My Greatest Directors
----------------- LATEST UPDATE ------------------
Jean-Pierre Dardenne's La fille inconnue (2016) 7/10
Director upgraded from #240 to #198
Ranking #3 out of 3 seen among the director's work. 7 films not seen.
Pages: #1 to 100 - #101 to 200 - #201 to 300 - #301 to 400
Updated on 10-04-2024
Jean-Pierre Dardenne's La fille inconnue (2016) 7/10
Director upgraded from #240 to #198
Ranking #3 out of 3 seen among the director's work. 7 films not seen.
Pages: #1 to 100 - #101 to 200 - #201 to 300 - #301 to 400
Updated on 10-04-2024
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Martin Charles Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942 in Queens, New York City, to Catherine Scorsese (née Cappa) and Charles Scorsese, who both worked in Manhattan's garment district, and whose families both came from Palermo, Sicily. He was raised in the neighborhood of Little Italy, which later provided the inspiration for several of his films. Scorsese earned a B.S. degree in film communications in 1964, followed by an M.A. in the same field in 1966 at New York University's School of Film. During this time, he made numerous prize-winning short films including The Big Shave (1967), and directed his first feature film, Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967).
He served as assistant director and an editor of the documentary Woodstock (1970) and won critical and popular acclaim for Mean Streets (1973), which first paired him with actor and frequent collaborator Robert De Niro. In 1976, Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), also starring De Niro, was awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and he followed that film with New York, New York (1977) and The Last Waltz (1978). Scorsese directed De Niro to an Oscar-winning performance as boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980), which received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, and is hailed as one of the masterpieces of modern cinema. Scorsese went on to direct The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino (1995) and Kundun (1997), among other films. Commissioned by the British Film Institute to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of cinema, Scorsese completed the four-hour documentary, A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995), co-directed by Michael Henry Wilson.
His long-cherished project, Gangs of New York (2002), earned numerous critical honors, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Director; the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator (2004) won five Academy Awards, in addition to the Golden Globe and BAFTA awards for Best Picture. Scorsese won his first Academy Award for Best Director for The Departed (2006), which was also honored with the Director's Guild of America, Golden Globe, New York Film Critics, National Board of Review and Critic's Choice awards for Best Director, in addition to four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Scorsese's documentary of the Rolling Stones in concert, Shine a Light (2008), followed, with the successful thriller Shutter Island (2010) two years later. Scorsese received his seventh Academy Award nomination for Best Director, as well as a Golden Globe Award, for Hugo (2011), which went on to win five Academy Awards.
Scorsese also serves as executive producer on the HBO series Boardwalk Empire (2010) for which he directed the pilot episode. Scorsese's additional awards and honors include the Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival (1995), the AFI Life Achievement Award (1997), the Honoree at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 25th Gala Tribute (1998), the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award (2003), The Kennedy Center Honors (2007) and the HFPA Cecil B. DeMille Award (2010). Scorsese and actor Leonardo DiCaprio have worked together on five separate occasions: Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).For:
1.Goodfellas (1990) 10/10
2.Raging Bull (1980) 9.5/10
3.Taxi Driver (1976) 9.5/10
4.The Irishman (2019) 9/10
5.Mean Streets (1973) 8.5/10
6.The Departed (2006) 8.5/10
7.The King of Comedy (1982) 8/10
8.Hugo (2011) 8/10
9.After Hours (1985) 8/10
10.The Last Waltz (1978) 8/10
11.The Color of Money (1986) 7.5/10
12.George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011) 7.5/10
13.Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) 7.5/10
14.The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) 7.5/10
15.Silence (2016) 7.5/10
16.The 50 Year Argument (2014) 7.5/10
17.Shutter Island (2010) 7/10
18.American Boy (1978) 7/10
19.A Letter to Elia (2010) 7/10
20.The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) 6.5/10
21.New York Stories (1989) 6.5/10 (3 pts)
21.New York, New York (1977) 6.5/10
22.The Audition (2015) 6.5/10
23.I Call First (1967) 6/10
24.The Big Shave (1968) 6/10
25.Public Speaking (2010) 5.5/10
26.The Key to Reserva (2007) 5.5/10
27.It's Not Just You, Murray! (1964) 5/10
28.Italianamerican (1974) 5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Cape Fear (1991); The Age of Innocence (1993); Casino (1995); A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995); Kundun (1997); Bringing Out the Dead (1999); Il mio viaggio in Italia (2001); Gangs of New York (2002); The Aviator (2004); No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005); Shine a Light (2008); Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019); The Irishman: In Conversation (2019); Pretend It's a City (2021); Personality Crisis: One Night Only (2022); Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)- Producer
- Writer
- Director
One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world. He has an extraordinary number of commercially successful and critically acclaimed credits to his name, either as a director, producer or writer since launching the summer blockbuster with Jaws (1975), and he has done more to define popular film-making since the mid-1970s than anyone else.
Steven Allan Spielberg was born in 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Leah Frances (Posner), a concert pianist and restaurateur, and Arnold Spielberg, an electrical engineer who worked in computer development. His parents were both born to Russian Jewish immigrant families. Steven spent his younger years in Haddon Township, New Jersey, Phoenix, Arizona, and later Saratoga, California. He went to California State University Long Beach, but dropped out to pursue his entertainment career. Among his early directing efforts were Battle Squad (1961), which combined World War II footage with footage of an airplane on the ground that he makes you believe is moving. He also directed Escape to Nowhere (1961), which featured children as World War Two soldiers, including his sister Anne Spielberg, and The Last Gun (1959), a western. All of these were short films. The next couple of years, Spielberg directed a couple of movies that would portend his future career in movies. In 1964, he directed Firelight (1964), a movie about aliens invading a small town. In 1967, he directed Slipstream (1967), which was unfinished. However, in 1968, he directed Amblin' (1968), which featured the desert prominently, and not the first of his movies in which the desert would feature. Amblin' also became the name of his production company, which turned out such classics as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg had a unique and classic early directing project, Duel (1971), with Dennis Weaver. In the early 1970s, Spielberg was working on TV, directing among others such series as Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) and Murder by the Book (1971). All of his work in television and short films, as well as his directing projects, were just a hint of the wellspring of talent that would dazzle audiences all over the world.
Spielberg's first major directorial effort was The Sugarland Express (1974), with Goldie Hawn, a film that marked him as a rising star. It was his next effort, however, that made him an international superstar among directors: Jaws (1975). This classic shark attack tale started the tradition of the summer blockbuster or, at least, he was credited with starting the tradition. His next film was the classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), a unique and original UFO story that remains a classic. In 1978, Spielberg produced his first film, the forgettable I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), and followed that effort with Used Cars (1980), a critically acclaimed, but mostly forgotten, Kurt Russell/Jack Warden comedy about devious used-car dealers. Spielberg hit gold yet one more time with Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), with Harrison Ford taking the part of Indiana Jones. Spielberg produced and directed two films in 1982. The first was Poltergeist (1982), but the highest-grossing movie of all time up to that point was the alien story E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Spielberg also helped pioneer the practice of product placement. The concept, while not uncommon, was still relatively low-key when Spielberg raised the practice to almost an art form with his famous (or infamous) placement of Reese's Pieces in "E.T." Spielberg was also one of the pioneers of the big-grossing special-effects movies, like "E.T." and "Close Encounters", where a very strong emphasis on special effects was placed for the first time on such a huge scale. In 1984, Spielberg followed up "Raiders" with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), which was a commercial success but did not receive the critical acclaim of its predecessor. As a producer, Spielberg took on many projects in the 1980s, such as The Goonies (1985), and was the brains behind the little monsters in Gremlins (1984). He also produced the cartoon An American Tail (1986), a quaint little animated classic. His biggest effort as producer in 1985, however, was the blockbuster Back to the Future (1985), which made Michael J. Fox an instant superstar. As director, Spielberg took on the book The Color Purple (1985), with Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, with great success. In the latter half of the 1980s, he also directed Empire of the Sun (1987), a mixed success for the occasionally erratic Spielberg. Success would not escape him for long, though.
The late 1980s found Spielberg's projects at the center of pop-culture yet again. In 1988, he produced the landmark animation/live-action film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). The next year proved to be another big one for Spielberg, as he produced and directed Always (1989) as well as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and Back to the Future Part II (1989). All three of the films were box-office and critical successes. Also, in 1989, he produced the little known comedy-drama Dad (1989), with Jack Lemmon and Ted Danson, which got mostly mixed results. Spielberg has also had an affinity for animation and has been a strong voice in animation in the 1990s. Aside from producing the landmark "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", he produced the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures (1990), Animaniacs (1993), Pinky and the Brain (1995), Freakazoid! (1995), Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain (1998), Family Dog (1993) and Toonsylvania (1998). Spielberg also produced other cartoons such as The Land Before Time (1988), We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), Casper (1995) (the live action version) as well as the live-action version of The Flintstones (1994), where he was credited as "Steven Spielrock". Spielberg also produced many Roger Rabbit short cartoons, and many Pinky and the Brain, Animaniacs and Tiny Toons specials. Spielberg was very active in the early 1990s, as he directed Hook (1991) and produced such films as the cute fantasy Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991). He also produced the unusual comedy thriller Arachnophobia (1990), Back to the Future Part III (1990) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). While these movies were big successes in their own right, they did not quite bring in the kind of box office or critical acclaim as previous efforts. In 1993, Spielberg directed Jurassic Park (1993), which for a short time held the record as the highest grossing movie of all time, but did not have the universal appeal of his previous efforts. Big box-office spectacles were not his only concern, though. He produced and directed Schindler's List (1993), a stirring film about the Holocaust. He won best director at the Oscars, and also got Best Picture. In the mid-90s, he helped found the production company DreamWorks, which was responsible for many box-office successes.
As a producer, he was very active in the late 90s, responsible for such films as The Mask of Zorro (1998), Men in Black (1997) and Deep Impact (1998). However, it was on the directing front that Spielberg was in top form. He directed and produced the epic Amistad (1997), a spectacular film that was shorted at the Oscars and in release due to the fact that its release date was moved around so much in late 1997. The next year, however, produced what many believe was one of the best films of his career: Saving Private Ryan (1998), a film about World War Two that is spectacular in almost every respect. It was stiffed at the Oscars, losing best picture to Shakespeare in Love (1998).
Spielberg produced a series of films, including Evolution (2001), The Haunting (1999) and Shrek (2001). he also produced two sequels to Jurassic Park (1993), which were financially but not particularly critical successes. In 2001, he produced a mini-series about World War Two that definitely *was* a financial and critical success: Band of Brothers (2001), a tale of an infantry company from its parachuting into France during the invasion to the Battle of the Bulge. Also in that year, Spielberg was back in the director's chair for A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), a movie with a message and a huge budget. It did reasonably at the box office and garnered varied reviews from critics.
Spielberg has been extremely active in films there are many other things he has done as well. He produced the short-lived TV series SeaQuest 2032 (1993), an anthology series entitled Amazing Stories (1985), created the video-game series "Medal of Honor" set during World War Two, and was a starting producer of ER (1994). Spielberg, if you haven't noticed, has a great interest in World War Two. He and Tom Hanks collaborated on Shooting War: World War II Combat Cameramen (2000), a documentary about World War II combat photographers, and he produced a documentary about the Holocaust called Eyes of the Holocaust (2000). With all of this to Spielberg's credit, it's no wonder that he's looked at as one of the greatest ever figures in entertainment.For:
1.Schindler's List (1993) 9/10
2.Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 8.5/10
3.Jaws (1975) 8.5/10
4.Saving Private Ryan (1998) 8/10
5.Jurassic Park (1993) 8/10
6.Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) 8/10
7.Munich (2005) 8/10
8.Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) 8/10
9.Catch Me If You Can (2002) 7.5/10
10.Minority Report (2002) 7.5/10
11.Ready Player One (2018) 7.5/10
12.Bridge of Spies (2015) 7.5/10
13.The Post (2017) 7.5/10
14.Lincoln (2012) 7.5/10
15.Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) 7.5/10
16.Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001) 7/10
17.The Terminal (2004) 7/10
18.E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) 6.5/10
19.Duel (1971) 6.5/10
20.The Adventures of Tintin (2011) 6.5/10
21.The Sugarland Express (1974) 6.5/10
22.Hook (1991) 6/10
23.War of the Worlds (2005) 6/10
24.The BFG (2016) 6/10
25.Amistad (1997) 5.5/10
26.Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) 5.5/10
27.War Horse (2011) 5.5/10
28.Empire of the Sun (1987) 5/10
29.The Color Purple (1985) 5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
West Side Story (2021); The Fabelmans (2022)- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Stanley Kubrick was born in Manhattan, New York City, to Sadie Gertrude (Perveler) and Jacob Leonard Kubrick, a physician. His family were Jewish immigrants (from Austria, Romania, and Russia). Stanley was considered intelligent, despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would produce better academic performance, Kubrick's father sent him in 1940 to Pasadena, California, to stay with his uncle, Martin Perveler. Returning to the Bronx in 1941 for his last year of grammar school, there seemed to be little change in his attitude or his results. Hoping to find something to interest his son, Jack introduced Stanley to chess, with the desired result. Kubrick took to the game passionately, and quickly became a skilled player. Chess would become an important device for Kubrick in later years, often as a tool for dealing with recalcitrant actors, but also as an artistic motif in his films.
Jack Kubrick's decision to give his son a camera for his thirteenth birthday would be an even wiser move: Kubrick became an avid photographer, and would often make trips around New York taking photographs which he would develop in a friend's darkroom. After selling an unsolicited photograph to Look Magazine, Kubrick began to associate with their staff photographers, and at the age of seventeen was offered a job as an apprentice photographer.
In the next few years, Kubrick had regular assignments for "Look", and would become a voracious movie-goer. Together with friend Alexander Singer, Kubrick planned a move into film, and in 1950 sank his savings into making the documentary Day of the Fight (1951). This was followed by several short commissioned documentaries (Flying Padre (1951), and (The Seafarers (1953), but by attracting investors and hustling chess games in Central Park, Kubrick was able to make Fear and Desire (1952) in California.
Filming this movie was not a happy experience; Kubrick's marriage to high school sweetheart Toba Metz did not survive the shooting. Despite mixed reviews for the film itself, Kubrick received good notices for his obvious directorial talents. Kubrick's next two films Killer's Kiss (1955) and The Killing (1956) brought him to the attention of Hollywood, and in 1957 he directed Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory (1957). Douglas later called upon Kubrick to take over the production of Spartacus (1960), by some accounts hoping that Kubrick would be daunted by the scale of the project and would thus be accommodating. This was not the case, however: Kubrick took charge of the project, imposing his ideas and standards on the film. Many crew members were upset by his style: cinematographer Russell Metty complained to producers that Kubrick was taking over his job. Kubrick's response was to tell him to sit there and do nothing. Metty complied, and ironically was awarded the Academy Award for his cinematography.
Kubrick's next project was to direct Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks (1961), but negotiations broke down and Brando himself ended up directing the film himself. Disenchanted with Hollywood and after another failed marriage, Kubrick moved permanently to England, from where he would make all of his subsequent films. Despite having obtained a pilot's license, Kubrick was rumored to be afraid of flying.
Kubrick's first UK film was Lolita (1962), which was carefully constructed and guided so as to not offend the censorship boards which at the time had the power to severely damage the commercial success of a film. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) was a big risk for Kubrick; before this, "nuclear" was not considered a subject for comedy. Originally written as a drama, Kubrick decided that too many of the ideas he had written were just too funny to be taken seriously. The film's critical and commercial success allowed Kubrick the financial and artistic freedom to work on any project he desired. Around this time, Kubrick's focus diversified and he would always have several projects in various stages of development: "Blue Moon" (a story about Hollywood's first pornographic feature film), "Napoleon" (an epic historical biography, abandoned after studio losses on similar projects), "Wartime Lies" (based on the novel by Louis Begley), and "Rhapsody" (a psycho-sexual thriller).
The next film he completed was a collaboration with sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is hailed by many as the best ever made; an instant cult favorite, it has set the standard and tone for many science fiction films that followed. Kubrick followed this with A Clockwork Orange (1971), which rivaled Lolita (1962) for the controversy it generated - this time not only for its portrayal of sex, but also of violence. Barry Lyndon (1975) would prove a turning point in both his professional and private lives. His unrelenting demands of commitment and perfection of cast and crew had by now become legendary. Actors would be required to perform dozens of takes with no breaks. Filming a story in Ireland involving military, Kubrick received reports that the IRA had declared him a possible target. Production was promptly moved out of the country, and Kubrick's desire for privacy and security resulted in him being considered a recluse ever since.
Having turned down directing a sequel to The Exorcist (1973), Kubrick made his own horror film: The Shining (1980). Again, rumors circulated of demands made upon actors and crew. Stephen King (whose novel the film was based upon) reportedly didn't like Kubrick's adaptation (indeed, he would later write his own screenplay which was filmed as The Shining (1997).)
Kubrick's subsequent work has been well spaced: it was seven years before Full Metal Jacket (1987) was released. By this time, Kubrick was married with children and had extensively remodeled his house. Seen by one critic as the dark side to the humanist story of Platoon (1986), Full Metal Jacket (1987) continued Kubrick's legacy of solid critical acclaim, and profit at the box office.
In the 1990s, Kubrick began an on-again/off-again collaboration with Brian Aldiss on a new science fiction film called "Artificial Intelligence (AI)", but progress was very slow, and was backgrounded until special effects technology was up to the standard the Kubrick wanted.
Kubrick returned to his in-development projects, but encountered a number of problems: "Napoleon" was completely dead, and "Wartime Lies" (now called "The Aryan Papers") was abandoned when Steven Spielberg announced he would direct Schindler's List (1993), which covered much of the same material.
While pre-production work on "AI" crawled along, Kubrick combined "Rhapsody" and "Blue Movie" and officially announced his next project as Eyes Wide Shut (1999), starring the then-married Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. After two years of production under unprecedented security and privacy, the film was released to a typically polarized critical and public reception; Kubrick claimed it was his best film to date.
Special effects technology had matured rapidly in the meantime, and Kubrick immediately began active work on A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), but tragically suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep on March 7th, 1999.
After Kubrick's death, Spielberg revealed that the two of them were friends that frequently communicated discreetly about the art of filmmaking; both had a large degree of mutual respect for each other's work. "AI" was frequently discussed; Kubrick even suggested that Spielberg should direct it as it was more his type of project. Based on this relationship, Spielberg took over as the film's director and completed the last Kubrick project.
How much of Kubrick's vision remains in the finished project -- and what he would think of the film as eventually released -- will be the final great unanswerable mysteries in the life of this talented and private filmmaker.For:
1.Dr. Strangelove (1964) 10/10
2.2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 10/10
3.A Clockwork Orange (1971) 10/10
4.Paths of Glory (1957) 9.5/10
5.Barry Lyndon (1975) 9.5/10
6.The Shining (1980) 9/10
7.Full Metal Jacket (1987) 9/10
8.Eyes Wide Shut (1999) 8/10
9.Lolita (1962) 8/10
10.The Killing (1956) 8/10
11.Spartacus (1960) 7.5/10
12.Killer's Kiss (1955) 7/10
13.Fear and Desire (1953) 5/10
√- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, Essex, England. He was the son of Emma Jane (Whelan; 1863 - 1942) and East End greengrocer William Hitchcock (1862 - 1914). His parents were both of half English and half Irish ancestry. He had two older siblings, William Hitchcock (born 1890) and Eileen Hitchcock (born 1892). Raised as a strict Catholic and attending Saint Ignatius College, a school run by Jesuits, Hitch had very much of a regular upbringing. His first job outside of the family business was in 1915 as an estimator for the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. His interest in movies began at around this time, frequently visiting the cinema and reading US trade journals.
Hitchcock entering the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer. It was there that he met Alma Reville, though they never really spoke to each other. It was only after the director for Always Tell Your Wife (1923) fell ill and Hitchcock was named director to complete the film that he and Reville began to collaborate. Hitchcock had his first real crack at directing a film, start to finish, in 1923 when he was hired to direct the film Number 13 (1922), though the production wasn't completed due to the studio's closure (he later remade it as a sound film). Hitchcock didn't give up then. He directed The Pleasure Garden (1925), a British/German production, which was very popular. Hitchcock made his first trademark film in 1927, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) . In the same year, on the 2nd of December, Hitchcock married Alma Reville. They had one child, Patricia Hitchcock who was born on July 7th, 1928. His success followed when he made a number of films in Britain such as The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Jamaica Inn (1939), some of which also gained him fame in the USA.
In 1940, the Hitchcock family moved to Hollywood, where the producer David O. Selznick had hired him to direct an adaptation of 'Daphne du Maurier''s Rebecca (1940). After Saboteur (1942), as his fame as a director grew, film companies began to refer to his films as 'Alfred Hitchcock's', for example Alfred Hitcock's Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976), Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972).
Hitchcock was a master of pure cinema who almost never failed to reconcile aesthetics with the demands of the box-office.
During the making of Frenzy (1972), Hitchcock's wife Alma suffered a paralyzing stroke which made her unable to walk very well. On March 7, 1979, Hitchcock was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award, where he said: "I beg permission to mention by name only four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation, and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter Pat, and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen and their names are Alma Reville." By this time, he was ill with angina and his kidneys had already started to fail. He had started to write a screenplay with Ernest Lehman called The Short Night but he fired Lehman and hired young writer David Freeman to rewrite the script. Due to Hitchcock's failing health the film was never made, but Freeman published the script after Hitchcock's death. In late 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. On the 29th April 1980, 9:17AM, he died peacefully in his sleep due to renal failure. His funeral was held in the Church of Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. Father Thomas Sullivan led the service with over 600 people attended the service, among them were Mel Brooks (director of High Anxiety (1977), a comedy tribute to Hitchcock and his films), Louis Jourdan, Karl Malden, Tippi Hedren, Janet Leigh and François Truffaut.For:
1.North by Northwest (1959) 9/10
2.Vertigo (1958) 9/10
3.Rear Window (1954) 8.5/10
4.Psycho(1960) 8/10
5.The 39 Steps(1935) 8/10
6.Shadow of a Doubt (1943) 7.5/10
7.Notorious (1946) 7.5/10
8.Spellbound (1945) 7.5/10
9.Strangers on a Train (1951) 7.5/10
10.The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) 7/10
11.The Birds (1963) 7/10
12.Rebecca (1940) 7/10
13.The Wrong Man (1956) 7/10
14.Frenzy (1972) 7/10
15.To Catch a Thief (1955) 6.5/10
16.Foreign Correspondent (1940) 6.5/10
17.The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) 6.5/10
18.Dial M for Murder (1954) 6.5/10
19.Rope (1948) 6.5/10
20.The Lady Vanishes (1938) 6.5/10
21.Saboteur (1942) 6.5/10
22.Young and Innocent (1937) 6.5/10
23.The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) 6/10
24.Blackmail (1929) 6/10
25.Secret Agent (1936) 6/10
26.Murder! (1930) 6/10
27.Suspicion (1941) 5.5/10
28.Stage Fright (1950) 5.5/10
29.Sabotage (1936) 5.5/10
30.The Ring (1927) 5.5/10
31.Lifeboat (1944) 5/10
32.The Manxman (1929) 5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
I Confess (1953); The Trouble with Harry (1955); Marnie (1964); Torn Curtain (1966); Family Plot (1976)- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Joel Daniel Coen is an American filmmaker who regularly collaborates with his younger brother Ethan. They made Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, True Grit, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, Inside Llewyn Davis, Hail Caesar and other projects. Joel married actress Frances McDormand in 1984 and had an adopted son.& Ethan Coen
For:
1.The Big Lebowski (1998) 9/10
2.Fargo (1996) 9/10
3.No Country for Old Men (2007) 8.5/10
4.True Grit (2010) 8.5/10
5.Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) 8.5/10
6.Miller's Crossing (1990) 8/10
7.Raising Arizona (1987) 8/10
8.Burn After Reading (2008) 8/10
9.The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) 8/10
10.Intolerable Cruelty (2003) 7.5/10
11.Hail, Caesar! (2016) 7.5/10
12.Blood Simple. (1984) 7.5/10
13.Barton Fink (1991) 7/10
14.The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) 7/10
15.The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) 7/10
16.O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) 6.5/10
17.A Serious Man (2009) 6/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)- Writer
- Actor
- Director
Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the toothbrush mustache, bowler hat, bamboo cane, and a funny walk.
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in Walworth, London, England on April 16, 1889, to Hannah Harriet Pedlingham (Hill) and Charles Chaplin, both music hall performers, who were married on June 22, 1885. After Charles Sr. separated from Hannah to perform in New York City, Hannah then tried to resurrect her stage career. Unfortunately, her singing voice had a tendency to break at unexpected moments. When this happened, the stage manager spotted young Charlie standing in the wings and led him on stage, where five-year-old Charlie began to sing a popular tune. Charlie and his half-brother, Syd Chaplin spent their lives in and out of charity homes and workhouses between their mother's bouts of insanity. Hannah was committed to Cane Hill Asylum in May 1903 and lived there until 1921, when Chaplin moved her to California.
Chaplin began his official acting career at the age of eight, touring with the Eight Lancashire Lads. At age 18, he began touring with Fred Karno's vaudeville troupe, joining them on the troupe's 1910 United States tour. He traveled west to California in December 1913 and signed on with Keystone Studios' popular comedy director Mack Sennett, who had seen Chaplin perform on stage in New York. Charlie soon wrote his brother Syd, asking him to become his manager. While at Keystone, Chaplin appeared in and directed 35 films, starring as the Little Tramp in nearly all.
In November 1914, he left Keystone and signed on at Essanay, where he made 15 films. In 1916, he signed on at Mutual and made 12 films. In June 1917, Chaplin signed up with First National Studios, after which he built Chaplin Studios. In 1919, he and Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith formed United Artists (UA).
Chaplin's life and career was full of scandal and controversy. His first big scandal was during World War I, at which time his loyalty to England, his home country, was questioned. He had never applied for American citizenship, but claimed that he was a "paying visitor" to the United States. Many British citizens called Chaplin a coward and a slacker. This and other career eccentricities sparked suspicion with FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), who believed that he was injecting Communist propaganda into his films. Chaplin's later film The Great Dictator (1940), which was his first "talkie", also created a stir. In the film, Chaplin plays a humorous caricature of Adolf Hitler. Some thought the film was poorly done and in bad taste. However, the film grossed over $5 million and earned five Academy Award Nominations.
Another scandal occurred when Chaplin briefly dated 22 year-old Joan Barry. However, Chaplin's relationship with Barry came to an end in 1942, after a series of harassing actions from her. In May 1943, Barry returned to inform Chaplin that she was pregnant and filed a paternity suit, claiming that the unborn child was his. During the 1944 trial, blood tests proved that Chaplin was not the father, but at the time, blood tests were inadmissible evidence, and he was ordered to pay $75 a week until the child turned 21.
Chaplin also was scrutinized for his support in aiding the Russian struggle against the invading Nazis during World War II, and the United States government questioned his moral and political views, suspecting him of having Communist ties. For this reason, HUAC subpoenaed him in 1947. However, HUAC finally decided that it was no longer necessary for him to appear for testimony. Conversely, when Chaplin and his family traveled to London for the premier of Limelight (1952), he was denied re-entry to the United States. In reality, the government had almost no evidence to prove that he was a threat to national security. Instead, he and his wife decided to settle in Switzerland.
Chaplin was married four times and had a total of 11 children. In 1918, he married Mildred Harris and they had a son together, Norman Spencer Chaplin, who lived only three days. Chaplin and Harris divorced in 1920. He married Lita Grey in 1924, who had two sons, Charles Chaplin Jr. and Sydney Chaplin. They were divorced in 1927. In 1936, Chaplin married Paulette Goddard, and his final marriage was to Oona O'Neill (Oona Chaplin), daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1943. Oona gave birth to eight children: Geraldine Chaplin, Michael Chaplin, Josephine Chaplin, Victoria Chaplin, Eugene Chaplin, Jane Chaplin, Annette-Emilie Chaplin, and Christopher Chaplin.
In contrast to many of his boisterous characters, Chaplin was a quiet man who kept to himself a great deal. He also had an "un-millionaire" way of living. Even after he had accumulated millions, he continued to live in shabby accommodations. In 1921, Chaplin was decorated by the French government for his outstanding work as a filmmaker and was elevated to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1952. In 1972, he was honored with an Academy Award for his "incalculable effect in making motion pictures the art form of the century". He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1975 New Year's Honours List. No formal reason for the honour was listed. The citation simply reads "Charles Spencer Chaplin, Film Actor and Producer".
Chaplin's other works included musical scores that he composed for many of his films. He also authored two autobiographical books, "My Autobiography" (1964) and its companion volume, "My Life in Pictures" (1974).
Chaplin died at age 88 of natural causes on December 25, 1977 at his home in Vevey, Switzerland. His funeral was a small and private Anglican ceremony according to his wishes. In 1978, Chaplin's corpse was stolen from its grave and was not recovered for three months; he was re-buried in a vault surrounded by cement.
Six of Chaplin's films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress: The Immigrant (1917), The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940).
Charlie Chaplin is considered one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of American cinema, whose movies were and still are popular throughout the world and have even gained notoriety as time progresses. His films show, through the Little Tramp's positive outlook on life in a world full of chaos, that the human spirit has and always will remain the same.For:
1.Modern Times (1936) 10/10
2.The Gold Rush (1925) 9.5/10
3.The Great Dictator (1940) 9.5/10
4.The Kid (1921) 8.5/10
5.City Lights (1931) 8.5/10
6.Limelight (1952) 8/10
7.The Circus (1928) 8/10
8.Monsieur Verdoux (1947) 7.5/10
9.A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923) 7.5/10
10.The Pilgrim (1923) 7/10
11.A King in New York (1957) 6.5/10
12.The Idle Class (1921) 6.5/10
13.The Rink (1916) 6/10
14.Easy Street (1917) 6/10
15.Pay Day (1922) 6/10
16.The Immigrant (1917) 6/10
17.One A.M. (1916) 5.5/10
18.A Dog's Life (1918) 5.5/10
19.Shoulder Arms (1918) 5.5/10
20.The Rounders (1914) 5.5/10
21.The Cure (1917) 5.5/10
22.The Fireman (1916) 5.5/10
23.Police (1916) 5/10
24.Sunnyside (1919) 5/10
25.The Count (1916) 5/10
26.The Floorwalker (1916) 5/10
√- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Krzysztof Kieslowski graduated from Lódz Film School in 1969, and became a documentary, TV and feature film director and scriptwriter. Before making his first film for TV, Przejscie podziemne (1974) (The Underground Passage), he made a number of short documentaries. His next TV title, Personnel (1975) (The Staff), took the Grand Prix at Mannheim Film Festival. His first full-length feature was The Scar (1976) (The Scar). In 1978 he made the famous documentary From a Night Porter's Point of View (1979) (Night Porter's Point of View), and in 1979 - a feature Camera Buff (1979) (Camera Buff), which was acclaimed in Poland and abroad. Everything he did from that point was of highest artistic quality.For:
1.Three Colors: Blue (1993) 10/10
2.The Decalogue (1989) 9.5/10
3.La double vie de Véronique (1991) 9/10
4.Three Colors: Red (1994) 9/10
5.A Short Film About Love (1988) 8.5/10
6.Camera Buff (1979) 8/10
7.A Short Film About Killing (1988) 8/10
8.Three Colors: White (1994) 7.5/10
9.Short Working Day (1981) 7.5/10
10.Blind Chance (1987) 7.5/10
11.No End (1985) 7.5/10
12.Talking Heads (1980) 6/10
13.Seven Women of Different Ages (1979) 6/10
14.Pedestrian Subway (1974) 6/10
15.Curriculum Vitae (1975) 6/10
16.The Scar (1976) 5.5/10
17.I Was a Soldier (1971) 5.5/10
18.Refrain (1972) 5.5/10
19.From a Night Porter's Point of View (1979) 5.5/10
20.Concert of Wishes (1967) 5/10
21.The Tram (1966) 5/10
22.Railway Station (1980) 5/10
23.Bricklayer (1973) 5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Seven Days a Week - CITY LIFE - Warsaw (1990)- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on December 3, 1930, the second of four children in a bourgeois Franco-Swiss family. His father was a doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from a preeminent family of Swiss bankers. During World War II Godard became a naturalized citizen of Switzerland and attended school in Nyons, Switzerland. His parents divorced in 1948, at which time he returned to Paris to attend the Lycée Rohmer. In 1949 he studied at the Sorbonne to prepare for a degree in ethnology. However, it was during this time that he began attending with François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, and Éric Rohmer.
In 1950 Godard, with Rivette and Rohmer, founded "Gazette du cinéma", which published five issues between May and November. He wrote a number of articles for the journal, often using the pseudonym "Hans Lucas". After Godard worked on and financed two films by Rivette and Rohmer, Godard's family cut off their financial support in 1951, and he resorted to a Bohemian lifestyle that included stealing food and money when necessary. In January 1952 he began writing film criticism for "Les cahiers du cinéma". Later that year he traveled to North and South America with his father and attempted to make his first film (of which only a tracking shot from a car was ever accomplished).
In 1953 he returned to Paris briefly before securing a job as a construction worker on a dam project in Switzerland. With the money from the job, he made a short film in 1954 about the building of the dam called Operation Concrete (1958). Later that year his mother was killed in a motor scooter accident in Switzerland. In 1956 Godard began writing again for "Les cahiers du cinéma" as well as for the journal "Arts". In 1957 Godard worked as the press attache for "Artistes Associés", and made his first French film, All Boys Are Called Patrick (1959).
In 1958 he shot Charlotte and Her Boyfriend (1958), his homage to Jean Cocteau. Later that year he took unused footage of a flood in Paris shot by Truffaut and edited it into a film called A Story of Water (1961), which was an homage to Mack Sennett. In 1959 he worked with Truffaut on the weekly publication "Temps de Paris". Godard wrote a gossip column for the journal, but also spent much time writing scenarios for films and a body of critical writings which placed him firmly in the forefront of the "nouvelle vague" aesthetic, precursing the French New Wave.
It was also in that year Godard began work on Breathless (1960). In 1960 he married Anna Karina in Switzerland. In April and May he shot The Little Soldier (1963) in Geneva and was preparing the film for a fall release in Paris. However, French censors banned it due to its references to the Algerian war, and it was not shown until 1963. In March 1960 Breathless (1960) premiered in Paris. It was hugely successful both with the film critics and at the box office, and became a landmark film in the French New Wave with its references to American cinema, its jagged editing and overall romantic/cinephilia approach to filmmaking. The film propelled the popularity of male lead Jean-Paul Belmondo with European audiences.
In 1961 Godard shot A Woman Is a Woman (1961), his first film using color widescreen stock. Later that year he participated in the collective effort to remake the film The Seven Deadly Sins (1962), which was heralded as an important project in artistic collaboration. In 1962 Godard shot Vivre sa vie (1962) in Paris, his first commercial success since "Breathless". Later that year he shot a segment entitled "Le Nouveau Monde" for the collective film Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963), another important work in the history of collaborative multiple-authored art.
In 1963 Godard completed a film in homage to Jean Vigo entitled The Carabineers (1963), which was a resounding failure with the public and stirred furious controversy with film critics. Also that year he worked on a couple of collective films: The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers (1964) (from which Godard's sequence was later cut) and Six in Paris (1965). In 1964 Godard and his wife Anna Karina formed their own production company, Anouchka Films. They shot a film called A Married Woman (1964), which censors forced them to re-edit due to a topless sunbathing scene shot by Jacques Rozier. The censors also made Godard change the title to "Une femme marié" so as to not give the impression that this "scandalous" woman was the typical French wife. Later in the year, two French television programs were produced in devotion to Godard's work.
In the spring of 1965 Godard shot Alphaville (1965) in Paris; in the summer he shot Pierrot the Fool (1965) in Paris and the south of France. Shortly thereafter he and Anna Karina separated. Following their divorce, Godard shot Made in U.S.A (1966), "Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle (1966)", "L'amour en l'an 2000" (1966) (a sequel to "Alphaville" shot as a sketch for the collective film "L'amour travers les ages" (1966)).
In 1967 Godard shot The Chinese (1967) in Paris with Anne Wiazemsky, who was the granddaughter of French novelist François Mauriac. During the making of the film Godard and Wiazemsky were married in Paris. Later in the year he was prevented from traveling to North Vietnam for the shooting of a sequence for the collective film Far from Vietnam (1967). He instead shot the sequence in Paris, entitled "Camera-Oeil". Also during 1967 Godard participated (as the only Frenchman) on an Italian collective film called Love and Anger (1969).
In 1968 Godard was commissioned by French television to make Joy of Learning (1969). However, television producers were so outraged by the product Godard produced that they refused to show it. In May of that year Henri Langlois was fired by the head of the French Jean-Pierre Gorin to form the Dziga-Vertov group, infuriating Godard. He became increasingly concerned with socialist solutions to an idealist cinema, especially in providing the proletariat with the means of production and distribution. Along with other militantly political filmmakers in the Dziga-Vertov group, Godard published a series of 'Ciné-Tracts' outlining these viewpoints. In the summer of 1968 Godard traveled to New York City and Berkeley, California, to shoot the film "One American Movie", which was never completed. In September he made a trip to Canada to start another film called "Communication(s)", which also went unfinished, and then made a visit to Cuba before returning to France.
In 1969 Godard traveled to England, where he made the film See You at Mao (1970) for BBC Weekend Television, but the network later refused to show it. In the late spring he traveled with the Dziga-Vertov group to Prague to secretly shoot the film "Pravda". Later that year he shot Lotte in Italia (1971) ("Struggle for Italy") for Italian television. It was never shown, either.
In 1970 Godard traveled to Lebanon to shoot a film for the Palestinian Liberation Organization entitled "Jusque à la victoire" (1970) ("Until Victory"). Later that year he traveled to dozens of American universities trying to raise money for the film. In spite of his efforts, it was never released.For:
1.Pierrot le fou (1965) 10/10
2.Masculin/Féminin (1966) 9/10
3.À bout de souffle (1960) 9/10
4.Le mépris (1963) 8/10
5.Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (1962) 7.5/10
6.Bande à part (1964) 7.5/10
7.Le petit soldat (1963) 7.5/10
8.Week End (1967) 7.5/10
9.Le livre d'image (2018) 7.5/10
10.Alphaville (1965) 7/10
11.La chinoise (1967) 7/10
12.Tout va bien (1972) 7/10
13.Made in U.S.A (1966) 7/10
14.Une femme mariée: Suite de fragments d'un film tourné en 1964 (1964) 7/10
15.2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (1967) 6.5/10
16.Adieu au langage (2014) 6.5/10
17.Charlotte et Véronique (1959) 6.5/10
18.Une femme est une femme (1961) 6/10
19.Notre musique (2004) 6/10
20.Les carabiniers (1963) 6/10
21.Charlotte et son Jules (1960) 6/10
22.Une histoire d'eau (1961) 5/10
23.Numéro deux (1975) 5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Sauve qui peut (la vie) (1980); Passion (1982); Prénom Carmen (1983); 'Je vous salue, Marie' (1985); Détective (1985); Nouvelle vague (1990); Allemagne 90 neuf zéro (1991); Hélas pour moi (1993); Je vous salue, Sarajevo (1993); JLG/JLG - autoportrait de décembre (1994); For Ever Mozart (1996); De l'origine du XXIe siècle (2000)- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Ernst Ingmar Bergman was born July 14, 1918, the son of a priest. The film and T.V. series, The Best Intentions (1992) is biographical and shows the early marriage of his parents. The film Sunday's Children (1992) depicts a bicycle journey with his father. In the miniseries Private Confessions (1996) is the trilogy closed. Here, as in 'Den Goda Viljan' Pernilla August play his mother. Note that all three movies are not always full true biographical stories. He began his career early with a puppet theatre which he, his sister and their friends played with. But he was the manager. Strictly professional he begun writing in 1941. He had written a play called 'Kaspers död' (A.K.A. 'Kaspers Death') which was produced the same year. It became his entrance into the movie business as Stina Bergman (not a close relative), from the company S.F. (Swedish Filmindustry), had seen the play and thought that there must be some dramatic talent in young Ingmar. His first job was to save other more famous writers' poor scripts. Under one of that script-saving works he remembered that he had written a novel about his last year as a student. He took the novel, did the save-poor-script job first, then wrote a screenplay on his own novel. When he went back to S.F., he delivered two scripts rather than one. The script was Torment (1944) and was the fist Bergman screenplay that was put into film (by Alf Sjöberg). It was also in that movie Bergman did his first professional film-director job. Because Alf Sjöberg was busy, Bergman got the order to shoot the last sequence of the film. Ingmar Bergman is the father of Daniel Bergman, director, and Mats Bergman, actor at the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theater. Ingmar Bergman was also C.E.O. of the same theatre between 1963-1966, where he hired almost every professional actor in Sweden. In 1976 he had a famous tax problem. Bergman had trusted other people to advise him on his finances, but it turned out to be very bad advice. Bergman had to leave the country immediately, and so he went to Germany. A few years later he returned to Sweden and made his last theatrical film Fanny and Alexander (1982). In later life he retired from movie directing, but still wrote scripts for film and T.V. and directed plays at the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre for many years. He died peacefully in his sleep on July 30, 2007.For:
1.The Seventh Seal (1957) 10/10
2.Through a Glass Darkly (1961) 9.5/10
3.Persona (1966) 8.5/10
4.The Virgin Spring (1960) 8/10
5.Wild Strawberries (1957) 8/10
6.Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) 7.5/10
7.Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) 7.5/10
8.Summer with Monika (1953) 7.5/10
9.Shame (1968) 7/10
10.Cries & Whispers (1972) 7/10
11.Winter Light (1963) 7/10
12.Summer Interlude (1951) 7/10
13.Dreams (1955) 7/10
14.To Joy (1950) 7/10
15.The Passion of Anna (1969) 6.5/10
16.Secrets of Women (1952) 6.5/10
17.Thirst (1949) 6.5/10
18.A Lesson in Love (1954) 6/10
19.The Silence (1963) 5.5/10
20.The Magician (1958) 5.5/10
21.Prison (1949) 5.5/10
22.Port of Call (1948) 5.5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Brink of Life (1958); The Devil's eye (1960); The Rite (1969); Scenes From a Marriage (1973); The Magic Flute (1975); Face to Face (1976); Autumn sonata (1978); From the Life of the Marionettes (1980); Fanny and Alexander (1982); After the Rehearsal (1984); The Making of Fanny and Alexander (1986); In the Presence of a Clown (1997); Saraband (2003)- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.
In January of 1992, first-time writer-director Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) appeared at the Sundance Film Festival. The film garnered critical acclaim and the director became a legend immediately. Two years later, he followed up Dogs success with Pulp Fiction (1994) which premiered at the Cannes film festival, winning the coveted Palme D'Or Award. At the 1995 Academy Awards, it was nominated for the best picture, best director and best original screenplay. Tarantino and writing partner Roger Avary came away with the award only for best original screenplay. In 1995, Tarantino directed one fourth of the anthology Four Rooms (1995) with friends and fellow auteurs Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Allison Anders. The film opened December 25 in the United States to very weak reviews. Tarantino's next film was From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), a vampire/crime story which he wrote and co-starred with George Clooney. The film did fairly well theatrically.
Since then, Tarantino has helmed several critically and financially successful films, including Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Django Unchained (2012) and The Hateful Eight (2015).For:
1.Inglourious Basterds (2009) 10/10
2.Django Unchained (2012) 10/10
3.Pulp Fiction (1994) 9.5/10
4.Reservoir Dogs (1992) 9/10
5.Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) 9/10
6.Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) 8.5/10
7.Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood (2019) 8.5/10
8.Jackie Brown (1997) 8/10
9.The Hateful Eight (2015) 7.5/10
10.Death Proof (2007) 7/10
11.My Best Friend's Birthday (1987) 5.5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
None- Producer
- Director
- Production Designer
Described by film producer Michael Deeley as "the very best eye in the business", director Ridley Scott was born on November 30, 1937 in South Shields, Tyne and Wear. His father was an officer in the Royal Engineers and the family followed him as his career posted him throughout the United Kingdom and Europe before they eventually returned to Teesside. Scott wanted to join the British Army (his elder brother Frank had already joined the Merchant Navy) but his father encouraged him to develop his artistic talents instead and so he went to West Hartlepool College of Art and then London's Royal College of Art where he helped found the film department.
In 1962, he joined the BBC as a trainee set designer working on several high profile series. He attended a trainee director's course while he was there and his first directing job was on an episode of the popular BBC police series Z Cars (1962), Error of Judgement (1965). More TV work followed until, frustrated by the poor financial rewards at the BBC, he went into advertising. With his younger brother, Tony Scott, he formed the advertising production company RSA (Ridley Scott Associates) in 1967 and spent the next 10 years making some of the best known and best loved TV adverts ever shown on British television, including a series of ads for Hovis bread set to the music of Dvorak's New World Symphony which are still talked about today ("'e were a great baker were our dad.")
He began working with producer David Puttnam in the 1970s developing ideas for feature films. Their first joint endeavor, The Duellists (1977) won the Jury Prize for Best First Work at Cannes in 1977 and was nominated for the Palm d'Or, more than successfully launching Scott's feature film career. The success of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) inspired Scott's interest in making science fiction and he accepted the offer to direct Dan O'Bannon's low budget science fiction horror movie Alien (1979), a critical and commercial success that firmly established his worldwide reputation as a movie director.
Blade Runner (1982) followed in 1982 to, at best, a lukewarm reception from public and critics but in the years that followed, its reputation grew - and Scott's with it - as one of the most important sci-fi movies ever made. Scott's next major project was back in the advertising world where he created another of the most talked-about advertising spots in broadcast history when his "1984"-inspired ad for the new Apple Macintosh computer was aired during the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984. Scott's movie career has seen a few flops (notably Legend (1985) and 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)), but with successes like Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000) and Black Hawk Down (2001) to offset them, his reputation remains solidly intact.
Ridley Scott was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire at the 2003 Queen's New Year Honours for his "substantial contribution to the British film industry". On July 3, 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Royal College of Art in a ceremony at the Royal Albert Hall in London. He was awarded the BAFTA Fellowship in 2018. BAFTA described him as "a visionary director, one of the great British film-makers whose work has made an indelible mark on the history of cinema. Forty years since his directorial debut, his films continue to cross the boundaries of style and genre, engaging audiences and inspiring the next generation of film talent."For:
1.Blade Runner (1982) 9.5/10
2.Alien (1979) 9/10
3.Gladiator (2000) 9/10
4.The Duellists (1977) 8/10
5.Kingdom of Heaven (2005) 8/10
6.All the Money in the World (2017) 8/10
7.Thelma & Louise (1991) 7.5/10
8.American Gangster (2007) 7.5/10
9.The Last Duel (2021) 7.5/10
10.The Martian (2015) 7.5/10
11.Alien: Covenant (2017) 7.5/10
12.Prometheus (2012) 7.5/10
13.Matchstick Men (2003) 7/10
14.Black Hawk Down (2001) 7/10
15.Body of Lies (2008) 6.5/10
16.Alien: Covenant - Prologue: The Crossing (2017) 6/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Hennessy X.O: The Seven Worlds (2019); House of Gucci (2021); Napoleon (2023)- Director
- Producer
- Actor
John Ford came to Hollywood following one of his brothers, an actor. Asked what brought him to Hollywood, he replied "the train". He became one of the most respected directors in the business, in spite of being known for his westerns, which were not considered "serious" film. He won six Oscars, counting (he always did) the two that he won for his WWII documentary work. He had one wife; a son and daughter; and a grandson, Dan Ford who wrote a biography on his famous grandfather.For:
1.The Searchers (1956) 9.5/10
2.The Grapes of Wrath (1940) 8.5/10
3.My Darling Clementine (1946) 8.5/10
4.Stagecoach (1939) 8/10
5.The Informer (1935) 8/10
6.The Quiet Man (1952) 8/10
7.How Green Was My Valley (1941) 7.5/10
8.Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) 7/10
9.Fort Apache (1948) 7/10
10.The Whole Town's Talking (1935) 7/10
11.3 Bad Men (1926) 7/10
12.She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) 6.5/10
13.Rio Grande (1950) 6.5/10
14.The Hurricane (1937) 6.5/10
15.The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936) 6.5/10
16.Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) 6.5/10
17.Four Sons (1928) 6.5/10
18.The Iron Horse (1924) 6.5/10
19.Air Mail (1932) 6/10
20.Arrowsmith (1931) 6/10
21.Mister Roberts (1955) 5.5/10
22.The Lost Patrol (1934) 5.5/10
23.The Long Voyage Home (1940) 5/10
24.Just Pals (1920) 5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Steamboat Round the Bend (1935); Wee Willie Winkie (1937); They Were Expendable (1945); The Fugitive (1947); 3 Godfathers (1948); Wagon Master (1950); The Sun Shines Bright (1953); Mogambo (1953); The Long Gray Line (1955); The Rising of the Moon (1957); The Last Hurrah (1958); The Horse Soldiers (1959); Sergeant Rutledge (1960); Two Rode Together (1961); The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962); How the West Was Won (1962); Donovan's Reef (1963); Cheyenne Autumn (1964); 7 Women (1966)- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Sir Peter Jackson made history with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, becoming the first person to direct three major feature films simultaneously. The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King were nominated for and collected a slew of awards from around the globe, with The Return of the King receiving his most impressive collection of awards. This included three Academy Awards® (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture), two Golden Globes (Best Director and Best Motion Picture-Drama), three BAFTAs (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film and Viewers' Choice), a Directors Guild Award, a Producers Guild Award and a New York Film Critics Circle Award.
As a follow up to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in 2005, Jackson directed, wrote, and produced King Kong, for Universal Pictures. The film grossed over $500 million and won three Oscars®.
Jackson previously received widespread acclaim for his 1994 feature Heavenly Creatures, which received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Screenplay. Other film credits include The Frighteners, starring Michael J. Fox; the adult puppet feature Meet the Feebles; and Braindead, which won 16 international science fiction awards, including the Saturn. Jackson also co-directed the television documentary Forgotten Silver, which also hit the film festival circuit.
Jackson directed the Academy Award®-nominated The Lovely Bones, an adaptation of the acclaimed best-selling novel by Alice Sebold and produced the worldwide sci-fi hit District 9. He was a producer on Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn in 2011, with two more films set to come out in the future.
His most recent films include producer of 2018's action film Mortal Engines, based on a post-apocalyptic world where cities ride on wheels and consume each other to survive. Following Mortal Engines, he produced They Shall Not Grow Old, a documentary on World War I with never-before-seen footage. BAFTA nominated the film for Best Documentary, and it won the award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing from the Motion Picture Sound Editors.
Jackson's next project is the music documentary The Beatles: Get Back, which he directed and produced, due to be released August, 2021.
Jackson works closely with partner Dame Fran Walsh, with whom he shares his writing and producing credits, as well as a family. Jackson has a special interest in WWI memorabilia and is the proud owner of several aircraft from that era.For:
1.LOTR: The Return of the King (2003) 10/10
2.LOTR: The Two Towers (2002) 9.5/10
3.The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) 8.5/10
4.LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 8.5/10
5.They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) 8.5/10
6.Braindead (1992) 8/10
7.The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) 8/10
8.Heavenly Creatures (1994) 7.5/10
9.The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) 7.5/10
10.Meet the Feebles (1989) 7/10
11.Forgotten Silver (1995) 7/10
12.King Kong (2005) 7/10
13.Bad Taste (1987) 6.5/10
14.The Frighteners (1996) 6.5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
The Beatles: Get Back (2021); The Beatles: Get Back - The Rooftop Concert (2022); The Beatles: Now and Then (2023)- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future director Jennifer Lynch shortly after he turned 21. That experience, plus attending art school in a particularly violent and run-down area of Philadelphia, inspired Eraserhead (1977), a film that he began in the early 1970s (after a couple of shorts) and which he would work on obsessively for five years. The final film was initially judged to be almost unreleasable weird, but thanks to the efforts of distributor Ben Barenholtz, it secured a cult following and enabled Lynch to make his first mainstream film (in an unlikely alliance with Mel Brooks), though The Elephant Man (1980) was shot through with his unique sensibility. Its enormous critical and commercial success led to Dune (1984), a hugely expensive commercial disaster, but Lynch redeemed himself with the now classic Blue Velvet (1986), his most personal and original work since his debut. He subsequently won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival with the dark, violent road movie Wild at Heart (1990), and achieved a huge cult following with his surreal TV series Twin Peaks (1990), which he adapted for the big screen, though his comedy series On the Air (1992) was less successful. He also draws comic strips and has devised multimedia stage events with regular composer Angelo Badalamenti. He had a much-publicized affair with Isabella Rossellini in the late 1980s.For:
1.Mulholland Dr. (2001) 10/10
2.Eraserhead (1977) 9.5/10
3.Blue Velvet (1986) 8.5/10
4.Twin Peaks - SEASON 3 (2017) 8.5/10
5.The Elephant Man (1980) 8.5/10
6.Twin Peaks - SEASON 1 (1990) 8/10
7.Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) 8/10
8.Twin Peaks - SEASON 2 (1990) 7.5/10
9.The Grandmother (1970) 7/10
10.Dune (1984) 7/10
11.Wild at Heart (1990) 7/10
12.Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted (1990) 7/10
13.Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (2014) 6/10
14.The Alphabet (1968) 6/10
15.Crazy Clown Time (2012) 5.5/10
16.The 3 Rs (2011) 5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Lost Highway (1997); The Straight Story (1999); Inland Empire (2006); What Did Jack Do? (2017); Fire (PoZar) (2020)- Writer
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
After training as a painter (he storyboards his films as full-scale paintings), Kurosawa entered the film industry in 1936 as an assistant director, eventually making his directorial debut with Sanshiro Sugata (1943). Within a few years, Kurosawa had achieved sufficient stature to allow him greater creative freedom. Drunken Angel (1948) was the first film he made without extensive studio interference, and marked his first collaboration with Toshirô Mifune. In the coming decades, the two would make 16 movies together, and Mifune became as closely associated with Kurosawa's films as was John Wayne with the films of Kurosawa's idol, John Ford. After working in a wide range of genres, Kurosawa made his international breakthrough film Rashomon (1950) in 1950. It won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, and first revealed the richness of Japanese cinema to the West. The next few years saw the low-key, touching Ikiru (1952) (Living), the epic Seven Samurai (1954), the barbaric, riveting Shakespeare adaptation Throne of Blood (1957), and a fun pair of samurai comedies Yojimbo (1961) and Sanjuro (1962). After a lean period in the late 1960s and early 1970s, though, Kurosawa attempted suicide. He survived, and made a small, personal, low-budget picture with Dodes'ka-den (1970), a larger-scale Russian co-production Dersu Uzala (1975) and, with the help of admirers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, the samurai tale Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (1980), which Kurosawa described as a dry run for Ran (1985), an epic adaptation of Shakespeare's "King Lear." He continued to work into his eighties with the more personal Dreams (1990), Rhapsody in August (1991) and Madadayo (1993). Kurosawa's films have always been more popular in the West than in his native Japan, where critics have viewed his adaptations of Western genres and authors (William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Maxim Gorky and Evan Hunter) with suspicion - but he's revered by American and European film-makers, who remade Rashomon (1950) as The Outrage (1964), Seven Samurai (1954), as The Magnificent Seven (1960), Yojimbo (1961), as A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and The Hidden Fortress (1958), as Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).For:
1.Seven Samurai (1954) 10/10
2.Rashômon (1950) 9/10
3.To Live (1952) 9/10
4.The Hidden Fortress (1958) 8.5/10
5.Throne of Blood (1957) 8.5/10
6.Drunken Angel (1948) 8/10
7.The Quiet Duel (1949) 7.5/10
8.Stray Dog (1949) 7/10
9.I Live in Fear (1955) 7/10
10.The Lower Depths (1957) 7/10
11.Scandal (1950) 7/10
12.Judo Saga (1943) 6.5/10
13.No Regrets for My Youth (1946) 6/10
14.The Idiot (1951) 6/10
15.One Wonderful Sunday (1947) 6/10
16.The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945) 5.5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
The Bad Sleep Well (1960); Yojimbo (1961); Sanjuro (1962); High and Low (1963); Red Beard (1965); Dodesukaden (1970); Dersu Uzala (1975); Shadow Warrior (1980); Ran (1985); Dreams (1990); Rhapsody in August (1991); Madadayo (1993)- Director
- Additional Crew
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
George Cukor was an American film director of Hungarian-Jewish descent, better known for directing comedies and literary adaptations. He once won the Academy Award for Best Director, and was nominated other four times for the same Award.
In 1899, George Dewey Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. His parents were assistant district attorney Viktor Cukor and Helén Ilona Gross. His middle name "Dewey" honored Admiral George Dewey who was considered a war hero for his victory in the Battle of Manila Bay, in 1898.
As a child, Cukor received dancing lessons, and soon fell in love with the theater, appearing in several amateur plays. In 1906, he performed in a recital with David O. Selznick (1902-1965), who would later become a close friend.
As a teenager, Cukor often visited the New York Hippodrome, a well-known Manhattan theater. He often cut classes while attending high school, in order to attend afternoon matinees. He later took a job as a supernumerary with the Metropolitan Opera, and at times performed there in black-face.
Cukor graduated from the DeWitt Clinton High School in 1917. His father wanted him to follow a legal career, and had his son enrolled City College of New York. Cukor lost interest in his studies and dropped out of college in 1918. He then took a job as an assistant stage manager and bit player for a touring production of the British musical "The Better 'Ole". The musical was an adaptation of the then-popular British comic strip "Old Bill" by Bruce Bairnsfather (1887-1959).
In 1920, Cukor became the stage manager of the Knickerbocker Players, a theatrical troupe. In 1921, Cukor became the general manager of the Lyceum Players, a summer stock company. In 1925, Cukor was one of the co-founders the C.F. and Z. Production Company. With this theatrical company, Cukor started working as a theatrical director. He made his Broadway debut as a director with the play "Antonia" by Melchior Lengyel (1880-1974).
The C.F. and Z. Production Company was eventually renamed the Cukor-Kondolf Stock Company, and started recruiting up-and-coming theatrical talents. Cukor's theatrical troupe included at various times Louis Calhern, Ilka Chase, Bette Davis, Douglass Montgomery, Frank Morgan, Reginald Owen, Elizabeth Patterson, and Phyllis Povah.
Cukor attained great critical acclaim in 1926 for directing "The Great Gatsby", an adaptation of a then-popular novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940). He directed six more Broadway productions until 1929. At the time, Hollywood film studios were recruiting New York theater talent for sound films, and Cukor was hired by Paramount Pictures. He started as an apprentice director before the studio lent him to Universal Pictures. His first notable film work was serving as a dialogue director for "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930).
After returning to Paramount Pictures, he worked as aco-director. His first solo directorial effort was "Tarnished Lady" (1931), and at that time he earned a weekly salary of $1500. Cukor co-directed the film "One Hour with You" (1932) with Ernst Lubitsch, but Lubitsch demanded sole directorial credit. Cukor filed a legal suit but eventually had to settle for a credit as the film's assistant director. He left Paramount in protest, and took a new job with RKO Studios.
During the 1930s, Cukor was entrusted with directing films for RKO's leading actresses. He worked often with Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003), although not always with box-office success. He did direct such box office hits as "Little Women" (1933) and "Holiday" (1938), but also notable flops such as "Sylvia Scarlett" (1935).
In 1936, Cukor was assigned to work on the film adaptation of the blockbuster novel "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell. He spent the next two years preoccupied with the film's pre-production, and with supervising screen tests for actresses seeking to play leading character Scarlett O'Hara. Cukor reportedly favored casting either Katharine Hepburn or Paulette Goddard for the role. Producer David O. Selznick refused to cast either one, since Hepburn was coming off a string of flops and was viewed as "box office poison," while Goddard was rumored to have had a scandalous affair with Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) and her reputation suffered for it.
Cukor did not get to direct "Gone with the Wind", as Selznick decided to assign the directing duties to Victor Fleming (1889-1949). Cukor's involvement with the film was limited to coaching actresses Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) and Olivia de Havilland (1916-). Similarly, the very same year, Cukor also failed to receive a directing credit for "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), though he was responsible for several casting and costuming decisions for this iconic classic.
In this same period, Cukor did direct an all-female cast in "The Women" (1939), as well as Greta Garbo's final motion picture performance in "Two-Faced Woman" (1941). Then his film career was interrupted by World War II, as he joined the Signal Corps in 1942. Given his experience as a film director, Cukor was soon assigned to producing training and instructional films for army personnel. He wanted to gain an officer's commission, but was denied promotion above the rank of private. Cukor suspected that rumors of his homosexuality were the reason he never received the promotion.
During the 1940s, Cukor had a number of box-office hits, such "A Woman's Face" (1941) and "Gaslight" (1944). He forged a working alliance with screenwriters Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, and the trio collaborated on seven films between 1947-1954.
Until the early 1950s, most of his Cukor's films were in black-and-white, and his first film in Technicolor was "A Star Is Born" (1954), with Judy Garland as the leading actress. Casting the male lead for the film proved difficult, as several major stars were either not interested in the role or were considered unsuitable by the studio. Cukor had to settle for James Mason as the male lead, but the film was highly successful and received 6 Academy Award nominations. But Cukor was not nominated for directing.
He had a handful of critical successes over the following years, such as Les Girls (1957) and "Wild Is the Wind" (1957), and also helmed the unfinished "Something's Got to Give" (1962), which had a troubled production and went at least $2 million over budget before it was terminated.
Cukor had a comeback with the critically and commercially successful "My Fair Lady," one of the highlights of his career., for which he won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Director, along with the Directors Guild of America Award. However, his career very quickly slowed down, and the aging Cukor was infrequently involved with new projects.
Cukor's most notable film in the 1970s was the fantasy The Blue Bird (1976) , which was the first joint Soviet-American production. It was a box-office flop, though it received a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film and was groundbreaking for its time. Cukor's swan song was "Rich and Famous" (1981), depicting the relationship of two women over a period of several decades., played by co-stars Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen, Cukor's final pair of leading ladies.
He retired as a director at the age of 82, and died a year later of a heart attack in 1983. At the time of his death, his net worth was estimated to be $2,377,720. He was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA. Cukor was buried next to his long-time platonic friend Frances Howard (1903-1976), the wife of legendary studio mogul Samuel Goldwyn.For:
1.The Philadelphia Story (1940) 9.5/10
2.Adam's Rib (1949) 8.5/10
3.Holiday (1938) 8.5/10
4.My Fair Lady (1964) 8.5/10
5.Born Yesterday (1950) 8/10
6.Camille (1936) 8/10
7.David Copperfield (1935) 7.5/10
8.Dinner at Eight (1933) 7.5/10
9.Gaslight (1944) 7/10
10.Little Women (1933) 7/10
11.A Double Life (1947) 7/10
12.A Woman's Face (1941) 7/10
13.What Price Hollywood? (1932) 7/10
14.The Women (1939) 6/10
15.A Star Is Born (1954) 6/10
16.A Bill of Divorcement (1932) 6/10
17.Keeper of the Flame (1942) 5.5/10
18.The Royal Family of Broadway (1930) 5.5/10
19.Sylvia Scarlett (1935) 5/10
20.Romeo and Juliet (1936) 5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951); The Marrying Kind (1952); Pat and Mike (1952); It Should Happen to You (1954); Bhowani Junction (1956); Lust for Life (1956); Les Girls (1957); Let's Make Love (1960); Something's Got to Give (1962); Love Among the Ruins (1975); The Corn Is Green (1979)- Writer
- Director
- Actor
The women who both attracted and frightened him and an Italy dominated in his youth by Mussolini and Pope Pius XII - inspired the dreams that Fellini started recording in notebooks in the 1960s. Life and dreams were raw material for his films. His native Rimini and characters like Saraghina (the devil herself said the priests who ran his school) - and the Gambettola farmhouse of his paternal grandmother would be remembered in several films. His traveling salesman father Urbano Fellini showed up in La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8½ (1963). His mother Ida Barbiani was from Rome and accompanied him there in 1939. He enrolled in the University of Rome. Intrigued by the image of reporters in American films, he tried out the real life role of journalist and caught the attention of several editors with his caricatures and cartoons and then started submitting articles. Several articles were recycled into a radio series about newlyweds "Cico and Pallina". Pallina was played by acting student Giulietta Masina, who became his real life wife from October 30, 1943, until his death half a century later. The young Fellini loved vaudeville and was befriended in 1940 by leading comedian Aldo Fabrizi. Roberto Rossellini wanted Fabrizi to play Don Pietro in Rome, Open City (1945) and made the contact through Fellini. Fellini worked on that film's script and is on the credits for Rosselini's Paisan (1946). On that film he wandered into the editing room, started observing how Italian films were made (a lot like the old silent films with an emphasis on visual effects, dialogue dubbed in later). Fellini in his mid-20s had found his life's work.For:
1.La strada (1954) 9.5/10
2.8½ (1963) 9.5/10
3.Le notti di Cabiria (1957) 9/10
4.La dolce vita (1960) 9/10
5.Amarcord (1973) 9/10
6.Il bidone (1955) 8.5/10
7.I vitelloni (1953) 8/10
8.Giulietta degli spiriti (1965) 8/10
9.Lo sceicco bianco (1952) 7.5/10
10.Luci del varietà (1950) 7/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Fellini - Satyricon (1969); Roma (1972); Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976); Prova d'orchestra (1978); La città delle donne (1980); E la nave va (1984); Ginger e Fred (1986); Intervista (1987); La voce della luna (1990)- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Originally planning to become a lawyer, Billy Wilder abandoned that career in favor of working as a reporter for a Viennese newspaper, using this experience to move to Berlin, where he worked for the city's largest tabloid. He broke into films as a screenwriter in 1929 and wrote scripts for many German films until Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. Wilder immediately realized his Jewish ancestry would cause problems, so he emigrated to Paris, then the US. Although he spoke no English when he arrived in Hollywood, Wilder was a fast learner and thanks to contacts such as Peter Lorre (with whom he shared an apartment), he was able to break into American films. His partnership with Charles Brackett started in 1938 and the team was responsible for writing some of Hollywood's classic comedies, including Ninotchka (1939) and Ball of Fire (1941). The partnership expanded into a producer-director one in 1942, with Brackett producing and the two turned out such classics as Five Graves to Cairo (1943), The Lost Weekend (1945) (Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay) and Sunset Boulevard (1950) (Oscars for Best Screenplay), after which the partnership dissolved. (Wilder had already made one film, Double Indemnity (1944) without Brackett, as the latter had refused to work on a film he felt dealt with such disreputable characters.) Wilder's subsequent self-produced films would become more caustic and cynical, notably Ace in the Hole (1951), though he also produced such sublime comedies as Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960) (which won him Best Picture and Director Oscars). He retired in 1981.For:
1.Sunset Blvd. (1950) 10/10
2.The Apartment (1960) 9.5/10
3.Double Indemnity (1944) 9/10
4.The Lost Weekend (1945) 8.5/10
5.Ace in the Hole (1951) 8.5/10
6.Witness for the Prosecution (1957) 8.5/10
7.Stalag 17 (1953) 7.5/10
8.Five Graves to Cairo (1943) 7.5/10
9.Death Mills (1945) 7.5/10
10.A Foreign Affair (1948) 7/10
11.The Major and the Minor (1942) 7/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Sabrina (1954); The Seven Year Itch (1955); The Spirit of St. Louis (1957); Love in the Afternoon (1957); Some Like It Hot (1959); One, Two, Three (1961); Irma la Douce (1963); Kiss Me, Stupid (1964); The Fortune Cookie (1966); The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970); Avanti! (1972); The Front Page (1974); Fedora (1978)- Animation Department
- Writer
- Art Department
Hayao Miyazaki is one of Japan's greatest animation directors. The entertaining plots, compelling characters, and breathtaking visuals in his films have earned him international renown from critics as well as public recognition within Japan.
Miyazaki started his career in 1963 as an animator at the studio Toei Douga studio, and was subsequently involved in many early classics of Japanese animation. From the beginning, he commanded attention with his incredible drawing ability and the seemingly endless stream of movie ideas he proposed.
In 1971, he moved to the A Pro studio with Isao Takahata. In 1973, he moved to Nippon Animation, where he was heavily involved in the World Masterpiece Theater TV animation series for the next 5 years. In 1978, he directed his first TV series, Future Boy Conan (1978). Then, he moved to Tokyo Movie Shinsha in 1979 to direct his first movie, the classic Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979). In 1984, he released Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), which was based on the manga of the same title he had started 2 years before. The success of the film led to the establishment of a new animation studio, Studio Ghibli. Since then, he has since directed, written, and produced many other films with Takahata. More recently, he has produced with Toshio Suzuki. All enjoyed critical and box office success, in particular Princess Mononoke (1997). It received the Japanese equivalent of the Academy Award for Best Film and was the highest-grossing (about USD $150 million) domestic film in Japan's history at the time of its release.
In addition to animation, he also draws manga. His major work was Nausicaä, an epic tale he worked on intermittently from 1982 to 1984 while he was busy making animated films. Another manga Hikotei Jidai, later evolved into Porco Rosso (1992).For:
1.Spirited Away (2001) 9/10
2.Princess Mononoke (1997) 9/10
3.Howl's Moving Castle (2004) 9/10
4.Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) 8.5/10
5.My Neighbor Totoro (1988) 8.5/10
6.Castle in the Sky (1986) 8/10
7.The Wind Rises (2013) 8/10
8.Porco Rosso (1992) 8/10
9.Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) 7.5/10
10.Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979) 7.5/10
11.Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess (2010) 6.5/10
12.On Your Mark (1995) 6/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
The Whale Hunt (2001); Mei and the Kitten Bus (2002); Koro's Big Day Out (2002); House-hunting (2006); Monmon the Water Spider (2006); The Day I Bought a Star (2006); Ponyo (2008); Boro the Caterpillar (2018); The Boy and the Heron (2023)- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Terry Gilliam was born near Medicine Lake, Minnesota. When he was 12 his family moved to Los Angeles where he became a fan of MAD magazine. In his early twenties he was often stopped by the police who suspected him of being a drug addict and Gilliam had to explain that he worked in advertising. In the political turmoil in the 60's, Gilliam feared he would become a terrorist and decided to leave the USA. He moved to England and landed a job on the children's television show Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) as an animator. There he met meet his future collaborators in Monty Python: Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Michael Palin. In 2006 he renounced his American citizenship.For:
1.Brazil (1985) 10/10
2.Twelve Monkeys (1995) 9/10
3.Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) 8.5/10
4.The Meaning of Life (1983) 8.5/10
5.The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) 8/10
6.Time Bandits (1981) 8/10
7.The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) 8/10
8.Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) 7.5/10
9.The Fisher King (1991) 7.5/10
10.The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018) 6.5/10
11.The Crimson Permanent Assurance (1983) 6.5/10
12.The Wholly Family (2011) 6/10
13.Storytime (1968) 5.5/10
14.Miracle of Flight (1974) 5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
None- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Denis Villeneuve is a French Canadian film director and writer. He was born in 1967, in Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada. He started his career as a filmmaker at the National Film Board of Canada. He is best known for his feature films Arrival (2016), Sicario (2015), Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), and Incendies (2010). He is married to Tanya Lapointe.For:
1.Arrival (2016) 9.5/10
2.Prisoners (2013) 9/10
3.Blade Runner 2049 (2017) 9/10
4.Dune: Part One (2021) 8.5/10
5.Incendies (2010) 8.5/10
6.Sicario (2015) 8.5/10
7.Enemy (2013) 8/10
8.Maelström (2000) 7.5/10
9.Next Floor (2008) 7/10
10.Un 32 août sur terre (1998) 7/10
11.Polytechnique (2009) 6.5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Dune: Part Two (2024)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in music and mechanics, but was an otherwise bored student; this resulted in being held back a grade. In 1949, the year he is said to have graduated from high school, his parents and younger sister Jeanne moved to Seattle. Clint spent a couple years in the Pacific Northwest himself, operating log broncs in Springfield, Oregon, with summer gigs life-guarding in Renton, Washington. Returning to California in 1951, he did a two-year stint at Fort Ord Military Reservation and later enrolled at L.A. City College, but dropped out to pursue acting.
During the mid-1950s he landed uncredited bit parts in such B-films as Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955) while digging swimming pools and driving a garbage truck to supplement his income. In 1958, he landed his first consequential acting role in the long-running TV show Rawhide (1959) with Eric Fleming. Although only a secondary player the first seven seasons, he was promoted to series star when Fleming departed--both literally and figuratively--in its final year, along the way becoming a recognizable face to television viewers around the country.
Eastwood's big-screen breakthrough came as The Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's trilogy of excellent spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The movies were shown exclusively in Italy during their respective copyright years with Enrico Maria Salerno providing the voice of Eastwood's character, finally getting American distribution in 1967-68. As the last film racked up respectable grosses, Eastwood, 37, rose from a barely registering actor to sought-after commodity in just a matter of months. Again a success was the late-blooming star's first U.S.-made western, Hang 'Em High (1968). He followed that up with the lead role in Coogan's Bluff (1968) (the loose inspiration for the TV series McCloud (1970)), before playing second fiddle to Richard Burton in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Lee Marvin in the bizarre musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood leaned in an experimental direction by combining tough-guy action with offbeat humor.
1971 proved to be his busiest year in film. He starred as a sleazy Union soldier in The Beguiled (1971) to critical acclaim, and made his directorial debut with the classic erotic thriller Play Misty for Me (1971). His role as the hard edge police inspector in Dirty Harry (1971), meanwhile, boosted him to cultural icon status and helped popularize the loose-cannon cop genre. Eastwood put out a steady stream of entertaining movies thereafter: the westerns Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) (his first of six onscreen collaborations with then live-in love Sondra Locke), the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force (1973) and The Enforcer (1976), the action-packed road adventures Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Gauntlet (1977), and the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He branched out into the comedy genre in 1978 with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which became the biggest hit of his career up to that time; taking inflation into account, it still is. In short, The Eiger Sanction (1975) notwithstanding, the 1970s were nonstop success for Eastwood.
Eastwood kicked off the 1980s with Any Which Way You Can (1980), the blockbuster sequel to Every Which Way but Loose. The fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), was the highest-grossing film of the franchise and spawned his trademark catchphrase: "Make my day." He also starred in Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982), Tightrope (1984), City Heat (1984), Pale Rider (1985) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), all of which were solid hits, with Honkytonk Man (1982) being his only commercial failure of the period. In 1988, he did his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall, it did not have the box office punch the previous films had. About this time, with outright bombs like Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990), it seemed Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on low-key projects, directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie Parker that earned him a Golden Globe, and starring in and directing White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biopic of John Huston (both films had a limited release).
Eastwood bounced back big time with his dark western Unforgiven (1992), which garnered the then 62-year-old his first ever Academy Award nomination (Best Actor), and an Oscar win for Best Director. Churning out a quick follow-up hit, he took on the secret service in In the Line of Fire (1993), then accepted second billing for the first time since 1970 in the interesting but poorly received A Perfect World (1993) with Kevin Costner. Next was a love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), where Eastwood surprised audiences with a sensitive performance alongside none other than Meryl Streep. But it soon became apparent he was going backwards after his brief revival. Subsequent films were credible, but nothing really stuck out. Absolute Power (1997) and Space Cowboys (2000) did well enough, while True Crime (1999) and Blood Work (2002) were received badly, as was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), which he directed but didn't appear in.
Eastwood surprised again in the mid-2000s, returning to the top of the A-list with Million Dollar Baby (2004). Also starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, the hugely successful drama won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He scored his second Best Actor nomination, too. His next starring vehicle, Gran Torino (2008), earned almost $30 million in its opening weekend and was his highest grosser unadjusted for inflation. 2012 saw him in a rare lighthearted movie, Trouble with the Curve (2012), as well as a reality show, Mrs. Eastwood & Company (2012).
Between acting jobs, he chalked up an impressive list of credits behind the camera. He directed Mystic River (2003) (in which Sean Penn and Tim Robbins gave Oscar-winning performances), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) (nominated for the Best Picture Oscar), Changeling (2008) (a vehicle for Angelina Jolie), Invictus (2009) (again with Freeman), Hereafter (2010), J. Edgar (2011), Jersey Boys (2014), American Sniper (2014) (2014's top box office champ), Sully (2016) (starring Tom Hanks as hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger) and The 15:17 to Paris (2018). Back on screens after a considerable absence, he played an unlikely drug courier in The Mule (2018), which reached the top of the box office with a nine-figure gross, then directed Richard Jewell (2019). At age 91, Eastwood made history as the oldest actor to star above the title in a movie with the release of Cry Macho (2021).
Away from the limelight, Eastwood has led an aberrant existence and is described by biographer Patrick McGilligan as a cunning manipulator of the media. His convoluted slew of partners and children are now somewhat factually acknowledged, but for the first three decades of his celebrity, his personal life was kept top secret, and several of his families were left out of the official narrative. The actor refuses to disclose his exact number of offspring even to this day. He had a longtime relationship with similarly abstruse co-star Locke (who died aged 74 in 2018, though for her entire public life she masqueraded about being younger), and has fathered at least eight children by at least six different women in an unending string of liaisons, many of which overlapped. He has been married only twice, however, with a mere three of his progeny coming from those unions.
His known children are: Laurie Murray (b. 1954), whose mother is unidentified; Kimber Eastwood (b. 1964) with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis; Kyle Eastwood (b. 1968) and Alison Eastwood (b. 1972) with his first ex-wife, Margaret Neville Johnson; Scott Eastwood (b. 1986) and Kathryn Eastwood (b. 1988) with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Eastwood (b. 1993) with actress Frances Fisher; and Morgan Eastwood (b. 1996) with his second ex-wife, Dina Eastwood. The entire time that he lived with Locke she was legally married to sculptor Gordon Anderson.
Eastwood has real estate holdings in Bel-Air, La Quinta, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Cassel (in remote northern California), Idaho's Sun Valley and Kihei, Hawaii.For:
1.Unforgiven (1992) 9.5/10
2.Million Dollar Baby (2004) 9/10
3. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) 8.5/10
4.Changeling (2008) 8/10
5.Gran Torino (2008) 8/10
6.High Plains Drifter (1973) 7.5/10
7.Breezy (1973) 7.5/10
8.Play Misty for Me (1971) 7.5/10
9.Sully (2016) 7/10
10.The Mule (2018) 7/10
11.Jersey Boys (2014) 7/10
12.American Sniper (2014) 6.5/10
13.The Eiger Sanction (1975) 6/10
14.The Gauntlet (1977) 5.5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Bronco Billy (1980); Honkytonk Man (1982); Pale Rider (1985); Heartbreak Ridge (1986); White Hunter Black Heart (1990); A Perfect World (1993); The Bridges of Madison County (1995); Space Cowboys (2000); Mystic River (2003); Flags of Our Fathers (2006); Letters from Iwo Jima (2006); Invictus (2009); Richard Jewell (2019); Cry Macho (2021)- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Self-taught writer-director Richard Stuart Linklater was born in Houston, Texas, to Diane Margaret (Krieger), who taught at a university, and Charles W. Linklater III. Richard was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. Typically setting each of his movies during one 24-hour period, Linklater's work explored what he dubbed "the youth rebellion continuum," focusing in fine detail on generational rites and mores with rare compassion and understanding while definitively capturing the 20-something culture of his era through a series of nuanced, illuminating ensemble pieces which introduced any number of talented young actors into the Hollywood firmament. Born in Houston, Texas, Linklater suspended his educational career at Sam Houston State University in 1982, to work on an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. He subsequently relocated to the state's capital of Austin, where he founded a film society and began work on his debut film, 1987's It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988). Three years later he released the sprawling Slacker (1990), an insightful, virtually plotless look at 1990s youth culture that became a favorite on the festival circuit prior to earning vast acclaim at Sundance in 1991. Upon its commercial release, the movie, made for less than $23,000, became the subject of considerable mainstream media attention, with the term "slacker" becoming a much-overused catch-all tag employed to affix a name and identity to America's disaffected youth culture.For:
1.Before Sunset (2004) 9/10
2.Before Midnight (2013) 8.5/10
3.The School of Rock (2003) 8/10
4.Everybody Wants Some (2016) 8/10
5.Boyhood (2014) 8/10
6.Before Sunrise (1995) 8/10
7.Dazed and Confused (1993) 7.5/10
8.Waking Life (2001) 7.5/10
9.Bernie (2011) 7.5/10
10.Slacker (1991) 7/10
11.Tape (2001) 7/10
12.SubUrbia (1996) 7/10
13.Live from Shiva's Dance Floor (2003) 6/10
14.Last Flag Flying (2017) 6/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
A Scanner Darkly (2006); Me and Orson Welles (2008); Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019); Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Adventure (2022); Hit Man (2023)- Producer
- Writer
- Director
Park Chan-wook was born on 23 August 1963 in Seoul, South Korea. He is a producer and writer, known for The Handmaiden (2016), Oldboy (2003) and Decision to Leave (2022). He is married to Eun-hee Kim. They have one child.For:
1.The Handmaiden (2016) 10/10
2.Oldboy (2003) 9.5/10
3.Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005) 9/10
4.Thirst (2009) 8/10
5.Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) 8/10
6.J.S.A.: Joint Security Area (2000) 8/10
7.The Little Drummer Girl (2018) 8/10
8.Stoker (2013) 7.5/10
9.I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (2006) 7/10
10.Night Fishing (2011) 6/10
11.Judgement (1999) 5/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Decision to Leave (2022)- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Yimou Zhang was born on 14 November 1951 in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. He is a director and writer, known for Hero (2002), House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Curse of the Golden Flower (2006). He has been married to Ting Chen since December 2011. They have three children. He was previously married to Hua Xiao and Hua Xie.For:
1.Raise the Red Lantern (1991) 9.5/10
2.Ju Dou (1990) 9/10
3.To Live (1994) 8.5/10
4.Red Sorghum (1987) 8/10
5.Shanghai Triad (1995) 8/10
6.Coming Home (2014) 8/10
7.Shadow (2018) 7.5/10
8.Hero (2002) 7.5/10
9.The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) 7.5/10
10.The Flowers of War (2011) 7.5/10
11.Under the Hawthorn Tree (2010) 7/10
Notable films not yet seen:√
Keep Cool (1997); Not One Less (1999); The Road Home (1999); Happy Times (2000); House of Flying Daggers (2004); Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005); Curse of the Golden Flower (2006); Cliff Walkers (2021); Full River Red (2023)