There are a lot of amazing names in the annals of film directors: Hitchcock. Spielberg. Kubrick. Scorsese. But the question of which is the best director is always fraught with difficulty and often colored by who is the latest big thing. As with so many situations, it falls to a question of “favorite” rather than a quantitative best, just because of the difficulty in measuring Brian De Palma against Wong Kar-Wai or Steven Soderbergh versus Ava DuVernay. Still, even a subjective discussion can be a fun one, leading to today’s sixteen-millimeter query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) doesn’t usually pay attention to the names in the credits, but has had a lot of entertainment from John Hughes, asking: Which director is the BEST director?
3 Comments
I think it has to be Steven Spielberg. He’s done top-notch comedy, drama, action, suspense, etc. etc. His hit rate with me is probably around 85-90% (for those that I’ve watched.)
Akira Kurosawa. About 10 of his films are on my “all time favorites” list. Never seen even one mediocre movie by him.
So tricky! Go with a trailblazer who settled into a predictable but solid groove (Peckinpah), a stalwart with MANY films and solid consistency (John Huston), someone with a small but brilliantly eclectic body of work (Robert WIse), directors of some of the finest movies and performances of all time (Billy Wilder or Michael Curtiz)? So many choices.
In the long run, I’ll go with the inconsitent, eclectic, big cast genius of Robert Altman. Risk-taking counts for something, too!