Directors' Favorite Films

My favorite directors' picks for their favorite films combined into one poll, with a limit of 10-12 picks per director. This list will grow when I see more films. Recommendations are welcome.


When a director has multiple lists, I include the movies on more than one lists, than count down from #1 until there are about 10 movies total.

Directors' Lists (not ranked):
Fellini Top 10 (Sight & Sound 1992)
Bresson Top 7 (Cinémathèque Belgique 1952)
De Sica Top 10 (Cinematheque Belgique 1952)
Scorsese Top 5 (Sight & Sound 1992)
Tarkovsky Top 10
Bergman Top 11
Welles Top 10 (Cinematheque Belgique 1952)
Kubrick Top 10 (Cinema Magazine 1963)
Chris Marker - Vertigo
Truffaut - Night and Fog (I can't find any lists).

The effective war film is often the one in which the action begins after the war, when there is nothing but ruins and desolation everywhere: Rossellini’s Germany Year Zero (1947) and, above all, Alain Resnais’ Nuit et brouillard, the greatest film ever made.

Kieslowski Top 10 (Time Out)
Wilder (Time Out)
Francis Ford Coppola
Dreyer (Cinematheque Belgique 1952)
Vidor (Cinematheque Belgique 1952)
Godard - I added the films he wrote about in a 1958 Cahiers du Cinéma article

There are five or six films in the history of the cinema which one wants to review simply by saying, 'It is the most beautiful of films.' Because there can be no higher praise... Summer Interlude is the most beautiful of films. - Godard

David Lynch - I included the five movies in his Rotten Tomatoes List (8½ , Sunset Boulevard, Mr. Hulot's Holiday, Rear Window, and Lolita), and 7 other movies who he said were his favorites (The Wizard of Oz, Vertigo, La Strada, Persona, Citizen Kane, Hour of the Wolf, and I Vittellioni); I didn't include his other favorite Mon Oncle (source).
Coen Brothers
Tim Burton
Sidney Lumet
Kazan (Cinematheque Belgique 1952)
Tarantino (11 films from Empire and Sight & Sound list)
Spielberg
Almodóvar (10 films from Time Out and S&S list)
Wes Anderson
Gilliam (10 films from Time Out and S&S list)
Herzog (5 favorite films, Rotten Tomatoes)
Polanski (6 films, Time Out)
Woody Allen
Gus Van Sant
Michael Haneke
Mike Leigh
Jarmusch
Visconti
John Huston
Linklater - 11 films combined
Jonathan Demme (The Conformist and Imamura's Legends From A Southern Island (source))
Ridley Scott (Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai, The Seventh Seal (source))
Terry Jones (I used the top 8 of the 2002 poll because the 2012 poll is not ranked, and two films the director spoke very highly of in the 2012 poll - The General and Crimes and Misdemeanors)
Buñuel Top 10 (Sight & Sound 1952)
John Lasseter
George Romero (Sight & Sound and Rotten Tomatoes)
Brothers Quay
Richard Williams (10 films)
Miloš Forman
John Kricfalusi (Ren and Stimpy) - The Night of the Hunter
Jiří Barta
Carol Reed
Ken Loach (11 films)
Terence Davies
Hitchcock
David Cronenberg
Satyajit Ray
Takeshi Kitano
Ford
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Below are directors I might include in this list, when I see some of their films.
I'll probably add some of these directors's lists to Listal, then this list when I see more of their films: David Lean, Michael Powell, Bertolucci, Jacques Becker, Wong Kar-wai, Michael Cimino, Stan Brakhage
not added lists
Fuller (Time Out)
Rivette (Sight & Sound 1962)
Fassbinder
Tarr
Maybe:
Zinnemann (Time Out)
Eroll Morris - Sight & Sound + Rotten Tomatoes
Chantal Ackermen, Dardenne brothers, Jonas Mekas
Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang
Michel Gondry's favorites Robo-Cop, Back to the Future)
Terry Zwigoff's (Crumb) list
Guy Maddin
Theo Angelopoulos, Dardenne Brothers

Bong Joon-ho, Erich Rohmer
Maybe - Paul Morrissey, John Waters, Charles Burnett, Peter Davis (Hearts and Minds), Chen Kaige, Friedkin, Michael Snow, Michael Mann

Not a favorite director - I might change my mind
Peter Jackson
James Cameron
John Carpenter
John Woo
Sam Raimi, David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, Danny Boyle

Paul Verhoeven

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Sources: BFI (Sight & Sound)
Time Out (Directors' Choice)
Rotten Tomatoes
Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique

Directors' lists I didn't include (they exceeded 12 films and were non-preferential lists):
Akira Kurosawa's 100 favorite films
Sam Peckinpah
Wim Wenders

Frank Darabont (not a favorite anyway)

Some directors opposed to the idea of a top ten: Peter Bogdanovich, Abbas Kiarastomi

Lists to Update
The 2012 Sight & Sound poll lists by Allen, Tarantino and maybe Mike Leigh.
Jonathan Demme (1992 S&S Poll).

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