PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: directing (movie and theater)
English-born American director
Alfred Hitchcock English-born American motion-picture director whose suspenseful films and television programs won immense popularity and critical acclaim over a long and tremendously productive career....
American film director and producer
Steven Spielberg American motion-picture director and producer whose diverse films—which ranged from science-fiction fare, including such classics as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T.:...
American actor and director
Woody Allen is an American motion-picture director, screenwriter, actor, comedian, playwright, and author who is best known for his bittersweet comic films containing elements of parody, slapstick, and...
American actor, director, and writer
Orson Welles American motion-picture actor, director, producer, and writer. His innovative narrative techniques and use of photography, dramatic lighting, and music to further the dramatic line and to...
American director
Vincente Minnelli American motion-picture director who infused a new sophistication and vitality into filmed musicals in the 1940s and ’50s. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)...
American director, writer, and actor
John Huston American motion-picture director, writer, and actor whose taut dramas were among the most popular Hollywood films from the early 1940s to the mid-1980s. Many of his films were literary adaptations...
American film director
Frank Capra was an American motion-picture director who was the most prominent filmmaker of the 1930s, during which he won three Academy Awards as best director. His most-beloved films, many of which were...
American director
Martin Scorsese is an American filmmaker known for his harsh, often violent depictions of American culture. From the 1970s Scorsese created a body of work that was ambitious, bold, and brilliant. But even...
Hungarian-American director, actor, and writer
Michael Curtiz was a Hungarian-born American motion-picture director whose prolific output as a contract director for Warner Brothers was composed of many solid but run-of-the-mill genre films along with...
American director
William Wyler German-born American director of motion pictures that combined a high degree of technical polish with a clear narrative style and sensitive handling of human relationships. Most of his feature...
American director and producer
Billy Wilder Austrian-born American motion-picture scenarist, director, and producer known for films that humorously treat subjects of controversy and offer biting indictments of hypocrisy in American...
American director
Howard Hawks was an American motion-picture director who maintained a consistent personal style within the framework of traditional film genres in work that ranged from the 1920s to the ’70s. Although...
British actor, director, writer, and composer
Charlie Chaplin was a British comedian, producer, writer, director, and composer who is widely regarded as the greatest comic artist of the screen and one of the most important figures in motion-picture...
American director
Raoul Walsh American motion-picture director popular in the 1930s and 1940s for his tough, masculine films. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.) As a young man, Walsh worked...
American director
Stanley Kubrick American motion-picture director and writer whose films are characterized by his dramatic visual style, meticulous attention to detail, and a detached, often ironic or pessimistic perspective....
American director and screenwriter
Francis Ford Coppola is an American motion-picture director, writer, and producer whose films range from sweeping epics to small-scale character studies. As the director of films such as The Godfather...
American actor and director
Clint Eastwood is an American motion-picture actor who emerged as one of the most popular Hollywood stars in the 1960s and went on to become a prolific and respected director-producer. (Read Marin Scorsese’s...
American director and producer
Mervyn LeRoy American motion-picture director whose wide variety of films included dramas, romances, epics, comedies, and musicals. He also produced films, including the classic The Wizard of Oz (1939)....
German director
Fritz Lang Austrian-born American motion-picture director whose films, dealing with fate and people’s inevitable working out of their destinies, are considered masterpieces of visual composition and expressionistic...
American filmmaker
Otto Preminger Austrian-born American director who defied Hollywood’s Production Code with a series of controversial films—notably The Moon Is Blue (1953), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and Anatomy...
American director
George Stevens American director known for films that exhibited intelligence, great humanism, and brilliant camera techniques. His classic movies include the screwball comedy Woman of the Year (1942),...
American director
Robert Altman was an unconventional and independent American motion-picture director, whose works emphasize character and atmosphere over plot in exploring themes of innocence, corruption, and survival....
American film director
King Vidor American motion-picture director whose films of the 1920s and ’30s in both content and theme were among the most creative of those produced in Hollywood; they deal in relatively uncompromising...
American film director
George Cukor was an American motion-picture director who produced films of high quality for 50 years, combining his skill in working with actors, especially actresses, and his careful attention to details....
American director and author
Elia Kazan Turkish-born American film director and author noted for his successes on the stage—especially with plays by Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller—as well as for his critically acclaimed films...
American director
Sidney Lumet American film director who was noted for his psychological dramas, which typically featured characters wrestling with moral or emotional conflicts involving betrayal, corruption, or disillusionment....
Spanish director
Luis Buñuel was a Spanish filmmaker who was a leading figure in Surrealism, the tenets of which suffused both his life and his work. An unregenerate atheist and communist sympathizer who was preoccupied...
American director and producer
Robert Wise American movie director and producer whose many works include successful films of nearly every genre, though he is best remembered for the two musicals for which he won Academy Awards as best...
Swedish film director
Ingmar Bergman Swedish film writer and director who achieved world fame with such films as Det sjunde inseglet (1957; The Seventh Seal); Smultronstället (1957; Wild Strawberries); the trilogy Såsom i en...
American director
Ernst Lubitsch German-born American motion-picture director who was best known for sophisticated comedies of manners and romantic comedies. Lubitsch was an anomaly as an active director who also served...
American director
Mike Nichols American motion-picture, television, and stage director whose productions focus on the absurdities and horrors of modern life as revealed in personal relationships. (Read Martin Scorsese’s...
American actor and philanthropist
Paul Newman American actor and director whose striking good looks, intelligence, and charisma became hallmarks in a film career that spanned more than 50 years, during which time he became known for his...
American director
Fred Zinnemann Austrian-born American motion-picture director whose films are distinguished by realism of atmosphere and characterization and often grounded in crises of conscience. He was nominated seven...
American director
D.W. Griffith was a pioneer American motion-picture director credited with developing many of the basic techniques of filmmaking, in such films as The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), Broken...
Italian filmmaker
Federico Fellini was an Italian film director who was one of the most celebrated and singular filmmakers of the period after World War II. Influenced early in his career by the Neorealist movement, he...
American director
William Wellman American film director whose more than 80 movies included Hollywood classics of documentary-like realism and who was ranked as an action director alongside Howard Hawks and John Ford. (Read...
American director
Sam Wood American filmmaker who was one of Hollywood’s leading directors in the 1930 and ’40s, during which time he made such classics as A Night at the Opera (1935), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), and The...
American director
Don Siegel was an American motion-picture director who specialized in action-packed films with tightly constructed narratives. He frequently worked with actor Clint Eastwood, and their collaborations include...
Austrian-American director
Josef von Sternberg Austrian-born American motion-picture director whose films are characterized by pictorial richness and photographic craftsmanship. He is especially known for his seven films with actress...
American director
Lloyd Bacon American director who made some 100 films and was known for his efficiency and businesslike approach; his popular movies included 42nd Street (1933) and It Happens Every Spring (1949). (Read...
American film director and producer
Frank Borzage American motion-picture director and producer noted for his romantic transcendentalism and technically impeccable filmmaking. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)...
German-born film director
William Dieterle German-born filmmaker who directed a diverse range of movies but was perhaps best known for a series of acclaimed biopics, one of which won the Warner Brothers studio its first-ever Academy...
American film director
Arthur Penn American motion-picture, television, and theatre director whose films were noted for their critical examination of the darker undercurrents of American society. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica...
Japanese film director
Kurosawa Akira first Japanese film director to win international acclaim, with such films as Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957), Kagemusha (1980), and Ran (1985)....
American author and director
Nicholas Ray American motion-picture writer and director whose reputation as one of the most expressive and distinctive filmmakers of the late 1940s and the ’50s is grounded on a clutch of stylish heartfelt...
American filmmaker
Joseph L. Mankiewicz American producer, director, and screenwriter known for his witty, literary, urbane dialogue and memorable characters. He worked with many of Hollywood’s major stars and earned the...
American film director, producer, and screenwriter
Blake Edwards American film director, producer, and screenwriter who was best known for the classic romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffiany’s (1961) as well as the comedy The Pink Panther (1963) and its...
American film director
Cecil B. DeMille was an American motion-picture producer-director whose use of spectacle attracted vast audiences and made him a dominant figure in Hollywood for almost five decades. Long before he made...
American director
John Ford was an iconic American film director, best known today for his westerns, though none of the films that won him the Academy Award for best direction—The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940),...
American director
Busby Berkeley American motion-picture director and choreographer who was noted for the elaborate dancing-girl extravaganzas that he created on film. Using innovative camera techniques, he revolutionized...