All Right, Mr. DeMille, I'm Ready For My Close-Up ... It's The ILXOR's Top 101 Director Poll Results Thread

Saw "Red Shoes" a coupla years ago and loved it, VG :D (and stole a bit of footage via phone for a silly little music video I made)

Enjoyable poll, this...Thanks Eric!

:D

Was sure I'd voted for Hitch, but checking my ballot I must have left him off by mistake. Not that it would make any difference to overall tally.

Great work, Eric.

great poll and thread, looking forward to checking out films by the many directors whose work I haven't seen.

i didn't get to join in bc my phone is so shitty it won't let me post and i have been nowhere near my laptop so in tldr form:

1. Alfred Hitchcock (2399.5 points; 28 votes; 2 first-place votes)
Somewhere in my top ten. The first half of Psycho is one of my favourite films ever, I lose interest a little once she shows up at the motel, all a little too gothic for me. I like the headlit luridness of the office scenes where vivian leigh is being ogled by the oilman and the weird shot that flies over phoenix and right through the venetian blinds. I do think laura mulvey has it right that all his films are about ogling (im paraphrasing). the cruel, obsessive way the camera carves up people. He has many terrible films. that awful one with shirley mclaine where people keep finding the same dead body, often his films seem really bored.

2. Orson Welles (1957 points; 24 votes)
kane is as good as its supposed to be. i wish somebody would find the rest of ambersons. lady from shanghai is fabulous. i think the standard narrative about failed promise is about right, so many of his films seem crumpled under some half-forgotten ambition.

3. Stanley Kubrick (1920 points; 21 votes; 4 first-place votes)
I like the shining. everything else i've seen is pompous and dull. he should have made more horror films.

7. Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1812.5 points; 22 votes)
one of my favourite things in fassbinders films, of which i've seen most i think, is the loud sound of rustling costumes. this is especially a feature of bitter tears of petra von kant and women in new york. in women in new york, all the sets are built on the same theatre stage, so even though the scene changes there is a creaky floorboard in the same place which you hear in every shot. margit carstensen is my favourite of his leading ladies, and martha is his funniest film.

9. Luis Buñuel (1662 points; 20 votes; 1 first-place vote)
Bunuel's films sort of baffle me. I took a friend to see his version of wuthering heights and he has never forgiven me.

11. Jean-Luc Godard (1647.5 points; 20 votes; 1 first-place vote)
coulnd't be arsed with all that nouvelle vague bollocks, but from weekend on his films are inconsistently interesting. i love the one where isabelle huppert is a really bored prostitute/agricultural worker

12. Robert Altman (1546 points; 19 votes)
come back to the five and dime and nasheville

13. Martin Scorsese (1533.5 points; 20 votes; 1 first-place vote)
blonde ladies wearing white. he persisted with this for so long i can't believe he never found it embarrassing. have never even heard of most of the films he's made this century.

15. Jean Renoir (1447.5 points; 17 votes; 1 first-place vote)
i've only seen a couple of films by him but hated both.

16. Fritz Lang (1438 points; 18 votes)
classic if only for gloria grahame throwing coffee in someone's face.

19. F.W. Murnau (1352 points; 17 votes)
My favourites are the american films, city girl in particular has incredible vignettes that are formal, german, expressionistic whilst being american naturalistic and pastoral. there is a brief shot of waitresses laughing, a low table lamp turned to spotlight a character appearing out of darkness.

21. Chantal Akerman (1289.5 points; 16 votes; 1 first-place vote)
my highest vote to place (my #2). About as good a filmmaker as I can imagine. My favourite is a tv documentary, basically a south bank show episode, she made about pina bausch that is so disillusioned and bleak about its subject. the last few seconds are hilarious. I don't think Jeanne Dielmann towers above her other films, although it is hard to imagine a film that could so successful bring together so many of the themes of 2nd wave feminism in such a sharpened way. Also love la Captive, I saw it at the London gay and lesbian film festival and it bored the audience to laughter. I saw her speak once and she was very very funny.

24. Abbas Kiarostami (1224 points; 15 votes; 1 first-place vote)
I haven't seen enough films by him, but ten and close-up are two of my favourite films of all time. ten is a film that is also about mania akbari's great love of cake. me and my boyfriend call her mania for cakes. as beautiful and dreyer's joan of arc.

26. Joel & Ethan Coen (1211.5 points; 15 votes)
horrible dull and cruel films

29. Alain Resnais (1052 points; 15 votes)
His first three films obviously. Muriel most of all, very funny, incredibly sad. the french streets and squares named after the dead.

32. Nicholas Ray (952.5 points; 13 votes)
Johnny guitar is my favourite. I love the flat in born to be bad which is meant to be a fabulous apartment owned by a wealthy couple but just seems like a cramped duplex. In a lonely place, on dangerous ground, a woman's secret. rebel without a cause makes my eyes hurt from rolling though.

34. Terrence Malick (872 points; 11 votes)
badlands is a perfect film, but would have been terrible without sissy spacek I think. tree of life is so awful I can't believe anyone was fooled by it.

35. Satyajit Ray (834.5 points; 11 votes)
i saw some bad documentaries by ray once, including one about a traditional indian dancer which was so unbearable I had to leave the cinema. I feel like his films are about the same vague grandeur as john ford's. it leaves me completely cold.

37. Mike Leigh (827 points; 11 votes)
always thought i'd hate his films, but their actorliness and the depth of character he aspires to lifts them. i think his shrieking harpy characters are misogynistic, and his best comedies (nuts in may, abigail's party) seem to really hate women. On the other hand topsy turvy and vera drake are completely original, and vera drake in particular manages to handle the many layers of social hypocricy around abortion in an amazingly fine grained way. Its sort of uniquely a film about public health.

38. Steven Spielberg (824.5 points; 11 votes)
no

40. Wong Kar-wai (799 points; 11 votes)
I mean, i really like these films but they are just somebody's instagram account

41. Nicholas Roeg (783.5 points; 10 votes)
terrible awful films. with the exception of don't look now.

42. Chris Marker (775 points; 10 votes; 1 first-place vote)
marker was a real gateway drug for me, definitely a big source of many of the filmmakers i got interested in later, but his very french complacent bourgeois radicalism and epicurianism starts to seem a little silly eventually.

45. Michael Haneke (726 points; 10 votes)
for the french films. especially code unknown.

46. Preston Sturges (724.5 points; 9 votes)
i love love love mary astor in the palm beach story and i really made a go at sturges a couple of years ago but they're just not as good as you want them to be. lots of charmless male leads also.

53. Carol Reed (607.5 points; 8 votes)
I love the third man, but odd man out is so clueless about belfast that it makes me very sceptical of vienna. the one with the butler is p tedious.

55. Maya Deren (598.5 points; 8 votes)
my bf likes to watch meshes of an afternoon every year for his birthday. the best film ever made about the suburbs.

69. Frederick Wiseman (513.5 points; 6 votes; 1 first-place vote)
the best living director I think. My favourites are state legistlature and high school ii. I think the '90s were his best decade.

73. Richard Linklater (495.5 points; 7 votes)
parker posey was very funny in dazed and confused but I don't think that merits #73

99. Claire Denis (367.5 points; 5 votes)
Beau travail is the sexiest postcolonial film studies dept movie of all time.

101. D.W. Griffith (365.5 points; 5 votes)
I mean I know, racism, but that bit out on the ice floes.

15. Jean Renoir (1447.5 points; 17 votes; 1 first-place vote)
i've only seen a couple of films by him but hated both.

okay what

which films?

41. Nicholas Roeg (783.5 points; 10 votes)
terrible awful films. with the exception of don't look now.

Walkabout awful? Its tragic as a story...as Don't look now..

Really good run down though plax(ico) thanks. I also saw Akerman speak (the only filmaker I saw speak, and it was at a screening of that Pina Bausch film) and she was funny, interesting and fascinating - generous and tough, she got me to think harder. I very much miss the fact she is not around anymore.

plax, did you fix your friend's car brakes after h/she admitted to not liking Bunuel?

My Ballot:

Akerman, Chantal
Resnais, Alain
Ōshima, Nagisa
Ghatak, Ritwik
Kiarostami, Abbas
Fassbinder, Rainer Werner
Watkins, Peter
Marker, Chris
Varda, Agnes
Eustache, Jean
Rossellini, Roberto
Duras, Marguerite
Godard, Jean-Luc
Snow, Michael
Bunuel, Luis
Parajanov, Sergei
Dreyer, Carl Theodor
Straub, Jean-Marie & Daniele Huillet
Kubelka, Peter
Haneke, Michael
Mambéty, Djibril Diop
Oliveira, Manoel de
Panahi, Jafar
Pasolini, Pier Paolo
Powell, Michael & Emeric Pressburger
Pialat, Maurice
Rivette, Jacques
Kitano Takeshi
Rocha, Glauber
Sembene, Ousmene
Malick, Terrence
Wong Kar-wai
Angelopoulos, Theo
Antonioni, Michelangelo
Bergman, Ingmar
Tarkovsky, Andrei
Losey, Joseph
Kieslowski, Krzysztof
Makhmalbaf, Mohsen
Pontecorvo, Gillo
Yang, Edward
Naruse Mikio
Hansen-Love, Mia
Kore-eda Hirokazu
Petzold, Christian
De Sica, Vittorio
Diaz, Lav
Dumont, Bruno
Costa, Pedro
Warhol, Andy

Worst: Spielberg, Steven

I should've found space for Makavejev, that's the one I regret the most. Renoir, Ray, Kurosawa are top 50 but I didn't place and don't specifically regret as they placed well anyway. Mizoguchi and Ozu were the pair I really forgot, and I really did need to place. As for US directors the one I regret not placing is Todd Haynes (LOL why did I put Andy Warhol in there sheesh).

The one director I will try to see more from is Preston Sturges.

I like the shining. everything else i've seen is pompous and dull. he should have made more horror films.

My ballot:

William A. Wellman
Max Ophuls
Alexander Korda
Louis Feuillade
Rouben Mamoulian
Maurice Tourneur
Frank Capra
Robert Bresson
King Vidor
G.W. Pabst
Jean Renoir
Buster Keaton
René Clair
Fritz Lang
Mervyn LeRoy
Julian Duvivier
Jean Grémillon
Roy & John Boulting
Jacques Tati
Josef von Sternberg
Gregory La Cava
Tay Garnett
Ernst Lubitsch
Tod Browning
Jacques Feyder
František Vláčil
Max Linder
Frank Borzage
John Ford
Marcel Carné
Joseph Losey
Pierre Étaix
Roscoe Arbuckle
Alice Guy Blache
Mark Sandrich
W.S. Van Dyke
Cecil B. DeMille
D.W. Griffith
Lois Weber
Benjamin Christensen
Andrea Arnold
Jem Cohen
Chris Marker
Sam Taylor
Leo McCarey
Jacques Becker
Lewis Milestone
Fred Niblo
James Cruze
Alfred E. Green

Worst Director: Oscar Micheaux

I said upthread I compiled my ballot based on my Letterboxd watchlist, and it's clear I watch a lot of silent and early sound film. I've ordered the Murnau/Borzage box set, and from there I plan to systematically go through Ford's work at Fox.

Quite a lot of name in there I don't know so I'll investigate.

Mine in alphabetical order:

Chantal Akerman
Robert Altman
Olivier Assayas
Michaelangelo Antonioni
Ingmar Bergman
John Boorman
Frank Borzage
Luis Buñuel
Jean Cocteau
Sofia Coppola
David Cronenberg
George Cukor
Terence Davies
Jonathan Demme
Arnaud Desplechin
Jacques Demy
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
James Gray
Howard Hawks
Todd Haynes
Alfred Hitchcock
Hou Hsiao-hsien
Shohei Imamura
Abi Kauruismaki
Abbas Kiarostami
Akira Kurosawa
Fritz Lang
Mike Leigh
David Lynch
Paul Mazursky
Jean-Pierre Melville
Kenji Mizoguchi
Errol Morris
F.W. Murnau
Max Ophuls
Yasujiro Ozu
G.W. Pabst
Sam Peckinpah
Roman Polanski
Michael Powell
Otto Preminger
Satyajit Ray
Jean Renoir
Eric Rohmer
Raul Ruiz
Douglas Sirk
Preston Sturges
Béla Tarr
Andrei Tarkovsky
Tsai Min-liang
Gus Van Sant
Steven Spielberg
Paul Verhoeven
King Vidor
Luchino Visconti
Joseph von Sternberg
Orson Welles
Apichatpoing Weerasethakul
Frederick Wiseman
Edward Yang
Jia Zhangke

No worst.

1. Luis Bunuel
2. Alfred Hitchcock
3. Jean-Luc Godard
4. Fritz Lang
5. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
6. Pier Paolo Pasolini
7. Chantal Akerman
8. Takeshi Kitano
9. Sergio Leone
10. Carl Theodor Dreyer
11. Howard Hawks
12. Kenneth Anger
13. Paul Schrader
14. Dario Argento
15. Satyajit Ray
16. Nicholas Ray
17. John Waters
18. Louis Malle
19. King Hu
20. Jean Renoir
21. Robert Aldrich
22. Bob Fosse
23. Jia Zhangke
24. Henry Hathaway
25. Eric Rohmer
26. Carol Reed
27. Jean Vigo
28. Aki Kaurismaki
29. Sally Potter
30. Robert Bresson
31. Alejandro Jodorowsky
32. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
33. Bernardo Bertolucci
34. Peter Watkins
35. Andrei Tarkovsky
36. Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo
37. Agnes Varda
38. Hou Hsiao-hsien
39. Park Chan-Wook
40. Francois Truffaut
41. Derek Jarman
42. Lindsay Anderson
43. Alain Resnais
44. Akira Kurosawa
45. Jan Svankmajer
46. Claude Chabrol
47. Michael Reeves
48. Paul Verhoeven
49. F.W. Murnau
50. Krzysztof Kieslowski

Worst director: Christopher Nolan

My ballot (in retrospect, I regret that I didn't make space for Vigo, and that I haven't seen enough of Chytilová's work beyond Daisies):

1. Jean Renoir
2. Howard Hawks
3. F.W. Murnau
4. Jacques Rivette
5. Jean-Luc Godard
6. David Lynch
7. Nicholas Ray
8. G.W. Pabst
9. Yazujiro Ozu
10. Agnes Varda
11. Robert Bresson
12. Chris Marker
13. Orson Welles
14. Luis Buñuel
15. Fritz Lang
16. Akira Kurosawa
17. Michael Powell
18. Billy Wilder
19. Hayao Miyazaki
20. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
21. Andrei Tarkovsky
22. François Truffaut
23. Federico Fellini
24. Charles Chaplin
25. Chantal Akerman
26. Mikio Naruse
27. Claire Denis
28. Preston Sturges
29. Jia Zhangke
30. Maya Deren
31. Alain Resnais
32. Roberto Rossellini
33. Abbas Kiarostami
34. Sergei Eisenstein
35. Jean Cocteau
36. Bruce Conner
37. Alfred Hitchcock
38. John Carpenter
39. Michelangelo Antonioni
40. Vincent Minnelli
41. Jacques Tati
42. Victor Erice
43. Wong Kar-Wai
44. Dziga Vertov
45. Martin Scorsese
46. Terence Malick
47. Kelly Reichardt
48. Robert Altman
49. Mike Leigh
50. John Cassavetes

worst director:
Veit Harlan

1. Frederick Wiseman
2. Stanley Kubrick
3. Robert Altman
4. Joel & Ethan Coen
--------------------------------------------
Andrea Arnold
Billy Wilder
Brian De Palma
David Cronenberg
David Fincher
Elia Kazan
Francis Ford Coppola
Francois Truffaut
Frank Capra
Hal Ashby
Jean-Luc Godard
Jonathan Demme
Kelly Reichardt
Kenneth Lonergan
Martin Scorsese
Nicole Holofcener
Noah Baumbach
Orson Welles
Paul Thomas Anderson
Richard Linklater
Roman Polanski
Satyajit Ray
Sidney Lumet
Sofia Coppola
Spike Lee
Wim Wenders

I should have voted for Bergman, Preminger, Fassbinder (going back to university: Berlin Alexanderplatz + three or four others), Michael Apted (if you view the Up series as many films), Terry Zwigoff (for Crumb and Ghost World), and, just because All the President's Men is probably my favourite film right now, Pakula (he also had a couple others I like). I checked a few lists of my own, year-end and all-time, but otherwise just tried to recall combinations of films I love and films I like. A few names slipped through. And I did something you shouldn't do, left off three specific names I would have listed if totally honest, but where the degree of veneration bugs me.

I'm glad you didn't vote, plax! In part bcz you referred to Lee Marvin as "someone."

(also The Shining is the dull and pompous one)

xo

Bresson was my #1. Baz Luhrmann was my pick for worst.

the dreaded double-Coppola! xxp

and Alfred's Coppola was Sofia. Too many martinis...

I could not put Ingmar in my top 5 bcz, eventually, I got sick of him blaming his parents for everything. Man up.

whut I done voted for. (Warhol changed film, also a must vote despite the 'importance doesnt matter' yahoos)

Alfred Hitchcock
Jean Renoir
Howard Hawks
John Ford
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Ingmar Bergman
Preston Sturges
Luis Bunuel
Stanley Kubrick
Buster Keaton

Robert Bresson
Ousmane Sembene
Ernst Lubitsch
Orson Welles
Steven Spielberg
Roberto Rossellini
Eric Rohmer
Andrei Tarkovsky
Fritz Lang
Akira Kurosawa

Luchino Visconti
Carl Dreyer
Yasujiro Ozu
Jean-Luc Godard
Charles Chaplin
Chuck Jones
Robert Aldrich
Nicholas Ray
Mike Leigh
Robert Altman

Max Ophuls
Abbas Kiarostami
D.W. Griffith
Hou Hsiao-hsien
Vincente Minnelli
Elia Kazan
Andy Warhol
George Kuchar
Agnes Varda
Frederick Wiseman

Jacques Tati
David Cronenberg
Jacques Tourneur
Alain Resnais
Satyajit Ray
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Shohei Imamura
Martin Scorsese
Todd Haynes
F.W. Murnau

(oh yeah it was Murnau i voted for and not Pabst. mistaken silent German identity)

Tarkovsky-Lynch-Renoir-Ozu-Bunuel were my top 5 without thinking much about it. I guess I like dream logic and tragic humanists.

1. Lynch, David
2. Kubrick, Stanley
3. Ozu Yasujirō
4. Bergman, Ingmar
5. Kiarostami, Abbas
6. Kieslowski, Krzysztof
7. Powell, Michael & Emeric Pressburger
8. Akerman, Chantal

Unranked:
Altman, Robert
Anderson, Paul Thomas
Anderson, Wes
Antonioni, Michelangelo
Brakhage, Stan
Coen, Joel & Ethan
Cronenberg, David
Deren, Maya
Fassbinder, Rainer Werner
Ford, John
Frankenheimer, John
Gilliam, Terry
Godard, Jean-Luc
Greenaway, Peter
Haneke, Michael
Herzog, Werner
Hitchcock, Alfred
Jones, Chuck
Kaurismäki, Aki
Kurosawa Akira
Laughton, Charles
Lean, David
Leigh, Mike
Maddin, Guy
Morrison, Bill
Pennebaker, D.A.
Polanski, Roman
Ray, Satyajit
Renoir, Jean
Resnais, Alain
Rossellini, Roberto
Saulnier, Jeremy
Scorsese, Martin
Soderbergh, Steven
Spielberg, Steven
Sturges, Preston
Svankmajer, Jan
Tarkovsky, Andrei
Varda, Agnes
Vertov, Dziga
Welles, Orson
Zwigoff, Terry

but odd man out is so clueless about belfast that it makes me very sceptical of vienna

it's only a movie, Ingrid

My Ballot:

Edward Yang
Hayao Miyazaki
John Cassavetes
Akira Kurosawa
Andrei Tarkovsky
Billy Wilder
Yasujiro Ozu
Robert Altman
Ingmar Bergman
Jean Renoir
Fritz Lang
David Lynch
Joel and Ethan Coen
Werner Herzog
Alfred Hitchcock
Federico Fellini
Robert Siodmak
Chantal Akerman
Jia Zhangke
Charles Laughton
Seijun Suzuki
Guy Maddin
Kenji Mizoguchi
Paul Thomas Anderson
Kelly Reichardt
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Orson Welles
Michelangelo Antonioni
Otto Preminger
Terrence Malick
Roberto Rosselini
Francis Ford Coppola
Park Chan-Wook
Oliver Assayas
Stanley Kubrick
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Johnnie To
Martin Scorsese
Isao Takahata
Fei Mu
Kon Ichikawa
Frank Capra
John Huston
Jean Pierre Melville
Woody Allen
Wes Anderson
Nicholas Ray
Paul Schrader
Mia Hansen Love
Miguel Gomes

Worst: Edgar Wright

good shout on Edgar fucking Wright

okay what

which films?

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 20 January 2018 13:02 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

la bete humaine and le dejeuner sur l'herbe

I'm glad you didn't vote, plax! In part bcz you referred to Lee Marvin as "someone."

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 20 January 2018 14:18 (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i DID vote, I just didn't get to post this week.

I had regretted not voting for phillip scheffner, but this wasn't a poll where you could push your top choices onto the main even singlehandedly so I have no regrets

"charmless male leads" in Sturges, why i oughta...

Eddie Bracken is *ssupposed to be* charmless, he's brilliant at it.

Part of the multiplex crew, don’t @ me.

Herzog, Werner
Tarkovsky, Andrei
Cronenberg, David
Gordon, Stuart
Murnau, F.W.
Scorsese, Martin
Wenders, Wim
Wong Kar-wai
Yang, Edward
Kubrick, Stanley
Miyazaki Hayao
Anderson, Paul Thomas
Cassavetes, John
Chow, Stephen
Coppola, Francis Ford
Fellini, Federico
Korine, Harmony
Lynch, David
Malick, Terrence
Wilder, Billy
Welles, Orson
Kieslowski, Krzysztof
Kopple, Barbara
Reed, Carol
Lang, Fritz
Dreyer, Carl Theodor
Bergman, Ingmar
Raimi, Sam
Griffith, D.W.
Roeg, Nicholas
Morris, Errol
Laughton, Charles
Fassbinder, Rainer Werner
Bunuel, Luis
Coen, Joel & Ethan
Mann, Michael
Spielberg, Steven
Von Trier, Lars
del Toro, Guillermo
Burton, Tim
Romero, George A.
Kaufman, Charlie
Browning, Tod
Downey Sr., Robert
Brakhage, Stan
Jarmusch, Jim
Meyer, Russ
Linklater, Richard
Solondz, Todd
Lewis, Herschell Gordon
Nolan, Christopher
Noé, Gaspar

1. Farocki, Harun
2. Akerman, Chantal
3. Wiseman, Frederick
4. Hitchcock, Alfred
5. Loach, Ken
6. Straub, Jean-Marie & Daniele Huillet
7. Godard, Jean-Luc
8. Murnau, F.W.
9. Fassbinder, Rainer Werner
10. Resnais, Alain
11. Kiarostami, Abbas
12. Hawks, Howard
13. Minh-ha, Trinh T.
14. Petzold, Christian
15. Ray, Nicholas
16. Dickinson, Margaret
17. Almodovar, Pedro
18. Guiterrez, Thomas
19. Bitomsky, Hartmut
20. Keiller, Patrick
21. Griffith, D.W.
22. Trecartin, Ryan
23. Berkeley, Busby
24. Welles, Orson
25. Denis, Claire
26. Cukor, George
27. Marker, Chris
28. Biemann, Ursula
29. Minnelli, Vincente
30. Sirk, Douglas
31. Frampton, Hollis
32. Waters, John
33. Haneke, Michael

those Charles Laughton votes are indeed irritating, esp at the expense of Jean Vigo and Elaine May

I've tried w/ Straub & Huillet. Not so far.

1. Alfred Hitchcock
2. Ingmar Bergman
3. Nicolas Roeg
4. David Lynch
5. Stanley Kubrick
6. Charlie Kaufman
7. Andrei Tarkovsky
8. Robert Downey Sr.
9. Robert Altman
10. Kelly Reichardt
11. Pedro Almodóvar
12. Coen Brothers
13. Akira Kurosawa
14. Douglas Sirk
15. Michael Cimino
16. John Waters
17. Todd Haynes
18. Paul Thomas Anderson
19. Chantal Akerman
20. Jim Jarmusch
21. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
22. John Cassavetes
23. Bob Fosse
24. Orson Welles
25. Quentin Tarantino
26. Robert Bresson
27. D.A. Pennebaker
28. William Friedkin
29. Alexander Payne
30. Olivier Assayas
31. Yasujiro Ozu
32. Nicholas Ray
33. Roman Polanski
34. Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris
35. Sofia Coppola
36. Stan Brakhage
37. David Gordon Green
38. Jonathan Demme
39. Agnès Varda
40. Penelope Spheeris
41. Todd Solondz
42. Harmony Korine
43. Spike Lee
44. Robert Aldrich
45. Luis Bunuel
46. Eliza Hittman
47. Martin Scorsese
48. Lars Von Trier
49. Billy Wilder
50. Sean Baker

WORST DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick

where should I start with Preston Sturges?

Sullivan’s Travels

Non-placers in bold.

I definitely would have swapped out a bunch of my unranked section for other directors had I not just thrown it together at the last minute. Like, why do I have Jess Franco on there and not Mario Bava???? There are some others where I've seen a couple of films and liked them and obviously just figured "yeah, I'll throw them a vote" when I probs could've picked someone with a way more solid body of work. Oh well.

1. Vera Chytilova
2. Wojciech Has
3. Jane Arden
4. Roy Andersson
5. Andrei Tarkovsky
6. Roman Polanski
7. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
8. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
9. Luis Bunuel
10. Werner Herzog
11. Juraj Herz
12. Sergei Parajanov
13. Dario Argento
14. Ingmar Bergman
15. Maya Deren

Georges Melies
Germaine Dulac
Agnes Varda
Hans Richter
Peter Strickland
Bela Tarr
Wong Kar-wai
Jan Svankmajer
Lars Von Trier
John Waters
Jesus Franco
Sergei Eisenstein
Michelangelo Antonioni
Jean-Luc Godard
Michael Haneke
Alfred Hitchcock
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Fritz Lang
David Lynch
Russ Meyer
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Peter Watkins
David Cronenberg
Chantal Akerman
Lindsay Anderson
Andrzej Zulawski
Rosa von Praunheim
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Federico Fellini
Kenneth Anger
Alice Guy Blache
Hiroshi Teshigahara
Andy Warhol
Shohei Imamura
Hayao Miyazaki

I'm gonna go try and rent Miracle of Morgan's Creek later.

This poll is also indicating to me that I have a lot of Murnau to catch up on.

VHAS i would go with the great Sturges period in chron order, beginning with The Great McGinty. (For one thing, the first scene in Morgan's Creek will make more sense that way.)

emil.y, i don't know Chytilova aside from Daisies; have you seen much?

kudos on Has as well

I wish I'd voted for Warhol too, which probably would have pushed him onto the list. Of the 10-15 films I've seen, only one or two flat-out bored me; the rest had me laughing at a minimum, most confounded me in a really interesting way, and there's beauty in The Chelsea Girls and the screen tests.

Murnau’s Faust is obviously incredible but Emil Jannings makes me too sick.

emil.y, i don't know Chytilova aside from Daisies; have you seen much?

Yeah, strongly recommend Fruit of Paradise as the next one to check out if you like Daisies. Even her lesser '90s films are pretty good.

https://wondersinthedark.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/fruit-2.png

Checking the spreadsheet, Warhol wouldn't have made it with a vote from me. But I did notice a blank for Andrea Arnold in my column--with my points, she would have moved up to the low 100s, five points short of the big list. I don't know the calculation that then turned points into weighted points, but Arnold might have ranked with that adjustment. (This isn't criticism--I messed up points on all four polls I oversaw, leaving out a whole ballot once.)

Herzog, Werner
Roeg, Nicholas
Bunuel, Luis
Tarkovsky, Andrei
Antonioni, Michelangelo
Powell, Michael & Emeric Pressburger
Hitchcock, Alfred
Akerman, Chantal
Altman, Robert
Kubrick, Stanley
De Palma, Brian
Malick, Terrence
Scorsese, Martin
Tarr, Bela
Ophüls, Max
Godard, Jean-Luc
Kiarostami, Abbas
Renoir, Jean
Hogg, Joanna
Bergman, Ingmar
Kurosawa Akira
Dreyer, Carl Theodor
Andersson, Roy
Lynch, David
Argento, Dario
Romero, George A
Rohmer, Eric
Kore-eda Hirokazu
Friedkin, William
Cronenberg, David
Arnold, Andrea
Haneke, Michael
Von Trier, Lars
Leone, Sergio
Strickland, Peter
Ceylan, Nuri Bilge

Forgot a bunch tho eg murnau, lang and bresson. Had has on my mind but loved hourglass sanatorium and wasn't so hot on saragossa manuscript

here's mine. Order is a bit arbitrary in retrospect, and if I hadn't forgotten Murnau, he'd be on and Capra would be off

1. Powell, Michael & Emeric Pressburger
2. Lubitsch, Ernst
3. Hitchcock, Alfred
4. Renoir, Jean
5. Sturges, Preston
6. Miyazaki Hayao
7. Lynch, David
8. Keaton, Buster
9. Ophüls, Max
10. Tati, Jacques
11. Malick, Terrence
12. Ray, Satyajit
13. Welles, Orson
14. Lang, Fritz
15. Bunuel, Luis
16. Kurosawa Akira
17. Brakhage, Stan
18. Reed, Carol
19. Altman, Robert
20. Hawks, Howard
21. Kubrick, Stanley
22. Wong Kar-wai
23. Vigo, Jean
24. Ozu Yasujirō
25. Kieslowski, Krzysztof
26. Eisenstein, Sergei
27. Linklater, Richard
28. Satoshi Kon
29. Clair, Rene
30. Laughton, Charles
31. Tarkovsky, Andrei
32. Conner, Bruce
33. Yang, Edward
34. Mackendrick, Alexander
35. Woo, John
36. Kalatozov, Mikhael
37. Cocteau, Jean
38. Jones, Chuck
39. Roeg, Nicholas
40. Sirk, Douglas
41. Pontecorvo, Gillo
42. Wilder, Billy
43. Pabst, G.W.
44. Melville, Jean-Pierre
45. Dreyer, Carl Theodor
46. Hu, King
47. Mamoulian, Rouben
48. Bergman, Ingmar
49. Capra, Frank
50. Hark, Tsui

Xp voted polanski somewhere around 19 but he's missing for some mysterious reason

Did I miss the spreadsheet link?

All Right, Mr. DeMille, I'm Ready For My Close-Up ... It's The ILXOR's Top 101 Director Poll Results Thread

Eric, thanks so much for doing this! Been a hoot. Ballot:

1. Kiarostami, Abbas
2. Roeg, Nicholas
3. Tarkovsky, Andrei
4. Bergman, Ingmar
5. Fellini, Federico
6. Deren, Maya
7. Lynch, David
8. Teshigahara, Hiroshi
9. Pasolini, Pier Paolo
10. Pakula, Alan J.
11. Bunuel, Luis
12. Brakhage, Stan
13. Stillman, Whit
14. Fassbinder, Rainer Werner
15. Kurosawa, Akira
16. Resnais, Alain
17. Kubrick, Stanley
18. Jodorowsky, Alejandro
19. Rohmer, Eric
20. Haneke, Michael
21. Tarr, Bela
22. Ghobadi, Bahman
23. Snow, Michael
24. Coppola, Francis Ford
25. Wertmuller, Lina
26. Godard, Jean-Luc
27. Franco, Jesus
28. Makhmalbaf, Mohsen
29. Medem, Julio
30. Cronenberg, David
31. Antonioni, Michelangelo
32. Akerman, Chantal
33. Dardenne, Jean-Luc & Pierre
34. Duras, Marguerite
35. Welles, Orson
36. Farhadi, Asghar
37. Lelouch, Claude
38. Kieslowski, Krzysztof
39. Almodovar, Pedro
40. Rollin, Jean
41. Borowczyk, Walerian
42. Sokurov, Aleksandr
43. Tati, Jacques
44. Shahid-Saless, Sohrab
45. Ōshima, Nagisa
46. Linklater, Richard
47. Metzger, Radley
48. Cassavetes, John
49. Sarno, Joe
50. Verhoeven, Paul