Top 10 Film Directors

Yankee Red

SirRedDevilFan7
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I'm not going to put many old tymers as I haven't watched enough classic film(with the exception of films including such greats as Audrey Hepburn, Marlon Brando, Vivian Leigh, etc.) to make a sound argument. If anyone has an opportunity to list some more great classic film direction, than feel free to do so.

As far as my choices are concerned they'd have to be as follows(no order in particular):

1-Steven Spilberg
No question about it. Schindlers List, Saving Private Ryan, The Color Purple, ET, Munich, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the great Indiana Jones franchise, and last but not least Jaws, plus many others. He's widely known as the king of direction in Hollywood, tons of awards and more money to choke a herd of cattle. I watch everything that comes out by him knowing that rarely would anyone be disappointed by what he produces, although I'm a bit skepical about another Indiana Jones film with a at least 55-60 yr old Harrison Ford(whom he and George Lucas created as an actor).

2-Martin Scorcese
If there was a 1st place spot, for me it'd be reserved for him. Its regrettable that he's only won ONE Academy Award, he was screwed out of it, IMO, numerous times. How he couldn't have won it for Good Fellas is beyond me. Nominated SIX TIMES for amazing films, such as the prementioned Good Fellas, Gangs of New York(shoulda won!), The Aviator(again another win screwed by the Academy), Raging Bull(wow no oscar!), Taxi Driver(the biggest travesty IMO) and finally his winning film The Departed(which may be the lesser of all I've mentioned so far, it was good but more of a sympathy award for screwing him for so long!). There were so many others that he wasn't nominated for that were simply breathtaking like The Color of Money, Casino, The Last Temptation, and Mean Streets(fecking brilliant). Ok next!

3-Spike Lee
Another New Yorker. But, this guy regardless of the endless criticism he's taken was the reason I started this thread. IMO, he is far overlooked in the film industry and is far overdue for a nomination or a win from the Academy. His recent films have been so well directed and written that its scary, he does do alot of the writing in screenplays(or at least much input is added with the screen writer). I fell in love with 25th Hour and Inside Man, as many of his earlier works like Do The Right Thing, Malcolm X(known really as X) and School Daze. He's going to get even better as the years go on and may be primarily responsible for the stardom of one named Denzel Washington(I love this guy!).

4-Mel Brooks
He is by far the King of Comedy film, he did it in a way no one else will ever be able to match. Blazing Saddles has to be my all time favorite comedy film, he pushed the envelope with this one. Its still unmatched, IMO. Others like Spaceballs, Young Frankenstein, and History of the World Part 1 were fecking hilarious. Love him.

5-Woody Allen
I couldn't leave out Woody from the top ten, he's the best mates, for those poor souls that do not know his work. He's dropped off his string of perfection as of late, some say, But I quite enjoyed some of his more recent titles. Annie Hall made me fall in love with Diane West and probably cemented her career as a actress, along with the Godfather films. Bullets over Broadway, Bananas, Mighty Aphrodite, Deconstructing Harry, Anything Else, and many others could be on most peoples top 100 films of all time(I personally loved one of his more recent ones, Anything Else).

6-Joel and Ethan Coen
These two have directed at least 5-6 films in my top 25 of all time, easily. My close to top all time comedy almost easily could be The Big Lebowski.

The Dude: I dropped off the money exactly as per... look, man, I've got certain information, all right? Certain things have come to light. And, you know, has it ever occurred to you, that, instead of, uh, you know, running around, uh, uh, blaming me, you know, given the nature of all this new shit, you know, I-I-I-I... this could be a-a-a-a lot more, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, complex, I mean, it's not just, it might not be just such a simple... uh, you know?
The Big Lebowski: What in God's holy name are you blathering about?
The Dude: I'll tell you what I'm blathering about... I've got information man! New shit has come to light! And shit... man, she kidnapped herself. Well sure, man. Look at it... a young trophy wife, in the parlance of our times, you know, and she, uh, uh, owes money all over town, including to known pornographers, and that's cool... that's, that's cool, I'm, I'm saying, she needs money, man. And of course they're going to say that they didn't get it, because... she wants more, man! She's got to feed the monkey, I mean uh... hasn't that ever occurred to you, man? Sir?

That shit was hilarious amongst many other scenes in their fantastic career. Just look at these titles and tell me that they don't deserve to be here, from comedy to the sheer violence in their most recent gem and the newest gem No Country For Old Men. Others include greats such as Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo, O' Brother, and Where Art Thou?.

7-Frank Capra

His film titles will say it all for the fans of the classics, It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Arsenic and Old Lace(one of my fav classics), Meet John Doe, and of course Its a Wonderful Life. If he hadda kept going pat the 60s he woulda easily been one of, if not the greatest.

8-Frances Ford Coppola

Genius, period. He may be the best ever. His alltime classics are easily in many top 100s, 3 at least in everyone's top 10. The Godfather 2 was by far the best movie of all time, IMO. Yes the sequel is my favorite because of the history of the Corleone family that is revealed throughout the film. Both were sheer genius, but the second left me breathless. Let's not forget the utter brilliance of Apocalypse Now, just look at the cast and you'll know that teaming up this cast, along with Coppola and the screenplay, was going to produce one of the best of alltime. Others that are in my limited library, as I don't buy unless its deservant, are The Outsiders, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and New York Stories.

9- Brian De Palma

One word, Scarface. No one has meant as much for Pacino(well ok Coppola is the main reason he is here as was Scorcese, although he more with DeNiro), IMO, than De Palma. He continues to film pictures that look at the darker side of the underground world of crime. Films like Scarface, Carltio's Way, and The Black Dahlia showed what really happens when you start a life of crime or mix with the wrong people. I can't leave out one of my favs with Costner and Connery, The Untouchables. One of the better crime mob films, although not his best it still entertains me everytime I watch it. Also, lets not forget Carrie, which scared the shit outta many, De Palma and King was a fantastic combination. It led to many more award winning films by De Palma, but even more from Stephen King.

Finally 10-Alfred Hitchcock/Clint Eastwood(tie)

OK I couldn't leave either one out, sorry. The list for both says it all.
Play Misty For Me, The Outlaw Josie Wells, Sudden Impact, Heartbreak Ridge, Unforgiven, Bridges of Madison County, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, and the latest two about the greatest Japanese-American battle in WWII, The Battle of Iwo Jima. Both Letters of Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers were great and perfect depictions of the horrors of war, plus to look at it from both sides was just amazing.

Hitchcock was so influential to many and his films dot the top 100 film lists of many experts and fans. Vertigo, The Birds, Rear Window, Psycho, North By Northwest, To Catch A Thief, and many more are just rememberances of just how great this man was at his craft. He is remembered and missed by so many including myself. His genius will live on forever in the hearts of so many.



Well I hope it wasn't too, too long, but you can't really give a list w/o reasons. I hope I wasn't too bad at it, but for someone that has easily watched over 10,000 films easily maybe pushing the 100k mark, its the only way I could list it. I have a top 100 film list I've tried compiling while I worked as a manager for the horrible Blockbuster Video and after, but I'm still not satisfied with it. One day if I do get one I'll list it, but it'll be quite sometime before I quit arguing with myself over the many choices I'd have to pick 100 out of in order to make this list.

Thats it. Agree or disagree, I could care. But, opinions and additions/omissions are welcome along with your own top 10 if you'd like. Trust me I could rearrange this and add many others, but this is it for the moment.
 
Spike Lee, at number 3 is laughable, not in my top 25
 
No Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Michael Bay, David Mamet, Steven Soderbergh and Guy Ritchie huh.
 
VII said:
No Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Michael Bay, David Mamet, Steven Soderbergh and Guy Ritchie huh.
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Bay, Fincher, and Tarantino are no where near my top 10. Besides 2 or 3 films Tarantino isn't near a great. To me The Kill Bill films, Jackie Brown, and Pulp Fiction are the only gems, as far as screenplays he wrote an amazing film called Killing Zoe. Bay is a big dollar film director besides films that are mass produced for the adolescent to late 20s/early 30s crowd, he's not a great by any stretch of the imagination. Although I do love some of his films.

Ones I really hated to leave off and may be edited to add later are the formentioned Soderbergh and Ritchie, although Ritchie has produced a meaningful film in a while.

My personal favs that were left off were Doug Lyman(Bourne Identity, Swingers, The Limey, etc. Swingers being in my top 10 films.) and Michael Mann(Ali, The Insider, Collateral, most recently a good one in The Kingdom and the 1st Pacino/DeNiro scene together-Heat and several others).

Finally the one your right about and that really needs to be in it was David Fincher. Fight Club was a great book, but the film adaptation was so brilliant. He really made me love Pitt's acting along w/ Ritchie's Snatch. He has several other films that would be in my top 100 such as The Game(my fav Douglas film w/ Wall Street), Se7en, and recently with Zodiac. Oliver Stone could creep in as well, as I love several of his films. Those being Wall Street, Natural Born Killers, JFK, Platoon and the Doors.
 
Wonder Pigeon said:
No Kubrick....
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Kubrick was a visionary, but alot of his work was so abstract that most couldn't understand it(i not being one of those people) I feel he's easily responsible for so many who currently act and direct, but I would stick him right inside or outside my personal top 10. I do love so many of his films like Dr Strangelove(and the rest of the title or how i learned to love the bomb....might be off a bit), Lolita, Spartacus, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, and especially Full Metal Jacket. I coulda named most of all of them as several would be in my top 100.

As you can tell, you all will bring up great examples of who should and shouldn't be in the top 10. This after all is my top 10 and everyone's I'm sure would be different.

Hell, I coulda changed mine a 100 times before I typed it!!! :D
 
Lizard King said:
feck off :mad:

He made a mockery of The Doors, the cnuting bastard face.
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I liked it. It wasn't one of my favs, but it did show how much of a loose cannon Jim Morrison really was and why say "feck off" about someone's opinion?? You should really get some personal help for your anger, it doesn't compliment you at all.

Twat. :D
 
SirRedDevilFan7 said:
I liked it. It wasn't one of my favs, but it did show how much of a loose cannon Jim Morrison really was and why say "feck off" about someone's opinion?? You should really get some personal help for your anger, it doesn't compliment you at all.

Twat. :D
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That's the whole reason to hate the film, half the stuff is total bullshit and never happened. He just set out to portray Jim as being drunk all the time.

Shit film.
 
The Doors film:

I'm drunk, I'm nobody, I'm drunk, I'm famous, I'm drunk, I'm fecking dead. There's the whole movie for you. "Big Fat Dead Guy In A Bathtub" there's the title for you!
 
I can't be arsed to get into an argument about every single thing that is wrong with that film, it's been done to death on The Doors Messageboards but Maroon Lucifer's account is pretty much what's wrong with it.

He made Jim look like a drunk arsehole. He asked people who knew Jim for advice on the film and completely ignored it all anyway choosing to go with drunk, aggressive Jim. FFS he made Patricia Keneally one of the main characters when she only spent one night with him. In fact, he was once asked about her and couldn't remember who she was!
 
Books (the best one is Light My Fire by Ray Manzarek - the organist of the Doors) and interviews with people who actually knew Jim. Also, interviews with Jim where you can see how funny & smart he actually was. There is a new documentary coming out in the summer which they've been working on for ages which should show the real Jim, hopefully.

I'm not denying he was a borderline alcoholic but the film didn't focus on any other part of his character, it just made him look like an idiot.
 
I'm just curious, because me and my ex used to argue about this all the time.

She thought he was a genius, I always thought he was a bit of a knobhead
 
oh, and I looked on Wikipedia and found this about the Doors movie:

Historical inaccuracies

The film is based mostly on real people and actual events, but some parts are clearly Stone's vision and dramatization of those people and events. For example, when Morrison is asked to change the infamous lyric in "Light My Fire" for his appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, he is depicted as blatantly ignoring their request because of his rebellious, anti-authority principles. The film suggests Morrison shouted the word "higher" into the TV camera, while, in fact, he highlighted "fire" during the performance. In one version, the real Morrison insisted that it was an accident, that he meant to change the lyric but was so nervous about performing on live television that he forgot to change it when he was singing. In another version, Ray Manzarek says that The Doors pretended to agree to the change of words, and deliberately played the song as they always had, without any added emphasis on 'higher'.[2] In either case the performance on the show was a far cry from what the movie suggests. The movie also suggests Morrison stuck a hand down his trousers, fondling himself, while on air. No such thing happened in real life.[3]

One questionable scene featured Morrison and Courson getting into such a nasty argument that he tries to jump out the window and then throws the frightened, apologetic Courson on the bed and performs what looks like a near act of rape against her. In the book "The Doors" written by all the former Doors, band member Robby Krieger says that Morrison talking about killing himself "wasn't that unusual". However, neither that book, band members Manzarek and Densmore's respective books on the band "Light My Fire" and "Riders on the Storm," or the 1980 Morrison biography "No One Here Gets Out Alive" co-authored by a close friend of Morrison's, Danny Sugerman, mention a barely averted suicide attempt like the one depicted in the movie. The idea of Morrison and Courson arguing violently is not farfetched, however, as their relationship was by all accounts passionate, but volatile. The book "The Doors" by the Doors quotes group member John Densmore as saying of the couple, "They were like Romeo and Juliet. They fought like hell, but they were meant to be together." Morrison is also depicted locking Courson in a closet and setting it on fire, which is said to have never happened. None of the above mentioned books tell this story either. Rhino Records photographer Bobby Klein claims to have had Pam come over to his house when this incident occurred, and to have taken care of her during some weeks after. Doors member Ray Manzarek is quoted as stating firmly that this incident never happened in the record of a question and answer session he did on Universal Chat Network in 1997. [4] However, in his book "Light My Fire" Manzarek is frank about Morrison's tendency to go into senseless rages, which were sometimes caused by alcohol and sometimes by a natural mental instability. The other books authored by former band members are also very open about Morrison's rage problem.

Dialogue that took place between Kennealy and Morrison is reassigned to Courson, and Courson is depicted as saying hostile things to Kennealy, when by all reports their interactions were polite. Drummer John Densmore is also portrayed as hating Morrison as Morrison's personal and drug problems begin to dominate his behavior. In truth, as Densmore describes in his book, "Riders on the Storm," though Densmore was intensely angry at Morrison when his unpredictability began to affect the band's concerts, the two men remained friends and Densmore never directly confronted Morrison for fear of the confrontation that would result.

Krieger, Densmore, and Kennealy are all credited as technical advisors for the film, however they have commented that though they may have given advice, Stone very often chose to ignore it in favor of his fabrications. The settings for the film, particularly the concert sequences, are depicted somewhat realistically and in mostly chronological order, although the crowd scenes contain many blatant exaggerations, such as portrayals of nudity that did not occur. Liberties in wardrobe, supervised by Marlene Stewart, are grotesque parodies of the original article, for example, a bloused black shirt and prominently exaggerated concho belt replace a perfectly dignified white button-top and leather jacket.

The surviving Doors members were all to one degree or another unhappy with the final product, and were said to have heavily criticized Stone's portrayal of Morrison as an "out of control sociopath". In a 1991 interview with Gary James, Ray Manzarek, the Doors' organist, criticized Stone for exaggerating Morrison's alcohol consumption in the movie, saying, "Jim with a bottle all the time. It was ridiculous . . . It was not about Jim Morrison. It was about Jimbo Morrison, the drunk. God, where was the sensitive poet and the funny guy? The guy I knew was not on that screen."[5] In the afterword of his book "Riders on the Storm," Doors' drummer John Densmore says that the movie is based on "the myth of Jim Morrison". In the same place, he criticizes the film for portraying Morrison's ideas as "muddled through the haze of the drink [alcohol]". In a 1994 interview, Robby Krieger, the Doors' guitarist, agreed with interviewer Gary James' statement that the movie "The Doors" doesn't give the viewer "any kind of understanding of what made Jim Morrison tick". Krieger also commented about the film in the same interview: "They left a lot of stuff out. Some of it was overblown, but a lot of the stuff was very well done, I thought."[6]

In the book called "The Doors," an anthology on the band compiled by its surviving members, Manzarek says, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In this book, Densmore says of the movie, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger joins Manzarek and Densmore in describing the movie as inaccurate, but also says, referring to the film's inaccuracy, "It could have been a lot worse."

As the credits point out and as Stone emphasizes on his DVD commentary, some characters, names, and incidents in the film are fictitious or amalgamations of real people. Stone states in particular in the 1997 documentary The Road of Excess that Quinlan's character, "Patricia Kennealy", is a composite, and in retrospect should have been given a fictitious name. Kennealy in particular was hurt by her portrayal in the film. Ryan's character, "Pam Courson", involves liberties of a different sort. The former Doors do not think the movie depiction of her is very accurate, as their book "The Doors" describes the Pamela in the movie as "a cartoon of a girlfriend". Courson's parents had inherited Morrison's poems when their daughter died, and Stone had to agree to restrictions about his portrayal of her in exchange for the rights to use the poetry. In particular, Stone agreed to avoid any suggestion that Courson may have been responsible for Morrison's death. However, Alain Ronay and Courson herself had both said that she was partially responsible. In "Riders on the Storm," Densmore says Pamela said she felt terribly guilty because she had obtained drugs that she believed had either caused or contributed to Morrison's death. This information may have been omitted from the film because of the Coursons' objections, or possibly they only wanted to make sure Pamela was not portrayed as murdering Morrison, since such a rumour has been circulated.

However, Doors keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, did not share the same enthusiasm of how Morrison was portrayed by director Oliver Stone's interpretation. In Manzarek's biography of the Doors,"Light My Fire" he often goes out of his way to bash Stone and also includes myriad details that discredit Stone's account of Morrison. For example, in Stone's "re-creation" of Morrison's student film at UCLA, he has Morrison watching a D-Day sequence on TV and shouting profanities in German, with a near-nude Germanic exchange student dancing on top of the TV sporting a Swastika armband. According to Morrison's best friend and bandmate (Manzarek) the only similarity between Stone's version and Morrison's was that the girl in question was indeed German.

There are also blatant factual errors in this movie. In explaining how she tracked down Morrison's parents, Kennealy states early in the movie that doing so was easy because schools like UCLA and the University of Florida still had records on Morrison. However, he did not go to the University of Florida. Morrison, in fact, attended Florida State University from 1962-1964.
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SirRedDevilFan7 said:
1-Steven Spilberg

2-Martin Scorcese

3-Spike Lee

4-Mel Brooks

5-Woody Allen

6-Joel and Ethan Coen

7-Frank Capra

8-Frances Ford Coppola

9- Brian De Palma

10-Alfred Hitchcock/Clint Eastwood(tie)
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Very unbalanced list.

You start off by stating that your not going to have 'old-timers' on your list and continue to include the Great Frank Capra and the Brilliant Hitchcock.

Anyhow, here's my top ten (no particular order):

1) John Ford
2) Francois Truffaut
3) Akira Kurosawa
4) Steven Spielsberg
5) Satyajit Ray
6) Fritz Lang
7) Sergio Leone
8) Jean Renior
8) Ridley Scott
9) Ingmar Bergman
10) Alfred Hitchcock

Point of irritation: in my book you can't compare the childish Mel Brooks with the sophisticated Woody Allen.
 
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