The Best Directors Ever - 1960s
by dziwnytenswiat | created - 20 Jan 2019 | updated - 1 day ago | PublicPoints from my "The Best Films Ever Made"-Lists. Vol. 1 = 100%, Vol. 2 = 50%, Vol. 3 = 33%, Vol. 4 = 25%, Vol. 5 = 20 %, Vol. 6 = 17%
1. 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 (...
3263 points
2. Satyajit Ray
Writer | Pather Panchali
Satyajit Ray was born in Calcutta on May 2, 1921. His father, Late Sukumar Ray was an eminent poet and writer in the history of Bengali literature. In 1940, after receiving his degree in science and economics from Calcutta University, he attended Tagore's Viswa-Bharati University. His first movie ...
3105 points
3. Stanley Kramer
Producer | Judgment at Nuremberg
Stanley Kramer was born on September 29, 1913 in Hell's Kitchen [now Clinton], Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer and director, known for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and Inherit the Wind (1960). He was married to Karen Sharpe, Anne P. ...
3044 points
4. Vittorio De Sica
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 1923. By the late 1920s he was a successful matinee ...
2912 points
5. 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. He made over 40 movies, often complex and emotional, but seldom overly sentimental. Although ...
2866 points
6. 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 ...
2808 points
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...
2631 points
8. John Frankenheimer
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 ...
2503 points
9. 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. He broke into films as a screenwriter in 1929 and wrote scripts for many ...
2397 points
10. Blake Edwards
Writer | The Pink Panther Strikes Again
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 (1942) and wrote a number of others, beginning with ...
2392 points
11. Masaki Kobayashi
Director | Seppuku
Masaki Kobayashi was born on February 14, 1916 in Hokkaido, Japan. He was a director and writer, known for Harakiri (1962), Samurai Rebellion (1967) and The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961). He died on October 4, 1996 in Tokyo, Japan.
2368 points
12. Luis Buñuel
Writer | Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie
The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education (which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior), and subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the ...
2328 points
13. Bryan Forbes
Actor | The Guns of Navarone
Bryan Forbes was born on July 22, 1926 in Stratford, London, England as John Theobald Clarke. He was an actor, writer, and director, known for The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Whisperers (1967) and Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964). He was married to Nanette Newman and Constance Smith. He died on ...
2309 points
14. 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 ...
2275 points
15. François Truffaut
Writer | La nuit américaine
French director François Truffaut began to assiduously go to the movies at age seven. He was also a great reader but not a good pupil. He left school at 14 and started working. In 1947, aged 15, he founded a film club and met André Bazin, a French critic, who became his protector. Bazin helped the ...
2226 points
16. 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 ...
2169 points
17. 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 ...
2121 points
18. 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 ...
2097 points
19. Yasujirô Ozu
Writer | Tôkyô monogatari
Tokyo-born Yasujiro Ozu was a movie buff from childhood, often playing hooky from school in order to see Hollywood movies in his local theatre. In 1923 he landed a job as a camera assistant at Shochiku Studios in Tokyo. Three years later, he was made an assistant director and directed his first ...
2095 points
20. Robert Aldrich
Director | Emperor of the North Pole
Robert Aldrich entered the film industry in 1941 when he got a job as a production clerk at RKO Radio Pictures. He soon worked his way up to script clerk, then became an assistant director, a production manager and an associate producer. He began writing and directing for TV series in the early ...
1885 points
21. 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 ...
1784 points
22. Luchino Visconti
Writer | Il gattopardo
Born in his ancestral palazzo, situated in the same Milanese square as both the opera house La Scala and the Milan Cathedral, Luchino Visconti (1906 - 1976) was raised under the auspices of aristocratic privilege, theater and Catholicism. This triangulation of monuments would create an equally ...
1770 points
23. Claude Chabrol
Director | Le beau Serge
Claude Chabrol was born on June 24, 1930 in Paris, France. He was a director and writer, known for Le Beau Serge (1958), La Cérémonie (1995) and Story of Women (1988). He was married to Aurore Chabrol, Stéphane Audran and Agnès Goute. He died on September 12, 2010 in Paris, France.
1695 points
24. 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 ...
1671 points
25. Robert Mulligan
Director | To Kill a Mockingbird
Robert Mulligan was born on August 23, 1925 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Summer of '42 (1971) and The Other (1972). He was married to Sandy Levy and Jane Sutherland. He died on December 20, 2008 in Lyme, ...
1644 points
26. Norman Jewison
Director | Jesus Christ Superstar
Norman Jewison was an award-winning, internationally acclaimed filmmaker who produced and directed some of the world's most memorable, entertaining and socially important films, exploring controversial and complicated subjects and giving them a universal accessibility. Some of his most well-known ...
1621 points
27. Mikhail Kalatozov
Director | Letyat zhuravli
Mikhail Kalatozov was born on December 28, 1903 in Tiflis, Russian Empire [now Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia]. He was a director and cinematographer, known for The Cranes Are Flying (1957), True Friends (1954) and Zagovor obrechyonnykh (1950). He died on March 27, 1973 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now ...
1613 points
28. John Schlesinger
Director | Midnight Cowboy
Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger, who was born in London, on February 16, 1926, was the eldest child in a solidly middle-class Jewish family. Berbard Schlesinger, his father, was a pediatrician, and his mother, Winifred, was a musician. He served in the Army in the Far East during World War ...
1613 points
29. Gillo Pontecorvo
Director | La battaglia di Algeri
Gillo Pontecorvo was an Italian filmmaker. He is best known for his 1966 masterpiece, The Battle of Algiers, widely viewed as one of the finest films of its genre: realistic though fictionalized documentary. Its portrayal of the Algerian resistance during the Algerian War uses the neorealist style ...
1587 points
30. Mikio Naruse
Director | Ukigumo
Considered a major figure of Japan's 'golden age of cinema', Mikio Naruse was a filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer who directed 89 films in the period 1930 to 1967. Although Naruse's work is lesser known in the twenty-first century than those of his contemporaries Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi...
1574 points
31. Mario Monicelli
Writer | I compagni
Mario Monicelli was born on May 16, 1915 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a writer and director, known for The Organizer (1963), Speriamo che sia femmina (1986) and Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). He was married to Chiara Rapaccini and Antonella Salerni. He died on November 29, 2010 in Rome, Lazio,...
1553 points
32. Frantisek Vlácil
Director | Marketa Lazarová
Frantisek Vlácil was born on February 19, 1924 in Cesky Tesin, Moravian-Silesian, Czech Republic. He was a director and writer, known for Marketa Lazarová (1967), The Valley of the Bees (1968) and Adelheid (1969). He died on January 28, 1999 in Prague, Czech Republic.
1474 points
33. Richard Brooks
Writer | In Cold Blood
Richard Brooks was an Academy Award-winning film writer who also earned six Oscar nominations and achieved success as a film director and producer.
He was born Reuben Sax on May 18, 1912, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents were Russian-Jewish immigrants. He graduated from West Philadelphia ...
1462 points
34. Andrei Tarkovsky
Writer | Offret
The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which won the...
1392 points
35. Kaneto Shindô
Writer | Ichimai no hagaki
Kaneto Shindô was born on April 22, 1912 in Hiroshima, Japan. He was a writer and director, known for Postcard (2010), The Naked Island (1960) and A Last Note (1995). He was married to Nobuko Otowa and Miyo Shindo. He died on May 29, 2012 in Hiroshima, Japan.
1350 points
36. Karel Kachyna
Director | Ucho
Karel Kachyna was born on May 1, 1924 in Vyskov, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He was a director and writer, known for The Ear (1970), Nadeje (1964) and The High Wall (1964). He was married to Alena Mihulová. He died on March 12, 2004 in Prague, Czech Republic.
1330 points
37. J. Lee Thompson
Director | The Guns of Navarone
J. Lee Thompson was born on August 1, 1914 in Bristol, England, UK. He was a director and writer, known for The Guns of Navarone (1961), Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957) and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972). He was married to Penny Thompson, Florence (Bill) Bailey, Lucille Kelly and Joan ...
1327 points
38. Shôhei Imamura
Director | Kuroi ame
Shohei Imamura's films dig beneath the surface of Japanese society to reveal a wellspring of sensual, often irrational, energy that lies beneath. Along with his colleagues Nagisa Ôshima and Masahiro Shinoda, Imamura began his serious directorial career as a member of the New Wave movement in Japan....
1314 points
39. Elia Kazan
Director | On the Waterfront
Known for his creative stage direction, Elia Kazan was born Elias Kazantzoglou on September 7, 1909 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey). Noted for drawing out the best dramatic performances from his actors, he directed 21 actors to Oscar nominations, resulting in nine wins. He ...
1312 points
40. Jean-Pierre Melville
Writer | Le Samouraï
The name "Melville" is not immediately associated with film. It conjures up images of white whales and crackbrained captains, of naysaying notaries and soup-spilling sailors. It is the countersign to a realm of men and their deeds, both heroic and villainous. It is the American novel, with its ...
1302 points
41. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Writer | Il Decameron
Pier Paolo Pasolini achieved fame and notoriety long before he entered the film industry. A published poet at 19, he had already written numerous novels and essays before his first screenplay in 1954. His first film Accattone (1961) was based on his own novel and its violent depiction of the life ...
1289 points
42. Jack Clayton
Producer | The Innocents
Jack Clayton was born on March 1, 1921 in Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK. He was a producer and director, known for The Innocents (1961), Our Mother's House (1967) and The Great Gatsby (1974). He was married to Haya Harareet, Katherine Kath and Christine Norden. He died on February 26, 1995 in ...
1280 points
43. Mike Nichols
Director | The Graduate
He, along with the other members of the "Compass Players" including Elaine May, Paul Sills, Byrne Piven, Joyce Hiller Piven and Edward Asner helped start the famed "Second City Improv" company. They used the games taught to them by fellow cast mate, Paul Sills 's mother, Viola Spolin. He later ...
1248 points
44. 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.
1220 points
45. 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 ...
1158 points
46. Arthur Penn
Director | Bonnie and Clyde
Arthur Penn was born on September 27, 1922 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Little Big Man (1970) and The Miracle Worker (1962). He was married to Peggy Maurer. He died on September 28, 2010 in Manhattan, New York City, New York,...
1118 points
47. Peter Brook
Director | Lord of the Flies
Born in London, Peter was educated at Westminster, and Magdalen College Oxford. He has staged numerous productions for Birmingham Rep, Stratford Upon Avon and Broadway. In 1962 he was appointed Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a position he held for 2 decades. His most famous stage ...
1116 points
48. Otto Preminger
Actor | Stalag 17
Otto Ludwig Preminger was born in Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary. His father was a prosecutor, and Otto originally intended to follow his father into a law career; however, he fell in love with the theater in his 20's and became one of the most imaginative stage producers and directors. He was ...
1093 points
49. Tony Richardson
Director | Tom Jones
The son of a Shipley chemist he was initially connected with the stage first with the post war Shipley Young Theatre then with the Bradford Civic Theatre where he came into contact with the Bradford born author J B Priestley who recognising his potential commissioned him to write a TV documentary. ...
1051 points
50. William Wyler
Director | The Best Years of Our Lives
William Wyler was an American filmmaker who, at the time of his death in 1981, was considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema. The winner of three Best Director Academy Awards, second again only to Ford's four, Wyler's reputation has unfairly suffered as the...
1045 points
51. 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 ...
1006 points
52. Pietro Germi
Writer | Il ferroviere
Pietro Germi was born on September 14, 1914 in Genoa, Liguria, Italy. He was a writer and director, known for The Railroad Man (1956), Divorce Italian Style (1961) and The Birds, the Bees and the Italians (1966). He was married to Olga D'Aiello and Anna Bancio. He died on December 5, 1974 in Rome, ...
974 points
53. Jacques Demy
Soundtrack | Les parapluies de Cherbourg
Jacques Demy was born on June 5, 1931 in Pontchâteau, Loire-Atlantique, France. He was a director and writer, known for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) and A Room in Town (1982). He was married to Agnès Varda. He died on October 27, 1990 in Paris, France.
971 points
54. Henri Verneuil
Director | I... comme Icare
Henri Verneuil was born on October 15, 1920 in Rodosto, Ottoman Empire [now Tekirdag, Turkey]. He was a director and writer, known for I... For Icarus (1979), The Sheep Has Five Legs (1954) and Mother (1991). He was married to Françoise Bonnot and Véronique Sedro. He died on January 11, 2002 in ...
956 points
55. Robert Bresson
Writer | Au hasard Balthazar
Robert Bresson trained as a painter before moving into films as a screenwriter, making a short film (atypically a comedy), Public Affairs (1934) in 1934. After spending more than a year as a German POW during World War II, he made his debut with Angels of Sin (1943) in 1943. His next film, The ...
943 points
56. Antonio Pietrangeli
Writer | Io la conoscevo bene
Antonio Pietrangeli was born on January 19, 1919 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a writer and director, known for I Knew Her Well (1965), The Visit (1963) and March's Child (1958). He was married to Margherita Ferroni. He died on July 12, 1968 in Gaeta, Lazio, Italy.
939 points
57. Vasilis Georgiadis
Director | Koritsia ston ilio
Vassilis Georgiadis was a Greek director, film producer and actor. Two of Georgiadis's films, "The Red Lanterns" and "Blood on the Land", were nominated by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the final five for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Also in 1970 his film ...
929 points
58. Martin Ritt
Director | Hud
Martin Ritt, one of the best and most sensitive American filmmakers of all time, was a director, actor and playwright who worked in both film and theater. He was born in New York City. His films reflect, like almost none other, a profound and intimate humane vision of his characters.
He originally ...
912 points
59. Wojciech Has
Director | Pozegnania
Born in Kraków, Poland, in 1925. Feature film director. Graduated in 1946 from Cracow Film Institute, also studied painting. From 1947 to 1957 made a number of documentary shorts and educational films. Feature film debut: _The Noose_ (Petla, 1958, co-scr.). Other films: _Farewells_ (Pozegnania, ...
911 points
60. Toshio Matsumoto
Director | Dogura magura
Matsumoto was born in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan and graduated from Tokyo University in 1955. His first short was Ginrin, which he made in 1955. His most famous film is Funeral Parade of Roses, featuring a transvestite trying to move up in the world of Tokyo Hostess clubs. Matsumoto published ...
867 points
61. Sergei Parajanov
Director | Tini zabutykh predkiv
One of the 20th century's greatest masters of cinema Sergei Parajanov was born in Georgia to Armenian parents and it was always unlikely that his work would conform to the strict socialist realism that Soviet authorities preferred. After studying film and music, Parajanov became an assistant ...
842 points
62. Peter Ustinov
Actor | Spartacus
Peter Ustinov was a two-time Academy Award-winning film actor, director, writer, journalist and raconteur. He wrote and directed many acclaimed stage plays and led numerous international theatrical productions.
He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinow on April 16, 1921 in Swiss Cottage, ...
841 points
63. Milos Forman
Director | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Milos Forman was born Jan Tomas Forman in Caslav, Czechoslovakia, to Anna (Svabova), who ran a summer hotel, and Rudolf Forman, a professor. During World War II, his parents were taken away by the Nazis, after being accused of participating in the underground resistance. His father died in ...
839 points
64. Henning Carlsen
Director | Dilemma
Henning Carlsen was born on June 4, 1927 in Aalborg, Denmark. He was a director and writer, known for Dilemma (1962), Hunger (1966) and People Meet and Sweet Music Fills the Heart (1967). He was married to Else Heidary and Hjørdis Wirth Jensen. He died on May 30, 2014 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
833 points
65. Theo Mezger
Director | Raumpatrouille - Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion
Theo Mezger was born on August 10, 1923 in Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Raumpatrouille - Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion (1966), Lawinenpatrouille (1973) and Fernfahrer (1963). He was married to Eva Haefeli and Annette Kraneis-Metzger. He died on July 3, 2023...
833 points
66. Frédéric Rossif
Director | Mourir à Madrid
Frédéric Rossif was born on August 14, 1922 in Cetinje, Montenegro. He was a director and producer, known for To Die in Madrid (1963), Portrait: Orson Welles (1968) and La vie des animaux (1952). He died on April 18, 1990 in Paris, France.
827 points
67. Anselmo Duarte
Writer | O Pagador de Promessas
Duarte left his hometown, at 14, and moved to São Paulo where he started working as a typist in an accounting office. In the early 1940s, after graduating in Economics, he went to Rio de Janeiro, where he had a bit-part on It's All True (1943). He then made some appearances in radio soap operas and...
823 points
68. Metin Erksan
Director | Kuyu
Born in 1929, Metin Erksan is one of the first Turkish filmmakers who saw cinema as an art form apart from a mass entertaining medium. Having studied art history in Istanbul University and being the brother of a little known director named Cetin Karamanbey, Erksan found himself at a very early age ...
822 points
69. Grigoriy Kozintsev
Director | Gamlet
Grigori Mikhailovich Kozintsev was born on March 22, 1905, in Kiev, Russian Empire (now Kiev, Ukraine). His father, named Mikhail Kozintsev, was a medical doctor. Young Kozintsev studied at the Kiev Gymnazium. There, in 1919, he organized experimental theatre "Arlekin" together with his fellow ...
818 points
70. Rezo Chkheidze
Director | Jariskatsis mama
Rezo Chkheidze was born on December 8, 1926 in Kutaisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR [now Imereti, Georgia]. He was a director and writer, known for Father of a Soldier (1964), Nergebi (1972) and Magdana's Donkey (1955). He died on May 3, 2015 in Tbilisi, Georgia.
818 points
71. Claude Lelouch
Director | Un homme et une femme
He started off by making short films for television on which he was producer,screenwriter and cameraman. This was interrupted by military service in the army but only partly as he was put into the army film unit where he made over 100 films. Demobbed in 1960 he used family money for his first ...
818 points
72. Rogelio A. González
Director | La culta dama
Rogelio A. González was born on January 27, 1920 in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. He was a director and writer, known for La culta dama (1957), Los tres García (1947) and El hambre nuestra de cada día (1959). He died on May 22, 1984 in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico.
818 points
73. Aleksandr Askoldov
Director | Komissar
Aleksandr Askoldov was born on July 17, 1932 in Kiev, Ukraine, USSR. He was a director and actor, known for The Commissar (1967), La chasse aux papillons (1992) and Tal cual (1988). He was married to Svetlana. He died on May 21, 2018 in Gothenburg, Sweden.
815 points
74. Robert Stevenson
Director | Mary Poppins
Robert Stevenson was born on March 31, 1905 in Buxton, Derbyshire, England, UK. He was a director and writer, known for Mary Poppins (1964), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Nine Days a Queen (1936). He was married to Ursula Henderson, Frances Holyoke Howard, Anna Lee and Cecilie L Leslie. He ...
814 points
75. Yôji Yamada
Writer | Tasogare Seibei
Yamada Yoji graduated Tokyo University in 1954, the year he joined Shochiku as an assistant director. In 1969, he launched the popular "Tora-san" series, the world's longest theatrical film series. "The Twilight Samurai" (The Twilight Samurai (2002)) marks his 77th film as well as his 41th year as ...
812 points
76. Claude Berri
Writer | Jean de Florette
Claude Berri was born on July 1, 1934 in Paris, France. He was a producer and actor, known for Jean de Florette (1986), Germinal (1993) and The Two of Us (1967). He was married to Sylvie Gautrelet and Anne-Marie Rassam. He died on January 12, 2009 in Paris, France.
810 points
77. Sergey Bondarchuk
Actor | Voyna i mir
Sergei Bondarchuk was one of the most important Russian filmmakers, best known for directing an Academy Award-winning film epic War and Peace (1965), based on the book by Lev Tolstoy, in which he also starred as Pierre Bezukhov.
He was born Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk on September, 25, 1920, in the ...
810 points
78. Ralph Nelson
Director | Lilies of the Field
In 1959, Emmy Award-winning television director Ralph Nelson directed a 90-minute adaptation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet," with John Neville as the Dane, for the DuPont Show of the Month. Nelson himself adapted the 1601 Quatro (the "pirated" version considered corrupt) in order to make a coherent ...
809 points
79. George Roy Hill
Director | The Sting
George Roy Hill was never able to 'hit it off' with the critics despite the fact that 2 of his films - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and The Sting (1973) - had remained among the top 10 box office hits by 1976. His work was frequently derided as 'impersonal' or lacking in stylistic ...
808 points
80. Anthony Harvey
Director | The Lion in Winter
Anthony Harvey was born on June 3, 1930 in London, England, UK. He was an editor and director, known for The Lion in Winter (1968), Dutchman (1966) and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). He died on November 23, 2017 in Southampton, New York, USA.
808 points
81. Basil Dearden
Director | Sapphire
A former stage director, Basil Dearden entered films as an assistant to director Basil Dean (he changed his name from Dear to avoid being confused with Dean). Dearden worked his way up the ladder and directed (with Will Hay) his first film in 1941; two years later he directed his first film on his ...
807 points
82. Ján Kadár
Director | Obchod na korze
Ján Kadár was born on April 1, 1918 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]. He was a director and writer, known for The Shop on Main Street (1965), Smrt si ríká Engelchen (1963) and Obzalovaný (1964). He died on June 1, 1979 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
805 points
83. Elmar Klos
Director | Obchod na korze
Elmar Klos was born on January 26, 1910 in Brünn, Moravia, Austria-Hungary [now Brno, Czech Republic]. He was a director and writer, known for The Shop on Main Street (1965), Smrt si ríká Engelchen (1963) and Obzalovaný (1964). He died on July 19, 1993 in Prague, Czech Republic.
805 points
84. Iosif Kheifits
Director | Deputat Baltiki
Iosif Kheifits was born on December 4, 1905 in Minsk, Russian Empire [now Belarus]. He was a director and writer, known for Baltic Deputy (1937), The Lady with the Dog (1960) and The Rumyantsev Case (1956). He was married to Yanina Zheymo. He died on April 24, 1995 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
803 points
85. Serge Bourguignon
Director | Les dimanches de Ville d'Avray
Serge Bourguignon was born on September 3, 1928 in Maignelay-Montigny, Oise, Picardie, France. He is a director and writer, known for Sundays and Cybèle (1962), Le sourire (1960) and Two Weeks in September (1967).
803 points
86. Michael Cacoyannis
Director | Alexis Zorbas
Michael Cacoyannis was born on June 11, 1922 in Limassol, Cyprus. He was a director and writer, known for Zorba the Greek (1964), Electra (1962) and Eroika (1960). He died on July 25, 2011 in Athens, Greece.
802 points
87. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea
Director | Fresa y chocolate
Cuba's greatest and best-known director, Tomas Gutierrez Alea fell in love with cinema at an early age, began as a documentarian much influenced by Italian neorealism and came into his own as an artist during Fidel Castro's regime. Over the years he has evinced a fondness for both historical and ...
790 points
88. Francesco Rosi
Writer | Cadaveri eccellenti
His father was a shipowner. After school, Rosi initially began studying law, which he soon dropped out to work as a broadcast journalist and book illustrator in Naples. From 1944 to 1945 he worked for "Radio Napoli". In the immediate post-war years, Rosi moved to Rome, where he came into contact ...
789 points
89. Wolfgang Staudte
Director | Ciske de Rat
Wolfgang Staudte was born on October 9, 1906 in Saarbrücken, Germany. He was a director and actor, known for Ciske de Rat (1955), Rotation (1949) and Murderers Among Us (1946). He was married to Angelika Hoffmann, Rita Heidelbach, Ingmar Zeisberg and Renate Praetorius. He died on January 19, 1984 ...
785 points
90. Andrzej Wajda
Director | Katyn
Andrzej Wajda is an Academy Award-winning director. He is the most prominent filmmaker in Poland known for The Promised Land (1975), Man of Iron (1981), and Katyn (2007).
He was Born on March 6, 1926, in Suwalki, Poland. His mother, Aniela Wajda, was a teacher at a Ukrainian school. His father, ...
775 points
91. Bo Widerberg
Director | Ådalen 31
Bo Widerberg was born on June 8, 1930 in Malmö, Skåne län, Sweden. He was a director and writer, known for Adalen 31 (1969), All Things Fair (1995) and Joe Hill (1971). He was married to Vanja Nettelbladt and Ann-Mari Björklund. He died on May 1, 1997 in Ängelholm, Skåne län, Sweden.
766 points
92. Jules Dassin
Director | Du rififi chez les hommes
Jules Dassin was an Academy Award-nominated director, screenwriter and actor best known for his films Rififi (1955), Never on Sunday (1960), and Topkapi (1964).
He was born Julius Samuel Dassin on 18 December 1911, in Middletown, Connecticut, USA. He was one of eight children of Russian-Jewish ...
702 points
93. 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...
694 points
94. Frank Perry
Director | Mommie Dearest
Frank Perry was born on August 21, 1930 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Mommie Dearest (1981), David and Lisa (1962) and Last Summer (1969). He was married to Virginia Brush Ford, Barbara Goldsmith and Eleanor Perry. He died on August 29, 1995 in New York ...
694 points
95. Valerio Zurlini
Writer | Cronaca familiare
Valerio Zurlini was born on March 19, 1926. During his law studies in Rome, he started working in the theatre. In 1943, he joined the Italian resistance. Zurlini became a member of the Italian Communist Party. He filmed short documentaries in the immediate post-war period and in 1954 directed his ...
690 points
96. David Miller
Director | The Story of Esther Costello
David Miller was born on November 28, 1909 in Paterson, New Jersey, USA. He was a director and writer, known for The Story of Esther Costello (1957), Twist of Fate (1954) and Flying Tigers (1942). He was married to Frances Raeburn. He died on April 14, 1992 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
686 points
97. Georges Franju
Director | Les yeux sans visage
Georges Franju is a figure of immense importance in the history of French cinema, not primarily for his films (exceptional though many of these are) but for being the co-founder, with Henri Langlois, of the Cinematheque Française in 1937--France's most famous and important film archive.
He worked ...
680 points
98. 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. The ten-time Oscar-nominated legend was born John Marcellus Huston in Nevada, Missouri, on August 5, 1906. His ancestry was English,...
675 points
99. Ronald Neame
Producer | Great Expectations
A British filmmaker who, over the years, worked as assistant director, cinematographer, producer, writer and ultimately director, Ronald Neame was born on April 23, 1911. His father, Elwin Neame, was a film director and his mother, Ivy Close, was a film star. During the 1920s, he started working at...
675 points
100. Zoltán Fábri
Director | Húsz óra
He was born in 1917 and between the two World War he finished his primary and secondary school. After them he graduated in the College of Fine Arts, which helped him later to be a production-designer. He liked to learn and joined the Academy of Theatre and Film Arts. He bacame a director and actor....
675 points
Tell Your Friends