55 Best Movie Directors of All Time and Their Greatest Films

Before his landmark smash Parasite, Bong Joon Ho had been churning out minor masterpieces for years. Whether it's his haunting Memories of Murder, his exceptional monster movie, The Host, or his English-language breakout, Snowpiercer — this is a filmmaker to watch.

And then came his history-making and Oscar-winning parable about inequality, Parasite. Now more than just a foreign filmmaker wowing the art house crowd, Bong Joon Ho solidified his place among the greats.

Sidney Lumet's career lasted for 50+ years and yielded countless classics. His first feature was 12 Angry Men, one of the most confident and powerful debuts ever, and he hit an insane streak in the '70s — Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and Network to name a few. 

Lumet is a director's director. He cares about the craft, which is obvious whether you've read his seminal book "Making Movies" or not. Few directors have as much range or as much or as much love for the medium as Mr. Lumet did.

Woody Allen always wanted to be a serious artist. His career began at 16 writing jokes for Sid Caesar and his '60s-era stand-up routines are legendary. He started making comedies like Take the Money and Run and Bananas but his heart was always in heavier subjects. 

Audiences didn't know what to think when Allen gave them bleak existential tomes like Interiors and September. Where Allen truly found his groove is the combination of the two modes in classics like Annie Hall and Manhattan.

Being the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director would be significant enough but her work before and after that win prove that she's got the goods. 

Near Dark is one the best horror movies, Point Break is one of the best action movies, and those are simply where she started. Her war-time thrillers The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty aren't simply satisfied with the spectacle of war, they're after something much more. 

Few directors are defined by their visual style more than Tim Burton. From the idyllic suburban landscapes to the macabre whimsy of his fantasy worlds, Burton melds these disparate styles with a deft hand.

His favorite protagonists are loners and outsiders — Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, even Batman. But for how dark and morbid some of his stories might be, they're not morose; there is an infectious joy that runs throughout. 

If Terry Gilliam had stopped directing after his stint in Monty Python, we might assume his genius was dependent on the group. But, as we've seen for decades now, that was not the case. Gilliam takes risks in his work that are equal parts insane and magical.

Brazil, 12 Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus — there is an almost meta-thrill of watching an unhinged director making movies about unhinged characters. And we can't admire Gilliam more than for his undying dedication to getting The Man Who Killed Don Quixote finished.

From his dialogue, production design, music, and tone — there is no mistaking a Wes Anderson movie. Whether Anderson's directing style is your cup o' tea or not, you can't deny his ability to inject his movies with style and personality. 

The other surprising revelation about his work is just how complicated it is tonally. Despite the bright and optimistic hues in Anderson's color palette, his characters are rife with internal conflict, depression, and even suicidal tendencies. Only an artist with a firm grasp on their medium can balance these elements.

William Friedkin is a bit of a chameleon and you'd be hard-pressed to identify much of signature directing style. Some directors you can easily put a finger on, and others like Friedkin you can't. 

For example, consider the fact that he followed up one of the best crime films, The French Connection, with perhaps the greatest horror film of all time, The Exorcist. The former won Best Picture and Best Director (among others), the latter earned nominations in the same two categories (among others). Granted, his most recent work hasn't caught the same amount of buzz but he's still got it. Watch Bug and you'll see what I'm talking about.

If there's one word to describe Darren Aronofsky's directing style, it would be "uncompromising." His feature debut was a monochrome nightmare called Pi. His follow-up? Requiem for a Dream, one of the most bleak and spiritually exhausting anti-drug PSAs you'll ever watch.

Aronfsky's best movies are anchored by unyielding and tragic anti-heroes, driven to self-destruction by their obsessions.  Another impressive thing to consider about his filmography is his ability to oscillate between lo-fi 16mm (Black Swan, The Wrestler) and the lush and beautiful (The Fountain, Noah).

Spike Lee is a singular voice in American cinema. He's an auteur director who wrestles with tough social issues with a sure hand and a clear point of view. Music videos, documentaries, short films and features — Lee has left his mark in many forms over the last four decades.

Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, 25th Hour, Inside Man, and BlacKkKlansman are just some of Lee's best movies. Highlights from a career that shows no signs of slowing down.

The films of Brian De Palma are edgy — not just in their subject matter but in their presentation as well. In other words, it's difficult to passively consume a Brian De Palma film. It is an engaging activity that often explores the dark and sometimes taboo part of the human experience.

His Hitchcockian influence is clearly seen in Sisters, Dressed to Kill and Body Double, but De Palma's filmography is much more nuanced than that. Other highlights include The Untouchables, Blow Out, Mission: Impossible, and one of the best Stephen King adaptations, Carrie.

Along with his contemporaries Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu have brought Mexican cinema front and center on the international stage.

By now, you're probably familiar with his work like Birdman and The Revenant, in which he won back-to-back Best Director awards. But that's just what he's done lately. If you want more of his visceral, challenging and thrilling work, check out Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel and the grossly underrated Biutiful. 

Even though he directed commercials and some television, Ridley Scott's 2nd and 3rd films were Alien and Blade Runner. An audacious beginning to a career that has lasted over 5 decades and counting.

Like many other picks on this list, Scott's ability to work in various movie genres and styles makes him nearly unstoppable. He's had his bombs like every other director but when your filmography boasts Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, American Gangster and The Martian, a few speed bumps isn't enough to derail him completely.

The films of Terrence Malick are poetic in every sense of the word. His fragmented and collage-style films have pushed film language into the beautiful and personal.

Malick came out swinging with Badlands and Days of Heaven as his first two features. Then...he disappeared for 20 years. The Thin Red Line marked his return and he's been busy since then with breathtaking films like The New World, The Tree of Life and To The Wonder. 

Joel and Ethan Coen make a different film every time out and yet there is certainly a Coen-esque style to their work. Bouncing between comedy and violence without blinking, the Brothers Coen have amassed a staggering filmography.

They've made their career out of dark comedies like Barton Fink, Burn After Reading, and A Serious Man. How a film like No Country for Old Men could emerge from the same minds that conjured Raising Arizona, we'll never know.

David Lean made BIG movies — in their length but also in their scope and depth. We toss the word "epic" around a lot but it was David Lean that truly defined epic cinema.

He began with more grounded melodramas like Brief Encounter and Oliver Twist before breaking out with sweeping landscapes like The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India. 

You won't find a more varied filmography than Alfonso Cuarón's. He switches between genres, industries and demographics with unnatural ease, making his mark on each at every turn.

His children's films include A Little Princess and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which many HP fans consider a highlight in the series. But he also takes on character-driven dramas (Y Tu Mamá También), dystopian thrillers (Children of Men), sci-fi survival stories (Gravity), and a love letter to his childhood in Mexico City (Roma). 

Billy Wilder managed to work within the studio system and still give his films a distinct perspective and personality. It helped that he was a writer as well but no matter what the subject matter, Billy Wilder delivered consistently.

We can't think of Film Noir with his Double Indemnity, his haunting meta-drama Sunset Blvd. exposed a dark heart at the center of fame, and his cross-dressing comedy Some Like It Hot is near perfection. Don't forget his dramas that were unusually frank and bleak like The Lost Weekend and The Apartment. 

Since he broke out with Memento, Christopher Nolan has carved out a place for himself all his own. He works with high budgets and high concepts — and he's just getting started.

Nolan's directing style combines strong visuals in his shot lists with highly sophisticated themes — like his use of "circles as motifs." He is also very transparent in his quotes and interviews about his process. For many reasons, Nolan has already established himself as one of the best directors and chances are good that his status will remain intact.

F. W. Murnau was yet another German immigrant to Hollywood, exchanging the dramatic flare of German Expressionism for slightly more optimistic studio films. 

First there's Nosferatu, the progenitor of the vampire movies. The Last Laugh is a crushing tragedy about a man losing everything. Faust is a morality tale that's just as terrifying as anything in Nosferatu. And, perhaps his crowning achievement, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans shared the very first Best Picture award. For many, myself included, Sunrise is the pinnacle of silent filmmaking.

A defining characteristic of David Fincher's directing style is his attention to detail. Everything we see on-screen is calculated, as is his camera movement and editing. He specializes in crime thrillers like Se7en and Zodiac with an occasional detour into straightforward dramas like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

If if the subject matter isn't your thing, what's truly inspiring to watch Fincher's work is to know that he is in complete control of his medium. Like a master conductor leading a 100-piece orchestra through a pitch perfect symphony, Fincher crafts cinematic gold.

While Hollywood spent decades trying to perfect "invisible filmmaking," Jean-Luc Godard made it his personal mission to blow it all up. Like the Russians of the '20s using Soviet Montage for propaganda, Godard used his medium to shake things up. For him, "film as entertainment" is not just boring, it's offensive. 

At the forefront of the French New Wave movement, Godard started rewriting the film language dictionary. His outstanding works include Breathless, Contempt, Alphaville, Pierrot le Fou and Weekend.  

If you've read his book on transcendental meditation, you know that David Lynch likes to "catch" his ideas somewhere in the depths of his subconscious. Watching his films, it becomes immediately clear that this is entirely accurate.

What Lynch shows us are dreams, dark and inexplicable. Eraserhead is a puzzle, Blue Velvet is a suburban nightmare, and Lost Highway is a doppelgänger mystery to end them all. The third season of Twin Peaks is nearly 18 hours of daring and exhilarating television. But his crowning achievement will probably end up being Mulholland Dr., which has topped many Best of the Decade polls.

When Orson Welles made Citizen Kane, it was a blessing and a curse. At the time of release, the film wasn't immediately embraced as the greatest film ever made — that would come later. Directing movies after that became an uphill battle for Welles. Studio interference forced him to basically go independent and he spent the next 3 decades finishing as many films as he left abandoned.

Welles' best films outside of Citizen Kane include The Magnificent Ambersons, Macbeth, Touch of Evil and F for Fake.

Before he changed the game with The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola was making low-budget "B" movies. And then he just kept making masterpieces. Naturally, there was The Godfather: Part II and The Godfather: Part III, one of those is better than the other. 

But there are also slept-on classics like One from the Heart, The Outsiders, and the divisive but undeniably gorgeous Bram Stoker's Dracula. Oh, and there's this little film called Apocalypse Now.

Paul Thomas Anderson's directing style took a quantum leap forward after Punch-Drunk Love. Prior to that, his work is kinetic and frenetic with protagonists buzzing with emotions. Then he made a film called There Will Be Blood and everything since has focused that same amount of energy and power inward. 

The Master is masterclass in acting and Phantom Thread is a character study that is as demanding as it's lead, Reynolds Woodcock. And Inherent Vice is an acquired taste, its genius is only revealed upon subsequent viewings.

His first couple of films don't really allude to the level of artistry that has defined Denis Villeneuve's subsequent work. On one hand, it's been thrilling to see each of his films get better than the last. On the other hand, no one can keep up this batting average forever. At some point, Denis Villeneuve will make a bad movie but it hasn't happened yet.

Films like Polytechnique, Incendies and Prisoners tread through the dark corners of the human experience. Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 transport us to new and dangerous worlds. 

What can we say about Martin Scorsese that we all don't already recognize? He is a master movie director of the highest order and he's just as much of a movie fan as the rest of us. What people should maybe remember is that Scorsese doesn't just make phenomenal gangster movies — he's actually got quite a bit of range. We all know Scorsese's best movies, so let's use this opportunity to recognize his lesser works.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is an excellent character-driven domestic drama. The Color of Money is about as exciting as a billiards movie can be. And who could forget the synchronicity of Nicolas Cage losing his mind in Bringing Out the Dead?

You don't have to understand Japanese culture or be a scholar of the country's Sengoku period to appreciate what Akira Kurosawa's work means. The point is Kurosawa took stories that are extremely specific and made them globally relevant. His stories took common themes from his own culture but also Shakespeare and found a message that resonated around the world.

Of all the filmmakers on this list, perhaps no one had as much global impact on filmmaking than Mr. Kurosawa. From his samurai epics like Yojimbo and Seven Samurai to his modern dramas like Ikiru and The Bad Sleep Well, there is something we can all take away from his work.