Who is your favorite movie director, and why?

Lol

@ninjatard: Gatsby has good cinematography and Joel Edgerton was great but rest of it is meh; Dicaprio delivers yet another solid performance playing Dicaprio. Tobey Maguire plays the role of a lifetime in which he portrays a useless shit; what could be more fitting? It's not a terrible movie and the source material is ridiculously overrated but it doesn't hold a candle to Mud for starters (or 5 other movies already released prior to Oscar season).

Wong Kar-wai

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjV-Pl5P1ZE

I also will join the Christopher Nolan crowd. I loved his direction for the Batman flicks, but I really enjoyed Memento and Following (great indie flick).

ehhhhh movies are pretty bad, all in all, after 1999. But until the whole industry fell apart... John Woo.

Clint Eastwood. He's got the personality, the skill and the perfectionism needed to be an amazing and charismatic director.

No one else really comes close in my book, even if I think some other directors have had higher peaks than him.

Obvious answer, but I have to say Tarantino. The way he can do crazy action sequences as well as hyper tense conversation scenes is unparalleled. Also every genre he attempts is done excellently, and he still manages to make comments on said genres as well as filmmaking as a whole.

Another director I love is Judd Apatow. I feel like noone does modern, 18+ comedies like him.

EDIT: Shit, I forgot Edgar Wright. I love how he's a comedy director who gets that directing can be comedic, and not just pointing a camera at funny people.

@tobbrobb: One too many oscar bait movies so I cant put him no. 1, but otherwise excellent as a director

It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now.

Woody Allen is a personal favorite - he simply understands the human condition.

@jimmy_p: Heh, that's fine. I would agree about the oscar bait, but no one else really tickles me the same way. So even with flaws, he doesn't have any real competition. :D

@jimmy_p: Heh, that's fine. I would agree about the oscar bait, but no one else really tickles me the same way. So even with flaws, he doesn't have any real competition. :D

No doubt it's Quentin Tarantino for me. I love every last one of his movies. And yes, that includes Death Proof. I even love Death Proof.

Hands down. Edgar Wright. Have never not had a great time watching his movies. Provides a perfect balance of action and comedy.

My top five, in order.

1.) Alfred Hitchcock

2.) Quentin Tarantino

3.) Steven Spielberg

4.) Martin Scorsese

5.) Woody Allen

Tarantino without a doubt. I always walk away from one of his films with a shit-eating grin on my face, and I can't say that for any other director.

I'm a huge movie fan. I absolutely love movies, and i appreciate them in deeper ways than most people. Sadly i can never remember directors of movies unless theres some big hubbub about it. Like michael bay with transformers ( i didnt know he did the Rock till someone told me).

I don't think im familiar enough with directors to make an educated choice.

I really like Tarantino movies (though i fucking HATED both Kill Bill movies).

Yeah I'm bad a movie directors...Sorry! i clicked this all ready to participate and exicted but then the startling realization that i don't ever really remember who directed what dawned on me. Sucks man. Sucks!

I like pretty much everything Danny Boyle has ever done. I'm gonna go with him.

@alexw00d: Oh man, I think I was tired when I wrote that.

Quentin Tarantino. No one else even comes close for me.

Robert Rodriguez, hands down. The man knows how to entertain me with his particular brand of shlock. I've watched The El Mariachi trilogy, From Dusk Till Dawn, Sin City, and Machete far more times than I ever want to admit.

No that's correct, The Prestige is Nolan's best film imo. I'd go with Nolan as well. I have some problems with all of the Batman films, but except for Rises they're still pretty great. Inception and Prestige though, man, great goddamn movies.

Sam Raimi. Apart from the fact that he's directed my favorite movies of all time, the Evil Dead trilogy, I love his style and inventive angles and techniques. It gives his movies a unique and fun momentum that no one else has. His fondness for old-school acting and slapstick make even his weakest films all the better.

Also, Guillermo del Toro. When the man has a vision, he executes on it flawlessly. His movies are always beautifully shot and include extravagant, wild costumes and set designs that aid in his world-building. He also has an eye for great action scenes, as they are almost always clear and concisely shot, with a lot of amazing individual shots that emphasize scale. The man understands fun, pure and simple.

Even though I love most of the directors in this thread (Kubrick, Nolan, Burton, Lynch) I'll add a name that hasn't been mentioned yet. Richard Linklater is easily one of my favorite directors around. Mostly it is due to his dialog and tendency to make "thinking movies". Slacker and Waking Life are both amazing stream of consciousness films touching on some supremely interesting ideas with wonderful surreality. A Scanner Darkly is easily one of the best Phillip K. Dick stories to turn into a movie, with some great casting. But mostly I love the Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight trilogy, they just simply strike a very meaningful chord with me.

Nolan, Tarantino and Edgar Wright.

Their films always stick in my mind long after I've seen them.

You know what? I really like James Cameron. He's kind of the best with over the top, bombastic bullshit. I'll defend Titanic to my god damn grave.

If I'm in polite company, though, I'd go Kubrick. Cameron is strictly a guilty pleasure.

Paul Thomas Anderson, the Coen Bros., Edgar Wright, and many more!

@notdavid: Terminator 2 is the best action movie of all time; not exactly a guilty pleasure.

Quentin Tarantino. I love the style and panache he gives every one of his films and because of that, I love almost everything he's ever done. Except Death Proof. I haven't seen it yet, but I hear it's a low point of his.

Martin Scorsese would be second. His films are just enthralling to me and I have no idea why. Different vibe than Tarantino altogether, but it still attracts me. The man's got skills.

Edgar Wright and Del Toro. I love how you can just sit and watch their movies and enjoy them for what they present on the surface, but when you dig into them you start to see everything that's going on visually and thematically, to the point of discovering new things even when you've watched a film a half dozen times before.

@bmehlers: Yes! The Prestige is one of the best of Nolan's movies, just a great film. The book is also very good.

I would say Nolan is pretty great. I tend to enjoy his films quite a bit. I also really like a lot of movies directed by Guillermo Del Toro. His eye for interesting creature designs is pretty much unmatched in Hollywood right now, IMO. I would give a limb for a third Hellboy film, but that probably won't happen anytime soon. He seems to genuinely have fun with his material too.

@notdavid: I just watched Aliens over the past weekend on blu-ray...that movie is unbelievable. It still keeps me on the edge of my seat. Also Terminator 2 is one of my favorite action movies of all time. James Cameron is a beast.

I also loved Death Proof. Never understood why someone who otherwise likes QT would not find things to enjoy in it. Although I didn't much care for the other half of Grindhouse (Planet Terror).

For me personally, my faves are Tarantino, Danny Boyle, Coen Bros, Richard Linklater, Steven Soderberg, David Fincher, PT Anderson, David Mamet.

Ingmar Bergman

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Akira Kurosawa

Powell & Pressburger

Abbas Kiarostami

@nadafinga: I liked that it lulls you with all that casual talk and dialogue and then shit gets real. Maybe even too much dialogue...

@mozzle: Freaking nice list.

Loved that last Kiarostami movie.

My favorite has to be Alain Resnais. The guy made some ho-hum films but his bests are revolutionnary and insanely good. I watched some dozen of times and I still enjoy them.

Park Chan Wook. Guy can shoot a movie

David Fincher. I love the ways his movies look, move... everything about them. And Wes Anderson. He hasn't made a movie yet that I've disliked.

Hard to choose but its either Stanley Kubrick or David Lynch.

John Woo.

He is the only director who knows how to cram 10+ genres into a single film, essentially making him a master of the "Movie within a Film within a Flick" style of directing.

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Never really got the love for Kubrick. I thought the first half of Full Metal Jacket was awesome, but the second half isn't very good. I actively dislike The Shining. I suppose I have to see more than 2 of his movies before I write him off.

Kevin Smith because I love and relate to all of his movies that he wrote (Not a fan of Cop Out).

Tarantino is a fucking master of his craft, Kill Bill is my favorite movie of all time, so it's tied between those two.

Kubrick's up there too because, come on, he made Eyes Wide Shut and A Clockwork Orange.

He's a really divisive director, for me.

I really love A Clockwork Orange. Like you said, the first half of Full Metal Jacket is brilliant, but its second half's commentary of warfare is pretty unwieldy. The Shining has the seeds of greatness, but Wendy was changed to a pathetic, useless shell of a woman for the film, and that made it hard for me to care what happened to her. And I'm extremely picky about my black comedy, so I find some of Dr. Strangelovehilarious and some dull. I need to go back and rewatch 2001 since it's been about a dozen years.

Paul Thomas Anderson

Stanley Kubrick

Tarantino

Scorsese

To name a few

Probably Frank Darabont, specifically because The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies of all times (oh noes, common opinion).

My favorite would be Guillermo del Toro ; El espinazo del diablo/The devil's backbone, Chronos and El laberinto del fauno/Pan's labyrinth are all what, for me a least, represents how you can blend fantasy, horror, politics and characters with a cause, in a masterful way. And I love also how he can make more blockbuster oriented movies without making you feel like your seeing transformers again (that scene in Hellboy 2 were they sing... priceless). And Spielberg also has a close second because Jurrasic Park was the first movie I've ever scene at a theater, and been loving his work ever since (and yes... even the last Indiana Jones).

Others I love are (in any order) : Alfonso Cuaron, John Carpenter, Pedro Almodovar, Frank Darabont, Chan Woo Park, Takeshi Kitano, Ridley Scott, Micheal Mann, les frères Darden, Woddy Allen, Marry Harron (only for American Psycho), Gaspar Noe, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Denis Arcand, Mathieu Kassovits, Coens brothers, Alfred Hitchcock and most (if not all) of the others already mentionned in the other posts above.

Has anyone said Soderbergh yet? He might be my favorite at the moment:

• Out of Sight
• The Limey
• Ocean's Eleven
• Solaris
• Magic Mike
• Behind the Cadelabra
• Sex, Lies, and Videotape
• Erin Brockovich
• Traffic
• Che

Gotta mention Sam Mendes as well. Not necessarily for his body of work, but because a couple of his have resonated really deeply with me (Road to Perdition, American Beauty).