Movie directors always played a central role in creating a movie. Below is a list of some of the most renowned movie directors with the films that made them famous.
In the theatre there are 1,500 cameras rolling at the same time- in the cinema, only one
Orson Welles, one of the worlds best director
The 30′s Best Directors
- Michael Curtiz (Casablanca)
- Victor Fleming (The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind)
- Jean Renoir (La Chienne, La Marseillaise, and La Bete Humaine)
- William Wyler (The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben Hur)
- Charlie Chaplin (Modern Times, City Lights )
- George Cukor (A Bill of Divorcement, Dinner at Eight, David Copperfield, Romeo and Juliet, and Camille)
The 40′s Best Directors – the war years
- John Ford (Stagecoach, The Searchers, How Green Was My Valley, and The Grapes of Wrath)
- Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, Chimes at Midnight, and The Magnificent Ambersons)
- Howard Hawks (Sergeant York, The Big Sleep, Red River, and His Girl Friday)
- Fritz Lang (Western Union, Man Hunt, Cloak and Dagger, Scarlet Street, and The Woman in the Window)
- Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front, The General Died at Dawn, and Of Mice and Men)
- Frank Capra (It Happened One Night, It’s a Wonderful Life, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town)
The 50′s Best Directors – post war years
- Walt Disney (Mickey Mouse, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Cinderella, and Donald Duck)
- Federico Fellini (La Dolce Vita, Nights of Cabiria, and Casanova)
- Alfred Hitchcock (Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and The Wrong Man, The Birds and Psycho)
- Akira Kurosawa (Scandal, Rashomon, Ikiru, The Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, and The Lower Depths)
- Billy Wilder (Some Like it Hot, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment, and The Seven Year Itch)
- John Huston (The Asphalt Jungle, The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, Moulin Rouge, and The Misfits)
The 60′s Best Directors – Rock-and-Roll area
- Stanley Kubrick (Spartacus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, and The Shining)
- Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America)
- Roman Polanski (Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, The Pianist, and Oliver Twist)
- David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and A Passage to India)
- Robert Wise (The Sound of Music, West Side Story, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and The Sand Pebbles )
- Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries, Winter Light, The Silence, Shame, The Virgin Spring, and The Passion of Anna)
The 70′s Best Directors – The hippies area
- Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Stardust Memories, Match Point, Manhattan, and Mighty Aphrodite)
- Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and The Producers)
- Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now)
- Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, New York, New York, The Last Waltz, Cape Fear, Casino, Gangs of New York, and The Departed)
- John Carpenter (Dark Star and Halloween)
- George Romero (Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead. )
The 80′s Best Directors
- James Cameron (Terminator, Rambo First Blood Part II, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Titanic)
- Brian de Palma (Scarface, Carlito’s Way, The Untouchables, Carrie, and Mission Impossible )
- George Lucas (Star Wars)
- Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, Crimewave, Darkman, and the Spider-Man trilogy)
- Steven Spielberg (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, and Saving Private
Ryan) - Jim Henson (The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and Return of the Jedi)
- John Hughes Jr.(Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Uncle Buck)
The 90′s Best Directors
- Tim Burton (Beetle Juice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Mars Attacks!, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow)
- Joel and Ethan Coen (Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink, The Ladykillers, O Brother Where Art Thou?, and No Country for Old Men)
- Spike Lee (Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, 4 Little Girls, He Got Game, and Summer of Sam)
- Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away)
- Oliver Stone (Platoon, Heaven and Earth, Born on the Fourth of July, and JFK)
- Quentin Tarantino (Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and the Kill Bill series )
- Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy, Jersey Girl, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks II)
The 2000′s Best Directors
- M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs)
- Clint Eastwood (Space Cowboys, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Gran Torino)
- Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings, King Kong)
- Ridley Scott (Thelma and Louise, Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Matchstick Men, Kingdom of Heaven, American Gangster, and Body of Lies)
- Chris Columbus (Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Bicentennial Man, Stepmom, Mrs. Doubtfire)
- Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Swept Away, Revolver, RocknRolla)
