Top 10 directors

I usually order these lists from bottom to top, leading from 10-1, and I intended to do just that here, but I forgot about that as I uploaded the photos, and it is always a tribulation to fidget about with images on blogger, so I'll leave it as it is.

The images I chose feature the directors, for the most part, at their most casual; I avoided choosing poncy photographs of an introspective 'artist' methodically smoking a cigarette in front of a camera. As much as I love art cinema, I don't at all like the posturing and pretence that often comes along with it.

I have compiled this list in the past, but I have since seen more films, making this new list a more accurate reflection of my film tastes.

1

Andrei Tarkovsky

Tarkovsky is a director who seeps into your mind, appropriating it and taking control of the recesses of your thought processes. I didn't at all like Tarkovsky in my first exposure to his work, Solaris, but I soon found myself having dreams influenced by the atmosphere of the film. Since then I have been flabbergasted, intrigued, haunted and ravished by the rest of his work

Personal favourite: Andrei Rublev

Russia

2

Carl Theodor Dreyer

After a hit-and-miss series of films from the silent-era (among them quite possibly one of the greatest films of all time, The Passion of Joan of Arc), Dreyer produced a small but incredibly powerful body of work in the sound era. His films reflect the dominance of a patriarchal society, depicting women repressed by the men around them. Like Bergman, he showcases characters' doubt in belief but, unlike him, always sides himself with God. And like Bresson, he portrays religious themes in a sparse austere way but, unlike him, emphasises dramatic techniques and emotion.

Personal favourite: The Passion of Joan of Arc (The entire film can be seen on YouTube.)

Denmark

3

Robert Bresson

Bresson economises almost every single aspect of film-making, yet it is minimised to the point of entrapment. Never working with professional actors, he tinkered with ordinary people instead, and his films avoid the flamboyance of theatre. Instead, Bresson's films favour the literary: the camera angles and the narrative techniques all utilise techniques more typical of a prose writer, with careful deliberation showing the inner thoughts of characters, in addition to exploring concepts more easily expressed in the written word.

Personal favourite: A Man Escaped

France

4

Krzysztof Kielsowski

The power of Kielsowki's films lie in the fact that he doesn't phrase his messages with dialogue in block capitals, he dramatises them instead. The audience is drawn to the films through his dramatisations, only later realising how forcefully it has hit their heart. His greatest films take simple moral lessons as their starting point (the ten commandments, the colours of the French flag), but from then on only tenuously relate to them.

Personal favourite: Blue

Poland

5

David Lynch

Lynch explores the dark, seedy underworld residing beneath the tranquility of suburban USA. Lynch's childhood was just that - idyll, suburban homes, fields of green - but he had such a scorching imagination that he transgressed it and, later, subverted the Hollywood facade. His films are a mind-bending experience, jostling and unnerving the viewer with a strange dream logic. Reality always seems dreadfully boring after walking out of a Lynch film

Personal favourite: Blue Velvet

USA

6

Ingmar Bergman

Exploring themes like spiritual belief, existentialism and sin, Bergman's overpower the viewer by their strength and emotional immediacy. The classic scene of the knight playing chess with death is symbiotically pretentious and fascinating.

Personal favourite: The Seventh Seal

Sweden

7

Werner Herzog

Herzog deals with obsession, a theme I am, incidentally, obsessed with... His quixotic characters, most memorably played by Klaus Kinsky, voyage after goals that are unattainable. Or in other cases, memorably played by Bruno S., they are eccentric people with peculiar talents in specific fields. His films straddle between documentary and fiction, and he has spent the last twenty years or so of his career focusing on the former.

Personal favourite: Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Germany

8

Woody Allen

From his earliest self-defined "early, funny ones" to his drama films, Woody Allen infuses the comical into the bleakest, most pessimistic scenarios. His neurotic caricature is endearing and his one-liners are amusing, but he he is also capable of producing cinema of the highest order, from the novel-like structure of Hannah and Her Sisters to the monochrome black-and-white photography of Manhattan.

Personal favourite: Crimes and Misdemeanours

USA

9

David Cronenberg

Cronenberg has always been a favourite of mine. He reflects my predilection for the unmitigated portrayal of gore, sex and morbidity, but he also has a cerebral agenda, making all sorts of social critiques that reflect the novels of Ballard and Burroughs. Since his earliest horror films, he has emphasised the importance of the human body, something that comes through in the oft-quoted statement "Long live the new flesh!"

Personal favourite: Videodrome

Canada

10

Stanley Kubrick

Kubrick is responsible for two films that are quite possibly the greatest ever committed to camera: 2001, A Space Odyssey and Dr. Strangelove. A lot of his other features are very, very strong but there is a lot in his oevure that I find rather uninteresting, especially when he produces "genre" films that are wholly concerned with sticking to the conventions of the style instead of bringing a wider palette into the film... If all his films were as strong as the two aforementioned titles then he'd top the list, but he finds himself at no. 10... Still, he was strong enough to beat other directors I am fond of, like Hitchcock, Orson Welles and Akira Kurosawa...

Personal favourite: 2001, a Space Odyssey

USA