Top Ten Living Directors

This type of list needs a few honorable mentions. I’ve taken the liberty of three: Paul Thomas Anderson, Woody Allen, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

10. Alfonso Cuaron

His film Y Tu Mama Tambien might be me my favorite movie ever made. I don’t know exactly why. Another one of his films, Children of Men, ranks among the best science fiction movies ever made. He is one of the three Mexican New Wave directors, all of which are on this list.

9. Quentin Tarantino

I constantly knock the guy. I don’t know what I dislike about him. It is not unlike my annoyance of Wes Anderson. Film School students probably jaded me. Tarantino’s Kill Bill is in my top ten favorite films.

8. Christopher Nolan

We’ll see how this guy pans out, but come this summer, Inception might rank him #1 in Hollywood.

7.David Lynch

What a master. Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Muholand Drive, and the great Inland Empire are greats. What an enigmatic genius. What a weird visionary.  He’s one of the few avant-garde directors who can remain in the mainstream. I’m hoping digital filmmaking hasn’t freed his madness too much. At least financial constraints made him answer to producers.

6. Guillermo Del Toro

This dude is a Mexican god.  Pan’s Labyrinth alone would have gotten him on this list.

5.Darren Aronofsky

I read some people who claim this dude the next Kubrick. Obviously people might be jumping the gun a bit. But Aronofsky is a baby in terms of age. Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and The Wrestler are all great films. He’s definitely not the greatest living director, not by a long shot, but has the potential to be.

4. Peter Jackson

It is funny because my brother and I were already PJ fans before he became famous with Lord of the Rings. His films Dead Alive and Bad Taste remain cinema’s bloodiest, weirdest treasures. I was skeptical hearing that he was going to helm the LOTR’s series. Who would have thought?

3. Werner Herzog

Who is Herzog? Well, most won’t know his name. He made a kind-of famous documentary about a dude getting eaten by a bear. Other than that, he isn’t a house hold name. Me thinks Bad Lieutenant will bring him into more widespread acclaim. See his movies.

2. Clint Eastwood

A lot of people dismiss him as a ludicrous director from a boring age of filmmaking. I just say piss off to all of them. Unforgiven, Mystic River, Changling, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, Gran Tarino; what great movies. He has been pumping out great movies in the best two decades. He will likely not make films in his nineties so I’m hoping his last is more of the same.

1. Martin Scorsese

If you haven’t caught Mean Streets, his early mafia film, go see it. In fact, watch all his movies. Raging Bull remains his triumph, but so does his ability to adjust to Hollywood’s trends. The  seventies was high time for small, art house movies in the mainstream. Godfather probably wouldn’t get made these days and if it did, it would be hard to find.

These days Spielberg sucks outside of his film Munich. Coppola went crazy. De Palma is in no man’s land. George Lucas is raping his legacy, as shown in South Park.

All these great directors came from the same generation of greatness, but where everyone else failed, Scorsese flourished. How much Catholic guilt and male insecurity can one man pack into mainstream, audience-friendly films? A lot, that is how much. He is the greatest living director. His only misstep? Making Shutter Island, what an awful ending.

-Collin Gilbert from http://www.podcastfilmreview.com