iCM Forum's Favourite Directorial Debut Features; Nominations

[joachimt]

Last few for today.

Watch on the Rhine (Herman Shumlin)
Emberek a havason (István Szöts)
My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (Jim Sheridan)
Ostre sledované vlaky (Jirí Menzel)

[Lonewolf2003]

Updated the lists again.

Thanks for the additions, joachimt and Ferg

[Smoover]

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls089044479/

[joachimt]

The choice for a 40 min cutoff is rather annoying, btw. When I look at a filmography on IMDb and a director has only earlier movies with tag "short", I'm not going to check one by one if one of those might be 40-44 min long. In some cases of early cinema directors there can be lots of those.

[joachimt]

Kristove roky (Juraj Jakubisko)
Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan)
Everything Is Illuminated (Liev Schreiber)
XXY (Lucía Puenzo)
São Paulo, Sociedade Anônima (Luiz Sérgio Person)
L'ordre (Malo Aguettant, Maurice Born)
De stilte rond Christine M. (Marleen Gorris)

[joachimt]

Wavelength (Michael Snow)
The Rapture (Michael Tolkin)
Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh)
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Steve Box)
Chicken Run (Nick Park)
The Woodsman (Nicole Kassell)
Mondo cane (Paolo Cavara, Franco Prosperi, Gualtiero Jacopetti)
London to Brighton (Paul Andrew Williams)
Os Verdes Anos (Paulo Rocha)
Schmutz (Paulus Manker)
Bænken (Per Fly)
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (Philippe Claudel)
Treno popolare (Raffaello Matarazzo)

[joachimt]

Vsevolod Pudovkin
Is "Mat" his debut or is it that obscure "Golod... golod... golod" from 1921? I can't find conclusive info about that title.

[joachimt]

Chicago (Rob Marshall)
Zusje (Robert Jan Westdijk)
The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy)
You Are Not I (Sara Driver)
El otro Francisco (Sergio Giral)
Cinemania (Angela Christlieb)
Kon-Tiki (Thor Heyerdahl)
American History X (Tony Kaye)
Kradetzat na praskovi (Vulo Radev)
Shen nu (Yonggang Wu)

[joachimt]

My list:
https://www.imdb.com/list/ls089099860/
1-46 ranked
rest unranked

Let me know when the IMDb-list is updated, Lonewolf. Then I might do some more crossreferencing.

[lineuphere]

I'm hoping a few more examples of how people are determining their personal rankings on this poll.

If we all just take our usual top pics lists and remove all the non-directorial debuts, won't our final results end up nearly identical to this list with the non-debuts removed?

[Lonewolf2003]

All other lists also aren't just our top 1001 with a country/genre/decade filter. So there is little change of that happening. Of course there is, will be, a lot of overlap since the voters are mostly the same, who (still) love the same movies.

Personally I will look to how much a movie impressed as being someone first. Citizen Kane is great movie already, but as a debut it impresses me even more.

[lineuphere]

Ah. Good point about the about the country/genre/decade filter.

I love your "as a debut it impresses me even more" criteria. Very helpful, Lonewolf.

[Fergenaprido]

The choice for a 40 min cutoff is rather annoying, btw. When I look at a filmography on IMDb and a director has only earlier movies with tag "short", I'm not going to check one by one if one of those might be 40-44 min long. In some cases of early cinema directors there can be lots of those.

Blame imdb for their poor decision-making and inconsistent implementation of site-wide rules We've had 40 min as our cutoff for years, no? I see no reason to change it now

I also don't check each and every short when reviewing each director, since chances are slim that any of those films will be in the 40-45 minutes range. What I find more time-consuming is verifying the tv-movies, since many have no runtime, or they're only 30 minutes long.

[Torgo]

Personally I will look to how much a movie impressed as being someone first. Citizen Kane is great movie already, but as a debut it impresses me even more.

This is what I was going to ask at some point, anyway - I always tend to be a pedestrian list maker, e.g. I don't put "just good" movies on my #1 spot to grant them some spotlight or rank underestimated movies unreasonably high to even things out and so on.
My gut tells me to indeed make another "no non-sense, ranked in order of subjectively felt quality" list. But I might just let my list be biased this time on how much I adore a director; give some films an edge which usually don't make it near the top of my lists. Like Citizen Kane

[joachimt]

We've had 40 min as our cutoff for years, no? I see no reason to change it now

I thought we always use 45 min as cutoff for polls and wonder why it changed now.
But I didn't really follow the initial discussion so just ignore me.

[Mysterious Dude]

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls089557550/ (all ranked)

[Lonewolf2003]

We've had 40 min as our cutoff for years, no? I see no reason to change it now

I thought we always use 45 min as cutoff for polls and wonder why it changed now.
But I didn't really follow the initial discussion so just ignore me.

There wasn't much discussion. I suggested 40 minutes in the other topic, cause it's what we always use (at least in the challenges) and there was no feedback on that. So used that.

[Lonewolf2003]

Added a few more to the list:

José Ramón Larraz: Whirlpool (1970) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065210/
Richard Fleischer: Child of Divorce (1946) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038411/
Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Liebe ist kälter als der Tod (1969) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064588/
Stuart Gordon: Re-Animator (1985) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089885/
Arthur Penn: The Left Handed Gun (1958) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051849/
Joseph Losey: The Boy with Green Hair (1948) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040185/
Walter Hill: Hard Times (1975) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073092/
Michael Powell : Two Crowded Hours (1931) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022511/

[joachimt]

Everything on Fergy's spreadsheet is now also on the IMDb list?

[Lonewolf2003]

Everything on Fergy's spreadsheet is now also on the IMDb list?

From the first verified tab it is yes. I've always kept the list up to date to that.

[joachimt]

Found some mistakes in the IMDb list:


dupes:
Mary and Max
Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Sanbiki no samurai
Sixteen Candles
Sexy Beast
Los cronocrímenes
Magiki polis


two movies by the same director:

Ermanno Olmi:
Michelino 1A B
Il tempo si è fermato

Jordan Vogt-Roberts:
The Kings of Summer
Mash Up (this one is 30 min)

Samuel Maoz:
Total Eclipse
Lebanon

Usmar Ismail:
Tjitra
Harta karun

[Lonewolf2003]

Kristove roky (Juraj Jakubisko)
Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan)
Everything Is Illuminated (Liev Schreiber)
XXY (Lucía Puenzo)
São Paulo, Sociedade Anônima (Luiz Sérgio Person)
L'ordre (Malo Aguettant, Maurice Born)
De stilte rond Christine M. (Marleen Gorris)

Wavelength (Michael Snow)
The Rapture (Michael Tolkin)
Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh)
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Steve Box)
Chicken Run (Nick Park)
The Woodsman (Nicole Kassell)
Mondo cane (Paolo Cavara, Franco Prosperi, Gualtiero Jacopetti)
London to Brighton (Paul Andrew Williams)
Os Verdes Anos (Paulo Rocha)
Schmutz (Paulus Manker)
Bænken (Per Fly)
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (Philippe Claudel)
Treno popolare (Raffaello Matarazzo)

Chicago (Rob Marshall)
Zusje (Robert Jan Westdijk)
The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy)
You Are Not I (Sara Driver)
El otro Francisco (Sergio Giral)
Cinemania (Angela Christlieb)
Kon-Tiki (Thor Heyerdahl)
American History X (Tony Kaye)
Kradetzat na praskovi (Vulo Radev)
Shen nu (Yonggang Wu)

Thanks. Confirmed these and added them to the lists.

[Lonewolf2003]

Found some mistakes in the IMDb list:


dupes:
Mary and Max
Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Sanbiki no samurai
Sixteen Candles
Sexy Beast
Los cronocrímenes
Magiki polis

There are many dupes in the IMDb list, cause of them being the debut of multiple director. Haven't gotten around to removing them. Thanks.

two movies by the same director:

Ermanno Olmi:
Michelino 1A B
Il tempo si è fermato

Jordan Vogt-Roberts:
The Kings of Summer
Mash Up (this one is 30 min)

Samuel Maoz:
Total Eclipse
Lebanon

Usmar Ismail:
Tjitra
Harta karun

Thanks. Will remove Mash Up, Lebanon and Harta Karun.

For Olmi there is debate about which one the debut is. So will leave both for now.

[Lakigigar]

https://www.icheckmovies.com/lists/best ... lakigigar/

Will probably be a very boring list. Don't see the point of a directorial debut feature list tbh, but here you go.

[Fergenaprido]

Vsevolod Pudovkin
Is "Mat" his debut or is it that obscure "Golod... golod... golod" from 1921? I can't find conclusive info about that title.

According to the Russian wikipedia entry, he was only an assistant director on the 1921 film, and some sources list it as a short.

I would count Mother as his debut, as it came out one month before his other 1926 film, Mechanics of the Brain.

[Fergenaprido]

Chicago (Rob Marshall)

All agreed with your Kristove roky & Wavelength posts.

For Rob Marshall, I have Annie (1999) as his debut. It's listed as a tv episode on imdb, but to me it's just a tv movie in an anthology series, and was treated as a tv movie by the Golden Globes and the Emmys.

Everything else in this post checks out.

Added a few more to the list:
Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Liebe ist kälter als der Tod (1969) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064588/
Stuart Gordon: Re-Animator (1985) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089885/
Arthur Penn: The Left Handed Gun (1958) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051849/

Fassbinder and Penn should have already been in the list. Added the rest.
I believe Bleacher Bums (1979) should be Gordon's debut.

two movies by the same director:

Ermanno Olmi:
Michelino 1A B
Il tempo si è fermato

Usmar Ismail:
Tjitra
Harta karun

Thanks. Will remove Mash Up, Lebanon and Harta Karun.

For Olmi there is debate about which one the debut is. So will leave both for now.

The same debate is there for Ismail as well. I couldn't figure out which came first.

We've had 40 min as our cutoff for years, no? I see no reason to change it now

I thought we always use 45 min as cutoff for polls and wonder why it changed now.
But I didn't really follow the initial discussion so just ignore me.

There wasn't much discussion. I suggested 40 minutes in the other topic, cause it's what we always use (at least in the challenges) and there was no feedback on that. So used that.

Yeah, I realized we've never had to do it for the polls except for the Shorts poll, and I was indeed thinking of the challenges.

I've just finished up the letter K, so there's another batch for you in the first tab Lonewolf.

[joachimt]

Found some mistakes in the IMDb list:


dupes:
Mary and Max
Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Sanbiki no samurai
Sixteen Candles
Sexy Beast
Los cronocrímenes
Magiki polis

There are many dupes in the IMDb list, cause of them being the debut of multiple director. Haven't gotten around to removing them. Thanks.

These all have one director mentioned on IMDb.

[Fergenaprido]

I think they're probably films he already had in his imdb list, and then were added again when he imported a bunch from my spreadsheet.

[zomgmouse]

I could be wrong but it doesn't look like A New Leaf is on the list?

[Fergenaprido]

I could be wrong but it doesn't look like A New Leaf is on the list?

I haven't gotten to the Ms yet, but I've updated it now. It is indeed eligible, and will be on the list after the next update or two.

[zzzorf]

https://www.icheckmovies.com/lists/my+t ... ts/zzzorf/ (ranked)

Thought I would get it up now even though it isn't fully complete. It is nearly at my capped 250 movies (what I'm guessing the size of the main list will be and I try to cap all my lists at the ending size) but I am still progressing through my Flickchart. Everything is in order but only to 125 is complete. Stuff will drop of the end as I check other movies as I come up to them and add them into the list in it's spot. The IMDb list and the spreadsheet have been of great benefit while progressing through this development process.

[joachimt]

Fergy, how do you decide which directors you check out? Do you simply check every director that's in your personal spreadsheet?

Maybe prioritize well known directors?

Directors of which I've seen at least 20 titles that are not yet included in the spreadsheet.
D.W. Griffith
Kevin Bright
Steven Spielberg
Martin Scorsese
Dziga Vertov
Fritz Lang
Yasujirô Ozu
Krzysztof Kieslowski
Jean Renoir
Akira Kurosawa
Ron Howard

[joachimt]

I think I should have said "IMDb list" instead of "spreadsheet" in the previous post. It seems for example Kieslowski is already included.

Some more big names not yet included in the IMDb list:
Ernst Lubitsch
Howard Hawks
Louis Malle
Ridley Scott
Kenji Mizoguchi
Agnès Varda
Maurice Pialat
Billy Wilder
Hayao Miyazaki
Raoul Ruiz
Leo McCarey
Mikio Naruse
Cecil B. DeMille
Edgar Reitz
Jacques Rivette
Mike Leigh
Raoul Walsh
Spike Lee
Aleksandr Sokurov
Barry Levinson
Gus Van Sant
Robert Zemeckis
Sam Peckinpah
Sam Raimi
Sydney Pollack
Terry Gilliam
Ang Lee
Richard Linklater
Tony Scott

[Fergenaprido]

Fergy, how do you decide which directors you check out? Do you simply check every director that's in your personal spreadsheet?

Maybe prioritize well known directors?

I think I should have said "IMDb list" instead of "spreadsheet" in the previous post. It seems for example Kieslowski is already included.

Some more big names not yet included in the IMDb list:

I started by taking the ~27,000 films in my spreadsheet. Then I sorted them by director and year, and filtered out the duplicates so there was only one film (the earliest) per director. That gave me my starting list of about 11,000 titles. Then I started to go alphabetically. I quickly realized that was going to take way too long, so I started to prioritize, only checking on either director names I recognized or films that I recognized. That's how I've been doing it for the most part, with segues to address specific films or directors brought up in this or the other thread.

I'm halfway through the letter L right now, so every "major" director from A-K should already be in the spreadsheet. If they're not, I've likely overlooked them. I have also jumped around and added notable directors from later letters if I think of them, or if there's a film with two directors.

As for the imdb list, yeah, there's some lag between when I add a film to the spreadsheet and when it's included in the imdb list. I shade the new entries in Green in the first column for Lonewolf to easily identify what's new, and I don't re-sort the list alphabetically until he tells me he's caught up.

Of the directors you mentioned, in your two posts, bold were already in the spreadsheet and should have been in the imdb list already, italic were only recently done/doing right now and will show up in the imdb list later, and the rest I'll add to my next batch when I finish the letter L later today.

D.W. Griffith
Kevin Bright
Steven Spielberg
Martin Scorsese
Dziga Vertov
Fritz Lang
Yasujirô Ozu
Krzysztof Kieslowski
Jean Renoir
Akira Kurosawa
Ron Howard
Ernst Lubitsch
Howard Hawks
Louis Malle
Ridley Scott
Kenji Mizoguchi
Agnès Varda
Maurice Pialat
Billy Wilder
Hayao Miyazaki
Raoul Ruiz
Leo McCarey
Mikio Naruse
Cecil B. DeMille
Edgar Reitz
Jacques Rivette
Mike Leigh
Raoul Walsh
Spike Lee
Aleksandr Sokurov
Barry Levinson
Gus Van Sant
Robert Zemeckis
Sam Peckinpah
Sam Raimi
Sydney Pollack
Terry Gilliam
Ang Lee
Richard Linklater
Tony Scott

Only two of those are from letters I've already done. I don't know how I missed Ron Howard, but I've never heard of Kevin Bright - he's not even in my unverified list (neither was Reitz, but everyone else was).

I'll post again when I have the next batch done, but one thing I did notice on the icm list, Lonewolf: The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them is included instead of : Her. Him & Her were released the same day (and I included both in the spreadsheet), but Them was released the year after.

[Fergenaprido]

Directors of which I've seen at least 20 titles that are not yet included in the spreadsheet.
Kevin Bright

Is this the Kevin Bright you're referring to? He's not very prolific, but I don't see any other person with that name on imdb who has 20+ titles.

Plus, his only film looks like a TV musical standup comedy special, which I don't think should count.

[frbrown]

My list

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls089587405/


Currently unranked. The first 39 are taken from the iCM list in OP, so I assume they're OK. After 39 are my own additions, so those need to be verified.

[Fergenaprido]

and the rest I'll add to my next batch when I finish the letter L later today.

Done all the L directors, plus all the ones Joachim mentioned.

Another batch in the first tab. Over 2700 directors now.

[Torgo]

and the rest I'll add to my next batch when I finish the letter L later today.

Done all the L directors, plus all the ones Joachim mentioned.

Another batch in the first tab. Over 2700 directors now.

Man, you're insane! And amazing.
Thanks for your work on this "definite feature debut" project. Couldn't ever make an own list without this help and it sure will be interesting for other occasions in the future.

[Fergenaprido]

and the rest I'll add to my next batch when I finish the letter L later today.

Done all the L directors, plus all the ones Joachim mentioned.

Another batch in the first tab. Over 2700 directors now.

Man, you're insane! And amazing.
Thanks for your work on this "definite feature debut" project. Couldn't ever make an own list without this help and it sure will be interesting for other occasions in the future.

Thanks I have a lot of free time right now because I'm unemployed, in lockdown, severely depressed so unmotivated to do pretty much anything else, and going crazy because I've been in quarantine/lockdown for 11 months and counting!

But in all seriousness, I am glad people are finding it useful. I wish I could have had more of it done by the end of January before the poll started, but I massively underestimated how much work there was and how much time it would take. I'm hoping people aren't assuming that this list is the be-all and end-all, and that if a director of theirs is missing they'll still double-check and add their debut film to their own lists.

[joachimt]

Directors of which I've seen at least 20 titles that are not yet included in the spreadsheet.
Kevin Bright

Is this the Kevin Bright you're referring to? He's not very prolific, but I don't see any other person with that name on imdb who has 20+ titles.

Plus, his only film looks like a TV musical standup comedy special, which I don't think should count.

Yeah, sorry, I missed that one. I removed directors of which I only watched lots of shorts or episodes. In this case episodes......
Just skip him.