Filmmaking / Directing : Favorite Director? by Gianna Isabella

Of all time?? Tough tough question Gianna. My top directors currently working today are Nicolas Winding Refn, Christopher Nolan, and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. I love all of their works due to the fact that they know how to turn wonderful stories into wonderful movies. They all have a knack for beautiful composition in their shots, always have the perfect scores, always choose to direct the best stories (or write them) and can turn million dollar movies into beautiful works of art.

So many great directors ... (I too like Brain de Palma Christopher, like you, the only reason I would be able to come up with is that his stuff and his name stays with you) ... Luc Besson because his films are not just left field but brilliantly so. Francois Truffaut, pure classicism. Roman Polanski can always always make something incredibly moving and beautiful out of the most mundane.

Hitchcock was ahead of his time and never really got the respect he deserved until late in his career. He's always been a big influence of mine. But, number one for me is Spielberg!! I grew up watching his films and it's amazing how many hits he's put up on the silver screen just as a director, forget about the hundred or so blockbusters he's produced...amazing!

My favorite directors working today: *Paul Thomas Anderson- because all of his work are completely sublime and definite masterpieces. He has the best filmography of any director today *Steve Mcqueen- Fairly new filmmaker but insanely talented and very excited to see what he does next. Seems like every directorial decision he makes is great *Christopher Nolan- Because of his ambitious ideas, dedication to technical perfection, and he shows that you can make quality films that appeal to the masses *Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu- Because of his emotion and he wears his heart on his sleeve, which I believe is very brave for a director today *Great filmmakers not working today: Hitchcock, Kubrick, Billy Wilder, and Bergman

Scorsese, the Coens...Big thumbs up to Tommy for the Hitchcock reference. Recently spent about a month revisiting all Hitchcock, the UK years, the US years. Brilliant...Extremely underrated.

Richard, totally overlooked Mcqueen. Love how he continues to work with Michael Fassbender. His depiction of Bobby Sands in Hunger was amazing. PTA is also really good. Someone I overlooked for their quirkiness is Wes Anderson. He seems to always take the dry humor to a new level. Love his work. Of course Bergman is amazing too. He was, in my opinion, one of the first (if not the first) director to actually direct his actors away from Theater style acting. He was fantastic!

Richard I share your taste in directors choices. Paul Thomas Anderson is great just to think he was only 27 when he had done that film(Boogie Nights). Steven Mcqueen the new director gem from across the pond.. Hunger was great yet to see Shame. Christopher Nolan Following my favorite because its simple and enjoy mostly when a director can use a camera to tell a story very well. Other notables Darren Aronofsky - great great attention to detail when crafting his films to the point where his approach almost seems mathematical. Gaspar Noé - unique story teller with his own style and attention to detail. Guy Richie- He excels at putting together complete films(story, editing, scores, cinematography and directing).

It's hard to say just one for me, so here are a few of my favorites: Richard Donner Brian de Palma Craig Brewer Joe Carnahan Kevin Smith and of course, Robert Rodriguez

Shane Meadows ("This is England") is making some great strides too. Thought that was a beautifully shot film. Would love to see more of his work!

Federico Fellini is my favorite director. He created a movie from within his own ideas, from his own reality and made all his collaborators contribute freely to his vision. Here's my page about Fellini and I: http://www.releasing.net/filmmaker/filmmaker.html

I'm definitely with you on that Casey! (Kill Bill is my favorite film of all time!)

James Cameron, Michael Bay, and Jerry Bruckheimer

PT Anderson is a great choice as well. Off to a staggering start.

Holy hell. 6 Days have passed and no one's mentioned John Ford?! Travesty!!!!

Can't pick one..., PT Anderson, Coens, Quentin T, haven't seen Hal Ashby mentioned yet.

Wow Leon, completely forgot about John Ford! Great choice!

Mr Nolan

My all time favorite changes every week lol. This week it's Paul McGuigan (Push, Lucky Number Slevin). Last week it was Christopher Nolan.

Although a lot of great directors have already been mentioned, I am still missing some of the most influential! Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau & Fritz Lang - The true pioneers of revolutionizing the moving pictures. Akira Kurosawa - the master of visual storytelling Seijun Suzuki - without him, most Tarantino movies would not have seen daylight. Stanley Kubrick - I can't believe nobody mentioned Stanley! :-) Alejandro Jodorowsky - the godfather of the midnight movies and the original director of 'Dune'. Gaspar Noé - The one of a kind rule breaker of the modern era. and this list would go on and on...

Sorry Casey. I didn´t want to stray from the point :-) However, I just mentioned some more directors who had the most influence to ME! You're completely right! To grade the ´greatestis also very subjective ... Anyway, there will always be new and ´great directors who are going to inspire us!

Christopher Nolan. Not only is he the greatest director of this time, but, he is a phenomenal writer as well.

Have to love Scorsese, but my appreciation is more for individual films. Can't say that I have a favorite director. There are many great ones.

I'm a big fan of John Badham..who seems to have dropped out of sight over the years, but who nevertheless made a real impression on me with his 1979 take on Dracula, as well as 80's era output like WarGames , Blue Thunder and the original Short Circuit. Ditto Joe Dante with the original Piranha, both Gremlins films, The Explorers and Matinee. And I'd be remiss if I did not show some love to George A. Romero and John Carpenter, the latter of whom directed my all time favorite horror film, Halloween (though I think Carpenter's best film to date is actually Starman). I have to agree with William Xifaras there..too many to choose just one.

John Badham had some run there for a while, Duane. I wore out my copies of War Games and Blue Thunder.

Terry Gilliam even though he's made a lot of films I can't stand. He's also pulled off making some genius films like "Brazil," my all-time fave.

Has to be Hitch. His films were so tight. Would it not be so wonderful to see what he would do in this day of special effects and advanced post production. But the story was always the most important thing. The good and bad in the human "Psycho",

I AGREE BUT IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO SEE WHAT HITCH WOULD DO WITH THE CAMERA AND POST ADVANCES THAT PRESENT DAY ARTISTS HAVE BROUGHT TO THE TABLE,

Mark, I couldn't agree more! I would like to see what Ingmar Bergman could do too with the technology and advancements we have made in this industry. One big question to ask those old time great directors: would they switch to digital if they saw the differences??

For a really interesting look at Hitchcock's "Rear Window", check this out. It's a really interesting re-edit of just the goings-on out the window. http://devour.com/video/rear-window-timelapse/

I'm also going to drop the name Stuart Gordon, who I like to refer to as the Spielberg of low budget horror. Gordon is one of those great genre directors who delivers on an emotional and narrative level every time, despite budgetary limitations. With movies like Re-Animator, Castle Freak, Dagon, Stuck, King of the Ants and From Beyond to his credit, it's impossible to dismiss him. Gordon definitely ranks among my personal favorites. I don't think he gets nearly enough credit for his work.

Okay, so this is probably a contraversial choice, but I'm going to give Sylvester Stallone a mention here. Here is a man who understands his chosen genre perfectly, and brings an individual style and vision to his pictures. To put it another way: I was disproportionately upset to learn that Stallone had handed over the director's chair to someone else for The Expendables 2!

@ Tim Rogers- absolutely agree. I'm a long time Sly fan. Stallone's magic is that he knows his audience and caters directly to them.,not to the critics. There are number of examples I could use here, but let's focus on a recent one: The Expendables. While people trashed The Expendables, Stallone was able to laugh all the way to the bank. Personally , I thought The Expendables was something of an arcane work of genius, because it knew exactly what it was trying to be - an old school, ultra-violent, testosterone- fueled, he -man action movie throwback- and it had a lot of fun doing it. The very 80's genre it borrowed it's stars and storyline from was itself replete with films that weren't exactly paragons of terrific plotting or top flight dialogue. They were excuses to have powerful bad asses firing heavy artillery at one another and blowing buildings/ people up while tossing off quick one liners. The Expendables deliberately did the same exact thing, only it did it bigger and better. It's the type of film specifically designed to allow the audience to just sit back in the theater seat , put their brain in neutral and enjoy the thrill ride. With that sequel on the way soon (which will be rated R after all, so I hear) , that makes this his third successful franchise. For a guy a lot of people have taken potshots at over the years, Stallone has demonstrated remarkable staying power. If you check out my desert island films here on Stage 32, you'll see that Rocky Balboa is on my list.

Somewhere between Hitchcock, Capra, Kubrick, Ridley Scott and Woody Allen. I might say some of the European directors from the 50s and 60s but I really don't watch their stuff much anymore though they are dear to my heart. Kurosawa also is a big contender. Lynch, too. Gee, I'm not sure I can pick just one. :) I'm probably missing someone. Tarkovsky is another.

@Casey, if you take the time to watch the behind the scenes for "The Expendables" or "Rambo"(2008), you will see that he is in fact a great director. As D.S. already explained, he caters to the audience, not the critics. "The Expendables" made $266,159,621 and still counting. IF he isn't that good of a director, I wouldn't mind be as "not good" as him!

I have to say that I liked The Expendables. But I have to say, among many of my friends, I was the only one, most of them thought it was a waste of their time. I had the feeling that I was appreciating it for what it was, perhaps and my bar just wasn't as high as theirs for that type of film.

My two cents: I think he's a good director, not a great one, and he's definitely not a good writer. He gets Rocky's story, because if you know Sly's history, you'll know that Rocky, for him, is a "there but for the Grace of God go I" character for Stallone. Even then, a lot of his scripts aren't very good, like Rocky II (which is Rocky I except Rocky wins) and Rocky IV. Half his directed films are Rocky films. They're competently shot and he pulls good performances from himself and his cast in Rocky III and Rocky Balboa, but brilliant? Hardly, certainly not up to Spielberg, Scorsese, The Coen Brothers, Clint Eastwood, there are a number of contemporary directors I could name who are better behind the director's chair.