List is in alphabetical order.
Part II – The Rise of the Auteur and Experimentation
Woody Allen
Style/system: American;
worked in American independent film; known for his dialog and contribution to
the romantic comedy genre
Active: 1966-Present
Key films to see: Annie
Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Midnight
in Paris
Robert Altman
Style/system: American;
worked in Hollywood and American independent film; large ensemble casts,
naturalistic style, a leading filmmaker in the New Hollywood era
Active: 1951-2006
Ingmar Bergman
Style/system: Swedish;
worked in Sweden; a director’s director, very influential and beloved by those
who came after him, his work often focused on the human condition
Active: 1946-2007
Key films to see: The
Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona, Cries and Whispers, and Fanny and
Alexander
Bernardo Bertolucci
Style/system: Italian;
worked in Italy and America; strikingly beautiful and poetic films, often
dealing with character facing moments of monumental change in their lives
Active: 1962-Present
Key films to see: The
Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, and The Last Emperor
Robert Bresson
Style/system: French;
worked in France; influenced the filmmakers who birthed the French New Wave, a
director’s director (influential and beloved), Jean-Luc Godard wrote: “Robert
Bresson is French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is
German music.”
Active: 1934-1983
Key films to see: Diary
of a Country Priest, A Man Escaped, Pickpocket, Au Hasard Balthazar, and
Mouchette
John Cassavetes
Style/system: American;
worked in American independent film; an actor’s director, known for garnering
some of cinema’s greatest performances from his troupe of actors, often made
films about normal life and the great strain that exists within it
Active: 1959-1986
Key films to see: Faces,
A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Opening Night,
and Gloria
Francis Ford Coppola
Style/system: American;
worked in Hollywood and American independent film; a prominent member of the
New Hollywood wave of filmmakers, the filmmaker of the 1970s (only to seemingly
never again make a truly great film)
Active: 1959-Present
Key films to see: The
Godfather, The Conversation, The
Godfather: Part II, Apocalypse Now, The Outsiders, and Dracula
Stanley Donen
Style/system: American;
worked in Hollywood; marvelous musicals (with Gene Kelly) and masterful
Hollywood genre films (with Audrey Hepburn), bright and colorful, pure Hollywood
Active: 1949-1999
Federico Fellini
Style/system: Italian;
worked in Italy; blends fantasy and baroque imagery with realism, yet another
of the most influential filmmakers of those to follow him
Active: 1950-1990
Milos Forman
Style/system: Czech; worked
in Czechoslovakia and Hollywood; a leader of the Czechoslovak New Wave moment,
bringing his biting satire and rebellion against authority to Hollywood
Active: 1960-Presnet
Key films to see: The
Loves of a Blonde, The Fireman’s Ball, One
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Hair, and Amadeus
Jean-Luc Godard
Style/system: French;
worked in France; a leader of the French New Wave, an artist often working with
experiment cinema techniques
Active: 1955-Present
Key films to see: Breathless,
Vivre Sa Vie, Contempt, Band of Outsiders, and Pierrot le Fou
Stanley Kubrick
Style/system: American;
worked in Hollywood and England; evocative films, strikingly beautiful films,
incredibly influential, a prominent leader of the New Hollywood wave
Active: 1951-1999
Key films to see: Dr.
Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 2001: A
Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, and The Shining
Sergio Leone
Style/system: Italian;
worked in Italy and America; known for his grand Spaghetti Westerns
(modernizing and stylistically changing the western forever)
Active: 1954-1984
Key films to see: A
Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good , the Bad and the Ugly, Once
Upon a Time in the West, and Once Upon a Time in America
Sidney Lumet
Style/system: American;
worked in Hollywood; an actor’s director with expert craftsmanship, prolific,
his films often address social realism
Active: 1952-2007
Style/system: American;
worked in American independent film; ethereal filmmaking almost more montage
than narrative, more poetic than structured, stunning visuals, deeply
philosophical
Active: 1969-Presnet
Jean-Pierre Melville
Style/system: French;
worked in France; a minimalist, French film noir and gangster films, his style
is the epitome of cool, influenced the French New Wave
Active: 1946-1972
Mike Nichols
Style/system: German;
worked in Hollywood and Broadway; an actor’s director, experimental and
aggressively progressive stylistically completely changing the narrative
language on American cinema with one film (The Graduate)
Active: 1966-2007
Sam Peckinpah
Style/system: American;
worked in Hollywood; innovative and explicit use of violence, reworked the
western to be much grittier and moral ambiguous (replacing white hats and black
hats with versions of gray)
Active: 1958-1983
Key films to see: The
Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, The Getaway, and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Roman Polanski
Style/system: Polish;
worked in Poland, England, France and Hollywood; a master of the thriller, an
expressive style utilizing camera movement, framing and mise en scene to their
greatest effect
Active: 1955-Present
Nicolas Roeg
Style/system: English;
worked in England; disjunctive editing, cryptic plots that are fascinating even
so (to be revealed in full in the end), films that draw the view in, often
terrifying due to a foreboding sense of atmosphere
Active: 1970-2007
Key films to see: Performance,
Walkabout, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and Bad Timing
Style/system: American;
worked in Hollywood; a leader of the New Hollywood wave, revitalizing the
American gangster film (along with Francis Ford Coppola), highly stylized use
of music, camera moves and editing, cinema’s greatest student, fan and
protector
Active: 1959-Present
Style/system: English;
worked in England and Hollywood; a grandiose scene of scope and scale,
atmospheric visuals, modernization of sci-fi crossing it over with other genres
(like the horror/thriller and noir/hard boiled detective)
Active: 1965-Present
Steve Spielberg
Style/system: American;
worked in Hollywood; created the modern blockbuster (along with George Lucas)
and blockbuster filmmaking, a leader of the New Hollywood wave, maybe the world’s
most famous director
Active: 1959-Present
Key films to see: Jaws,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the
Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Schindler’s
List
Andrei Tarkovsky
Style/system: Russian; worked
in Russia, Italy and Sweden; a director’s director, changed film language for
many to follow him with his style and storytelling, life as a reflection, as a
dream
Active: 1956-1986
Key films to see: Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris,
The Mirror, and Stalker
François Truffaut
Style/system: French;
worked in France; a principal filmmaker of the French New Wave, a student and
critic of cinema, as well-versed as any
Active: 1955-1983
