Hollywood's Best Film Directors (2009–2018) User Reviews

Series 1

[conannz · 7/10 · 2 August 2015]

As others have noted the first few episodes suffer from some bad graphics / style decisions. On the plus side each episode is 25 minutes and features a director answering pretty much the same list of questions each time. Those questions are kept off camera and so the full run time is of the director answering questions.

Ivan Reitman, Francis Ford Coppola, Barry Levinson, Rob Reiner, George Lucas, Brett Ratner, John McTiernan, Michael Mann, Bryan Singer, Milos Forman, John Singleton, Ron Howard, James L Brooks, Paul Greengrass, Martin Campbell, Ridley Scott, Mel Gibson, Jon Favreau, Luc Besson and the Farelly Brothers round out the first 2o episodes of the first season which is all that I've seen.

Firstly the graphics and presentation gets better as the series continues. The quality of the content more than makes up for the presentation.

The episodes I enjoyed the most were the ones from directors I haven't heard much from directly. These were James L Brooks, John Singleton, Luc Besson. Always good to hear from Ridley Scott and George Lucas too. I will look up the rest of the series as a chance to hear directly from the director is always worth the time to watch.

Nice series !

[terrypulver · 10/10 · 4 July 2017]

I love programs about celebrities and cinema. They are usually quite short so it's nice to be able to finally watch a long and full interview, well-structured and illustrated with behind the scene and red carpet shots.

I also appreciate the fact that the director talk about his movies and also films from others that inspire him. I was surprised to hear that Farrely Bro's favorite movie is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it is my favorite movie too !

Great directors for a great show

[coraliealda · 10/10 · 27 June 2017]

I love this show. The directors are so interesting, we learn about their beginnings, their inspirations, their fun facts. My favorite episodes are M. Night Shyamalan and Ron Howard, they're so friendly, funny and cool. I like that the episodes are 26 minutes long, it's long enough too have a real content and get to know them a little bit better. I'm looking forward to new episodes ! I could only manage to watch 15 of them on Sundance Channel, I hope they will broadcast soon Luc Besson, he's my favorite director !

The film content is great but the graphics and presentation is awful.

[mikewestcoast · 1/10 · 10 April 2015]

First let me say I love many types of movies, including black and white movies as well as watching "The Making Of", out-takes and movie documentaries. So, when I first discovered this documentary, I was very happy to begin to watch this TV series.

It is April 10, 2015 as I type this review because I found this documentary today on Netflex and starting watching it. (On this day, the first season only, is on Netflex.) According to Netflex, the first season has 20 episodes. The content of the interviews are fantastic. The directors I watched were very calm, as well as open and honest about their careers as directors. It was quite fantastic hearing them talk about their movies, the people they met and their life experiences.

However, I could only bear to watch 6 episodes. The opening graphics and other graphics in this documentary looked like something an administrative assistant or high school student, with no graphic design training what-so-ever, would do. Most of the filming had a box in the center of the frame which was in focus and the outside perimeter of the box was out-of-focus. At certain points, they would reduce the video of the director talking, to the left side of the frame, and then show another picture(s) or video (of a theater, film school or place where the director had been early in his career) on the right side of the frame and all pictures would be extremely small at this point. Having multiple small photos or videos running at the same time made it almost impossible to see what they were trying to show.

This documentary is too difficult on the eyes because of the horrible way which the unqualified person put together this film. What a sad tribute to the great Hollywood directors who took the time to be in this documentary, only to be framed in an ugly and aggravatingly graphically designed film.

Very good !

[marshgrey · 10/10 · 30 June 2017]

Nice series. Long list of great director, relevant chapters and good editing. The interviews are well done and the directors seem comfortable and happy to talk about their work. It's nice to see passionate people like this. The episode are 26 minutes long but I think they could be longer. When I watched the episode with Wes Craven, I really wanted more.

I Saw a Definite Pattern watching this series

[billydoll901-140-517645 · 2/10 · 29 July 2021]

I recently discovered this series on one of the PBS networks and found it very enlightening. I have always found it interesting to hear the thought process that a film director has when they work on a film. But as I watched more episodes I saw a pattern: the complete lack of diversity! I counted only three directors who are POC (John Singleton, John Woo, and M. Night Shyamalan); a few gay openly directors; and not one single female director! Where was Kathryn Bigalow or Mira Nair? Talk about an "old boy club.! Granted some directors prefer (or more importantly are shut out by Hollywood when it comes to funding a film) to work outside of the Hollywood system (Spike Lee, Tyler Perry, Kasi Lemmons, etc.) but that shouldn't exclude them from being interviewed! It's 2021 Hollywood: WAKE UP!

I don't know if this series has ended production for now, but if it should come back, hopefully they will open the door for a more diverse selection of filmmakers. Representation matters! Had I seen an interview with Lee Daniels when I was growing up maybe I would've pursued filmmaking earlier than I did. For the record I should say that I am Black, gay man and got my degree in filmmaking in my 40's.

A Movie about Directing and Editing with Terrible Directing and Editing

[uzukiseed · 3/10 · 16 April 2015]

This series presents some interesting information, but in the most disjointed and confusing way possible. There were some very strange decisions made on the part of the editor and producer of these pieces.

To begin, all of the interviews are presented as a 4:3 box within a blurred vignette. I have no idea why they felt this was necessary, maybe the footage was not up to spec? In addition to the strange framing, there is a musical backtracking accompanying every interview. The music is very odd, for the Rob Reiner interview the backtracking was some type of Bollywood soundtrack, I have no idea why they went that direction. There are so many confusing choices as far as editing and design goes, this piece looks like a poorly made student project. Even the interstitial slides were poorly produced motion graphics pieces. Overall the interviews were good, but the presentation makes this very difficult to watch.

The fact that this show was on for 5 consecutive seasons is very surprising. For a show about the greatest directors, this was very poorly presented.

Misogyny and Hollywood

[fugere-leah · 1/10 · 10 April 2015]

Feel like having your morals totally violated? Watch this series about the 'Best Directors in Hollywood'. Guess what? There are 20 directors featured and guess what else?

NONE OF THEM ARE FEMALE.

This show has been on for FIVE years and it hasn't once featured a female director?

So disturbing.

If you enjoy watching white straight guys talk about how great it is to be a straight white guy, this is probably for you.

IMO this could be regarded as propaganda.