Notable Filmmakers

This list is comprised of some of the most recognizable names from the world of film and television production. Included are directors, producers and screenwriters. Not included are the cast, who are instead listed with the famous actors and actresses.
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NameLifespanOther Names
Georges Méliès1861-1938
Konstantin Stanislavski1863-1938
Hardee Kirkland1868-1929
Rupert Hughes1872-1956
William Desmond Taylor1872-1922(Cunningham)
Adolph Zukor1873-1976(Adolf)
Fred Niblo1874-1948(Frederick)
D. W. Griffith1875-1948(David, Wark)
James Young Deer1876-1946(Jim, Young)
Rupert Julian1879-1943(Thomas, Percival)
King Baggot1879-1948(William)
Mack Sennett1880-1960(Michael)
Cecil B. DeMille1881-1959(Blount)
Samuel Goldwyn1882-1974(Szmuel)
Max Linder1883-1925(Gabriel, Maximilien)
Louis B. Mayer1884-1957(Lazar, Burt)
Erich von Stroheim1885-1957(Oswald)
John M. Stahl1886-1950(Jacob, Malcolm, Morris)
Henry King1886-1982
Frank Lloyd1886-1960
Michael Curtiz1886-1962
F. W. Murnau1888-1931(Friedrich, Wilhelm)
Carl Theodor Dreyer1889-1968
Victor Fleming1889-1949
Charlie Chaplin1889-1977(Charles, Spencer)
Fritz Lang1890-1976(Friedrich)
Warwick Ward1891-1967
Hal Roach1892-1992(Harold, Eugene)
Ernst Lubitsch1892-1947
Ernst Marischka1893-1963
Rex Ingram1893-1950(Reginald, Montgomery)
Florián Rey1894-1962(Antonio)
John Ford1894-1973
King Vidor1894-1982(Wallis)
Frank Borzage1894-1962
Jean Renoir1894-1979
Gustav von Wangenheim1895-1975(Ingo, Clemens, Adolf)
Lewis Milestone1895-1980
Dziga Vertov1896-1954(David)
Howard Hawks1896-1977
Douglas Sirk1897-1987(Hans, Detlef)
Frank Capra1897-1991
Sergei Eisenstein1898-1948
Kenji Mizoguchi1898-1956
Preston Sturges1898-1959(Edmund)
Leo McCarey1898-1969
René Clair1898-1981
Monte Collins1898-1951(Monty, Francis)
Irving Thalberg1899-1936
Norman Taurog1899-1981
George Cukor1899-1983
Alfred Hitchcock1899-1980
Luis Buñuel1900-1983
James Hilton1900-1954
Vittorio De Sica1901-1974
Robert Bresson1901-1999
Walt Disney1901-1966(Walter, Elias)
David O. Selznick1902-1965
William Wyler1902-1981
Leni Riefenstahl1902-2003(Helene)
Darryl F. Zanuck1902-1979(Francis)
Max Nosseck1902-1972
Vincente Minnelli1903-1986
Yasujirō Ozu1903-1963
George Stevens1904-1975
Otto Preminger1905-1986
Dalton Trumbo1905-1976(James)
Roberto Rossellini1906-1977
Billy Wilder1906-2002(Samuel)
John Huston1906-1987
Luchino Visconti1906-1976
Carol Reed1906-1976
Fred Zinnemann1907-1997(Alfred)
Jacques Tati1907-1982
Filopimin Finos1908-1977
Paul Henreid1908-1992(Georg, Julius)
Tex Avery1908-1980(Frederick, Bean)
David Lean1908-1991
Joseph L. Mankiewicz1909-1993(Leo)
Elia Kazan1909-2003
Elmar Klos1910-1993
Akira Kurosawa1910-1998
William Hanna1910-2001
Joseph Barbera1911-2006
Val Guest1911-2006(Valmond, Maurice)
Chuck Jones1912-2002(Charles)
Michelangelo Antonioni1912-2007
Don Siegel1912-1991(Donald)
Carlo Ponti1912-2007
Obrad Gluščević1913-1980
Fatin Abdel Wahab1913-1972
Nedrick Young1914-1968(Nathan)
Robert Wise1914-2005
Norman Lloyd1914-2021(Nathan)
Orson Welles1915-1985
Ömer Lütfi Akad1916-2011
Jean-Pierre Melville1917-1973
Ida Lupino1918-1995
Ingmar Bergman1918-2007
Robert Aldrich1918-1983
Jerome Robbins1918-1998
Dino De Laurentiis1919-2010(Agostino)
Federico Fellini1920-1993
Delbert Mann1920-2007
Lewis Gilbert1920-2018
Éric Rohmer1920-2010
Gene Nelson1920-1996(Leander, Eugene)
Franklin J. Schaffner1920-1989(James)
Richard Quine1920-1989
Daniel Petrie1920-2004(Mannix)
Don Taylor1920-1998(Donald, Ritchie)
Satyajit Ray1921-1992
Gene Roddenberry1921-1991(Eugene)
George Roy Hill1921-2002
Pier Paolo Pasolini1922-1975
Carl Reiner1922-2020
Carlo Lizzani1922-2013
Fadil Hadžić1922-2011
Krešo Golik1922-1996(Krešimir)
Alain Resnais1922-2014
Blake Edwards1922-2010
Norman Lear1922-2023(Milton)
Franco Zeffirelli1923-2019
Gene Reynolds1923-2020(Eugene)
Vatroslav Mimica1923-2020
Richard Attenborough1923-2014
Dev Anand1923-2011(Dharamdev, Pishorimal)
Sergei Parajanov1924-1990
František Vláčil1924-1999
Sidney Lumet1924-2011(Arthur)
Ed Wood1924-1978(Edward)
Robert Altman1925-2006
Peter Brook1925-2022
Mai Zetterling1925-1994(Elisabeth)
John Schlesinger1926-2003
Andrzej Wajda1926-2016
Mel Brooks1926-(Melvin, James)
Norman Jewison1926-2024(Frederick)
Bryan Forbes1926-2013(John, Theobald)
John Derek1926-1998(Delevan)
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala1927-2013
Lucio Fulci1927-1996
Bob Fosse1927-1987(Robert)
Neil Simon1927-2018(Marvin)
William Peter Blatty1928-2017
Roger Vadim1928-2000
Veljko Bulajić1928-
Agnès Varda1928-2019(Arlette)
Tony Richardson1928-1991(Cecil, Antonio)
Stanley Kubrick1928-1999
Nicolas Roeg1928-2018(Jack)
Sergio Leone1929-1989
Věra Chytilová1929-2014
Alejandro Jodorowsky1929-
Digby Wolfe1929-2012
Monte Hellman1929-2021(Jay)
John Cassavetes1929-1989(Nicholas)
Richard Donner1930-2021
Clint Eastwood1930-(Clinton)
Claude Chabrol1930-2010
Jean-Luc Godard1930-2022
Buck Henry1930-2020
Ted Kotcheff1931-(William, Theodore)
Antun Vrdoljak1931-
Moshé Mizrahi1931-2018
Mike Nichols1931-2014(Michael, Igor)
Carlos Saura1932-2023
Alfonso Arau1932-
François Truffaut1932-1984(Roland)
Miloš Forman1932-2018(Jan, Tomáš)
Andrei Tarkovsky1932-1986
Elaine May1932-(Iva)
Branko Lustig1932-2019
Robert Benton1932-
John Boorman1933-
Jack Hill1933-
Costa-Gavras1933-(Konstantinos)
Sidney J. Furie1933-(Joseph)
Tinto Brass1933-(Giovanni)
Ivan Passer1933-2020
Roman Polanski1933-
Krsto Papić1933-2013
Sydney Pollack1934-2008
Garry Marshall1934-2016
Robert Towne1934-2024(Bertram)
Theo Angelopoulos1935-2012(Theodoros)
William Friedkin1935-2023(David)
Isao Takahata1935-2018
Woody Allen1935-(Allan, Heywood, Stewart)
John G. Avildsen1935-2017(Guilbert)
Med Hondo1936-2019(Mohamed, Abid)
Ken Loach1936-(Kenneth)
Robert Redford1936-
Jim Henson1936-1990(James)
Ismail Merchant1936-2005(Noor, Muhammad, Abdul)
David Seidler1937-
Warren Beatty1937-
Don Bluth1937-(Donald, Virgil)
Jerry Weintraub1937-2015(Jerome, Charles)
Ridley Scott1937-
Tahir Hussainc. 1938-2010
Larisa Shepitko1938-1979
Lewis Teague1938-
Paul Verhoeven1938-
Pupi Avati1938-(Giuseppe)
Michael Cimino1939-2016
Francis Ford Coppola1939-
Krzysztof Zanussi1939-(Pius)
Peter Bogdanovich1939-2022
Wes Craven1939-2015(Wesley)
John Badham1939-
Joel Schumacher1939-2020
Vladimir Menshov1939-2021
George A. Romero1940-2017(Andrew)
Bernardo Bertolucci1940-2018
James L. Brooks1940-(Lawrence)
Abbas Kiarostami1940-2016
Bruce Beresford1940-
Dario Argento1940-
Brian De Palma1940-
Chiem van Houweninge1940-(Joachimus, Johannes)
Andrzej Żuławski1940-2016
Terry Gilliam1940-(Terence, Vance)
Hayao Miyazaki1941-
Wolfgang Petersen1941-2022
Stephen Frears1941-
Denys Arcand1941-(Georges, Henri)
Krzysztof Kieślowski1941-1996
Walter Hill1942-
Terry Jones1942-2020(Terence, Graham)
Michael Haneke1942-
Mike Newell1942-(Michael)
Peter Greenaway1942-
Barry Levinson1942-
John Kani1942-(Bonisile)
Werner Herzog1942-
Martin Scorsese1942-
Michael Mann1943-
Mike Leigh1943-
David Geffen1943-
David Cronenberg1943-
Zeki Alasya1943-2015
Hugh Wilson1943-2018(Hamilton)
Jerry Bruckheimer1943-(Jerome, Leon)
Jean-Jacques Annaud1943-
Penny Marshall1943-2018(Carole)
Jan de Bont1943-
Terrence Malick1943-(Frederick)
Férid Boughedir1944-
Lordan Zafranović1944-
Alan Parker1944-2020
Jonathan Demme1944-2017
Roger Rees1944-2015
Jim Abrahams1944-(James)
George Lucas1944-
Frank Oz1944-
Tony Scott1944-2012(Anthony)
Peter Weir1944-
Şerif Gören1944-
Harold Ramis1944-2014
Jeroen Krabbé1944-(Aart)
Arnon Milchan1944-
Ulli Lommel1944-2017
Taylor Hackford1944-(Edwin)
Michal Bat-Adam1945-
George Miller1945-
Rainer Werner Fassbinder1945-1982
Wim Wenders1945-(Ernst, Wilhelm)
Assi Dayan1945-2014(Assaf)
John Banville1945-
David Lynch1946-
Adolf Winkelmann1946-
John Woo1946-
Lasse Hallström1946-
Gavin Richards1946-
Oliver Stone1946-
Ivan Reitman1946-2022
Steven Spielberg1946-
Takeshi Kitano1947-
Ben Sombogaart1947-(Bernard, Cornelis)
Rajko Grlić1947-
David Zucker1947-
John Carpenter1948-
Agnieszka Holland1948-(Irena)
Lawrence Kasdan1949-
Rakesh Roshan1949-(Roshanlal)
Pedro Almodóvar1949-
Lee Cronin19xx-
John Hughes1950-2009
Neil Jordan1950-
Jerry Zucker1950-
Piotr Szulkin1950-2018
Chantal Akerman1950-2015(Anne)
John Landis1950-
Jeffrey Katzenberg1950-
John McTiernan1951-(Campbell)
Dick Maas1951-
Robert Zemeckis1951-
Julian Schnabel1951-
Zhang Yimou1951-
Kathryn Bigelow1951-
Harvey Weinstein1952-
Gus Van Sant1952-
Alex van Warmerdam1952-(Alexander, Lucas, Maria)
Jakov Sedlar1952-
Stephen Poliakoff1952-
Jim Jarmusch1953-(James)
Barry Sonnenfeld1953-
Kathleen Kennedy1953-
Moshe Ivgy1953-
Joel Coen1954-
Anthony Minghella1954-2008
Idrissa Ouédraogo1954-2018
Matt Groening1954-(Matthew)
Ron Howard1954-(Ronald)
Michael Moore1954-
Jane Campion1954-
Amy Heckerling1954-
James Cameron1954-
Goderdzi Chokheli1954-2007
Eran Riklis1954-
Ang Lee1954-
Emir Kusturica1954-
Kevin Costner1955-
Nancy Oliver1955-
Linwood Boomer1955-
Fernando Meirelles1955-
Roland Emmerich1955-
Ildikó Enyedi1955-
Mel Gibson1956-
Satish Kaushik1956-2023
Lars von Trier1956-
Bob Nelson1956-(Robert)
Danny Boyle1956-(Daniel)
Peter Farrelly1956-
Ethan Coen1957-
John Lasseter1957-
Jaco Van Dormael1957-
Stijn Coninx1957-(Augustijn, Robert, Marguerite)
Jean van de Velde1957-
Spike Lee1957-
Cameron Crowe1957-
Theo van Gogh1957-2004(Theodoor)
Paweł Pawlikowski1957-(Aleksander)
Branko Schmidt1957-
Brad Bird1957-(Phillip, Bradley)
Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen1957-2005(Hendrik)
Zacharias Kunuk1957-(Kifutikajuk, Taqaq, Nujatut, Attafutaluk, Quatuk)
Guillermo Arriaga1958-
Keenen Ivory Wayans1958-(Desuma)
Bobby Farrelly1958-(Robert)
Scott Rudin1958-
David O. Russell1958-(Owen)
Tim Burton1958-(Timothy)
Chris Columbus1958-
Nuri Bilge Ceylan1959-
Frank Darabont1959-
Luc Besson1959-
Nick Cassavetes1959-(Nicholas, David, Rowland)
Sam Raimi1959-(Samuel)
Udi Aloni1959-
Susanne Bier1960-
Atom Egoyan1960-
Jon Landau1960-2024
Richard Linklater1960-
Alexander Payne1961-(Constantine)
Aaron Sorkin1961-
David Heyman1961-
Stephen Hillenburg1961-2018
Peter Jackson1961-
Alfonso Cuarón1961-
Stephen Sommers1962-
Tamara Jenkins1962-
David Fincher1962-
Nia Vardalos1962-(Antonia, Eugenia)
Mike Judge1962-(Michael, Craig)
Ziad Doueiri1963-
Steven Soderbergh1963-
Quentin Tarantino1963-
Grant Heslov1963-
Dejan Aćimović1963-
Alessandro Camon1963-
Jon Turteltaub1963-(Jonathan, Charles)
Alejandro González Iñárritu1963-
Fisher Stevens1963-
Armando Iannucci1963-(Giovanni)
James Mangold1963-(Allen)
Til Schweiger1963-(Tilman, Valentin)
Derviş Zaim1964-
Vinko Brešan1964-
Andrey Zvyagintsev1964-
Todd Field1964-(William)
Gore Verbinski1964-(Gregor)
Lisa Cholodenko1964-
Joss Whedon1964-(Joseph)
Guillermo del Toro1964-
Rob Zombie1965-(Robert, Bartleh)
Marius Holst1965-
Michael Bay1965-
Paul W. S. Anderson1965-(William, Scott)
Roman Coppola1965-(Ford)
Lana Wachowski1965-(Larry, Laurence)
Sam Mendes1965-(Samuel)
Maria de Medeiros1965-
Bryan Singer1965-(Jay)
Andrew Stanton1965-
Keir Pearson1966-
Zack Snyder1966-(Zachary)
J. J. Abrams1966-(Jeffrey, Jacob)
Oren Moverman1966-
James Gunn1966-
Sherman Alexie1966-(Joseph)
Jon Favreau1966-(Jonathan, Kolia)
Lenny Abrahamson1966-(Leonard)
Bennett Miller1966-
Sam Taylor-Johnson1967-(Samantha, Louise)
Michel Hazanavicius1967-
Mehran Modiri1967-
Carrie Preston1967-
Denis Villeneuve1967-
Judd Apatow1967-
Lilly Wachowski1967-(Andrew, Andy, Paul)
Edward Burns1968-(Fitzgerald)
Adam McKay1968-
Guinevere Turner1968-
Robert Rodriguez1968-
Shawn Levy1968-(Adam)
Guy Ritchie1968-
Darren Aronofsky1969-
Jason Blum1969-(Ferus)
Jez Butterworth1969-(Jeremy)
Brett Ratner1969-
Martin Koolhoven1969-(Martinus, Wouter)
Wes Anderson1969-(Wesley)
Stuart Blumberg1969-(Ethan)
Amma Asante1969-
Tyler Perry1969-(Emmitt)
Bong Joon-ho1969-
Steve McQueen1969-(Steven, Rodney)
Trey Parker1969-
Spike Jonze1969-
Shonda Rhimes1970-
Anthony Russo1970-
Taylor Sheridan1970-
Paul Thomas Anderson1970-
Christopher Nolan1970-(Edward)
Kevin Smith1970-(Patrick)
M. Night Shyamalan1970-(Manoj)
David Benioff1970-
Morgan Spurlock1970-2024(Valentine)
Matthew Vaughn1971-(Allard, Robert)
Rupert Sanders1971-(Miles)
Sofia Coppola1971-
Matt Stone1971-(Matthew)
Joseph Russo1971-
Luca Guadagnino1971-
Veiko Õunpuu1972-
Asghar Farhadi1972-
Ben Affleck1972-(Benjamin, Géza)
Tom Hooper1972-(Thomas)
Mark Boal1973-
Damon Lindelof1973-
Kevin Feige1973-
Vera Farmiga1973-(Ann)
Kristen Wiig1973-(Carroll)
Yorgos Lanthimos1973-
Rian Johnson1973-(Craig)
Kim van Kooten1974-
Sebastián Lelio1974-
Jaume Collet-Serra1974-
Ruben Östlund1974-(Claes, Olle)
Dalibor Matanić1975-
Mitra Farahani1975-
Ekta Kapoor1975-
Taika Waititi1975-(David)
Brian Klugman1975-
Asia Argento1975-(Aria, Maria, Vittoria, Rossa)
Michelle Latimer1976-
Jonathan Nolan1976-(Jonah)
Jalil Lespert1976-
James Wan1977-
Sophie Hunter1978-(Irene)
Diablo Cody1978-(Brook)
Bora Dağtekin1978-
Jordan Peele1979-(Haworth)
Jelena Veljača1981-
Chloé Zhao1982-(Ting)
Zoe Lister-Jones1982-
Benh Zeitlin1982-(Benjamin, Harold)
Tanel Toom1982-
Jennifer Podemski1983-
Greta Gerwig1983-(Celeste)
Justin Baldoni1984-(Louis)
Veronica Kedar1984-
Issa Rae1985-(Jo)
Damien Chazelle1985-
Celine Song1988-
Tessa Schram1988-
Xavier Dolan1989-
Hannah Marks1993-