Alfred Hitchcock

A master of suspense and gallows humor, he turned out classic after classic, including
Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds. 4728 30888
Charlie Chaplin
He was a genius of silent comedy and one of its first stars. The Tramp and Modern Times
are still comic icons. 3855 14705
Orson Welles
Larger than life, he debuted with the dazzling Citizen Kane, then he saw studios hack up
The Magnificent Ambersons and Touch of Evil. 3114 13200
Woody Allen
In Sleeper, Annie Hall, and Manhattan, he invited moviegoers to laugh at urban neurotics,
then got serious in Interiors. 3099 10613
Stanley Kubrick
He made science trippy in 2001, Cold War politics slapstick in Dr. Strangelove, and Roman
slaves au courant in Spartacus. 2986 31304
John Ford
The quintessential Westerner, he made icons of Monument Valley and John Wayne in the
classics Stagecoach and The Searchers. 2735 7525
Frank Capra
Sentimental but not sappy, his best movies (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It's a
Wonderful Life) wrap dark themes in happy endings. 2660 6798
Billy Wilder
His wit and unflinching eye for hypocrisy produced Sunset Blvd. and Ace in the Hole along
with the gender-bending Some Like It Hot. 2646 7252
Martin Scorsese
You talkin' to him? No one captures alienated men on the edge the way he's done in Taxi
Driver, Raging Bull, and The Departed. 2256 19510
Roman Polanski
In Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby, this international moviemaker probed dark passions
and destructive desires. 2161 7801
Francis Ford Coppola
Part of the first generation of film-school directors, he went from Dementia 13 to epics (The
Godfather) and small gems (Rumble Fish). 2129 12197

William Wyler
His elegant storytelling made dramas (The Best Years of Our Lives), romances (Roman
Holiday), and epics (Ben-Hur) sparkle. 2030 5278
David Lean
From Lawrence of Arabia to Doctor Zhivago, his movies proved that no desert is as deep or
wide as the landscape of the human heart. 2019 11051
Howard Hawks
Funny, tough, and funny-tough, he went from Scarface to His Girl Friday and from To
Have and Have Not to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. 1979 5285
John Huston
Artistic, macho, and intellectual, Huston had a career spanning four decades, from The
Maltese Falcon to Prizzi's Honor. 1897 5579
Steven Spielberg
He reworked the genre crowd-pleasers of his youth into the modern blockbusters Jaws,
E.T., and Raiders of the Lost Ark. 1854 23162
Quentin Tarantino
A brilliant pop-culture collagist, he thrilled movie lovers with Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction,
and the Kill Bill series. 1697 18733
Elia Kazan
In A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, this controversial director made
gritty psychological dramas with resonance. 1549 5527
Fritz Lang
Metropolis still defines the future, and thrillers like The Woman in the Window and The
Big Heat probed America's past. 1410 4782
George Cukor
Wit and class distinguish his sophisticated pictures, which star Katharine and Audrey
Hepburn and Greta Garbo. 1249 3983
John Cassavetes
An actor turned pioneering moviemaker, he paved the way for cinema verite with Shadows
and A Woman Under the Influence. 1147 4087
Mike Nichols
Trained in improv theater, he specializes in character-driven comedies and dramas -- The
Graduate, Silkwood, and Closer. 1126 4010

Preston Sturges
His witty, sophisticated comedies -- The Lady Eve, Sullivan's Travels, The Palm Beach
Story -- are still sharply funny, six decades later. 1094 3850
Robert Altman
Countercultural attitudes, intersecting stories, and overlapping dialogue distinguish his
movies, notably MASH and Nashville. 1081 4455
Mel Brooks
Never sacrificing a laugh to good taste, Brooks made the sublimely rude Blazing Saddles,
Producers, and Young Frankenstein. 947 5453
David Lynch
His nightmarish Eraserhead paved the way for increasingly surreal movies in mainstreamthriller guises, from Blue Velvet to Mulholland Dr. 849 7297
Tim Burton
Inspired by Halloween and Johnny Depp, this visual stylist made Beetle Juice, Batman, and
The Nightmare Before Christmas. 847 7859
Cecil B. DeMille
He was the first master of big-budget event movies, with two Ten Commandments films
and The Greatest Show on Earth. 824 3930
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
From the weepie A Letter to Three Wives to the bitch-fest All About Eve, his movies are
articulate and wickedly entertaining. 823 3437
Arthur Penn
After the Freudian Western The Left Handed Gun, he made New Hollywood classics
Bonnie and Clyde, Little Big Man, and Night Moves. 806 3524
Brian De Palma
A seventies film-school prodigy, he made Carrie and Scarface but specialized in
Hitchcockian thrillers like Dressed to Kill and Body Double. 796 4828
Vincente Minnelli
He dissected show business in both musicals (An American in Paris) and melodramas (The
Bad and the Beautiful). 749 3701
Clint Eastwood
The TV actor turned spaghetti-Western star became an A-list director with Unforgiven,
Mystic River, and Million Dollar Baby. 739 15049

Ernst Lubitsch
Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner, and To Be or Not to Be have a unique
Continental style that defies remaking. 734 3428
Michael Powell
The U.K. screenwriter-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made
popular art movies like Black Narcissus and Peeping Tom. 698 3814
Joel Coen
Joel and Ethan Coen are smart alecks with heart, combining dark humor, violence, and
potent themes in movies like Fargo and True Grit. 691 8649
Ridley Scott
A TV-commercial star turned stylish auteur, he made the cool, slick Alien, Blade Runner,
and Thelma & Louise. 688 10656
Douglas Sirk
He brought a European darkness to the American melodramas Magnificent Obsession, All
That Heaven Allows, and Imitation of Life. 669 3643
Michael Curtiz
He made Casablanca and Elvis Presley's King Creole, along with dozens of movies in every
genre, from action to horror to melodrama. 653 3461
D.W. Griffith
The father of modern moviemaking, he pioneered film language in such milestones as The
Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. 644 4038
Spike Lee
This African-American filmmaker provoked discussion via Do the Right Thing, Mo' Better
Blues, and Summer of Sam. 399 6625
Robert Zemeckis
He used new technologies to seamlessly combine reality and fantasy in movies like Back to
the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. 384 4870
Peter Jackson
This New Zealand-born movie buff started small with the low-budget Bad Taste and
worked his way up to the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy. 374 8302
Terrence Malick
Malick's brooding, intellectual anti-Hollywood masterpieces include Badlands, Days of
Heaven, and The Thin Red Line. 221 4633

Otto Preminger
After the film noir Laura, he challenged movie censors with drug abuse, in The Man With
the Golden Arm, and rape, in Anatomy of a Murder. 97 3363
George Lucas
Not only did he create the Star Wars mythos, but he drove the development of widely used
sound and special-effects technology. 70 7296
James Cameron
He escaped the low-budget likes of Piranha Part Two to make the sci-fi spectacles
Terminator, Aliens, and Avatar. -66 9838
Oliver Stone
Provocative, bombastic, and politically contrarian, he's courted controversy in Midnight
Express, Natural Born Killers, and JFK. -762 5726
Sam Peckinpah
He upped onscreen violence in his controversial Westerns and dramas, including The Wild
Bunch and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. -792 3808
Sam Raimi
The cult-movie king from Michigan gave us the Evil Dead trilogy (and Bruce Campbell), A
Simple Plan, and the blockbuster Spider-Man movies.