So here they are. Some will have you scratching your head (Paul Thomas Anderson?), and others will make you pull out your hair (watch out for my favorite Marty flick) - but there it is. It's a completely subjective list, of each director's movie that has emotionally affected me the most, or changed my life in some way or the other. My inclusion criteria was to list favorite directors of whom I've seen at least four of their movies.
Disgreements? Start screaming, write your own favorites, and remind me of any director I've missed (I've come up with 50 directors so far). Don't go looking for the likes of Orson Welles or Jean-Luc Godard; they're not my favorites.
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Woody Allen: Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Robert Altman: Short Cuts
Paul Thomas Anderson: Boogie Nights
Darren Aronofsky: Requiem for a Dream
Michael Bay: The Rock
Bernardo Bertolucci: The Last Emperor
Luc Besson: The Professional (Leon)
Mel Brooks: Spaceballs
Tim Burton: Edward Scissorhands
James Cameron: Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Coen Brothers: Blood Simple
Francis Ford Coppola: The Godfather
Wes Craven: Red Eye
David Cronenberg: A History of Violence
Frank Darabont: The Green Mile
Jonathan Demme: The Silence of the Lambs
Brian DePalma: Scarface
Richard Donner: The Omen
David Fincher: Seven
Milos Forman: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Mel Gibson: Braveheart
Alfred Hitchcock: Psycho
Ron Howard: A Beautiful Mind
Peter Jackson: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Taylor Hackford: The Devil's Advocate
Werner Herzog: Grizzly Man
Abbas Kiarostami: Where is Friend's Home?
Stanley Kubrick: The Shining
Akira Kurosawa: Rashomon
David Lean: Lawrence of Arabia
Spike Lee: Do the Right Thing
Sergio Leone: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
George Lucas: Take a wild guess ...
Sidney Lumet: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
David Lynch: Mulholland Drive
Majid Majidi: The Color of Paradise
Michael Mann: The Last of the Mohicans
John McTiernan: Die Hard
Mike Nichols: Closer
Christopher Nolan: Inception
Wolfgang Petersen: Das Boot
Roman Polanski: Bitter Moon
Sam Raimi: Spider-man 2
Rob Reiner: A Few Good Men
Robert Rodriguez: Sin City
Martin Scorsese: Cape Fear
Ridley Scott: Blade Runner
Tony Scott: Crimson Tide
M. Night Shyamalan: The Sixth Sense
Steven Soderbergh: Traffic
Steven Spielberg: Jaws
Oliver Stone: JFK
Quentin Tarantino: Pulp Fiction
Lars Von Trier: Breaking the Waves
Peter Weir: The Truman Show
Robert Zemeckis: Back to the Future
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For George Lucas: A New Hope? or The Empire Strikes Back?
ReplyDeleteSorry, forgot TESB wasn't Lucas!
ReplyDeleteTough choice. My heart still pounds at the end of ESB when Darth Vader voices the truth about Luke's heritage, but I would still go with the one that started it all, "A New Hope".
ReplyDeleteOMG! You got me there! I forgot that myself again!
ReplyDeleteFunny that I tricked some Star Wars lovers over the same concept a few months ago, and laughed my head off at them.
What? No Casablanca, Dr. Zhivago, Citizen Kane? I also love a few war
ReplyDeletemovies- The Great Escape, Bridge over River Kwai which are not in your list.
I guess your choice for George Lucas- American Graffiti? Right? j/k
Sorry! Among David Lean masterpieces ("Lawrence of Arabia", "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "Doctor Zhivago", "A Passage to India", ...), I could only pick one, and it had to go to "Lawrence".
ReplyDeleteSorry! I know I'll make quite a few enemies, but Michael Curtiz was not a favorite, so "Casablanca" didn't have chance. (Actually, you probably already know neither romance nor comedy has much of a place in my movie tastes. Even my Woody Allen choice is quite a drama!)
And sorry! About George Lucas, I meant "THX-1138"!
;-)
I think some great directors of classic cinema are missed in your list! Like Federico Fellini,Ingmar Bergman,Elia kazan, MIlos Forman,John Ford, Fred Zinnemann, Robert Wise …however I have to confess ,i have no idea about Peter weir(I just saw master & commander ),haven’t seen Mel Brooks movies and don’t know R.Altman very well!and the number of some works might reach less than 4!
ReplyDeleteMoreover ,my favorites are a little different , I bring my choices and about the rest I agree with you absolutely.
(So funny that you trapped in your trick by the other guy! relieved me from grief of Casablanca loss! )
Woody Allen : Annie Hall
Coen Brothers : No country for old men
Darren Aronofsky : The Wrestler
Wes Craven : Scream
Frank Darabont :The Shawshank Redemption
Clint Eastwood : Mystic River
Peter Jackson: Lord of the Rings : trilogy
Abbas Kiarostami : Close –up
Stanley Kubrick : Eyes wide shut
Akira Kurosawa : Seven Samurai
David Lean : Dr. Zivago
Spike Lee : Inside man
George Lucas : Revenge of the sith
Ridley Scott : Gladiator
Sidney Lumet : Dog Day Afternoon
Mike Nichols : Graduate
Christopher Nolan : Batman Begins (sorry!)
Sam Raimi : Spider-man
Rob Reiner : Misery
Tony Scott : Top Gun (sorry again!)
Steven Soderbergh: Ocean’s eleven
Steven Spielberg : Indiana Jones trilogy(;-)
Oliver Stone : Platoon
Quentin Tarantino : kill Bill vol (1&2)
Now this was I was looking forward to from friends: A whole LIST of disagreements!
ReplyDeleteDear Maryam,
I think for all the directors you mentioned, the only favorite I feel I missed was Milos Forman (how could I?!). Among his great achievements, it's difficult to decide between "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "Amadeus", "Man on the Moon", and "The People Vs. Larry Flynt". I guess I always come back to "Cuckoo's Nest". I'll add it to my list. Thanks.
You don't know Peter Weir? If you haven't seen "Fearless", "The Truman Show", "Dead Poets Society", or "Witness", you're missing a HUGE amount.
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And don't anybody limit themselves to have seen at least 4 movies of each director (that was just my own inclusion criteria). Because there must be more people out there who by Tarantino have only seen "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill", and believe the latter is better than the former; or think Scorsese or Oliver Stone have done better than "Cape Fear" or "JFK".
woody Allen: Vickey Christina Barcellona ????!!!!!
ReplyDeleteScorsesee: Cape Fear??? come on man> you are disappointing me!!!!
ReplyDeleteDear Alireza,
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I feel "Vicky Cristina" is the epitome of whatever I like best about Allen. Fast-talking neurotic characters, ambivalence between drama and comedy, great preformances, and even deep intellectual/emotional issues that keep you thinking after the movie. I know everybody's Allen favorite may be "Annie Hall", but I feel the deep stuff it talks about (which are plenty) doesn't belong to my time (actually, I was trying to decide between "Vicky Cristina" and "Match Point" as my favorite!).
And more importantly, "Annie Hall" stole the Best Picture Oscar from "Star Wars"!
Believe it or not, "Cape Fear" was my first exposure to Scorsese, and my second exposure to DeNiro - and that was the film that exploded Scorsese into my life like a grenade. Since Scorsese's mind-blowing style is present in all his works, I'm assuming if either of "Taxi Driver" or "Goodfellas" or "Raging Bull" or "Gangs of New York" or "Departed" or ... was my first Scrosese experience, I would have chosen that first one as my favorite Scrosese movie. In my life, the lucky draw was "Cape Fear".
So how about you? What "should" have I chosen as the favorite Allen/Scorsese/... movies? ;-)
I just wonder how could I miss such marvelous works : Witness , Dead poets society and The Truman Show in my cinephilic life so far ??! impatiently waiting for “Fearless” and others from this filmmaker. And, Then among these 5 (plus to Green card & master & commander I’ve seen already) : The Truman show was the best. I can’t agree more. Terribly philosophical and thought- provoking plot. I was in a daze the whole second half of movie after the truth revealed.
ReplyDelete"Dead Poets Society" was the winner of the main Oscars in its year (I think 1989). It's incredible how prominent comedians (Robin Williams in this, Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show" and "Man on the Moon", Will Farrell in "Stranger than Fiction") are much more effective when they play serious drama.
ReplyDeleteYou will love "Fearless". That and "Picnic at Hanging Rock" are the most philosophical of Weir's movies.