ICM Forum's Favourite Directors 2020 [RESULTS]

[pitchorneirda]

Note that it's not really a fall. In terms of points, Hitchock is really stable (-3 points more or less). It's just the #2 and #3 that do better

[Coryn]

[pitchorneirda]

#3 (⇧1, #4)
Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998)
Points: 503.61 (49 Votes)
Top 1–5–10: 1–15–6
History: 3←4←4←4←4←4←3←3←3



Trade Marks



Key Films:
Shichinin no samurai (1954) [Seven Samurai] – 34 Official Lists, also on IMdb
Rashômon (1950) – 31 Official Lists, also on IMdb
Ran (1985) – 23 Official Lists, also on IMdb
Ikiru (1952) – 22 Official Lists, also on IMdb
Yôjinbô (1961) [Yojimbo] – 18 Official Lists, also on IMdb

List of Voters (49):

[pitchorneirda]

+ 66 points for Kurosawa! (comparable to the push for Naruse or Satyajit Ray)

[pitchorneirda]

#2 (⇧1, #3)
Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007)
Points: 514.73 (49 Votes)
Top 1–5–10: 4–11–9
History: 2←3←1←3←3←5←4←4←5



Trade Marks




Key Films:
Det sjunde inseglet (1957) [The Seventh Seal] – 26 Official Lists, also on IMdb
Persona (1966) – 25 Official Lists, also on IMdb
Fanny och Alexander (1982) [Fanny and Alexander] – 22 Official Lists, also on IMdb
Smultronstället (1957) [Wild Strawberries] – 22 Official Lists, also on IMdb
Viskningar och rop (1972) [Cries and Whispers] – 16 Official Lists, also on IMdb

List of Voters (49):

[pitchorneirda]

+ 33 points for Bergman

[pitchorneirda]

#1 (–, #1)
Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999)
Points: 559.76 (53 Votes)
Top 1–5–10: 5–13–7
History: 1←1←2←1←2←2←1←1←2



Trade Marks



Key Films:
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – 42 Official Lists, also on IMdb
A Clockwork Orange (1971) – 35 Official Lists, also on IMdb
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) – 33 Official Lists, also on IMdb
The Shining (1980) – 26 Official Lists, also on IMdb
Paths of Glory (1957) – 25 Official Lists, also on IMdb

List of Voters (53):

[Torgo]

+ 66 points for Kurosawa! (comparable to the push for Naruse or Satyajit Ray)

Wow!

Days of Hitchcock are OVER!

[Fergenaprido]

Thanks for putting this together pitch. Will you add a list to imdb? I'd like to make sure I've got at least all the top directors in this poll included in the reference list for the debut feature poll that closes in a few days.

[pitchorneirda]

Thanks for putting this together pitch. Will you add a list to imdb? I'd like to make sure I've got at least all the top directors in this poll included in the reference list for the debut feature poll that closes in a few days.

Yes sure I'll make it tomorrow at the latest

[Fergenaprido]

Thanks for putting this together pitch. Will you add a list to imdb? I'd like to make sure I've got at least all the top directors in this poll included in the reference list for the debut feature poll that closes in a few days.

Yes sure I'll make it tomorrow at the latest

Thanks. I'm also fine with getting the spreadsheet of results if you don't want to go to the trouble of an imdb list.

[blocho]

Thanks to pitchorneirda for all the great work. This was a fun poll.

[blocho]

I took this year's top 50 and calculated their average rank through all nine editions of the poll. What do these averages prove? Nothing, I think. I just felt like doing it.

Stanley Kubrick 1.4
Alfred Hitchcock 2
Ingmar Bergman 3.3
Akira Kurosawa 3.6
Billy Wilder 5.9
Martin Scorsese 7.6
Fritz Lang 7.8
Coen Brothers 8.2
Andrei Tarkovsky 8.8
David Lynch 9.1
Luis Bunuel 10.8
Orson Welles 14
Krzysztof Kieslowski 15.9
Yasujiro Ozu 16.8
Quentin Tarantino 17.8
Woody Allen 17.9
Roman Polanski 19
Sergio Leone 19.1
Werner Herzog 19.9
Hayao Miyazaki 21
Buster Keaton 21.9
Jean-Luc Godard 23.8
Charlie Chaplin 24.7
FW Murnau 27.4
Robert Bresson 28.3
Steven Spielberg 28.3
Masaki Kobayashi 28.6
Ernst Lubitsch 31
Rainer Fassbinder 32.6
Michelangelo Antonioni 32.8
Sidney Lumet 33
PT Anderson 33.2
Jean-Pierre Melville 34
Howard Hawks 34.2
Eric Rohmer 35.3
Wong Kar-Wai 37.8
Wes Anderson 38.2
David Cronenberg 38.3
Satyajit Ray 41.4
Jean Renoir 42.1
Francis Ford Coppola 43
David Lean 43.1
Kenji Mizoguchi 43.2
Abbas Kiarostami 44.8
Michael Haneke 45.6
Powell/Pressburger 45.8
David Fincher 49.2
Carl Theodor Dreyer 51.7
Christopher Nolan 53.8
William Wyler 57.2

[mightysparks]

These lists always make me realise just how little directors matter to me. Still, glad to see Kubrick continuing to reign supreme.

[cinewest]

Had I voted, I would have chosen the same top 3 from this year’s poll, mostly because there are so many great, distinctive films by each of these 3, more than any other filmmaker, at least in my book.

[Traveller]

Thanks for hosting, pitchorneirda.

[St. Gloede]

Beautifully hosted, pitchorneirda!

Happy to see Bergman and Kurosawa overtake Hitchcock - but Kubrick needs to be knocked off his throne.

Currently laying the ground work needed to replace him with JLG. It Will be a rocky 40-year plan, but I think we can get there.

[Coryn]

Top 4 are kinda untouchable it seems. The only one I don’t rank as highly is Kurosawa. That made me wonder, what does Kurosawa do that Mizoguchi and Kobayashi don’t to put him so far ahead ?

[St. Gloede]

Wilder and Scorsese could both have made the top 4 with just one more voter on their side. Tarkovsky is a bigger jump, needing 3 high votes. Given the number of people willing to place Tarkovsky on #1 out there though - that would have been a fairly easy project with selective recruitment.

JLG on the other hand, needs approximately 14 #1 votes to crack the top 5 ...

[Lonewolf2003]

Thanks, pitchorneirda for hosting this in PA's absence.
Loved the make up of the top 50 posts.

[Lonewolf2003]

Top 4 are kinda untouchable it seems. The only one I don’t rank as highly is Kurosawa. That made me wonder, what does Kurosawa do that Mizoguchi and Kobayashi don’t to put him so far ahead ?

Make more accessible movies in more popular/mainstream genres, so gathering more votes.

[Coryn]

Might explain it but I don't really see it.

I think you're wrong Gloede ?
Hitchcock in 4th place has 100 pts more than Wilder in 5th. Every 1st place gets 15 points I think I read before ?

[Onderhond]

If you scrap the entire top 100 and move 101-200 forward, the quality of this list would be so much better.
Also bummed that Tsukamoto still didn't make the cut (or did I miss him?), not quite sure why he's so overlooked.

But thanks pitchorneirda for the results!

[cinewest]

Top 4 are kinda untouchable it seems. The only one I don’t rank as highly is Kurosawa. That made me wonder, what does Kurosawa do that Mizoguchi and Kobayashi don’t to put him so far ahead ?

How much Kurosawa have you seen? He’s made quite a variety of films, though most of his movies are seeped in genre-based filmmaking (he is actually my favorite genre based filmmaker), and known for their rich cinematic sequences （prior to being a filmmaker he was a painter)
But while I love several of his genre films from the first half of his career, I have enjoyed his films from the second half of his career even more.
I like Mizoguchi and Kobayashi as well, but I don’t think they made the same number of standouts, though I am also not as familiar with either as I am with Kurosawa。

Any idea of how many Kurosawa films have inspired remakes or influenced films in the West?

[Coryn]

Ive seen only 6 (rashomon, ikiru, seven samurai, yojimbo, derszu usala and Ran)

Cant say I was impressed as much with any of them as much as I was with Seppuku. Yojimbo was the only one I likes to be fair so it's a lost cause for now

[St. Gloede]

Might explain it but I don't really see it.

I think you're wrong Gloede ?
Hitchcock in 4th place has 100 pts more than Wilder in 5th. Every 1st place gets 15 points I think I read before ?

I misread between the pages, thought both were in the 300s. Well, that makes it even more difficult.

[St. Gloede]

Top 4 are kinda untouchable it seems. The only one I don’t rank as highly is Kurosawa. That made me wonder, what does Kurosawa do that Mizoguchi and Kobayashi don’t to put him so far ahead ?

Kobayashi is rather an odd one out for being this high to begin with - though I'm even more shocked he's been consistently high from the beginning. It shows just how quickly we got involved - impressive.

Until Criterion released the Human Conditions trilogy in 2009 (a few years before our poll started) only Seppuku, Samurai Rebellion and Kaidan were widely available. Since then more or less his entire filmography has slowly been dusted out and presented back into the canon.

That's incredible - and it is clear that he impressed.

However, it is still a little confounding to see him here as besides these key 6 films, and a few additions like The Inheritance and perhaps Inn of Evil or Black River none of his other films have caught on to a notable degree.

He started out making fairy standard melodramas and studio efforts for the first act of his career - all of which is now available thanks to Criterion - and they are, adequate. That's 8 weaker films - and some throw in Black River there - only seemingly impressed by what he did later - and then you have the tail-end of his career - with the 3 films he did after Kaseki still not being widely available - so it really would seem to be that people are voting him in based on 6-8 films. Which is fine, of course, Tarkovsky and a few others made that number - and those with Human Conditions, Seppuku, Kaidan and possibly others in their top 10-100 certainly has good incentive to do so, but;

That is very different from Kurosawa's generally accepted consistently strong filmography of 30(+) films.

As for Mizoguchi - I think it is partially a question of not having the same number of top hitters as Kurosawa, and Kurosawa being slightly more versatile, i.e. he did Sumurai films, Noirs, Stark Dramas and Arthouse - Mizoguchi mainly stayed on the side of stark dramas giving him a slightly smaller group of ardent fans (ask a Kurosawa fan what their favourite Kurosawa film is and you'll likely get far more answers).

Mizoguchi also had a weaker early period - which luckily to him most of which is lost. He was only really able to do what he wanted to do from the late 30s and onwrds - even though he did make great films before then as well.

[Coryn]

Great insight once again. Thanks !

[pitchorneirda]

If you scrap the entire top 100 and move 101-200 forward, the quality of this list would be so much better.
Also bummed that Tsukamoto still didn't make the cut (or did I miss him?), not quite sure why he's so overlooked.

But thanks pitchorneirda for the results!

I'm at work and forgot to take my USB drive with all my files with me so I can't tell you for Tsukamoto right now but I'll publish a list here in this thread with all results this evening and I'll make a IMDb list as well

[Onderhond]

I'm at work and forgot to take my USB drive with all my files with me so I can't tell you for Tsukamoto right now but I'll publish a list here in this thread with all results this evening and I'll make a IMDb list as well

Thanks

[OldAle1]

I think the only two directors from my top two tiers that didn't make it are Lav Diaz and Bahram Beizai; I would hope the former would have a shot of creeping onto this list one of these years, but more people have to make time for his films (and love them, of course) and I guess that hasn't happened yet. Beizai is a harder call because so many of his films are inaccessible in anything but horrendous condition, so you have to be an obsessive in the first place to go there. Still, one of them is on Criterion now so who knows. Anyway those are the two I'm most interested in seeing the numbers for.

[AB537]

My top rated directors who didn't make the cut were Pawel Pawlikowski (who may still be too recent to have a strong chance) and Gillo Pontecorvo (quite possible many voters have only seen The Battle of Algiers). Of the existing list, I've seen at least one film from all but seven directors, the highest ranked being Sion Sono. Still, lists like this remind me of how much there is still to see, especially for non-English language content.

[pitchorneirda]

Lav Diaz seems like THE guy I should love but the only movie I've seen from him was Heremias, it was in the theater in the "Cinematek" in Brussels around 2015, I think it was the day after Chantal Akerman had committed suicide because people in the waiting line were talking about it.
Anyway it's 9 hours long, there is a fixed shot of junkies having a bad trip in an abandoned house that is at least one hour long, I just couldn't bear it, I forced myself to stay because I did the trip from Lille (1.5 hour drive, which is a lot in those regions ^^') but it's been a very traumatic experience.

I also tried Norte the End of History recently, but there's a political talk early in the movie about Emilio Aguinaldo and Andres Bonifacio, I didn't really know the history of Philippines in that level of detail so i had to pause it and do some research and never went back to the movie actually. Had it been in a theater I would have watched it anyway and maybe liked it, the beginning was not brilliant but interesting

[Lakigigar]

I will certainly take some time to explore some directors better.

From top 10 I have seen
6 movies by Kubrick (probably going to go through his entire filmography chronologically someday, and it might actually be this year if i have the time for it, because none of his movies are "fresh in my mind", although i've not seen enough older movies to put his older movies better into perspective).

Not seen anything by Ingmar Bergman (That will change, also hopefully this year, but I'm not sure he is something I would get into)

Not seen anything by Akira Kurosawa (no idea what to expect really, this will almost certainly change quite soon, in a few months)

3 movies by Hitchcock (but I all liked them strongly, so I guess i'm sort of a Hitchcock fan. I will certainly (OBVIOUSLY) further explore Hitchcock and I already have to rewatch Vertigo I believe, but Rear Window and Psycho are still quite fresh in my mind, so i'll see how i'll handle this.)

Not seen anything by Billy Wilder (but again, it's not because i don't want to, it's just i have so many things left to explore yet... It's certainly a director i'm interested in and that I could like perhaps, just not really an idea. I'm not sure if it will happen this year or not, but obviously i can't wait too long on this)

9 movies by Scorsese (Taxi Driver is my fav. I also liked The Wolf of Wall Street, and I both saw 2 times. His other movies are okay to good: Goodfellas, Casino and The Departed are good, but they're not really growing anymore. And in Goodfellas and especially Casino, the female characters annoyed me as well. Shutter Island however might grow when I rewatch it. Hugo and SIlence are ok. Raging Bull didn't do it for me, but i've to rewatch that one too (just like The Departed, but I first want to see Infernal Affairs before I see The Departed to be honest). There are some other movies I want to see, and from time to time i'll probably watch a few: Mean Streets, The Aviator, The Irishman, Gangs out of New York, Bringing Out The Dead, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, The King of Comedy, After Hours, The Color of Money, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Last Waltz, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and that's about it. But most of those aren't really "essential movies by Scorsese". The thing is, i've seen 9 movies by him, but I likely wouldn't include him if i made a toplist with my fav directors, but he's not far from it. I certainly don't dislike him or his movies. I suppose the record is quite mixed, and with some rewatches it might even change to quite good. But I don't consider him a real fav of me (yet). I think the thing: i sort of like the themes his movies go about (mobs, gangster movies), although it's also far from my fav theme, but it's the fav theme of the themes he specifically handles. He does those great, but there are some aspects of his movies that i like less. But he's certainly a good director, no doubt about that.

Not seen anything by Andrei Tarkovsky (he might always surprise me, but i really don't think i'm going to like his movies, esp... considering their heavy emphasis on philosophy. Tarkovsky is like the Dostojevsky in movies, you can say. The first movie i'll try and watch is Solyaris, because I really like space travel movies. If i won't like that, than it's quite likely i won't like anything I believe... After that i'll try Stalker, but if i dislike that, than i'll probably stop there for a long time. That being said, it's about time I at least give Solyaris a try.)

3 movies seen by the Coen Brothers (I watched The Big Lebowski which I wasn't too overly impressed with at first, but does indeed grow a lot, No Country for Old Man (which was good, but there are some things that bothered me which might go away if i rewatch it), and Fargo which I also really liked. It could go both ways with the Coens, but i'm certainly looking forward to explore their movies, and it's certainly my plan to watch their entire filmography, and it might also happen this year. I think it's about time i'm focusing on the Coen brothers. There is no way avoiding them, esp. if you already liked at least 2 movies, and sort of like the last one you watched.)

Not seen anything by Orson Welles (this name is to be honest the name i'm least interested in, because out of the top 10 his name is the least big I believe. So Citizen Kane will happen soon, the others, i don't see them as a priority yet).

Not seen anything by Fritz Lang (The movies he directed are quite old and in some cases silent. It's not clear whether i'll like Lang, but M seems very interesting to give a try. I'm not sure if i'll like him, but I suppose M and Metropolis are at least worth trying (and perhaps Testament of Mabuse too, but that will require already liking one movie of him from the two i'll definitely watch. And also, it might happen this year, because otherwise i'll be stuck with the same "top 10 movies with highest numbers of official check lists" for basically forever.

[OldAle1]

Lav Diaz seems like THE guy I should love but the only movie I've seen from him was Heremias, it was in the theater in the "Cinematek" in Brussels around 2015, I think it was the day after Chantal Akerman had committed suicide because people in the queue were talking about it. Anyway it's 9 hours long, there is a fixed shot of junkies having a bad trip in an abandoned house that is at least one hour long, I just couldn't bear it, I forced myself to stay because I did the trip from Lille (1.5 hour drive, which is a lot in those regions ^^') but it's been a very traumatic experience.
I also tried Norte the End of History recently, but there's a political talk early in the movie about Emilio Aguinaldo and Andres Bonifacio, I didn't really know the history of Philippines in that level of detail so i had to pause it and do some research and never went back to the movie actually. Had it been in a theater I would have watched it anyway and maybe liked it, the beginning was not brilliant but interesting

That's a bummer way to see a first film from a director that's for sure! I haven't seen Heremias yet - I think I may go through all the unseen feature films before long in order though and that would be the first one on the list. The one I'd really recommend to hesitant folks is Batang West Side, because it's dose of genre (noir-crime) conventions and it's explicit take on the Filipino diaspora I think make it more accessible and maybe interesting to a general audience - but it's only available in a really crappy VHS rip with a counter so... maybe not just yet. I dunno, I just really fall into his spell, there's something about his particular use of time and duration that works on me in ways that nobody else does, or at least different ways than say Tarr, Tarkovsky or Rivette do.

My closest comparison that comes to mind to your experience is seeing Haneke's (original) Funny Games in the cinema - knowing nothing whatsoever about it. I had seen one previous film, but that was on video a few years earlier and while I had liked it, it didn't make an enormous impression. So this was something else and I really didn't like it at all and really felt like it was a fairly obvious and even perhaps childish take on the spectator-creator relationship. I stood and talked about it for an hour afterwards with the two friends I'd seen it with - one of whom was a professional critic - who both loved it. Didn't really convince me though it made me want to see it again, sort of - but I never did. Didn't like the remake any more so I doubt the original will improve. However I have seen several of the directors' other films since and have liked all of them more, some much more, and while I don't seen him as one of the greatest I certainly am glad that Funny Games didn't put me off him completely.

[OldAle1]

Oh and as to directors that I've seen nothing from, I have the same number as last year - 1 - and from the same country - Japan - though it's a different name. Last year I hadn't seen anything by Miike but I rectified that Ôdishon for the horror challenge in October; now I am confronted with Jissôji, who has several films that look interesting but none that I've pulled the trigger on yet.

[Lonewolf2003]

The only director from my ranked top 50 that didn't make the cut is Steve McQueen.

[Onderhond]

I'm missing from my top 25 (from memory, I might have missed some entries that did make it after all):

3. Shin'ya Tsukamoto
4. Kôji Morimoto
6. SABU
7. Gakuryû Ishii
11. Hiroshi Ishikawa
12. Hitoshi Matsumoto
13. Mika Ninagawa
14. Katsuhiro Ôtomo
16. Katsuhito Ishii
18. Chi-Yuarn Lee
19. Takeshi Koike
21. Toshiaki Toyoda
24. Christoffer Boe
25. Ho-Cheung Pang

[St. Gloede]

Has anyone made an IMDb list or an easy overview list yet?

I'm assuming Yoshida, Robbe-Grillet, Okamoto did not make the cut (all in my top 26), but Vlacil surprisingly did, and if I recall correctly so did Kachyna - both further down but extremely welcome. I can also assume neither Fabri nor Szabó made it (both in my top 50), and Jakubisko certainly did not either.

[OldAle1]

OK I'll go through a larger chunk of my list just fer the helluvit

1-12
Lav Diaz

13-30
Bahram Beizai
Louis Feuillade

31-60
Aleksandr Dovzhenko
Dave Fleischer
Manoel de Oliveira
Tomu Uchida
Dziga Vertov
Peter Watkins

Above 60 the majority didn't make it, not surprisingly.