Welcome to the finals of Face/Off: Battle Royale! For the last year, we have pitted directors against one another as they fought their way to the top of the competition. There are only three directors left and YOU, the commenters, get to decide on who reigns supreme!
You have to decide which director is better than the other? Various factors could play into your decision from who takes the biggest risks to who has the more distinctive style. Remember, it isn’t so much about which director has made the most money at the box office or won the most awards, but, in your mind, which director simply makes better films.
Let’s analyze the filmography of today’s challengers.
Alfred Hitchcock
Who He Beat to Get to the Finals: Guillermo del Toro, Brian De Palma, David Cronenberg, Billy Wilder, and Martin Scorsese
1920s & 1930s Directorial Features: The Pleasure Garden (1925), The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), The Ring (1927), Downhill (1927), The Farmer’s Wife (1928), Easy Virtue (1928), Champagne (1928), The Manxman (1929), Blackmail (1929), Murder! (1930), The Skin Game (1931), Mary (1931), Rich and Strange (1931), Number Seventeen (1932), Waltzes from Vienna (1934), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), Secret Agent (1936), Sabotage (1936), Young and Innocent (1937), The Lady Vanishes (1938), Jamaica Inn (1939)
1940s Directorial Features: Rebecca (1940), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), Suspicion (1941), Saboteur (1942), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Lifeboat (1944), Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), The Paradine Case (1947), Rope (1948), Under Capricorn (1949)
1950s to 1970s Directorial Features: Stage Fright (1950), Strangers on a Train (1951), I Confess (1953), Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955), The Trouble with Harry (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), The Wrong Man (1956), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963), Marnie (1964), Torn Curtain (1966), Topaz (1969), Frenzy (1972), Family Plot (1976)
Stanley Kubrick
Who He Beat to Get to the Finals: James Cameron, David Lynch, Terry Gilliam, Quentin Tarantino, and David Fincher
1950s to 1990s Directorial Features: Fear and Desire (1953), Killer’s Kiss (1955), The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Spartacus (1960), Lolita (1962), Dr. Stangelove (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Steven Spielberg
Who He Beat to Get to the Finals: Hayao Miyazaki, Peter Jackson, Rob Reiner, Robert Zemeckis, and Wes Anderson
1960s & 1970s Directorial Features: Firelight (1964), Duel (1971), Savage (1973), The Sugarland Express (1974), Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), 1941 (1979)
1980s & 1990s Directorial Features: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), The Color Purple (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), Always (1989), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Hook (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), Schindler’s List (1993), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Amistad (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998)
2000s & 2010s Directorial Features: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Terminal (2004), War of the Worlds (2005), Munich (2005), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), The Adventures of Tintin (2011), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), Bridge of Spies (2015), The BFG (2016), The Post (2017), Ready Player One (2018)
Discuss in the comments below your favorite films from each director and who should be crowned the greatest director of all-time!
