FitFortDanga wrote:The one that stands out is Spielberg.
I thought he'd be the one. He's definitely the one whose ranking is most unfairly improved by this system. The other for me is Godard.
My list is below for those with over 10 ratings I put their whole average at the end. Some like Hitchcock, Woody Allen and Godard had huge jumps, others not so much.
Akira Kurosawa , 92.6 , 18 , 87.17
Expected, a fantastic filmmaker
Alfred Hitchcock , 91.8 , 30 , 81.4
Made some mediocre movies but a lot of great ones, definitely like the improvement.
Sam Peckinpah , 90.63 , 8 ,
Always surprised to realize how much I like his films, but I've loved them all
Ingmar Bergman , 90.4 , 17 , 85.76
Like Kurosawa, expected.
Billy Wilder , 90 , 13 , 88.31
Seems a tad high but I do love his films
Krzysztof Kieslowski , 89.83 , 6 ,
Need to see more, but I love his style
Oliver Stone , 89.8 , 5 ,
No way. This makes me want to see more just to make this go down. A few great films does not a great director make.
Stanley Kramer , 89 , 5 ,
Like Stone, 4 great films and a decent one. I doubt his others will live up to this score.
Terrence Malick , 88.8 , 5 ,
Great director, but this is higher than others I like more.
Fritz Lang , 88.7 , 23 , 83.91
Lang is a great example of someone with a ton of certified masterpieces but also a large amount of merely ok films. Those ok films stand out just as much as the good ones in my judgement of him.
Stanley Kubrick , 88.7 , 14 , 82.29
Not a favourite but a great director and I can't deny I love his films
Eric Rohmer , 88.6 , 24 , 83.88
Hurt by the fact that while I love nearly all his films I don't give him scores that quite reflect how much I like him.
Woody Allen , 88.5 , 3 , 80.23
Films all over the place, someone bound to be helped by cutting off the bad ones. Unlike Lang, though, I have a more positive view of his films as a whole.
Chan-wook Park , 88.2 , 5 ,
Need to see more to decide just how warranted this is
Martin Scorsese , 88.2 , 21 , 81.24
Not wild about the guy, but at his best he's excellent.
Christopher Nolan , 88 , 7 ,
Has yet to disappoint me.
Paul Thomas Anderson , 88 , 5 ,
A favourite.
Spike Jonze , 87.6 , 5 ,
I didn't even realize I'd seen 5 Jonze films. Unwarranted
David Fincher , 87.5 , 8 ,
Seems about right.
Luis Buñuel , 87.3 , 19 , 83
When he's on he's great, and from what I've seen even his lesser work is pretty good.
Satyajit Ray , 87.29 , 7 ,
Need to see more, but feels warranted.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder , 87.17 , 6 ,
Doesn't stand out as a favourite to me, but that could change if I see more.
Marcel Carné , 87 , 7 ,
I think I've seen his best, but until I see the bad ones I have no problem with this.
Jean-Pierre Melville , 87 , 7 ,
Yup, great director.
Masaki Kobayashi , 86.83 , 6 ,
Need to see more to decide how I feel.
Milos Forman , 86.6 , 5 ,
Stone v2. Average raised highly by One flew
Joseph L. Mankiewicz , 86.6 , 5 ,
Like Kramer, I think this is due to seeing his renowned films and nothing else.
Buster Keaton , 86.6 , 31 , 77.74
Keaton's fine. This seems a tad high, but the full average is way too low.
Robert Bresson , 86.5 , 13 , 82.77
Here's where this method works perfectly. I'm willing to forgive his couple of missteps for the great ones.
Jean Renoir , 86.4 , 16 , 81.88
Lacks that great score to pull the average up, but consistently wonderful.
Kar Wai Wong , 86.38 , 8 ,
Films I enjoy more in the moment than retrospectively, but I do love them when I watch them.
Werner Herzog , 86.22 , 9 ,
Need to see more, but seems about right.
William Wyler , 86.1 , 18 , 83.28
Grown fonder of him lately. He's earned his place.
Yasujiro Ozu , 86 , 10 ,
Yes
Steven Spielberg , 86 , 23 , 76.35
No.
Luchino Visconti , 86 , 8 ,
Seems about right from what I've seen.
John Cassavetes , 86 , 6 ,
Another one I need to see more from, but the distincitveness of his films makes this feel accurate.
Joel & Ethan Coen , 86 , 16 , 82.38
About right
Kenji Mizoguchi , 85.71 , 7 ,
Like Ray this feels provisionally right, but I need to see more.
Alain Resnais , 85.7 , 10 ,
Only four of these 10 really stand out, but feels right.
Charles Chaplin , 85.6 , 16 , 79.75
Same as Keaton
Preston Sturges , 85.57 , 7 ,
One of my favourites, seems relatively low.
Douglas Sirk , 85.33 , 6 ,
Need to see more but feels right
Jean-Luc Godard , 85.2 , 18 , 75.11
Ha Ha Ha. Half masterpieces, half crap. Not sure which average is more reflective of my feelings, but I'll lean towards the lower one.
Gus Van Sant , 85.13 , 8 ,
What the hell is this doing here? Even after glancing at his films and their ratings this seems way too high.
François Truffaut , 85 , 9 ,
Yup, I like Truffaut, though like Lang he's got some clunkers and I haven't seen enough here to flush them out.
Hayao Miyazaki , 85 , 9 ,
I like the guy but this feels rather high.
Elia Kazan , 84.9 , 12 , 83.75
Like Wyler, I've come around to him lately. Doesn't feel as much like fluke anymore.
Orson Welles , 84.8 , 11 , 83.45
About right. Not as crazy about Orson as others but he made some beautiful films.
King Vidor , 84.75 , 8 ,
Doesn't feel accurate, though I like some of his films.
Nicholas Ray , 84.71 , 7 ,
Need to see more to be sure. Could rise, could fall.
Otto Preminger , 84.33 , 6 ,
On his way down. He did make a few masterpieces though.
Howard Hawks , 84.2 , 16 , 79.75
MAde a ton of films, the good ones dominate the ratings, but not so much my impressions of him.
Louis Malle , 84.17 , 6 ,
Not sure. I like what I've seen, but lacks a distinctive enough style to be a fair predictor of what I haven't seen.
Michael Powell , 84 , 13 , 81.08
Feels quite low, and I'm not sure why. Especially after cutting off a couple of low ones.
I'm not sure how I feel about this as a reflection of my tastes. On the one hand it does dramatically improve the lot of my favourites who are held back by mediocre shorts or the occasional bomb. On the other hand it does nothing to fix the fact that Oliver Stone, while he's made 4 great films and another pretty good one, is in no way one of my favourite directors and were I to watch any of his remaining 16 films that average would plummet. I think selective viewing habits are a big reason why trying to make lists like this aren't fully reflective of tastes. Also, writing up those little comments I realize that five films does not feel like enough to judge a director for me.
It seems to me that, as unqualified lists, these are more useful in making me realize I should watch more films by some of these directors than a valid quantification of my tastes in directors. In some films I find the directorial influence, like say Rohmer or in a totally different way Hitchcock, so essential to my liking them that they do a lot more to raise my esteem of those directors than all the Wyler films I've watched combined, do.