Welcome to round three of Face/Off! For the next six weeks we will be pitting two directors who won their round two matches against each other and letting YOU, the commenters, 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 in Round Two: Brian De Palma (14 to 2)
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)
David Cronenberg
Who He Beat in Round Two: Wes Craven (18 to 2)
1960s to 1980s Directorial Features: Stereo (1969), Crimes of the Future (1970), Shivers (1975), Rabid (1977), Fast Company (1979), The Brood (1979), Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983), The Dead Zone (1983), The Fly (1986), Dead Ringers (1988)
1990s to 2010s Directorial Features: Naked Lunch (1991), M. Butterfly (1993), Crash (1996), Existenz (1999), Spider (2002), A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), A Dangerous Method (2011), Cosmopolis (2012), Maps to the Stars (2014)
Only one can move on to the Battle Royale. Let the Face/Off begin!
Discuss in the comments below your favorite films from each director and who should advance to the quarterfinals.
