50 Movie Directors Selected By Ian Freer

Added on by C. Maoxian.

In 2009 Ian Freer wrote a book called Movie Makers: 50 Iconic Directors. He organized them by birth date, which is exactly how I would have done it, but he included a few directors I would have left out. Anyway, here’s his list. I’ve included a must-see movie from the director if I know of one:

  1. D.W. Griffith (born 1875)

  2. Cecil B. DeMille (born 1881)

  3. Michael Curtiz (born 1886)

  4. Charlie Chaplin (born 1889) — all until 1940

  5. Fritz Lang (born 1890) — M

  6. John Ford (born 1894) — Stagecoach

  7. Jean Renoir (born 1894)

  8. Josef von Sternberg (born 1894) — The Blue Angel

  9. Howard Hawks (born 1896)

  10. Frank Capra (born 1897)

  11. Sergei Eisenstein (born 1898)

  12. George Cukor (born 1899)

  13. Alfred Hitchcock (born 1899) — The 39 Steps, many more

  14. Luis Bunuel (born 1900) — Simon of the Desert

  15. Walt Disney (born 1901) — The Jungle Book

  16. William Wyler (born 1902) — Roman Holiday

  17. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (born 1905, 1902)

  18. John Huston (born 1906) — The Asphalt Jungle

  19. Roberto Rossellini (born 1906) — Germany Year Zero

  20. Billy Wilder (born 1906) — Some Like It Hot

  21. David Lean (born 1908)

  22. Elia Kazan (born 1909)

  23. Akira Kurosawa (born 1910)

  24. Orson Welles (born 1915)

  25. Ingmar Bergman (born 1918) — Sawdust and Tinsel

  26. Federico Fellini (born 1920)

  27. Satyajit Ray (born 1921)

  28. Robert Altman (born 1925) — Nashville

  29. Sam Peckinpah (born 1925)

  30. Stanley Kubrick (born 1928) — Dr. Strangelove, many more

  31. Sergio Leone (born 1929)

  32. Jean-Luc Godard (born 1930) — Breathless

  33. Francois Truffaut (born 1932) — Soft Skin

  34. Roman Polanski (born 1933) — Chinatown

  35. Woody Allen (born 1935) — Hannah and Her Sisters, many more

  36. Ridley Scott (born 1937) — Blade Runner

  37. Francis Ford Coppola (born 1939) — The Godfather

  38. Bernardo Bertolucci (born 1940)

  39. Krzysztof Kieslowski (born 1941) — Three Colors series

  40. Werner Herzog (born 1942)

  41. Martin Scorsese (born 1942) — Taxi Driver

  42. George Lucas (born 1944) — THX 1138, Star Wars series

  43. David Lynch (born 1946) — Eraserhead

  44. Steven Spielberg (born 1946) — Duel

  45. Pedro Almodovar (born 1949)

  46. Joel and Ethan Coen (born 1954, 1957) — Blood Simple, many more

  47. Spike Lee (born 1957)

  48. Tim Burton (born 1958) — Pee-wee's Big Adventure

  49. Peter Jackson (born 1961) — The Lord of the Rings series

  50. Quentin Tarantino (born 1963)