View Full Version : Top 5 Living American Directors
sanariot
16 Dec 2002, 02:06 AM
1. Martin Scorsese
2. Woody Allen
3. Steven Spielberg
4.?
5.?
Three were easy for me to come up with. I considered putting David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola and Spike Lee on the list as well but I didn't think that they had more than a couple of really good pictures apiece.
Who would you list? I've got to be forgetting a couple of people. The rules are that they must be American, Alive and have made a picture in the last 10 years.
DoctorJones24
16 Dec 2002, 02:59 AM
I'd have to say those three would be tough to displace. For 4 and 5, you're right...it gets trickier.
Tough to leave off any of the following:
Robert Altman
Spike Lee
Coen Brothers
Francis Coppola
John Sayles
Steven Soderbergh
My personal choices would be Sayles and Altman, who have slightly larger bodies of work than the others.
Sidenote: Doesn't it seem pretty late in the day to not even have a woman within a sniff of being mentioned in this discussion? I'm sure easier cases could be made for women "Top 5" representatives in careers like law, business, medicine, academics, etc.
metrocorazon
16 Dec 2002, 08:41 AM
Spike Lee?
He made 1 good movie and he's a top director?
GringoMoFo
16 Dec 2002, 10:30 AM
Martin Scorsese
Jon Jost
M. Night Shamalyan
Philip Kaufman
Richard Linklater
sanariot
16 Dec 2002, 10:53 AM
Originally posted by GringoMoFo
M. Night Shamalyan
I was thinking about including him on my list. All three of his pictures have been pretty solid.
DoctorJones24
16 Dec 2002, 11:01 AM
Originally posted by metrocorazon
Spike Lee?
He made 1 good movie and he's a top director?
I honestly have no idea which one you might be referring to. How many of his films have you seen?
Malcolm X
Do the Right Thing
Jungle Fever
Crooklyn
He Got Game
Clockers
all solid...
Summer of Sam was pretty mediocre, I thought.
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Shamalyan, P and W Anderson, and the rest of the young bucks need to have a solid body of work to be considered, IMO.
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Others:
Milos Forman (considered an "American" director by now?)
Clint Eastwood
Robert Redford (was heading in the right direction on his first 4 films, but his last two have sucked)
Barry Levinson
Rob Reiner
Mike Nichols
sanariot
16 Dec 2002, 11:06 AM
That new one he's got coming out, "25th Hour" looks like it could be pretty good also.