Who is the best filmmaker of all time

Search for projects funded by National Lottery. Apply for British certification and tax relief. Inclusion in the film industry. Find projects backed by the BFI. Read industry research and statistics. Find out about booking film programmes internationally. Famously, Citizen Kane topped our poll every decade from to ….

Given extraordinary freedom by Hollywood studio RKO for his debut film, boy wonder Welles created a modernist masterpiece that is regularly voted the best film ever made.

Federico Fellini triumphantly conjured himself out of a bad case of creative block with this autobiographical magnum opus about a film director experiencing creative block. Andrei Tarkovsky drew on memories of a rural childhood before WWII for this personal, impressionistic and unconventional film poem. The penultimate film by the Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer is a parable on the power of faith, set in a remote religious community.

Newly-weds begin their life together on a working barge in this luminous and poetic romance, the only feature film by director Jean Vigo. Federico Fellini returned for inspiration to his own childhood in s Rimini for this colourful comedy-drama about life in a small seaside town under Fascist rule. Working with his biggest budget to date, Jean-Luc Godard created a sublime widescreen drama about marital breakdown, set during pre-production on a film shoot.

John Ford created perhaps the greatest of all westerns with this tale of a Civil War veteran doggedly hunting the Comanche who have kidnapped his niece. The refined visual style of Italian maestro Michelangelo Antonioni collides with swinging 60s London in this story of a man who may have unwittingly photographed a murder.

Loosely adapted from a novel by Phillip K. He is a director and producer, known for Elephant , Drugstore Cowboy and Paranoid Park Writer Sullivan's Travels. Preston Sturges' own life is as unlikely as some of the plots of his best work. He was born into a wealthy family. As a boy he helped out on stage productions for his mother's friend, Isadora Duncan the scarf that strangled her was made by his mother's company, Maison Desti.

He served in the U. Director Aleksandr Nevskiy. The son of an affluent architect, Eisenstein attended the Institute of Civil Engineering in Petrograd as a young man. With the fall of the tsar in , he worked as an engineer for the Red Army. In the following years, Eisenstein joined up with the Moscow Proletkult Theater as a set designer and Director American Hustle. David Owen Russell is an American film writer, director, and producer, known for a cinema of intense, tragi-comedic characters whose love of life can surpass dark circumstances faced in very specific worlds.

His films address such themes as mental illness as stigma or hope; invention of self and Director The Manchurian Candidate. Born in New York and raised in Queens, John Frankenheimer wanted to become a professional tennis player.

He loved movies and his favorite actor was Robert Mitchum. He decided he wanted to be an actor but then he applied for and was accepted in the Motion Picture Squadron of the Air Force where he Blake Edwards' stepfather's father J. Gordon Edwards was a silent screen director, and his stepfather Jack McEdward was a stage director and movie production manager.

Blake acted in a number films, beginning with Ten Gentlemen from West Point and wrote a number of others, beginning with Director To Be or Not to Be. From Ernst Lubitsch's experiences in Sophien Gymnasium high school theater, he decided to leave school at the age of 16 and pursue a career on the stage.

He had to compromise with his father and keep the account books for the family tailor business while he acted in cabarets and music halls at Director The Silence of the Lambs. He was married to Joanne Howard and Evelyn Purcell. He died Producer Biutiful. He is also the first Mexican-born Producer Their marriage didn't last long, James divorced Sam's mother in when Sam was just Writer El laberinto del fauno. Raised by his Catholic grandmother, del Toro developed an interest in filmmaking in his early teens.

Later, he learned about makeup and effects from the legendary Dick Smith The Exorcist and worked on making his Writer All About Eve. He became a dialoguist, then a screenwriter on numerous Paramount Writer Pather Panchali. Satyajit Ray was born in Calcutta on May 2, His father, Late Sukumar Ray was an eminent poet and writer in the history of Bengali literature. In , after receiving his degree in science and economics from Calcutta University, he attended Tagore's Viswa-Bharati University.

His first movie Director Punch-Drunk Love. Anderson was born in He was one of the first of the "video store" generation of film-makers. His father was the first man on his block to own a V. While film-makers like Spielberg cut their teeth making Director Fantastic Mr. Wesley Wales Anderson was born in Houston, Texas.

He has two brothers, Eric and Mel. Anderson's parents divorced when he was a young child, an Writer Gravity. From an early age, he yearned to be either a film director or an astronaut. However, he did not want to enter the army, so he settled for directing. He didn't receive his first camera until his twelfth birthday, and then Director RoboCop.

Paul Verhoeven graduated from the University of Leiden, with a degree in math and physics. He entered the Royal Netherlands Navy, where he began his film career by making documentaries for the Navy and later for TV. Murnau was a German film director. He was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, and became a friend of director Max Reinhardt.

During World War I he served as a company commander at the eastern front and was in the German air Director West Side Story. Longenecker and Earl Waldo Wise, a meat packer. His parents were both of Pennsylvania Dutch German descent. At age nineteen, the avid moviegoer came into the film business through an Director Romeo and Juliet. He died on June 15, in Rome, Lazio, Italy. Director United Paul Greengrass started his filmmaking career with a super 8 camera he found in his art room in secondary school.

Those short movies were animation horror films he made using old dolls, artist dummies, and the general art room clutter. After studying in Cambridge University he got into Granada Director Escape from Alcatraz.

Don Siegel was educated at Cambridge University, England. In Hollywood from the mid-'30s, he began his career as an editor and second unit director. His first feature as a director was Director Ladri di biciclette. Vittorio De Sica grew up in Naples, and started out as an office clerk in order to raise money to support his poor family. He was increasingly drawn towards acting, and made his screen debut while still in his teens, joining a stage company in By the late s he was a successful matinee John Hughes was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter.

He was credited for creating some of the most memorable comedy films of the s and the s, when he was at the height of his career. He had a talent for writing coming-of-age stories, and for depicting fairly realistic Producer El mariachi. His family is of Mexican descent. Of all the people to be amazed by the images of John Carpenter 's sci-fi parable, Escape from New York , none Director Zachary Edward "Zack" Snyder born March 1, is an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter, best known for action and science fiction films.

Snyder made his feature film debut with the remake Dawn of the Dead and has gone on to be known for his comic book movies and Actor Braveheart. His mother was Irish, from County Longford, while his American-born father is Writer Belle de jour. Writer Lady Bird. Greta Gerwig is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and director. She has collaborated with Noah Baumbach on several films, including Greenberg , Frances Ha , for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination, and Mistress America Gerwig made her solo directorial debut Writer Trois couleurs: Bleu.

Before making his first film for TV, Przejscie podziemne The Underground Passage , he made a number of short documentaries. His next TV title, Personnel Sign In. Copy from this list Export Report this list. Sort by: List Order Date Added. 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.

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 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata Billy Wilder Writer The Apartment Originally planning to become a lawyer, Billy Wilder abandoned that career in favor of working as a reporter for a Viennese newspaper, using this experience to move to Berlin, where he worked for the city's largest tabloid.

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. Christopher Nolan Writer Tenet Best known for his cerebral, often nonlinear, storytelling, acclaimed writer-director Christopher Nolan was born on July 30, , in London, England. 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.

Sidney Lumet Director 12 Angry Men Sidney Lumet was a master of cinema, best known for his technical knowledge and his skill at getting first-rate performances from his actors -- and for shooting most of his films in his beloved New York. William Wyler Director The Best Years of Our Lives William Wyler was an American filmmaker who, at the time of his death in , was considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema.

Robert Zemeckis Writer Back to the Future A whiz-kid with special effects, Robert is from the Spielberg camp of film-making Steven Spielberg produced many of his films. John Huston Director The Treasure of the Sierra Madre An eccentric rebel of epic proportions, this Hollywood titan reigned supreme as director, screenwriter and character actor in a career that endured over five decades. David Lean Director Lawrence of Arabia An important British filmmaker, David Lean was born in Croydon on March 25, and brought up in a strict Quaker family ironically, as a child he wasn't allowed to go to the movies.

Michael Curtiz Director Casablanca Curtiz began acting in and then directing films in his native Hungary in Preston Sturges Writer Sullivan's Travels Preston Sturges' own life is as unlikely as some of the plots of his best work.

Sergei M. A movie can be a cinematic hit or a total blow. Sometimes, it all depends on a movie director and their vision. This job is not that easy— they have to show the screenplay from their perspective, guide actors, approve decorations and costumes, and most importantly, make this all work together. The most famous movie directors have a unique vision.

Would you like to know who they are? He is an American director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is known for his realistic action films with strong characters. He is a British film director and producer best known for his suspense and psychological thriller films.

His movies are well-known because of their different themes but also for their clever use of camera movements and innovative editing. He started working as a photographer for Look Magazine before he directed his first short film in His early work includes Paths of Glory and Lolita , which he made in England.

In he released A Space Odyssey, which made him famous worldwide as the greatest science-fiction film director ever. Quentin Tarantino is a movie director, screenwriter, and actor you can see him in his own films.