List: American film directors

by likeorhate

•  Allan Dwan

  Allan Dwan (April 3, 1885 – December 28, 1981) was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer and screenwriter.

  

  30.8%
  

  26.9%
  

  42.3%
  
•  Alfred Hitchcock

  Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in his native United Kingdom in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. In 1956 he became an American citizen while retaining his British citizenship. Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades.

  

  38.9%
  

  33.3%
  

  27.8%
  
•  Andy Warhol

  Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), more commonly known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art.

  

  19.6%
  

  30.4%
  

  50.0%
  
•  Arnold Schwarzenegger

  Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian American bodybuilder, actor, model, businessman, and politician, currently serving as the 38th Governor of California.

  

  31.0%
  

  24.6%
  

  44.3%
  
•  Albert Brooks

  Albert Brooks (born July 22, 1947) is an American actor, voice actor, writer, comedian and director. He received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for his role in Broadcast News. His voice acting credits include as Marlin, the clownfish father in Finding Nemo and as a recurring guest voice actor for the animated television series The Simpsons.

  

  27.2%
  

  28.3%
  

  44.5%
  
•  Brian De Palma

  Brian Russell De Palma (born September 11, 1940) is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over forty years, he is probably best known for his suspense and thriller films, including such box office successes as Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, Carlito's Way, The Untouchables, and '.

  

  37.2%
  

  37.2%
  

  25.6%
  
•  Billy Bob Thornton

  William Robert "Billy Bob" Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is an American actor, director, musician, playwright and screenwriter. Thornton's early screen roles was as a cast member on the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire and in several early 1990s films including On Deadly Ground and Tombstone. In the mid-1990s, after writing, directing, and starring in the the independent film Sling Blade, he won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay).

  

  32.3%
  

  29.8%
  

  37.9%
  
•  Bill Bixby

  Bill Bixby (January 22, 1934 – November 21, 1993) was an American film and television actor, director, and frequent game show panelist. His career spanned over three decades; he appeared on stage, in motion pictures and five TV series, such as My Favorite Martian, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, and The Incredible Hulk.

  

  29.8%
  

  29.8%
  

  40.4%
  
•  Cecil B. DeMille

  Cecil Blount DeMille (August 12, 1881–January 21, 1959) was a legendary American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies. Among some of his most well-known films are The Ten Commandments (1956), Cleopatra (1934), and The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

  

  26.5%
  

  35.3%
  

  38.2%
  
•  Christopher Guest

  Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest (born February 5, 1948), better known as Christopher Guest, is a British-American screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor and comedian. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in several "mockumentary" films that feature a repertory-like ensemble cast.

  

  36.4%
  

  27.3%
  

  36.4%
  
•  Clarence Brown

  Clarence Brown (May 10, 1890 – August 17, 1987) was an American film director.

  

  36.7%
  

  30.0%
  

  33.3%
  
•  Drew Barrymore

  Drew Blyth Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, film producer and film director. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was eleven months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered States in 1980. Afterwards, she starred in her breakout role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

  

  30.1%
  

  35.0%
  

  35.0%
  
•  D. W. Griffith

  David Llewelyn Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance (1916). Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera and narrative techniques, and its immense popularity set the stage for the dominance of the feature-length film.

  

  30.4%
  

  17.4%
  

  52.2%
  
•  David Lynch

  David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker and visual artist. Over a lengthy career, Lynch has employed a distinctive and unorthodox approach to narrative filmmaking (dubbed Lynchian), which has become instantly recognizable to many audiences and critics worldwide. Lynch's films are known for nightmarish and dreamlike images and meticulously crafted sound design. Lynch's work often depicts a seedy underside of small town America, or sprawling California metropolises.

  

  26.3%
  

  31.6%
  

  42.1%
  
•  David Fincher

  David Leo Fincher (born August 28, 1962) is an American filmmaker and music video director, known for his dark and stylish thriller movies, such as Se7en (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), and Zodiac (2007). He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

  

  22.0%
  

  19.5%
  

  58.5%
  
•  Dennis Hopper

  Dennis Lee Hopper (born May 17, 1936) is an American actor, filmmaker and artist. Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1955, and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). Over the next ten years, Hopper appeared frequently on television in guest roles, and by the end of the 1960s had played supporting roles in several films.

  

  31.5%
  

  16.7%
  

  51.9%
  
•  Edward D. Wood, Jr.

  

  34.1%
  

  26.8%
  

  39.0%
  
•  Francis Ford Coppola

  Francis Ford Coppola (born April 7, 1939) is an Italian-American film director, producer and screenwriter. Away from show business, Coppola is also a vintner, magazine publisher and hotelier. He is a graduate of Hofstra University where he studied theatre. He earned an M.F.A. in film directing from the UCLA Film School. He is primarily known for directing the Godfather films, Dracula, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now.

  

  27.8%
  

  31.6%
  

  40.5%
  
•  Frank Capra

  Frank Russell Capra (May 18, 1897 – September 3, 1991) was a Sicilian-born American film director and a creative force behind a number of films of the 1930s and 1940s, including It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Lost Horizon (1937), You Can't Take It With You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Meet John Doe (1941), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

  

  39.3%
  

  28.6%
  

  32.1%
  
•  Fred Savage

  Fredrick Aaron "Fred" Savage (born July 9, 1976) is an American actor, director and producer of television and film. He is best known for his role as Kevin Arnold in the television series The Wonder Years. In later years, he has directed and produced numerous episodes of children's programs, such as Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Hannah Montana, and Phil of the Future, as well as the primetime series Ugly Betty and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. He has also appeared in Family Guy.

  

  33.3%
  

  25.5%
  

  41.2%
  
•  Fritz Lang

  Friedrich "Fritz" Christian Anton Lang (December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976) was an Austrian-German-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute.

  

  30.0%
  

  40.0%
  

  30.0%
  
•  Franklin Schaffner

  

  38.9%
  

  31.5%
  

  29.6%
  
•  George Lucas

  George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an Academy Award-nominated American film producer, screenwriter, director and founder/chairman of Lucasfilm Ltd. He is best known for being the creator of the epic science fiction franchise Star Wars and joint creator of the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones. Today, Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful independent directors/producers, with an estimated net worth of $3.0 billion as of 2009.

  

  33.3%
  

  31.4%
  

  35.3%
  
•  Gene Kelly

  Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer. A major exponent of 20th century filmed dance, Kelly was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks and the likeable characters that he played on screen.

  

  31.3%
  

  26.9%
  

  41.8%
  
•  George Cukor

  George Cukor (July 7, 1899 – January 24, 1983) was an American film director who mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed a string of impressive films including What Price Hollywood? (1932), A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Little Women (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Camille (1937).

  

  39.2%
  

  37.3%
  

  23.5%