Woo, John

b. September 22, 1946 (birthdate as stated on passport), Guangzhou, China While several filmmakers have become synonymous with specific genres, few have carved out as inimitable and identifiable a niche within...

Thompson, J. Lee

b. 1 August, 1914, Bristol, England, UK d. 30 August, 2002, Sooke, British Columbia, Canada He directed some of the most famous actors in film history, from Robert Mitchum, Gregory Peck, and Anthony Quinn, to...

Sorrentino, Paolo

b. 31 May, 1970, Naples, Campania, Italy The comparisons to Federico Fellini may be seen as both a blessing and a curse for Paolo Sorrentino. On one hand, the lofty likening to one of world cinema’s grand mast...

Garbo, Greta

b. 18 September 1905, Stockholm, Sweden d. 15 April 1990, New York City, U.S. “What, when drunk, one sees in other women, one sees in Garbo sober.” This often-quoted musing by Kenneth Tynan, published in the ...

Curtiz, Michael

b. 24 December, 1886, Budapest, Austria-Hungary d. 10 April, 1962, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA Having helmed some of the most successful films of Hollywood’s Golden Age, winning an Academy Award a...

Riefenstahl, Leni

b. 22 August, 1902, Berlin, Germany d. 8 September, 2003, Bavaria, Germany Does Leni Riefenstahl even belong here, ranked alongside the world’s most illustrious filmmakers and designated a “Great Director”?...

Scott, Tony

b. 21 June, 1944, Tynemouth, Northumberland, England, UK d. 19 August, 2012, San Pedro, Los Angeles, California, USA When Tony Scott passed away at the age of 68, his unexpected death sent shockwaves throug...

Stone, Oliver

b. 15 September, 1946, New York City, New York, USA “You can’t be an individual in this world, Huckleberry, and expect to get away with it. Only a few do.” Following in the footsteps of such controversial lum...

Dovzhenko, Alexander

b. 10 September, 1894, Sosnitsa, Ukraine d. 25 November, 1956, Moscow, Russia “I sit down beside Pudovkin,” writes Sergei Eisenstein in 1928, after he and his filmmaking compatriot Vsevolod Pudovkin attend ...

Visconti, Luchino

b. 2 November, 1906, Milan, Lombardy, Italy d. 17 March, 1976, Rome, Lazio, Italy Count don Luchino Visconti di Modrone was born to a life of respectability, authority, and affluence. This noble upbringing, a...
Minnie and Moskowitz 1971

Minnie and Moskowitz

On the surface, the relationship between Minnie Moore (Gena Rowlands) and Seymour Moskowitz (Seymour Cassel) doesn’t seem like a normal romantic engagement – which is just as well, because John Cassavetes was n...
Max Ophuls

Ophuls, Max

6 May, 1902, Saarbrücken, Germany d. 26 March, 1957, Hamburg, Germany Like the elaborate camera manoeuvres that enrich his multinational filmography, the career of Max Ophuls has been one of dynamic fluctuati...
Béla Tarr

Tarr, Béla

21 July, 1955, Pécs, Hungary Béla Tarr insists that his films do not fall into distinctive periods, preferring to identify something akin to a steady evolution rather than marked turning points. Arguing, for e...
Elia Kazan

Kazan, Elia

Elias Kazancioglu, 7 September 1909, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey) 28 September 2003, New York City, USA   “The director tells the movie story more than the man who writes the d...
John Cassavetes

Cassavetes, John

John Nicholas Cassavetes, December 9, 1929, New York City, New York, USA February 3, 1989, Los Angeles, California, USA To talk about John Cassavetes the great director, one must first recognise Cassavetes th...
Quentin Tarantino

Tarantino, Quentin

Quentin Jerome Tarantino, March 27, 1963, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA Were it not for Quentin Tarantino’s unassuming background, his meteoric rise to filmmaking fame would probably not itself have been so except...

Polanski, Roman

b. Rajmund Roman Thierry Polański, August 18, 1933, Paris, France It is difficult to get a handle on Roman Polanski. His eclectic body of work ranges from pinnacle achievements in European art cinema to camp g...

Scorpio Rising

With its blistering rock and roll soundtrack, Kenneth Anger’s 1963 film Scorpio Rising – his twelfth short in 23 years – could be seen as a prelude to the music video. Its stress on stimulating and engaging ima...

Fuller, Samuel

b. Samuel Michael Fuller, August 12, 1912, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA d. October 30, 1997, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA "It is not necessary for the camera to move or for the characters to move....