The Ten Best Working Directors. In The WORLD!

I love lists, but this is one I can't make.  If for no other reason than I can't decide how much to emphasize the present over the past.  Guys like Scorsese and Herzog are all-time greats, and still making vital cinema.  Someone like Rian Johnson is not an all-time great (at least not yet), but I'd be more excited to see his next film as opposed to the two legends.  Does that mean I think he's a better director right now?  I can't decide.

What about great directors who are still living but whose best work is behind them?  I don't think I could in good conscious write a list like that without including some directors who don't have the backing to make the kinds of films they're capable of. 

Yeah, I can do this. In no particular order...

10. Shane Meadows (If there's anyone better with actors, I'd like to meet him)

9. Lars Von Trier

8. Darren Aronofsky

7. Joon-ho Bong

6. Quentin Tarantino

5. P.T Anderson

4. Steven Spielberg (The man's best films are probably behind him, yet he remains one of the most natural filmmakers on the planet)

3. Michael Haneke

2. Chris Nolan

1. The Coen Bros (My personal number 1)

Also rans: Scorsese, Jarmusch, Boyle, Noé

These are the directors I think are pushing the boundaries furthest & defining contemporary cinematic language in landmark ways.

10. Joe Wright

Hanna is a startlingly immediate film & should be studied by all future up & coming filmmakers.

9. Fernando Meirelles

City Of God, The Constant Gardener, & Blindness couldn't have been made by anyone else. Exquisite naturalism married to impeccably fluid cinematic craftsmanship.

8. Edgar Wright (*I'm cheating here a bit but he's got 3 features, a self-directed TV series, & a bunch of other little stuff)

Scott Pilgrim was a pop-art explosion of cinematic creativity. An incredibly vital filmmaker.

7. The Coen Brothers

They're in the business of making classics. More often than not, they succeed.

6. Michael Mann

His last 2 films were spotty but he's the most electric filmmaker around.

5. Steven Spielberg

He's still the gold standard & every film is a classroom.

4. Quentin Tarantino

Every movie is an event.

3. David Fincher

12(!) years on, Fight Club is still a level of filmmaking most directors can't touch. Benjamin Button was shit but Zodiac was one of the best films of the decade & Fincher's the one director whose films I'll always see on opening day.

2. Terrence Malick

Tree Of Life is the best film I've seen so far this year & I can't think of another director who can reach for & deftly grasp such monumental ambition as Malick...except maybe:

1. Alfonso Cuaron

Children Of Men & Harry Potter 3 both brim with such life, invention, & brilliance, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what this guy is doing that sets him so far apart from the herd but he's easily the most vital & important director working today, IMO.

Honorable mention: Shane Meadows This Is England is the best British film of the decade..if not the past 20 years.

Fincher. Cuaron. Spielberg. Tarantino. Nolan. Paul Thomas Anderson. Von Trier. Scorcese. Del Toro. Cronenberg.

In no particular order (top 12):  Spielberg, Nolan, Fincher, Scorsese, Carpenter, Coen brothers, Malick, Tarantino, Wong Kar-Wai, Cronenberg, Herzog, Lynch. 

I don't think any director has as natural an eye as Spielberg & even in middling stuff like War Of The Worlds, he's pulling off shots that communicate suspense, wit, & dynamic energy in a way that no other director currently does. In Munich, there are choreographed shots that utilize window reflections, character movement, & background that are just stunning if you step back & think about what Spielberg is accomplishing & communicating within them.

For a while there, it looked like he was relying to heavily on Kaminski to bring the goods but more often than not you'll see the old 70s Spielberg eye in play.

Yup, he's not as edgy as many newer directors but his ability to communicate cinematically remains fucking astounding. Tintin proves it quite handily, once again. 

New movements & new artists will always spring up but, at the end of the day, Spielberg is Picasso with a camera. Nobody can beat Picasso at being Picasso.

When it comes to executing a dynamic sequence, with flawless integration of every element (tying the technical to the thematic to the emotional), Spielberg can do it with the best of them.  But, for me, that ability hasn't translated into making terribly many great films lately.  Let alone masterpieces.  Still, he is a preternaturally gifted director, and I wouldn't begrudge anyone putting him on a list of the best working directors.

True enough, Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull certainly doesn't help my point but the uber-positive reviews of War Horse have me hoping that he still has a couple masterpieces left in him.

The whole time I was watching Super 8, I was imagining the movie that Spielberg would have made.  I agree with the above posts.  There's some relationship he has with the medium that no other director has. 

I've seen Lynch mentioned in a couple posts, and while I love the guy, I have to ask: what have you done for me lately?  Inland Empire was almost 6 years ago, and I was thoroughly underwhelmed.

I agree with most of these picks though.  Coens deserve to be on top; quality and quantity with these guys.  After that?

Tarantino

Malick

Von Trier

Fincher

Aronofsky 

PT Anderson 

The last few spots are tough.  I think Spielberg and Scorcesse both deserve to be on here, and I'll throw Peter Jackson into the mix as well.  A couple of consecutive misfires from him recently, but hopefully The Hobbit will remind everyone that this guy can be a master storyteller when he wants to be.

10: del Toro

9: Cuaron

8: Aronofsky

7: Nolan

6: Spielberg

5: Cameron

4: Scorcese

3: Mann

2: Fincher

1: Malick

I hesitate to call this the best...I don't see enough films, and most of them are American.  So this list more reflects the ten directors who ensure my presence at a movie theater.

My list is still pretty mainstream, until the bitter end.  I am the first guy to mention Jim Cameron, but I'll eat that bullet.  A recent rewatch of Avatar showed a purity hidden among the hype.  And his technical skill is undeniable.

I almost put the Wachowski siblings on here, just for Speed Racer, but they haven't quite shown the consistency.  That said, del Toro and Cuaron need to make some movies.

I think that's a pretty good list, and I'll second Cameron. When you're the director who consistently makes the highest-grossing film of all time, you probably deserve some recognition. Not to mention that Aliens is a goddamn masterpiece.

Now for my could-be-controversial addition: Michel Gondry. I think a lot of people will dismiss him because he hasn't done anything equal to Eternal Sunshine since, but love him or hate him, he's in a league of his own, and nobody can do what he does (unless he's doing Green Hornet). For me, the two poles of filmmaking are Gondry and Fincher - once is about wild, inventive creation, the other is about meticulous execution, and both are total geniuses.

I also think Abrams, who has been getting better and better with each outing, deserves a little consideration.

My list looks like this:

10. Abrams

9. Wright

8. Scorsese

7. Cameron

6. Spielberg

5. Tarantino

4. Nolan

3. Cuaron

2. Gondry

1. Fincher

Jesus, tough one. My Picks:

Spielberg - For the reasons others have already laid out;

Herzog - Simply for the range and consistency of projects the man churns his way through. You always know with a Herzog film, no matter how oddball it is it's going to stay with you long after you leave the theatre. That's a rare quality, and the mark of a great artist;

Nolan - As a storyteller he may sometimes be too cerebral for his own good (And even his narrative logic itself isn't always entirely sound) but no other modern filmmaker can match his knack for taking esoteric and dark material and making it accessible;

Cameron - Like Spielberg, the guy has an innate mastery of filmmaking that sells his ideas even if they aren't in themselves completely inspired (See: Avatar);

Jackson - Despite his recent fallow patch, he stands along Del Toro as THE guy you want to put genre material on film;

'Beat' Takeshi - Again, like Herzog he has a love of the obscure and outright odd, but his films always stick in your mind;

Del Toro - An example of a genre filmmaker who has been able to mature as an artist while bending the genre form to accomodate it, and a master worldbuilder to boot;

Tarantino - Like Del Toro, he's been able to mature his talents without abandoning his genre obsessions, creating films that no other living filmmaker could pull off in a million years;

Aronofsky - If any modern director has managed to bring arthouse fare to the multiplexes and make it work, it's him. The man made a character study/horror movie hybrid about a ballerina into a global mainstream smash, and everything he produces is entirely unique.

That leaves my No. 1 pick...

The Coens - I know, predicable but deserved. Why? Because, well, it's the damn Coens and they can do anything.

What strikes me about this list is that the Coens are the only comedy directors on it. I really couldn't think of any working comedy directors working today that would make it. You have Judd Apatow and Jason Reitman who are both great but IMO haven't quite built up the body of work to make the list. Same with Chris Morris who's a genius but is a relatively new film director. With comedy being my first love, I find that a bit of a downer.

I've already got too many as it is but would put Cameron and del Toro in there if I could spare any of the others.  Cameron is a great storyteller, even if he can write some embarrassing dialog on occasion.  He can build tension and excitement better than almost anyone and the endings always pay off (well, maybe not The Abyss).  Also has relative few clunkers.  del Toro is on track to become like Lynch in his mastery of the bringing the unconscious into his films.  I love his movies. 

Fuzzy Dunlop, Lynch stands alone in contemporary filmmaking even if he hasn't delivered features in recent years.  That's not because he's no longer a creator - it's because getting financing becomes nearly impossible for film artists.  As Cocteau said, filmmaking will be an art form when it's as inexpensive as a pencil and paper.  We're not there yet.  It's a collaborative medium and requires investors to do big things, unfortunately.   Unless you're Robert Rodriguez, who -- along with Miike -- almost warrants his own category.  I almost put Miike on my list just because he, like Soderbergh, is fearless in what he'll tackle with his films.

Joe Dante.

Paul Thomas Anderson.

Edgar Wright.

James Gunn.

Seconding Matthew Vaughn, and I'm reserving spots for Shane Black and Joss Whedon until they get second features released.

I came up with criteria where I could make the list.. but I only got part way through before it became too difficult to separate one choice from the next.

1) Coens

2) Tarantino

3) Park Chan-wook

4) Malick

5) Bong Joon-ho

People doubting Spielberg need to see TINTIN. It may be a sugar-rush film, but the skill and imagination on display in the setpieces is simply unparalleled.

I think there's backlash because even though his films are still great, he doesn't seem to have grown. When someone tells me the new Wes Anderson film is out, I know exactly what I'm going to be getting.

Fun thread.  Can't believe I didn't include the Coens, Tarantino, or Jackson.

And I certainly always make a keen effort to see R. Scott (Kingdom of Heaven is a masterpiece, but he has some clunkers as well), Vaughn, Mereilles, and Gondry.  Eternal Sunshine is one of the best films I've ever seen, balancing the widest gamut of technical and emotional heft I've ever seen.  I thought The Constant Gardner was also incredible.

I'm glad I'm not alone on Cameron.  I understand the criticism of his dialogue and heavy-handedness.  But his directorial skill is second to none and he seems to find the resonance in his drama better than almost any filmmaker out there.  What he lacks (or foregoes) in subtlety and depth, he tends to make up for in conflict and pacing.

So many more filmmakers I need to pay attention to.

I'll throw some weight behind Peter Jackson: Guy's gotten indulgent as hell post-LOTR, but even The Lovely Bones, which I generally fucking loathed, had a visionary's heart behind it in its execution. Even in that flick, the way he pulls off Susie realizing she's dead was more chilling than most of the horror flicks released that year.

Quote:

Originally Posted by First Class 782 

I'm glad I'm not alone on Cameron.  I understand the criticism of his dialogue and heavy-handedness.  But his directorial skill is second to none and he seems to find the resonance in his drama better than almost any filmmaker out there.

Holy hyperbole, Batman. Everything Cameron can do, Spielberg does five times better, and with actual feeling instead of awkward, clunky sentiment. I just don't get the passion for the guy's work. He's a good craftsman, but as an artist he's a void.

Off the top of my head: the Coens, QT, PT Anderson, Scorsese, Aronofsky, Edgar Wright, Nolan, Spielberg, Cronenberg, Raimi. I have the same issues with FIncher as Gabe - he's an amazing talent, I just want to see him branch out more.

Vaughn is 4 for 4 but it might be a bit early to put him on a list like this - his best films are probably ahead of him . At the moment he's not a guy I'd choose over, say, Danny Boyle.

I'm not the biggest Matthew Vaughn fan, but Bryan Singer?  I wouldn't even call him a good director.  Vaughn is at least good.  Singer is the definition of middling.

And I would never put Jackson on a list of top directors because he's too sloppy.  Even the LOTR films are messy as hell.  Give me del Toro every time over PJ.  He's got similar B-movie sensibilities, but he conveys more artistry and elegance... even when he's exploring the grotesque.

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Originally Posted by Evi 

At the moment he's not a guy I'd choose over, say, Danny Boyle.

Gah!  Can't believe I forgot Boyle!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bailey 

 

And I would never put Jackson on a list of top directors because he's too sloppy.  Even the LOTR films are messy as hell.  

Messy how?  I think I agree with you, at least in regard to his post-LotR output.  Both Kong and Lovely Bones are so bloated and unwieldy.  Jackson can't seem to shake that 'go big' mentality, and these movies suffer as a result.  If anything, I'd think Jackson would lose some points for spending over a decade with adaptations and re-imaginings.   

Quote:

Originally Posted by fuzzy dunlop 

Quote:

Messy how? 

In a lot of ways.  There's an overreliance on shtick at times.  They can rush forward breathlessly, and then lurch to a halt with exposition. The emotional moments are all over the place.  Some are genuinely touching, others border on camp.  The theatrical cuts have major pacing issues.  And outside of the Fellowship EE, the other extended additions have unnecessary bloat.  Certain sequences don't flow beautifully (to me, at least.)  There's an insert or cutaway that feels awkward, or an overdramatic camera move, or a clumsy edit.  A lot of moments in the latter two films feel rushed, or cobbled together.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the series and I think everyone involved accomplished a hell of a lot with such an ambitious production.  But I am hardly the first person to say the films are messy.

Here's a guy that hasn't been mentioned yet: Clint Eastwood. He's more Top 20 than Top 10 & the quality of his films are wildly inconsistent but every new film is something of an event.

The criteria for my ranking is simply this. If I heard these directors had a movie coming out and knew nothing else about the movie, how excited would I be to see that movie. Couldn't come up with someone I'd definitively put at 10, so I just left it at 9.

9) Cuaron

8) Arnofsky - Heck, I don't even really like "The Fountain" and "Pi", but they're so freaking inventive and beautiful, and such singular experiences. He's always going to challenge you and surprise you.

7) Matthew Vaughn - As others have noted, he's got an incredibly consistent track record.

6) Rian Johnson - I don't care that he's only got 2 films. I love both of them to death.

5) Del Toro

4) Tarantino

3) Edgar Wright

2) Fincher

1) Nolan - In addition to being a fabulous director, Nolan always tells stories that resonate with me. The themes he's interested in are themes that I find hugely compelling.

I might consider Clint in the top 20 if you think about the fact that the title is top directors working TODAY, and he never takes a day off.  So odds are there are plenty of days he might qualify.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SomethingClever 

The criteria for my ranking is simply this. If I heard these directors had a movie coming out and knew nothing else about the movie, how excited would I be to see that movie. 

That was my initial criteria exactly, but then I thought it might put too much emphasis on newer filmmakers who blew me away with one recent film, or on event driven filmmakers.  So I changed it to "if every working director had a new movie I knew nothing about coming out this year, which ones would I bet were most likely to make my top ten list at the end of the year."

In any case, it's funny it wasn't as straightforward a question to me as it might initially seem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabe T 

The sole question mark in this thread, for me, is Matthew Vaughn. Really? If we're even going to go there, he shouldn't even rank above Bryan Singer.

For the life of me, I don't understand the love Singer gets. He is excruciatingly awkward & mechanical behind the camera. He's the anti-Spielberg, I can see his wheels turning in every shot. Vaughn has a better eye & a much more natural grasp of action dynamics. He also co-writes his screenplays, so he's a "ground up" filmmaker kind of in the way Cameron is.

Ten is too few.  Eastwood and Boyle are absolutely on my list, but it's already too long.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bailey 

In a lot of ways.  There's an overreliance on shtick at times.  They can rush forward breathlessly, and then lurch to a halt with exposition. The emotional moments are all over the place.  Some are genuinely touching, others border on camp.  The theatrical cuts have major pacing issues.  And outside of the Fellowship EE, the other extended additions have unnecessary bloat.  Certain sequences don't flow beautifully (to me, at least.)  There's an insert or cutaway that feels awkward, or an overdramatic camera move, or a clumsy edit.  A lot of moments in the latter two films feel rushed, or cobbled together.

 

Don't get me wrong, I really like the series and I think everyone involved accomplished a hell of a lot with such an ambitious production.  But I am hardly the first person to say the films are messy.

Fair enough; I guess I just don't have the problems with the pacing you do.  I agree that he has a tendency to veer into camp territory, but Jackson is essentially a B-movie guy.  And while he gives these movies that glossy big budget sheen, sometimes the Bad Taste / Dead Alive Peter Jackson will poke through, and its an aspect of these films I've always loved.

As for Vaughn, I don't think he belongs here... yet.  While its true that he hasn't made a bad movie yet, I don't think he's made an exceptionally great one either.

43 entries and no mention of Almodovar.  Chewers, you disappoint me.

Almodovar's amazing, and I would even add Verhoeven if we had 20 slots rather than 10. 

Assayas is great, and versatile.  Demonlover, Summer Hours, Carlos... the man has range.  But I've only seen about five or six of his movies, and none of them were films that floored me on a gut level.  He's definitely worthy of inclusion, but so many others are also.

Denis and Kiarostami... just haven't seen enough.  Same for Weerasethakul, Tsai Ming-liang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Kim Ki-duk, Kusturica, Tarr, Reygadas, etc...

Tree Of Life wasn't perfect but it aimed higher than just about anything else and it had many stretches of pure brilliance. He's probably already made his masterpieces, but the fact that right now Malick seems driven and determined to make movies like never before makes him the director I'm most intrigued by at the moment. Over the last decade we've been seeing him go from an enigmatic legend with a couple of classics to a guy with a properly fleshed out body of work, and it's quite exciting seeing how it'll all turn out.

Along with him I'd put Gaspar Noe, for similar reasons. Enter The Void was like nothing I've ever seen. I can't imagine him ever making a mundane movie. More 'exciting' than 'best' maybe...

Cuaron is a maybe. The potential is there for him to do great things, but while his body of work is good, it's small and he works slow. If Gravity turns out to be brilliant I might be more comfortable adding him.

I love Jackson but he hasn't made a truly successful movie since LOTR, and now he's going back to the well. Hopefully it will be great, but there's something a bit uninspiring about that career trajectory.

The Del Toro that makes great spanish language movies might deserve a spot, the Del Toro who makes mediocre hollywood movies doesn't. I'm not convinced most of the geek cult favourites being listed really deserve to be here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Workyticket  You have Judd Apatow and Jason Reitman who are both great but IMO haven't quite built up the body of work to make the list. Same with Chris Morris who's a genius but is a relatively new film director. With comedy being my first love, I find that a bit of a downer.

 

I wouldn't get your hopes up with Morris. He's more of a multimedia guy who had that one concept he really wanted to make as a film. I don't think he's that interested having a full blown movie career and I can't see him doing another one any time soon, if ever. I hear he's going back to radio for his next project.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yt 
Fuzzy Dunlop, Lynch stands alone in contemporary filmmaking even if he hasn't delivered features in recent years.  That's not because he's no longer a creator - it's because getting financing becomes nearly impossible for film artists.

He funded most of Inland Empire himself. Pretty sure the main reason he isn't directing anything is cos he doesn't feel like it. He seems more interested in music at the moment.

In no order...

Park chan wook

Nicolas winding refn

Pedro almodovar

Lars von trier

Takashi miike

Bong joon-ho

Steven soderbergh

Quentin tarantino

Gaspar noe

Michael haneke

I was surprised refn and soderbergh weren't mentioned yet.

Vaughn has a good track record in that he's made four pretty good films so far. None of them have been top-ten-of-the-year material. It's weird seeing him on this list - you might as well throw Gore Verbinski or someone on here.