach has never succumbed to the siren call of Hollywood, and it's virtually impossible to imagine his particular brand of British socialist realism translating well to that context.
After studying law at St. Peter's College, Oxford, he branched out into ...
25. Mohamed Henedi
Actor | Ismailia Rayeh Gay
Mohamed Henedi was born on February 1, 1965 in Egypt. He is an actor, known for Ismailia Rayeh Gay (1997), Prince of the Seas (2009) and El-Batal (1998). He has been married to Abeer Al-Sari Mudif Al-Asaad since November 18, 1999. They have three children.
26. Mohamed Hamidi
Writer | La vache
Mohamed Hamidi is known for One Man and His Cow (2016), New Biz in the Hood (2019) and Queens of the Field (2019).
27. Asghar Farhadi
Writer | Forooshande
Asghar Farhadi was born in 1972 in Iran. He became interested in cinema in his teenage years and started his filmmaking education by joining the Youth Cinema Society of Esfahan in 1986 where he made 8mm and 16mm short films. He received his Bachelors in Theater from University of Tehran's School of...
28. Katsuhiro Ôtomo
Writer | Akira
Katsuhiro Ôtomo is a Japanese manga artist, screenwriter and film director. He is best known as the creator of the manga Akira and its animated film adaptation.
In 1979, after writing multiple short-stories for the magazine Action, Otomo created his first science-fiction work, titled Fireball. ...
29. Mia Hansen-Løve
Director | L'avenir
Cinema came into Mia Hansen-Løve's life when she was seventeen, as Olivier Assayas made her start as an actress in Late August, Early September (1998). Two years later, he gave her the part of "Aline" in his Les Destinées (2000). Their artistic collaboration was coupled by a union in real ...
30. Jessica Hausner
Director | Little Joe
Jessica Hausner was born on October 6, 1972 in Vienna, Austria. She is a director and writer, known for Little Joe (2019), Lourdes (2009) and Amour Fou (2014).
31. Wayne Wang
Director | Smoke
Wayne Wang is a key figure in the development of independent filmmaking, alternating major Hollywood studio films such as »The Joy Luck Club« with smaller, independent work like »Smoke«. Continuing to work in the two different worlds, Wang directed an independent digital film, »The Center of the ...
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