Who do you think is the best director of all time?

[KissingSunlight]

Lot of fine choices here, so I'll throw a more mainstream entry in: James Cameron.

I know, the guy that made Titanic and Avatar? What are you smoking you silly engine? Well, I realised that basically every movie James Cameron has ever made is eminently watchable. Not all are transcendent classics like Raging Bull or Platoon but everything is solid across the board. His peak output is probably The Terminator series, Aliens and Titanic but True Lies, the Abyss, and Avatar are all totally watchable, fun movies.

Note, this does not excuse his shitty personal behaviour: seriously he nearly killed Ed Harris, his falling out with wife Linda Hamilton is a matter of public record and in a bout of beautiful poetic justice, she held onto the rights to the Terminator franchise for a long while. He's mellowed as he's aged, but he's still a bit of a knob. Mind you, if you could work for him you could probably work for anyone.

I give him credit as being a good technical director. Someone you would want to be in charge of special effects. However, I can't stand James Cameron's movies. The reason is that he is a horrible screenwriter. I seriously bought Rambo: First Blood Part Two, because it is the most hilarious unintentionally comedy ever. It was written by Sylvester Stallone & James Cameron. I even think Aliens is the worst sequel in the Alien series. That is saying a lot considering what a hot mess the other Alien sequels are. At least, the other sequels wasn't mired in tired tropes and cliched storylines.

Long story, short: I think James Cameron and his movies are massively overrated.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

When it comes to directors that I consider truly great, there are two names that come to mind.

Alfred Hitchcock was a master of suspense in filmmaking. He was one of the directors who could make you see something without him actually showing it. For example, in Psycho's famous shower scene, you never actually see Janet Leigh get stabbed. You see the knife, you see Janet Leigh, but you never see the knife in Janet Leigh. The suggestion is so expertly crafted, however, that you convince yourself that you just saw a woman get stabbed to death on-screen.

The second name that comes to mind is Frank Darabont, who is definitely someone I think of when it comes to "quality, not quantity". He's only directed six movies over the course of 24 years, for an average of 4 years per movie. However, of those six, I've seen 3 of them: The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist. All of them were fantastic movies, and I would go so far as to say The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies of all time. Granted, looking at his Rotten Tomatoes scores, I may have only seen the good half of his directing career, but that's why this is more of a personal pick.

 

[hermes]

Not to go with cliche answers, but yeah... Kurosawa is pretty much up there. Maybe it is the saturation of Hollywood movies, but his movies always feel fresh and different due to having a distinct voice. There are a lot of other directors that deserve credit (in the west, a lot of the ones that came after the 70s explosion of independent directors), but I still find Kurosawa's output a lot more consistent.

 

[Delicious Anathema]

Most likely Alfred Hitchcock, though my favorite movie ever is Alien by Ridley Scott.

Yes, I'm a 26 year old pensioner apparently, I don't care for most modern directors, I tend to watch the movie and move on, and only follow old time directors/actors.

 

[zoey]

My favorites: Hayao Miyazaki, Wes Anderson, Coen Brothers, Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Hitchcock, Clint Eastwood, Ridley Scott.

 

[happyninja42]

I can't really go with the idea of "all time", as it just implies some really stupid assumptions about the future quality of any directors who will ever come after, and the idea that comparing all directors to some generic standard, which I don't agree with.

All I will comment on, is my personal favorite director of all time, based on the number of movies he has made that I truly enjoy. That is Christopher Nolan. Every movie he's made that I've seen (there are a couple I haven't yet) I've loved. He hits particular aspects of storytelling that I truly love personally, so watching his work is always of great enjoyment for me.

 

[American Fox]

Hard to decide between Frank Darabont,Danny Boyle, and Robert Zemekis.


Oh, and Penelope Spheeris. And Greg Araki.

 

[panalow]

Steven Spielberg is the best director for me

 

[Kyrian007]

Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock... that's probably my top tier. That next tier has a lot of names though. Frankly I've always thought the list of Worst Directors is the more interesting topic. I'll submit Michael Davis for that list.

 

[Jux]

Michael Bay. No one does explosions better.

 

[Supernova1138]

Uwe Boll, because I rate directors based entirely on how much tax money they screw the German government out of.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Wes Anderson. Even his 'bad' movies are secretly awesome. Like The Life Aquatic (with Steve Zissou) ... I can't think of a better Jeff Goldblum role for Jeff Goldblum.

Postmodernism at its finest, with jarring, professionally tuned moments of forceful returns from the allure of immersion with weird arse shots like a cross sectional look of a ship still populated by its actors doing random things... forcing you to recognize you're watching a movie, a piece of fantasy. Glaring unreality of the fantastic creatures treated with such banality, and an amazing discourse of family and death that sort of unfolds not as this ponderous question but as a sudden hurdle that ultimately changes everything or nothing depending on how you came into the cinema.

And this is a supposedly one of his worst films.

Human life is tragic, its end meaningless, but for all the scant moments of true intimacy you be lucky to share, maybe that might be enough for you.

If you go into it expecting a narrative, or an oddyssey, the movie will take your expectations and tell you that is not enough. Which is pretentious as all hell, but it's probably the best movie to date that accurately defines the inherent insanity of wanting to watch the grand narrative when all around you there is meaningless struggle, ugliness, insanity, and death and you shouldn't run from it... and the movie makes fun of your pursuit of childish adventure and fiction.

The movie will forcefully make you uncomfortable if you try to be actively absorbed and distracted from this fact. The only solution is not to participate mindlessly.

So if you're really into pretentious movies and you want to see an amazing movie that tells the industry at large to go fuck itself while paying fanciful homage to possibly the last great explorer of our age... The Life Aquatic is a good film.