Greatest Director of All Time?

Billy Wilder

George Cukor

Otto Preminger

Michael Curtiz

William Wyler

Antonio Saboto Jr.

Shame on you, OP, for including Spielberg but not Fellini

Martin Scorsese is winning? How middlebrow. I'd say:

1: Akira Kurosawa

2: Orson Welles

How is Scorsese in the lead?

Kubrick - every movie is a feast for the eyes, the ears, and the mind. I just wish he had made a few more.

R1, your choices are right on the money. I never understood the love for Lean and Kubrick. Their films are boring, pretentious and ponderous.

I’d put Fincher on the list instead of Nolan.

And I’d add Paul Thomas Anderson as a choice.

Kurosawa

Hitchcock

Jean Renoir

Ingmar Bergman

Bresson

Fassbinder

Tarkovsky

Akerman

Tsai

Ozu (By a mile)

Bergman

Fellini

Tarkovsky

Kurosawa

Bresson (au hasard Balthazar alone puts him on any shortlist)

Buñuel

Jacques Demy (doesn’t REALLY belong, but his films are so joyous, it’s hard not to recognize him)

Yasujirō Ozu

Robert Bresson

Agnes Varda

Jane Campion

Maya Deren

Georges Méliès

Orson got some incredible performances on film (several are his own). I'm voting for him also for missed opportunities.

Some worthies not in the poll:

Sjostrom Lubitsch Murnau Mauritz Stiller Truffaut

^^^ Don't know why the software put them all on one line.

Dottie Arzner

Chi Chi Larue

William Higgins

John Travis

Kurosawa and Fellini

Hitchcock, he transcended eras.

Blah Blah Blah

Laundry List

Shopping List

No-Criteria List

List Because I say So!

No Robert Altman?

R22, you forgot John List.

You forgot Tommy Wiseau.

I love everything Almodovar.

I love everything Antony Asquith,

Cinema wouldn't be where it is today without Fritz Lang.

The world wouldn't exist today without Sergei Eisenstein.

Ang Lee

“ Lee has been nominated for nine Academy Awards, of which he has won three: Best Foreign Language Film for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Best Director for Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi, becoming the first non-white director to win the latter. For The Wedding Banquet and Sense and Sensibility, Lee won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival; for Brokeback Mountain and Lust Caution, he won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Lee is one of four directors to win the Golden Lion twice and the sole filmmaker to have been awarded the Golden Bear twice. Lee has also been awarded Directors Guild of America Awards, Golden Globes and British Academy Film Awards, among others, and is the recipient of the Order of Brilliant Star, the second highest civilian honor bestowed by the government of Taiwan.”

Byan Singer.

Your list is missing John Ford, OP

Your list is missing the transvestite directors!

Literal Violence!

Charles Chaplin

Billy Wilder is by far the best director of all time — comedy, drama, farce, romance—he could do and did do everything.

So many of my favorites are missing...

The already commented John Ford, Pedro Almodovar, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Altman, Charlie Chaplin, Billy Wilder and Jean Renoir are all close to the top of my list.

The ones on your list I agree with in spirit are Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchock and Stanley Kubrick. I love Martin Scorsese, but I don't know if he's one of the capital "G" greats - he's for sure in the upper echelon.

I'd also add pre-1968 Jean-Luc Godard before I'd say any other New Wave director (though I might agree with Truffaut and Rohmer and the terribly underrated Melville. Also, I feel the same about Demy/Renais/Varda as I do Scorsese). He made BREATHLESS, which pretty much birthed "modern" cinema. That alone cements him forever, but his other films of the early period are glorious - Contempt, Pierrot le Fou, Bande a Part, Alphaville, Une Femme est Une Femme, Vivre Sa Vie, Masculin Feminin.....just unbelievably influential on everything that followed.

Along with Godard, I'd also make a case for Luchino Visconti, Jean Cocteau, David Lynch, Wong Kar-Wai, Howard Hawks, John Waters, John Cassavetes, Abbas Kiarostami, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

There were really so many impactful directors in the 20th century. Where has all the genius gone? Modern directors I can see achieving genius status are Paul Thomas Anderson, Francois Ozon, Wes Anderson, Robert Eggers, Jane Campion, Lars von Trier, Hong Sang-soo and Claire Denis.

You MUST include this spasmodically-clever duo!

Bergman absolutely. But why isn't my fave Sergey Eizenstein on the list?

This thread is reminding me of all the magnificent film directors and I don’t think I can pick one to “be best”.

I’d say Ang Lee

I'm waiting for the OP to start a new thread 'entitled 'Who is The Greatest Homosexual of All Time?'.

R40 The answer is obviously Sir John Gielgud

No love for John Derek?

R40 The answer is probably Tennessee Williams.

No, R42, he was insufficiently homosexual for R40 and R41.

Polanski should be on the list.

[quote] Polanski should be on the list.

The list is stupid. This list is here to troll us.

No mention of Coppola?