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Who is the greatest living film director?

Who is the greatest living director?

  • Total voters
    38
  • Poll closed .
myDeaconmyhand

myDeaconmyhand

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Seeing Phantom Thread brought this question up for me. The options are very white American biased, plenty of foreign candidates to be chosen as "other".
 
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David Lynch not even making the poll = terrible
 
Ayo said:
David Lynch not even making the poll = terrible
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I get that it's tough to narrow down a list, but yeah, this is one of the more egregious omissions.
 
Including foreign, Wong Kar-wai is the answer for me. In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express are visually mesmerizing.
 
no Terrence Malick?
no David Lynch?
no Werner Herzog?
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
I'm sure you re-watch videodrome and blue velvet all the time.
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Taste is taste, but are you seriously trying to argue that Christopher Nolan is a better director than David Cronenberg and David Lynch? I haven't seen Videodrome in a few years, but I'm a big fan of both directors and watch their movies pretty often. Dead Ringers, The Fly, and A Dangerous Method are masterpieces. Eastern Promises and eXistenZ are fun as hell. The same goes for basically everything David Lynch has touched.

Ayo said:
Including foreign, Wong Kar-wai is the answer for me. In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express are visually mesmerizing.
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Wong Kar-wai is awesome. I love those two and really enjoyed Happy Together and 2046, as well.

TenaciousKory said:
no Terrence Malick?
no David Lynch?
no Werner Herzog?
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What do you think of the past few Terrence Malick flicks? Maybe he deserves to be in the conversation because Days of Heaven, Badlands, and Thin Red Line are classics, but his last three movies have been pretty awful.

What are your favorite Herzog flicks, Kory?

CreamyGoodness said:
John Carpenter.
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I love me some John Carpenter, but his best days seem to be well behind him, unfortunately.
 
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There should be a poll for best Paul Anderson. My vote would be for the AvP and Resident Evil guy.
 
I think Malick, Lynch, Cronenberg, Aronofsky, Del Toro, and many more deserve to be in the conversation - but to deny Nolans considerable success and influence on film is laughable. You could put Memento, TDK, Inception, Dunkirk, and the Prestige up against any of those directors filmography.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
I think Malick, Lynch, Cronenberg, Aronofsky, Del Toro, and many more deserve to be in the conversation - but to deny Nolans considerable success and influence on film is laughable. You could put Memento, TDK, Inception, Dunkirk, and the Prestige up against any of those directors filmography.
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You could, but only Memento and Dunkirk really stand out to me in terms of masterful direction (I would throw Insomnia in the mix, too, fwiw). The others have their moments, but are really bloated when you compare it to movies by some of the directors that you mention above. I would never deny Nolan's success or his influence on film, but I just don't think he deserves to be in this conversation. Again, taste is taste, but Nolan has always struck me as a really inconsistent director.

ETA: Polanski's direction on The Ghost Writer, for instance, elevates a movie that would have been pretty forgettable in anybody else's hands into a really tight thriller with really great performances. I feel like Nolan can't get out of his own way sometimes.
 
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If we're talking bloat, Scorcese and a few of the others are guilty of the same. Gangs of New York was 3.5 hours long. As for inconsistency, Malick is criminal, and half of Lynch's films are so forgettable they're forgotten - Lost Highway, anyone? Of courae all this is a matter of taste - I think Nolan is more relevant and consistent than Malick or Lynch, who were the two competitors for the last slot.
 
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myDeaconmyhand said:
If we're talking bloat, Scorcese and a few of the others are guilty of the same. Gangs of New York was 3.5 hours long. As for inconsistency, Malick is criminal, and half of Lynch's films are so forgettable they're forgotten - Lost Highway, anyone? Of courae all this is a matter of taste - I think Nolan is more relevant and consistent than Malick or Lynch, who were the two competitors for the last slot.
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See my comments re: Malick above. I think that Days of Heaven, Badlands, and Thin Red Line might be good enough to keep him in consideration for the rest of his career. I thought New World and Tree of Life were pretty well directed, too.

Half of Lynch's films are forgettable? We must run in different circles. I'm a pretty big Lost Highway fan, though I love basically everything that David Lynch has done. The only one that I really can't get behind is Fire Walk With Me, though I understand why he felt compelled to make it. Even if you're not a David Lynch fan, The Straight Story and Blue Velvet are incredibly directed, more mainstream movies.

I agree with you re: Scorsese, though. I wouldn't consider him the greatest living director for that reason, though I was really impressed with Silence and he has made a few movies that are really, really tight (like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and After Hours). Spielberg is another unbelievably talented dude who just can't get out of his own way sometimes.

If you had to pick five directors to answer your question in the OP, then who would be your five directors?
 
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