Famous Directors and their Famous Movies

It seems like there are only seven or eight famous movie directors. I was always getting them confused with one another, so I made this handy chart. Not every film from that director is listed below. I only included movie titles I recognized.

J. J. Abrams
J.J. Abrams is also a well-known writer, also responsible for television and motion-picture dramas such as LOST and Cloverfield. He specializes in stories with an unexpected angle or perspective.
  1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
  2. Star Trek Into Darkness
  3. Super 8
  4. Star Trek
  5. Mission Impossible III
Woody Allen
Woody Allen rivals Steven Speilberg in the number of films he has directed. His films tend to be New York based dramas which he writes himself. Probably would win more Oscars if he seemed to care about them.
Wes Andersen
Wes Andersen creates independent movies and fascinating characters like no one else. Casts the Wilson brothers and Bill Murray.
Judd Apatow
The suddenly white-hot comedy writer/producer. Discovered Seth Rogan and Jay Baruchel
  1. Trainwreck
  2. This is 40
  3. Funny People
  4. Knocked Up
  5. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks is an unstoppable director of epic comedies. The only comedy director on this list, he is not afraid of putting a stupid gag into a script.

James Cameron
James Cameron directed Terminator 2, which is a pretty damn good film. Famous for outlandish special effects and unbelievable budgets.
David Cronenberg
An ace at bringing ugly and difficult-to-visualize scenes to the big screen.
Cameron Crowe
Champion of fun romantic comedies and drama.
Clint Eastwood
Having Clint Eastwood direct your film is the shortest path to an Oscar nomination.
Bobby and Peter Farrelly
Some directors refuse to put fart jokes in their movies. The Farrelly brothers are not those directors.
Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson, like all successful directors has proven that his own vision and ideas are good enough to believe in.

He is not afraid of taking large financial risks. May have made $200 million dollars on a single movie.

 
Ron Howard
Ron Howard is responsible for a string of commercial and culturally successful movies.
I've seen most of his movies. I think most Americans have seen most of his movies.
John Hughes
John Hughes made eight really good movies. He defined and changed American life in the eighties.
He is like George Lucas without ILM.
Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson is the guy who did the Lord of the Rings movies. As if you could forget. He probably lives in fear that he will never again get to do something as epic.
  1. The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun
  2. The Hobbit The Battle of the Five Armies
  3. The Desolation of Smaug
  4. The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey
  5. The Lovely Bones
  6. King Kong
  7. LOTR: The Return of the Kingwon Oscar for best picture won Oscar for best director
  8. LOTR: The Two Towers
  9. LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring
  10. The Frighteners
  11. Heavenly Creatures
  12. Dead Alive
  13. Bad Taste
Spike Jonze
Spike Jonze specializes in filming the unfilmable.

Also, music videos.

Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick would be the master of suspense if we hadn't already given that title to Hitchcock. He made very good, epic movies.
Ang Lee
Born in Taiwan. He is a good bet for a Best Picture Oscar in the next five years.
Spike Lee
Spike Lee's movies feature epic and well-wrtten characters and (always?) deal with race relations.
George Lucas
George Lucas is probably the most well-rounded movie-maker on this list. He founded at least five entertainment companies and loves to be on the cutting edge of technology.
Michael Moore
Michael Moore is probably the most famous living documentary filmmaker. He has more experience getting behind the scenes than Borat.
Christopher Nolan
Comic Con's favorite movie director, he specializes in mind and time-bending special effects and terse movie titles.

Makes action movies.

  1. Dunkirk
  2. Interstellar
  3. The Dark Knight Rises
  4. Inception
  5. The Dark Knight
  6. The Prestige
  7. Batman Begins
  8. Insomnia
  9. Memento
  10. Following
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski has had an infamous and terrible life story featuring Nazis, the Mansons and statutory rape.
Sam Raimi
I know Sam Raimi because of Evil Dead and Spider-Man.

He strikes me as a guy who would be happy making $100,000 films as long as he kept getting to make them.

Guy Ritchie
An English director who excels at Crime Caper action and an interwoven storyline.
  1. Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur
  2. The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
  3. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
  4. Sherlock Holmes
  5. RocknRolla
  6. Revolver
  7. Swept Away
  8. Snatch
  9. Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
  10. The Hard Case

Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese can celebrate his very solid and steady body of successful films.
M. Night Shyamalan
May someday escape his reputation for a twist ending. Like Woody Allen, M. Night Shyamalan obviously doesn't want to make the same kind of movies that other people are capeable of making.
Zack Snyder
Executive producers love Zack Snyder. He has been very successful at translating stylized works onto the big screen.
  1. Justice League 2
  2. Justice League
  3. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
  4. Superman: Man of Steel
  5. Sucker Punch
  6. Watchmen
  7. 300
  8. Dawn of the Dead
Steven Soderbergh
The Colorist.

Broke onto the big time with Sex, Lies and Videotape. Now known for Traffic and the Ocean's Eleven franchise.

Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone is the King of Historical Dramas. He has pretty much made a movie about everything that happened in the 60s.
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino emerged as the director who had the nerve to put calculated violence and disturbing events on film.
Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott is an absolutely dependable action-heavy hit-maker. Even the worst of his movies is worth your money.

I'd love to see him do a Terminator movie.

Gus Van Sant
Creates experience movies often involving one main title character.
Andy and Lana Wachowski
The Matrix directors. Masters of the fight sequence.
  1. Jupiter Ascending
  2. Cloud Atlas
  3. Cobalt Neural 9
  4. Speed Racer
  5. The Matrix Revolutions
  6. The Matrix Reloaded
  7. The Matrix
  8. Bound
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder probably won more Oscars than anyone else on this list (6).

Made comedies and dramas.

John Woo
John Woo is the face of Hong Kong action movies and was the first to survive a move to Hollywood production.

When in doubt: shootout.