Movies: Greatest director of all-time

[the valiant effort]

Another honourable mention to Bobcat for God Bless America

 

[x Tame Impala]

Watch more movies.


Amistad and The Color Purple are both competently made but by the wrong director - discussion for another time though.

Respect Spielberg but the only point was there is no objective answer to this, and acting like there is just shows ignorance.

Wow well discussion over and banned forever

 

[Felidae]

No director has made more unique, riveting, thought provoking and mind boggling films than..























M. Night Shyamalan! Bet you didn't see that one coming..

 

[Neil Racki]

What about the ginger?

I know hes ginger but dang .. yall take hair color hate to far!

He did f***ing Willow ffs.

 

[Oneiro]

I'd have to go with Scorsese or Bergman.

On some level, the guys winning the poll - Kubrick, Hitchcock and Spielberg - are kids playing with their toys in service of storytelling.

I feel like Scorsese and Bergman had much better scripts with much more gravity and an adult view of things and their mastery of technique is far more subtle and natural.

 

[Bowski]

Hook was a great kid’s movie, what’re you talking about?

I was a kid. The movie was weird, and a disappointment financially. Nobody at school gave a damn.
It combined some of the wort of the 90s, overacting cringy Robin Williams, a cast of diverse kids in neon, Julia Roberts, and other rubbish. Hoffman was pretty good though.

The 90s Peter Pan & the Pirates cartoon was so much cooler. That intro...

 

[Shareefruck]

Never been all that won over by the Spielberg thing, personally. The things that I kind of recognize as Spielberg-isms (tendency to shoehorn a certain brand of sentimentality) tend to hurt the movies for me rather than make them better. Most of his "classics" just don't do it for me. Maybe you can look at technical talent and make me begrudgingly go "Okay fine" (although I don't care as much about that stuff if the films don't grab me), but that's about it.

 

[The Macho King]

Never been all that won over by the Spielberg thing, personally. The things that I kind of recognize as Spielberg-isms (tendency to shoehorn a certain brand of sentimentality) tend to hurt the movies for me rather than make them better. Most of his "classics" just don't do it for me. Maybe you can look at technical talent and make me begrudgingly go "Okay fine" (although I don't care as much about that stuff if the films don't grab me), but that's about it.

Wouldn't be my choice but I think making high-level enjoyable blockbusters while still being an auteur (and then his "serious" movies which I'm a bit lower on but again have mass appeal) is worthy of being in the discussion.

 

[castle]

If you can handle subtitles the works of Kurosawa and Bergman deserve a lot more love.

I've probably seen almost all of Kurosawa's films. Don't get fooled by the Samurai genre, they are great stories.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

If you can handle subtitles the works of Kurosawa and Bergman deserve a lot more love.

I've probably seen almost all of Kurosawa's films. Don't get fooled by the Samurai genre, they are great stories.

Discussing international directors, I wouldn't say Kurosawa and Bergman are anywhere near the shadows. They get plenty of love.

 

[castle]

Discussing international directors, I wouldn't say Kurosawa and Bergman are anywhere near the shadows. They get plenty of love.

Indeed, but apparently not a single vote in the poll, which I find a but surprising. For the post war era from 1945 to 1960, I'd vote for either one of them. Kubrick for the 70s probably. My favourite modern director is probably Tarantino.

 

[The Macho King]

Indeed, but apparently not a single vote in the poll, which I find a but surprising. For the post war era from 1945 to 1960, I'd vote for either one of them. Kubrick for the 70s probably. My favourite modern director is probably Tarantino.

Didn't Kubrick only make one movie in the 70s? Admittedly it's Barry Lyndon but still.

Unless I'm totally misremembering when A Clockwork Orange came out.

 

[castle]

Didn't Kubrick only make one movie in the 70s? Admittedly it's Barry Lyndon but still.

Unless I'm totally misremembering when A Clockwork Orange came out.

Yeah clockwork was a 70s movie, but I'll be honest amd say in my head space odyssey and shining were 70s movies too.

 

[Lshap]

Best Decade: Francis Ford Coppola. Imagine directing The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather II, and Apocalypse Now in a single nine-year span. That's three generational grand-slams and one merely great film in the 1970s. Nothing bombastic or showoffy about Coppola, he just digs deep into each scene to create brilliant textures for his stories.

Best Living Director: Martin Scorsese. This guy is so good that Gangs of New York, Wolf Of Wall Street, and The Departed are demoted to his 2nd-line forwards. Understandable, when you have Goodfellas, Casino, and Raging Bull as your HoF 1st-line. Fans continue to argue over where Taxi Driver, King Of Comedy, The Aviator, The Irishman, and Mean Streets belong in his lineup. Cue the rock soundtrack.

Favourite All-Time: In 1968, my hippie aunt brought me to the theatre to see 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was 6. I was wowed by the visuals but, obviously, didn't understand what was going on. I then found out nobody did. Wait... are films allowed to do that? Thus began my reverence for Stanley Kubrick. Upon repeat viewings, 2001 could use a little editing, but it remains the smartest film ever made. Oh yeah... this dude also directed A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, and Paths of Glory. A fun debate: Was Eyes Wide Shut a great film or a pretentious, colourful mess? Discuss.

His Own Genre: Has any director fused intellect and humour as successfully as Woody Allen? At the two far edges, Allen pumped out a few early films that were rip-roaring hilarious, followed by a few more that were morose, plodding, and full of themselves. But down the middle, he found a sweet spot with a perfect blend of depth and comedy that's uniquely his. Nobody else could've created Annie Hall, Manhattan, The Purple Rose of Cairo, or my favourite - Crimes And Misdemeanors. Deeply smart and really funny. Zelig, Match Point, and Midnight In Paris are right up there. Cue the jazz soundtrack.

The Film-Lover's Film-Maker: One day, a future filmmaker will attempt to launch a film that is louder, bloodier, and queasier than Quentin Tarantino. That film will burn up in the atmosphere in an explosion of primary colours. Nothing can travel at the speed of Tarantino. Tarantino ripped off every other genre to create his own. He bends and reshapes history, timelines, plot irony, good & bad-guys, and, of course, body parts. He boldly goes where no Director had the stomach to go before. Not everyone likes his ouevre, but those who do recognize Pulp Fiction as a modern-day Citizen Kane. He's got another seven or eight films that are wildly entertaining and almost as good. Underrated gem: Jackie Brown. Cue "Stuck in the Middle With You".

 

[The Macho King]

I'm going to show my ass a bit here, but the thing that keeps Scorcese off a top tier for me is - and I know this is a spicy take - i don't find his films as visually interesting. I can't think of a "this is a Scorcese-esque shot." He makes great films, but I attribute him more to storytelling themes around masculinity and corruption than with anything distinctly visual.

Re: Tarantino - I just don't think his hit rate is very high. Three masterpieces in Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Inglourious Basterds, most of the rest very good, and a couple I would say are stinkers, but just a smaller filmography. Also I kind of think his strength is more as a screenwriter than a director (but with him ill acknowledge they're linked). Also I cannot forgive him for the decade of f***ing imitators he spawned.

One thing I adore both of these men for though is what they did for International cinema. Gun to my head I'm pretty sure my favorite director is not a Hollywood guy. So I may never have even been exposed to directors I now adore without them championing international cinema and making it available to US audiences.

 

[kihei]

Who are these directors and can you list their movies?

Let me start with two disclaimers. One, we are all playing a subjective game here, and, two, I have no problem with anybody's list.

That being said, you have posed a very simplistic question about how one should judge "greatness.". Art isn't a basketball game where one adds up two directors' best movies and if one guy has more "great" movies than the other guy, that guy wins. I mean, I like Spielberg, though I would not call most of his movies "great" by even the most casual use of that adjective. From your list, I would prune: The Color Purple; Hook; Amistad, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can; Ready Player One; and after the first brilliant twenty minutes, Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg can be a wonderfully entertaining director for which, in my case, Jaws, ET, and the first Raiders attest. But the only movies of his that have ever made me think, even a little, are Schindler's List, Munich and to a lesser extent Empire of the Sun. He has made popcorn into a near art form, but it is still popcorn. In my book, his best works are a lot of fun, but overly sentimentalized and shallow, too. Greatest popcorn director? I'm not sure I would give him that title, even. Greater than Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, John Ford, Akira Kurosawa, the latter three who often made me think, as well?

I'm not trying to dump on your favourite guy, just to suggest why some people might not share the amount of enthusiasm toward him that you do. My major point is that one shouldn't try to judge art, whatever your standards are, by the pound. Just about all the directors listed on this thread have several movies that one could argue are "great." But it's not like it's a box score: Fellini 5, Welles 3. Art isn't a commodity. Any given work needs to be judged on its own merits, and quantification adds no insight. Some of these directors like Bergman, Kurosawa and Godard made a ton of movies while other directors such as Tarkovsky, Leone and Erice made a dozen movies or fewer. It is more a question of the quality of works that they create, not the quantity. Erice's works are no less superb than anybody else's because he only made four of them. To put it simplistically myself, some directors may have a higher floor but other directors can have a higher ceiling, and for me, that's where most of the great movies can be found.

 

[Lshap]

I'm going to show my ass a bit here, but the thing that keeps Scorcese off a top tier for me is - and I know this is a spicy take - i don't find his films as visually interesting. I can't think of a "this is a Scorcese-esque shot." He makes great films, but I attribute him more to storytelling themes around masculinity and corruption than with anything distinctly visual.

Re: Tarantino - I just don't think his hit rate is very high. Three masterpieces in Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Inglourious Basterds, most of the rest very good, and a couple I would say are stinkers, but just a smaller filmography. Also I kind of think his strength is more as a screenwriter than a director (but with him ill acknowledge they're linked). Also I cannot forgive him for the decade of f***ing imitators he spawned.

One thing I adore both of these men for though is what they did for International cinema. Gun to my head I'm pretty sure my favorite director is not a Hollywood guy. So I may never have even been exposed to directors I now adore without them championing international cinema and making it available to US audiences.

I understand your point about Scorsese. His films orbit around intense characters, so we get more closeups, more swearing, more grit and sweat, less sweeping cinematography. That said, De Niro as Jake LaMotta in stark black and white, wailing away in the ring, was a pretty powerful visual. So were many scenes in Gangs of New York, which was an uneven story but a gorgeous film, rescued almost singlehandedly by Daniel Day-Lewis.

 

[The Macho King]

I understand your point about Scorsese. His films orbit around intense characters, so we get more closeups, more swearing, more grit and sweat, less sweeping cinematography. That said, De Niro as Jake LaMotta in stark black and white, wailing away in the ring, was a pretty powerful visual. So were many scenes in Gangs of New York, which was an uneven story but a gorgeous film, rescued almost singlehandedly by Daniel Day-Lewis.

He's not incompetent or hasn't had good shots - just you think of a lot of great directors and they have a distinct visual style that runs through a lot of their work, while Scorsese if there isn't a guy in pinstripes I'm not sure it's his flick.

 

[castle]

I'm going to show my ass a bit here, but the thing that keeps Scorcese off a top tier for me is - and I know this is a spicy take - i don't find his films as visually interesting. I can't think of a "this is a Scorcese-esque shot." He makes great films, but I attribute him more to storytelling themes around masculinity and corruption than with anything distinctly visual.

Re: Tarantino - I just don't think his hit rate is very high. Three masterpieces in Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Inglourious Basterds, most of the rest very good, and a couple I would say are stinkers, but just a smaller filmography. Also I kind of think his strength is more as a screenwriter than a director (but with him ill acknowledge they're linked). Also I cannot forgive him for the decade of f***ing imitators he spawned.

One thing I adore both of these men for though is what they did for International cinema. Gun to my head I'm pretty sure my favorite director is not a Hollywood guy. So I may never have even been exposed to directors I now adore without them championing international cinema and making it available to US audiences.

Once upon a time in that list of masterpieces.

 

[The Macho King]

Once upon a time in that list of masterpieces.

(I didn't like it).

 

[x Tame Impala]

(I didn't like it).

"It insists upon itself" a little bit

I thought it was good, not great. Reservoir Dogs, Django Unchained, and Kill Bill 1 & 2 not being mentioned is surprising me however. Those are mostly loved and IMO classically great movies.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Let me start with two disclaimers. One, we are all playing a subjective game here, and, two, I have no problem with anybody's list.

That being said, you have posed a very simplistic question about how one should judge "greatness.". Art isn't a basketball game where one adds up two directors' best movies and if one guy has more "great" movies than the other guy, that guy wins. I mean, I like Spielberg, though I would not call most of his movies "great" by even the most casual use of that adjective. From your list, I would prune: The Color Purple; Hook; Amistad, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can; Ready Player One; and after the first brilliant twenty minutes, Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg can be a wonderfully entertaining director for which, in my case, Jaws, ET, and the first Raiders attest. But the only movies of his that have ever made me think, even a little, are Schindler's List, Munich and to a lesser extent Empire of the Sun. He has made popcorn into a near art form, but it is still popcorn. In my book, his best works are a lot of fun, but overly sentimentalized and shallow, too. Greatest popcorn director? I'm not sure I would give him that title, even. Greater than Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, John Ford, Akira Kurosawa, the latter three who often made me think, as well?

I'm not trying to dump on your favourite guy, just to suggest why some people might not share the amount of enthusiasm toward him that you do. My major point is that one shouldn't try to judge art, whatever your standards are, by the pound. Just about all the directors listed on this thread have several movies that one could argue are "great." But it's not like it's a box score: Fellini 5, Welles 3. Art isn't a commodity. Any given work needs to be judged on its own merits, and quantification adds no insight. Some of these directors like Bergman, Kurosawa and Godard made a ton of movies while other directors such as Tarkovsky, Leone and Erice made a dozen movies or fewer. It is more a question of the quality of works that they create, not the quantity. Erice's works are no less superb than anybody else's because he only made four of them. To put it simplistically myself, some directors may have a higher floor but other directors can have a higher ceiling, and for me, that's where most of the great movies can be found.

I understand what you're saying and appreciate the response. Movies/Film are a hugely subjective experience and there hundreds of thousands of them to pick and choose from. Speilberg nails the setting, scope, and story down so well. It's pure, efficient, americana. Could a different director have made Jaws a better movie? Or made a movie like it that has a deeper message? Or have been more entertaining? I doubt so because we haven't seen it. I think underselling his output as popcorn is a disservice.

Discussions like these always just boil down to some form or another of "The Beatles aren't the best band ever" which I've had dozens of times and don't care to participate in to a lengthy level. You're right it is entirely subjective as there's no official way to measure this but there's a reason Spielberg is one of the most storied names in the business. The guy just flat out understood what it mean to make a movie. He had his finger on the movie-goer's pulse for decades. Call it populist if you will but I think it's a cop out to denigrate something just because it has Hollywood appeal.