Best 'James Bond' Director

Samuel Alexander Mendes was born on August 1, 1965 in Reading, England, UK to parents James Peter Mendes, a retired university lecturer, and Valerie Helene Mendes, an author who writes children's books. Their marriage didn't last long, James divorced Sam's mother in 1970 when Sam was just 5-years-old. Sam was educated at Cambridge University and joined the Chichester Festival Theatre following his graduation in 1987. Afterwards, he directed Judi Dench in "The Cherry Orchard", for which he won a Critics Circle Award for Best Newcomer. He then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he directed such productions as "Troilus and Cressida" with Ralph Fiennes and "Richard III". In 1992, he became artistic director of the reopened Donmar Warehouse in London, where he directed such productions as "The Glass Menagerie" and the revival of the musical "Cabaret", which earned four Tony Awards including one for Best Revival of a Musical. He also directed "The Blue Room" starring Nicole Kidman. In 1999, he got the chance to direct his first feature film, American Beauty (1999). The movie earned 5 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for Mendes, which is a rare feat for a first-time film director.

Martin Campbell knows how to entertain an audience when he steps behind the camera. When he directed The Mask of Zorro (1998), the movie earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations and launched the international careers of Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Next, when he helmed Vertical Limit (2000), the film was well received by the critics and earned over $200 million in worldwide box-office sales. In addition, Campbell is credited with rejuvenating the James Bond franchise when he directed GoldenEye (1995), Pierce Brosnan's first outing as the famed British spy, which went on to gross more than $350 million. He also directed Daniel Craig's debut Bond feature as well, Casino Royale (2006).

Born in New Zealand, Campbell moved to London where he began his career as a cameraman. He went on to produce the controversial British feature Scum (1979), as well as Black Joy (1977), which was selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Campbell made his directorial debut on the British police action series The Professionals (1977) and continued with the popular BBC series Shoestring (1979) and Thames TV's Minder (1979)

Considered one of the U.K.'s top directors by the mid-'80s, he directed the highly praised British telefilm, Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983). For his work on Edge of Darkness (1985), a five-hour BBC miniseries about nuclear contamination in England that depicted murder and high-ranking corruption, he won six BAFTA awards.

Campbell's first Hollywood movie was Criminal Law (1998) and he went on to direct Defenseless (1991) and No Escape (1994). Some of his American credits include directing HBO's Cast a Deadly Spell (1991) and two episodes of NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street (1993), among others. He also directed the epic romance Beyond Borders (2003) starring Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen.

Marc Forster is a German-born filmmaker and screenwriter. He is best known for directing the films Monster's Ball (2001), Finding Neverland (2004), Stay (2005), Stranger than Fiction (2006), The Kite Runner (2007), Quantum of Solace (2008), and World War Z (2013).

His breakthrough film was Monster's Ball (2001), in which he directed Halle Berry in her Academy Award-winning performance, the film also starred Billy Bob Thornton, Heath Ledger, and Peter Boyle. His next film, Finding Neverland (2004), was based on the life of author J.M. Barrie. The film was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards and seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Johnny Depp.

Forster also directed the twenty-second James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. In 2013 he directed the film adaptation of the novel World War Z, starring Brad Pitt.

Michael Apted was born on 10 February 1941 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, UK. He was a director and producer, known for Amazing Grace (2006), Rome (2005) and Gorillas in the Mist (1988). He was married to Paige Simpson, Dana Stevens and Jo Apted. He died on 7 January 2021 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Beginning as a commercial artist and photographer, he joined the New Zealand film industry in the late 1970s as a boom operator. He became an assistant director a decade later. Making international award-winning commercials for 10 years, he has also directed several TV series. His first feature film, Once Were Warriors (1994), won the PEN First Book Award.

He started on the Shepperton Studios cutting rooms in 1948 working on such as 'The Wooden Horse' and 'The Third Man' before moving to Nettlefold Studios where his stay was interrupted by two years National Service after which he joined Group 3 at Beaconsfield . His next move was becoming sound editor at Shepperton then film editor on television documentaries and filmed such series as 'Danger Man' on which he directed some action sequences. After some years he became supervising editor and director on various television series. Ditrector Peter Hunt invited him to be editor and second unit director on the film 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' repeating the duties on ''The Wild Geese' and 'The Sea Wolves' after which Albert Broccoli invited him to direct 'For Your Eyes Only'

Roger Spottiswoode was born on 5 January 1945 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He is a director and producer, known for 48 Hrs. (1982), The 6th Day (2000) and Shoot to Kill (1988). He was previously married to Holly Palance.

Born in Shanghai and Cambridge-educated, Terence Young began in the industry as a scriptwriter. In the 1940s he worked on a variety of subjects, including the hugely popular wartime romance Suicide Squadron (1941), set to Richard Addinsell's rousing "Warsaw Concerto". His original story was devised while listening to a concert in an army training camp. As it turned out, Young was soon after involved in the war himself, as a member of the Guards.

By the end of the decade Young had graduated to directing. He made his debut with the psychological melodrama Corridor of Mirrors (1948), starring Eric Portman as a reclusive art collector obsessed with reincarnation and murder. During the following decade Young helmed a number of international co-productions, which featured imported stars from Hollywood (Alan Ladd in Paratrooper (1953); Olivia de Havilland in That Lady (1955); Victor Mature in Safari (1956), Zarak (1956) and Tank Force (1958)). These films were made by Warwick, an independent production company created jointly by Irwin Allen and future James Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli, and released through Columbia. Production values were often quite high, though scripts were of variable quality. "Safari", for instance, looked great, shot in Technicolor and CinemaScope on location in Africa, which partly compensated for the trite storyline.

Having acquired the rights to all available James Bond novels from Ian Fleming, producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli secured the necessary funding ($1,250,000) from United Artists and hired Young to direct the initial Bond entry, Dr. No (1962). That film's success got him re-hired to direct two subsequent Bond films, From Russia with Love (1963) (Young's own personal favorite) and Thunderball (1965). Young had acquired a solid reputation as a master of action subjects, and all three films move at a cracking pace. Exotic locales provide the background for a seamless mix of technical wizardry, sex, violence and tongue-in-cheek (sometimes campy) dialogue. Unfortunately, these films also marked the high point of Young's career, though he did direct another eerily effective psychological thriller, Wait Until Dark (1967), much in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock.

Among a brace of forgettable European co-productions, only two other films stand out: the bawdy, highly entertaining all-star period comedy The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965) and an intriguing expose of the inner workings--and dark beginnings--of the Cosa Nostra (based on an actual informant's testimony), entitled The Valachi Papers (1972). After that, Young's output became more patchy and his later career suffered as a result of two disastrous projects: first, the Korean War epic Inchon (1981), with Laurence Olivier badly miscast as Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The enterprise was reputedly financed by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's organization--aka the "Moonies"--to the tune of $40 million. Film critic Vincent Canby in the New York Times (September 17, 1982) referred to the picture as "hysterical" and "foolish", "the most expensive B-movie ever made". The second flop, a financially troubled production, was the predictably plotted spy thriller The Jigsaw Man (1983). Completed in 1982, the film was held back and not released until two years later. Young directed just one more film after that and left the industry in 1988. However, according to his daughter, he was working on a documentary in Cannes at the time of his death in September 1994. Though he went on record in 1966, asserting that he had grown rather tired of the Bond franchise, it is, nonetheless, that for which we will ultimately remember him.

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. Growing up, he became enthralled with French cinema (and, particularly, with the films of Jean Renoir). This instilled in him a burning ambition to become a director himself. In 1939 Hamilton got his first job as a clapper boy with Victorine Studios in Nice (now known as Studios Riviera). He worked his way up the hard way via the accounting department and as a producer's assistant. At the outbreak of World War II, British personnel were evacuated from France and Hamilton found work in the cutting room of British Paramount News which provided him with an excellent background in editing (albeit briefly--his career was soon interrupted by wartime duties in the Royal Navy with the 15th Motor Gunboat Flotilla).

After the war, Hamilton got back into the movie business as a third assistant director (an experience he later described as amounting -- more or less -- to be a "gofer" and tea boy for the first assistant director). His big break eventually arrived courtesy of Carol Reed who took him under his wing as first assistant director for The Fallen Idol (1948). Reed became his mentor and a kind of father figure and exerted a profound influence on the budding filmmaker. Hamilton went on to work with Reed on The Third Man (1949) and Outcast of the Islands (1951)). For John Huston, he then served in the same capacity on The African Queen (1951) (one of his duties included building a pontoon made up of four or five pirogues to provide room for the cameras, as the "Queen" was too cramped to film on).

Hamilton's first film as director in his own right was The Ringer (1952), a minor thriller based on an Edgar Wallace story. He established himself properly with The Colditz Story (1955), a prisoner-of-war drama enlivened by deft humor and a pointedly "British" style. In the 1960s, his acquaintance with Albert R. Broccoli led to his directing four entries in the James Bond franchise (though he had turned down previous offers to helm the opener, Dr. No (1962)): Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). In a later interview, Hamilton recalled that he (and writer Tom Mankiewicz) particularly enjoyed putting Bond into the "snake-pit" in situations of mortal peril, then working out a way to extricate him within 50 seconds. Hamilton's "intellectual" interpretation of Bond, the witty, at times facetious humor --usually in the midst of hair-raising situations-- contributed greatly to the popular and commercial success of these films. While these films established his reputation, much of his later work (Force 10 from Navarone (1978), Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) proved less endearing.

In the mid-1980s, Hamilton retired to the island of Majorca with his second wife, actress Kerima (who had co-starred in "Outcast of the Islands"). He died there on 20 April 2016 at the age of 93.

Lewis Gilbert was a British film director, producer and screenwriter best known for Alfie (1966), as well as three James Bond films: You Only Live Twice (1967), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979).

He also directed Reach for the Sky (1956), Sink the Bismarck! (1960), Educating Rita (1983) and Shirley Valentine (1989).

For his work on Alfie, Gilbert was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture and an Golden Globe for best director.

In 2001 he was made a Fellow of the British Film Institute, the highest accolade in the British film industry.

Gilbert was married to Hylda Tafler for 53 years, until her death in June 2005.

He died from natural causes on 23 February 2018 at the age of 97.

Having started out in the film industry as a clapper boy, by the 40's he was working in the editing department and by the 50's he was an assistant editor then a fully fledged editor. In 1962 as editor on the first James Bond film, Dr No, he helped to create a new fast style which put its mark on action editing. From then on he was associated with all the early Bond films working his way up to second unit director then his directorial debut with 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' in 1969.

Cary Joji Fukunaga is a Japanese-American film director, screenwriter, cinematographer and producer from Oakland, California who is known for directing the James Bond film No Time to Die, Kofi, Beasts of No Nation, Jane Eyre and Sin Nombre. He co-wrote the 2017 film adaptation of the Stephen King book It. He directed several episodes of the television show True Detective.