The Complete List: Traveling Boy Selects the Greatest Film Directors of All-Time.

By Ed Boitano

In T-Boy’s selection of the greatest film directors of all-time, numbers 76 – 101 is a continuation of Numbers 1 – 75. Your comments are appreciated.

76. Roman Polanski

**Roman Polanski, Poland-France-US, (Born 1933).** Photograph courtesy of New Criticals.

The best films are because of nobody but the director. – Roman Polanski

Films for Review:

Knife in the Water (1962)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Chinatown (1974)

77. Samuel Fuller

**Samuel Fuller, US, (1912 -1997).** Photograph courtesy of imago images / Everett Collection / ©United Artists.

A film is like a battleground. It’s love, hate, action, violence, death… in one word, emotion. – Samuel Fuller

Films for Review:

I Shot Jesse James (1962)
Pickup on South Street (1953)
Shock Corridor (1963)

78. Jean Cocteau

**Jean Cocteau, France, (1889 -1963).** Photograph courtesy of DM.

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture. – Jean Cocteau

Films for Review:

The Blood of a Poet (1932)
Beauty and the Beast (1946)
Orpheus (1950)

79. Donald Siegel

**Donald Siegel (left, friend on right), US, (1912 – 1991).** Photograph courtesy of Biography, Movies, & Facts | Britannica.

I’ve never had a personal publicity man working for me. – Don Siegel

Films for Review:

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Dirty Harry (1971)
Charley Varrick (1973)

80. King Vidor

**King Vidor, US, (1894 – 1982).** Photograph courtesy of instaprints.com.

The director is the channel through which a motion picture reaches the screen. – King Vidor.

Films for Review:

The Big Parade (1925)
The Crowd (1928)
Northwest Passage (1940)

81. Wong Kar-wai

**Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, (Born 1958).** Photograph courtesy of Ke wei – Imaginechina.

My films are never about what Hong Kong is like, or anything approaching a realistic portrait, but what I think about Hong Kong and what I want it to be. – Wong Kar-wai

Films for Review:

Chungking Express (1994)
Fallen Angels (1995)
In the Mood for Love (2000)

82. Leo McCarey

**Leo McCarey, US, (1898 – 1969).** Photograph courtesy of Senses of Cinema.

I don’t know what my formula is. I only know I like my characters to walk in clouds. I like a little bit of the fairy tale. Let others photograph the ugliness of the world. I don’t want to distress people. – Leo McCarey

Films for Review:

Duck Soup (1933)
The Awful Truth (1937)
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

83. Nagisa Ōshima

**Nagisa Ōshima, Japan, (1932 – 2013).** Photograph courtesy of MUBI.

Nothing that is expressed is obscene. What is obscene is what is hidden. – Nagisa Ōshima

Films for Review:

The Ceremony (1971)
In the Realm of the Senses (1976)
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)

84. Francis Ford Coppola

**Francis Ford Coppola, US, (Born 1939)**. Photograph courtesy of latimes.com.

The language of cinema was invented at the turn of the last century by pioneers who were free to experiment but today you can’t dare to experiment. People who control the motion pictures want to make profitable films. Now we’re at a turning point: As artists we can change the world but to do that we need to be free to experiment. – Francis Ford Coppola

Films for Review:

The Godfather (1972)
The Conversation (1974)
The Godfather Part II (1974)

85. Pier Paolo Pasolini

**Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, (1922 – 1975).** Photograph courtesy of Bing Images.

When I make a film I’m always in reality among the trees, and among the people like yourselves. There’s no symbolic or conventional filter between me and reality as there is in literature. The cinema is an explosion of my love for reality. – Pier Paolo Pasolini

Films for Review:

Accattone (1961)
The Gospel According to Matthew (1964)
Teorema (1968)

86. Peter Bogdanovich

**Peter Bogdanovich, US, (1939 – 2022)**. Photograph courtesy of entertainment.ie.

You see so many movies… the younger people who are coming from MTV or who are coming from commercials and there’s no sense of film grammar. There’s no real sense of how to tell a story visually. It’s just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, you know, which is pretty easy. – Peter Bogdanovich

Films for Review:

Targets (1968)
The Last Picture Show (1971)
Saint Jack (1979)

87. Jane Campion

**Jane Campion, New Zealand, (Born 1954).** Photograph courtesy of netflixqueue.com.

I’m a much better filmmaker than painter. But studying it did make me visually acute and taught me lessons like being economic: Say something once and you don’t have to say it again. – Jane Campion

Films for Review:

An Angel at My Table (1990)
The Piano (1993)
The Power of the Dog (2021)

88. Olivier Assayas

**Olivier Assayas, France, (Born 1955).** Photograph courtesy of Phil on Film.

I like to film reality when it’s beautiful, when it’s ugly, when it’s unpleasant, I don’t care. – Olivier Assayas

Films for Review:

Irma Vep (1996)
Carlos – TV Miniseries (2010)
Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)

89. Steven Spielberg

**Steven Spielberg, US, (Born 1946).** Photograph courtesy of premiumbeat.com.

I dream for a living. Whether in success or in failure, I’m proud of every single movie I’ve ever directed. All of us every single year, we’re a different person. I don’t think we’re the same person all our lives. – Steven Spielberg.

Films for Review:

Jaws (1975)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

90. Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet

**Jean-Marie Straub (right), France (1933-2022) and Danièle Huillet, France, (1936 – 2006).** Photograph by Angelo Palma.

The material and its treatment are purely religious-philosophical. – Jean-Marie Straub

Films for Review:

Not Reconciled (1965)
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968)
From the Clouds to the Resistance (1979)

91. Woody Allen

**Woody Allen, US, (Born 1935).** Photograph courtesy of alcindorblock.blogspot.com.

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative. – Woody Allen

Films for Review:

Annie Hall (1977)
Manhattan (1979)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

92. George Cukor

**George Cukor (behind the camera), US, (1899 – 1983).** Photograph courtesy of The Criterion Collection.

Give me a good script, and I’ll be a hundred times better as a director. Real talent is a mystery, and people who’ve got it, know it. – George Cukor

Films for Review:

The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Gaslight (1944)
Travels with My Aunt (1972)

93. Abel Gance

Abel Gance (right), France, (1989-1981).

Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Beethoven will make films… all legends, all mythologies and all myths, all founders of religion, and the very religions… await their exposed resurrection, and the heroes crowd each other at the gate. – Abel Gance

Films for Review:

J’accuse (1919)
La Roue (1923)
Napoléon (1927)

94. Nicolas Roeg

**Nicolas Roeg, UK, (1928-2018)**. Photograph courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter.

Movies are not scripts – movies are films; they’re not books, they’re not the theatre. – Nicolas Roeg

Films for Review:

Performance – Co-directed by Donald Cammell. (1970)
Walkabout (1971)
Don’t Look Now (1973)

95. Frank Capra

**Frank Capra, US, (1897 – 1991).** Photograph courtesy of nofilmschool.com.

My advice to young filmmakers is this: Don’t follow trends, start them. – Frank Capra

Films for Review:

It Happened One Night (1934)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

96. Bernardo Bertolucci

**Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy, (1941- 2018).** Photograph courtesy of The Criterion Collection.

I accept all interpretations of my films. The only reality is before the camera. – Bernardo Bertolucci

Films for Review:

Before the Revolution (1964)
The Conformist (1970)
Last Tango in Paris (1972)

97. Pedro Almodóvar

**Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, (Born 1949). P**hotograph courtesy of artnet.com.

I don’t want to imitate life in movies; I want to represent it. And in that representation, you use the colors you feel, and sometimes they are fake colors. But always it’s to show one emotion. – Pedro Almodóvar

Films for Review:

All About My Mother (1999)
Talk to Her (2002)
The Skin I Live In (2011)

98. Aki Kaurismäki

**Aki Kaurismäki, Finland, (Born 1957).** Photograph courtesy of Variety.

I always decide to put a sad ending but then I feel pity for my characters and put at the last moment a happy ending. – Aki Kaurismäki,

Films for Review:

Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989)
Man Without a Past (2002)
Le Havre (2011)

99. René Clair

**René Clair, France, (1898-1981).** Photograph courtesy of thecinemaarchives.com.

Nothing essential has been added to the art of the motion picture since D.W. Griffith. – René Clair

Films for Review:

Un chapeau de pailled’Italie – The Italian Straw Hat (1928)
Under the Roofs of Paris (1930)
Le Million (1931)

100. Terrence Malick

**Terrence Malick, US, (Born 1943)**. Photograph courtesy of premiumbeat.com.

I will be true to you. Whatever comes. – Terrence Malick

Films for Review:

Badlands (1973)
Days of Heaven (1978)
The Thin Red Line (1998)

101. Charles Laughton

**Charles Laughton, US, (1899 – 1962). In the above photo, director Laughton speaks with Lillian Gish, the star of many D.W. Griffith masterpieces, on the set of *The Night of the Hunter* (1955).** Photograph courtesy of Noirchick.

The Night of the Hunter (1955) was the only film that actor Charles Laughton ever directed. The film features Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish, with a screenplay by James Agee; photography by Stanley Cortez, who also shot Orson Welles’ 1942 film The Magnificent Ambersons; produced by his friend Paul Gregory; and art direction by Hilyard M. Brown. In preparation of directing the film, Laughton studied the original nitrate prints of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, and German expressionist films of the 1920s. At the time of its original release, it was a critical and box-office failure, and Laughton never directed again. The Night of the Hunter was cited by Cahiers du Cinéma in 2008 as the second-best film of all time, and has been selected by the United States National Film Registry for preservation in the Library of Congress.