Directors
With an ordered summary of everyone's oeuvre.
5 - 1 = number of stars
A-C = accessibility
Paul Thomas Anderson
America
Paul Thomas Anderson can be characterized as a remarkably versatile director. At times PTA can be compared to Mallick and occasionally more to Scorsese. His work started off with flashy fast editing accompanied by popmusic, around the the turn of the century he made some sensitive dreamy films, with a surfacing sublime tone to them.
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Complete oeuvre:
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1999: Magnolia (5B)
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1997: Boogie Nights (4A)
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2007: There Will Be Blood (4C)
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2012: The Master (4A)
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2002: Punch Drunk Love (4B)
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2017: Phantom Thread (4C)
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1996: Hard Eight (3B)
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2021: Licorice Pizza (3A)
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2014: Inherent Vice (3C)
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Related directors:
Nicolas Roeg, Robert Altman, Terrence Mallick, Martin Scorsese, Sidney Lumet, Francis Ford Coppola.
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Wes Anderson
America
Wes Anderson is a visual stylist. A typical Wes Anderson shot contains symmetry and bright colors. His characters can be called somewhat apathetic and autistic and yet, perhaps partly due to the clean decors, they're charming and never leaves the viewer without a strong emotional release. Wes Anderson's films are anecdotes from his meticulously staged dollhouse.
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Complete oeuvre:
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2014: The Grand Budapest Hotel (4A)
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1998: Rushmore (4B)
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2012: Moonrise Kingdom (4A)
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2001: The Royal Tenenbaums (4B)
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2009: Fantastic Mr. Fox (3B)
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2004: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (3B)
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2007: The Darjeeling Limited (3B)
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2021: The French Dispatch (3B)
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2018: Isle of Dogs (3B)
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1996: Bottle Rocket (3B)
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Related directors:
Michel Gondry, Aki Kaurismaki, Noah Baumbach, Roy Anderson,
Ingmar Bergmann, Spike Jones, Woody Allen.
Roy Andersson
Sweden
Roy Andersson makes films about the emptiness of modern life. His surrealistic non-linear storytelling style may not be for everyone, but it is universally characteristic of our time. Andersson's worlds are gray and empty with a sporadic human outburst that makes us reflect on the way we have organized our society.
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Complete oeuvre:
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2000: Songs From the Second Floor (4C)
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1970: A Swedish Love Story (4B)
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2007: You, the Living (4C)
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2014: A Pidgeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (3C)
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2019: About Endlessness (3C)
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Related directors:
Aki Kaurismaki, Alex van Warmerdam, Yorgos Lanthimos, Terry Gilliam, Jacques Tati en Luis Buñel.
Jacques Audiard
France
Audiard operates in the world of fencers between the confrontational French realism and the sensationalism of the American spectacle. His films are also always about characters split between two worlds; good and evil, love and strife, crime and poetry. Jacques Audiard wishes to portray the refugee's struggle without dismissing him as merely brute trapped in his socio-economic status, but striving for a free desire.
oeuvre:
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2009: Un Prophete (4A)
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2005: De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (4B)
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2021: Olympiads (4B)
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2001: Sur mes levres (4B)
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2015: Dheepan (4B)
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2012: The rouille et d'os (3A)
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2018: The Sister Brothers (3B)
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1994 : Regard les hommes tomber (3C)
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Related directors:
Roman Polanski, Jean-Pierre Melville, William Friedkin, Bong Joon-ho, Martin Scorsese, Coen Brothers, Brian DePalma, Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Steve McQueen.
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Noah Baumbach
America
Noah Baumbach is the modern social American filmmaker, like Woody Allen once was. Baumbach studies intimate relationships. He shows the small everyday-life conversations but also reflects on major life changes.
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Oeuvre:
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2019: Marriage Story (4A)
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2005: The Squid and the Whale (4B)
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2017: The Meyerowitz Stories (4B)
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2012: Frances Ha (3C)
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2007: Margot at the Wedding (3B)
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1995: Kicking and Screaming (3B)
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2014: While We're Young (3A)
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2007: Greenberg (3B)
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2015: Mistress America (2B)
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Related directors:
Wes Anderson, Greta Gerwig, Barry Levinson, Sophia Coppola, Alexandre Payne, Woody Allen and Richard Linklater.
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Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Turkey
Ceylan's films are about the dialogues and the characters. Sometimes he emphasizes long philosophical conversations and sometimes not, it's the silences that fueles his stories. Ceylan is a lonely poet in a divided political
landscape.
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Complete oeuvre:
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2018: Ahlat Ağacı (4C)
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2014: Kış uykusu (4C)
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1997: Kasaba (4C)
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2006: Ä°klimmer (4C)
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2002: Uzak (4C)
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2011: Bir zamanlar Anadoluda (3C)
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2008: Uç Maymun (3C)
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1999: Mayis Sıkıntısı (2C)
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Related directors:
Andrei Zvyagintsev, Asghar Farhadi, Michael Hanke, Ruben Oslund,
Fatih Akin, Abbas Kiarostami, Cristian Mungiu, Werner Herzog.
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Charles Chaplin
United Kingdom
Everyone has heard of Charles Chaplin, but few people today have actually seen his films. A mortal sin, because Chaplin was more than just a pioneer whose work should only be viewed with historical fascination. His craftsmanship has withstood the technological developments and the resulting erosion in an impressive way, precisely because it responds so concisely and universally to the emotion of everyone. Chaplin stood up for the underdog and opposed any demotion of the common man. In addition to being a pantomime player, he was above all a humanist who could move his audience, but above all made them laugh.
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Oeuvre:
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1931: City Lights (5B)
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1940: The Great Dictator (4C)
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1936: Modern Times (4C)
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1928: The Circus (4A)
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1925: The Gold Rush (4C)
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1952: Limelight (4C)
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1921: The Kid (3C)
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1918: A Dog's Life (3C)
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Related directors:
Buster Keaton, Frank Capra, Jacques Tati, Milos Formanan, Woody Allen.
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Joel and Ethan
Coen
America
The famous director duo Ethan and Joel Coen are two brothers who are charmed by the simplicity of rural America. Oridinairy people with ordinairy lives who don't care about big depraved plots with evil serial killers, mafiafigures and blood money. Their characters remain down to earth and listen a lot of country music.
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oeuvre:
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1998: The Big Lebowski (4A)
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2007: No Country for Old Men (4A)
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1996: Fargo (4B)
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1987: Raising Arizona (4B)
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1991: Barton Fink (4B)
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2000: O Brother Where Art Thou? (4A)
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1984: Blood Simple (4B)
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2013: Inside Llewyn Davis (3C)
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2009: Burn After Reading (3B)
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2018: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (3B)
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2021: The Tragedy of MacBeth (3C)
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2009: A Serious Man (3B)
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2010: True Gritt (3C)
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2001: The Man Who Wasn't There (3C)
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1990: Miller's Crossing (3C)
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2016: Hail Caesar! (2C)
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Related directors:
Robert Altman, Alexandre Payne, Milos Forman, Roman Polanski,
Orson Welles, Bong Joon-ho and Billy Wilder.
SOFIA COPPOLA
America
The daughter of the great Francis Ford Coppola is anything but an extension of her father in her artistic expression. Sofia Coppola has a sharply distinguishable style. Her dreamy cinematography draws the viewer into the melancholic feeling that permeates her films.
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oeuvre:
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2003: Lost in Translation (5C)
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2011: Somewhere (4C)
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1999: The Virgin Suicide (3C)
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2017: The Beguiled (3B)
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2006: Marie Antoinette (3C)
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Related directors:
Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig, Spike Jones, Richard Linklater, Todd Haynes and Wong Kar-Wai.
David Cronenberg
Canada
The worlds of Cronenberg are littered with vermin from other dimensions, futuristic transformations and mutilations, visions and hallucinations shaped by the weirdest fetishes and psychoanalytic fears. And all this from the mind of a calm, well-mannered Canadian, who is known as one of the most important cult directors. He once started making futuristic low-budget horror films.
What initially caught his eye was his practical special effects. Especially with blood and mutilations, Cronenberg knew/knows what to do. His films are not for everyone. People with a weak stomach or an aversion to dystopia better skip this director.
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oeuvre:
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1983: Videodrome (4B)
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1988: Dead Ringers (4B)
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1991: Naked Lunch (4B)
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1986: The Fly (4B)
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1996: Crash (4C)
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1983: The Dead Zone (4B)
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1999: eXistenZ (3C)
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1979: The Brood (3C)
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2005: A History of Violence (3B)
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1981: Scanners (2C)
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1977: Rabid (2C)
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1975: Shivers (2C)
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2002: Spider (2C)
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Related directors:
David Lynch, John Carpenter, Roman Polanski, Guillermo del Torro, Lars von Trier, George A. Romero, Pedro Almodovar, Peter Jackson,
Yorgos Lanthimous, Spike Jones, Denis Villeneuve, Brian DePalma.
Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Belgium
The Dardenne brothers are responsible for the tragic reality of the Belgian (but especially the immigrant to Belgium) working class. The brothers weave together dramatic developments in a complex socio-economic arena. Crime and poverty seem to be the basic principles on which their tragedies rest. Their style is hyperrealistic. Despite not using music or close-ups, they always create the immersion of a looming threat in the background. A threat that does not rely on form, only on content.
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oeuvre:
2011: Le Gamin au Velo (4B)
2002: Le Fils (4C)
1996 : La Promesse (4C)
2014: Deux jours, une nuit (4B)
2005: L'Enfant (3B)
1999: Rosetta (3C)
2016: Le Fille Inconnu (3B)
2019: Le jeune Ahmed (3B)
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Related directors:
Michael Hanke, Ken Loach, Cristian Mungiu, Robert Bresson, Abbas Kiarostami,Ruben Ostlund,Andrew ZvyagintsevandAsghar Farhadi.
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Asghar Farhadi
Iran
Asghar Farhadi makes social, psychologically compelling films. His films are visibly European influenced, characterized by a sober realistic style, but nevertheless moving because of their lively characters and scripts. Farhadi always knows how to move his actors to a performance that is strongly charged with emotion. Based on razor-sharp confrontations arising from the conservative religious dimension of Iran, the director subtly opposes the cultural degression of his homeland.
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Complete oeuvre:
2011: A Separation (4B)
2009: About Elly (4B)
2016: Forushande (4B)
2006: Fireworks Wednesday (4C)
2021: A Hero (4B)
2013: Le Passe (3B)
2018: Todos los saben (3A)
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Related directors:
Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne,Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Christian Mungiu,Andrew Zvyagintsevand Abbas Kiarostami.
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Federico Fellini
Italy
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Fellini believed that a face could say more than words. He made his films on the basis of the strangest outward appearances, carnival costumes and impressively grand sets. acting as extras in his films. Fellini was often not really interested in telling a story. He was more concerned with what his work could suggest and its wonderfully surreal design. Fellini's work sprang from austere Italian realism, penetrated with his expressionism a collective subconscious that escaped into the abstractions of his extravagant personal sentiments. As he grew older, his work became more personal. Yet it cannot be said that his oeuvre is merely an ego trip filled with his own fantasies. There is something universal in the suspicions his work manages to arouse. His work is timeless, and not just in a way that underlines that his work is still very digestible. makes. As long as people want to watch projected fantasies on a screen, Fellini will remain relevant.
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oeuvre:
1963: 8 1/2 (5C)
1960: La Dolce Vita (5B)
1953: I Vitelloni (5C)
1953: Fellini Satyricon (4C)
1954:: La Strada (4C)
1967: Fellini's Casanova (4C)
1965: Giulietta degli spiriti (4C)
1973: Amarcord (3C)
1957: Nights of Cabiria (3C)
1972: Fellini's Roma (3C)
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Related directors:
Jean-Luc Godard, Luis Buñuel, Ettore Scola, Paolo Sorrentino, Emir Kusturica, Michelangelo Antonioni, Igmar Bergman, Milos Forman and Charlie Chaplin.
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David Fincher
America
Fincher specializes in crime thrillers and plot twists. He is regarded as one of the most accessible filmmakers who constantly drags his viewers into suspense and does not allow them to daydream for a second.
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oeuvre:
2007: Zodiac (4A)
1999: Fight Club (4A)
1997: The Game (4A)
2010: The Social Network (4B)
2013: Gone Girl (3A)
1994: Se7en (3A)
2011: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (3A)
2002: Panic Room (3A)
Related directors:
Denis Villeneuve, Andrew Dominik, Chan-Wook Park, Christopher Nolan, Michael Mann, Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, Roman Polanski, William Friedkin, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Jean-Pierre Melville.
Milos Forman
Czech Republic
Miloš Forman once started with short intimate films about innocent loves in preserved Czech villages, where young people want to break free from the conventions of previous generations. It was already apparent in his older work that Forman has a refined sense of depicting fun and entertainment, which manifests itself in an unspoiled urge for freedom. anchor characters in the story in a colorful way. Thus, Forman is characterized as the author of compelling tragedies saturated with the sentiment of a lived freedom; perfectly coming together in his great masterpiece, the book adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
oeuvre:
1976: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (5B)
1984: Amadeus (4C)
1965: Lásky jedné plavovlásky (4C)
1996: The People vs. Larry Flynt (4A)
1967: Hori, má panenko (4C)
1964: Cerny Petr (3C)
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Related directors:
Billy Wilder, Emir Kusturica, Hal Asby, Robert Altman,Alexandre Payne,Coen Brothersand Peter Weir.
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Michael Hanke
Austria
Michael Haneke deliberately zooms in on the curiosities of modern life. He sheds light on our reality, which is distorted by media and technology. He points to the distance between people that arises when reality is only perceived on a projected image. This creates a distance that alienates us from the perversity in geopolitics, violence, sex and neutralizes man into a sterile and cold being._cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b-538d
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Complete oeuvre:
2005: Cache (5C)
2001: La Pianiste (5C)
1997: Funny Games (4A)
2012: Love (4C)
1992: Benny's Video (4B)
1989: The Seventh Continent (4C)
1994: 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls (4C)
2017: Happy End (3C)
2009: Das Weiße Band (3C)
2000: Code Inconnu (3C)
2003: Le Temps du loup (3C)
1997: Das Schloß (3C)
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Related directors:
Terrence Mallick, Robert Bresson,Roy Anderson, Andrey Tarchovsky,Andrey Zvjagintsev,Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Jacques Tati.
Spike Jones
America
In his collaborations with Charlie Kaufmann, Spike Jonze came up with the most original film ideas. His work has different themes that crisscross each other in comic surreal worlds.
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Complete oeuvre:
1999: Being John Malkovic (5B)
2013: Her (4A)
2009: Where the Wild Things Are (4A)
2002: Adaptation (4B)
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Related directors:
Charlie Kaufmann, Michel Gondry, Ridley Scott, Peter Weir,Yorgos Lanthimos,David Cronenberg,Sophia Coppola, Lars von Trier.
Krzysztof Kieslowski
Poland
Happiness is the key word in Krysztof Kieslowski's oeuvre. Happiness in the sense of being happy, but also in the sense of the chance that things turn out the way they do. In Kieslowski's view, the course of life depends on the smallest coincidences, which can express itself in the difference between love and death.
The characters in his films are always split into the different lives they could have lived. Sometimes these hypothetical timelines coincide by chance, sometimes by explicit moral choices. His characters are often also tormented by an inner struggle between idealism and conformity. Despite the gritty Polish setting, he always presents his films in a dreamy design that tends to surrealism with the elan of an epic sensibility.
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oeuvre:
1994 : Trois Color : Blanc (4C)
1988: Krótki film o milosci (4C)
2013: La Double Vie de Veronique (4C)
1994 : Trois Color : Rouge (4C)
1988: Krótki film o zabijaniu (4C)
1994 : Trois Color : Blue (4C)
1979: Amateur (3C)
1987: Przypadek (3C)
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Related directors:
Milo Forman, Lars von Trier, Fons Rademakers, Roman Polanski,Andrey Zvjagintsev en Paul Thomas Anderson.
Stanley Kubrick
United Kingdom
Stanley Kubrick is often hailed as the best director ever. In the course of his career he made some 13 films that are characterized by the variety in both style and theme. His oeuvre includes both comedy and horror, science fiction and historical dramas. It is not unimportant that Kubrick has been leading and revolutionary in every genre. Kubrick used mighty classical music almost exclusively and is best known for his grand tone, which is ideally suited to the moral dilemmas underlying his films. Kubrick seems primarily interested in the human condition; what defines being human? Kubrick's analysis of this question points to the importance of the freedom to make moral choices. That freedom to make a moral judgment gives man his dignity. A Kantian conclusion that seems to guide the philosophical work of Kubrick.
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Complete oeuvre:​
1968: 2001: A Space Odyssey (5C)
1977: A Clockwork Orange (5C)
1980: The Shining (5A)
1957: Paths of Glory (5C)
1975: Barry Lyndon (4C)
1964: dr. Strangelove (4B)
1999: Eyes Wide Shut (4B)
1956: The Killing (4B)
1987: Full Metal Jacket (4B)
1962: Lolita (4C)
1960: Spartacus (3C)
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Related directors:
Terrence Malick, Orson Welles, Francis Ford Coppola, David Lean, Billy Wilder, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog, Alfred Hitchcock, Ridley Scott, Terry Gilliam, andPaul Thomas Anderson.
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Yorgos Lanthimos
Greece
Yorgos Lanthimous creates his own surreal parallel cinematic universes, in which slightly different rules and conventions apply. The people in his films are apathetic and cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_maneuver themselves convulsively between the abstract statutes of their worlds. Worlds that with all their exhibited strangeness, deeply reflect on the curious conventions of our society.
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Complete oeuvre:
2009: Dogtooth (4B)
2017: The Killing of a Secret Deer (4A)
2018: The Favorite (4B)
2015: The Lobster (4B)
2011: Alps (3C)
2005: Kinetta (3C)
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Related directors:
Lars Von Trier,Spike Jones,Roy Anderson,David Lynchand Luis Bunuel.
Steve McQueen
United Kingdom
In a painfully confrontational manner, Steve McQueen shows his audience the blankness of violent oppression. Emancipatory subjects often take center stage in his films, whether they be about Irish separatists, slavery or the sexually frustrated. This still young director likes to work with long zoomed-out shots that make the viewer reflect with horror on the injustice shown.
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Complete oeuvre:
2013: 12 Years a Slave (4A)
2011: Shame (4B)
2009: Hunger (3C)
2018: Widows (3A)
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Related directors:
Jacques Audiard, Spike Lee,Michael Hanke, Asghar Farhadi,Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Claire Denis en Ryan Coogler.
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Gaspar Noe
France
No one is as controversial and shocking as Gaspar Noé. His films are vulgar and confrontational, but at the best of their abilities, particularly effective. Drugs, sex, violence, no taboo remains with this crazy director. It provides a film experience that leaves a deep impression for days after viewing.
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oeuvre:
2002: Irreversible (4C)
2015: Love (3C)
2009: Enter the Void (3C)
2019: Climax (3B)
1998: Seul contre tous (2C)
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Related directors:
Lars von Trier, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Takashi Miike, Darren Aronofsky, Park Chan-Wook, Roman Polanski, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Quentin Tarantino
America
Tarantino is perhaps the best known temporaire movie director among the general film audience due to his accessible action-packed style. His films are distinctively colored by a whole heap of bloodshed charmingly interspersed with comical dialogue. However, both in dialogue and in style, the director is always more a director of form than of content. The violence in his film serves no purpose and his themes have little ideological substance. Tarantino may not have much to say, but his films are not boring for a second. His cartoonish style has nurtured a generation of entertaining filmmakers.
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oeuvre:
1994: Pulp Fiction (4A)
1992: Reservoir Dogs (4A)
2009: Inglorious Bastards (4A)
2012: Django Unchained (4A)
2015: The Hateful Eight (3A)
2011: Kill Bill (2A)
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Related directors:
Park Chan-Wook, Sergio Leone, Brian De Palma, Sam Peckinpah, Paul Verhoeven, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Oliver Stone en_cc781905-5cde-3194- bb3b-136bad5cf58d_Bryan Singer.
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Alex van Warmerdam
The Netherlands
Alex van Warmerdam's stories drag on dryly without his characters being able to influence them in any way. but that's why it's so nice to get lost in.
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Complete oeuvre:
1992: The Northerners (4B)
2006: Waiter (4A)
1996: The Dress (4B)
1985: Abel (4C)
2006: The Last Days of Emma Blank (4B)
2015: Schneider vs. Bax (3B)
2012: Borgman (3C)
2003: Grimm (3C)
2021: No. 10 (3C)
1998: Little Teun (3B)
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Related directors:
David Lynch, Luis Buñel, Jean-Pierre Melville, Yorgos Lanthimous, Roy Andersson, Aki Kaurimaki, Jim Jarmusch, Paul Verhoeven, Spike Jonze, Ruben Öslund.
Wong Kar Wai
Hong Kong
Wong Kar-Wai takes us into his agonizing melancholy, spewing in the densely populated neon-lit Asian metropolises. Loneliness, unrequited desires and the transience of time and the trail of emotion it leaves behind are the protagonists in the films of Wong Kar-Wai, the contemporary romantic.
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oeuvre:
2000: In the Mood for Love (5B)
1994: Chunking Express (5C)
1997: Happy Together (4B)
1995: Fallen Angels (4B)
1990: Days of Being Wild (3C)
2004: 2046 (3C)
1988: As Tears Go By (3C)
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Related directors:
Martin Scorsese, Todd Haynes, Sofia Coppola, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Igmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard en Krysztof Kieslowski.
Andrew Zvyagintsev
Russia
It always rains in Zvyagintsev's films. This director makes slow, gray films about the empty loveless existence in a Russia where everyone thinks only of themselves and seems to be going nowhere. by always opening and closing in the ever-continuous ruthless Russian landscape. Based on his films, Zvyagintsev does not come across as a cheerful man, but his eye for beauty and tragedy is indisputable.
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Complete oeuvre:
2017: Loveless (4C)
2014: Levethian (4C)
2003: The Return (4C)
2011: Elena (4C)
2007: The Banishment (3C)
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Related directors:
Nuri Bigle Ceylan, Theo Angelopoulos, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Ruben Östlund, Andrey Tarkovsky en Micheal Haneke.
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