A reader sent me a link to a New Yorker list of the “twelve greatest living narrative filmmakers” (it’s here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2013/07/who-are-the-twelve-greatest-living-narrative-filmmakers.html?mobify=0) and suggested I come up with my own .
I suspect my list is changeable and that I’m forgetting someone and I’m not sure how to define greatest but, having said all of that, here are the 12 (Why 12? Who knows?) whose names are most likely to make me anticipate great things. Oh, and the list is a little light on big names such as Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson. As many movies as they have made that I’m a fan of (“Boogie Nights” is on my all-tiem top ten), they have also made too many that I don’t love, so I guess consistency was a big factor in this alphabetical list:
1. Andrea Arnold
2. Bong Joon-ho
3. Joel and Ethan Coen
4. Brian De Palma
5. Jean-Luc Godard
6. Michael Haneke
7. Richard Linklater
8. Christopher Nolan
9. Pen-ek Ratanaruang
10. Martin Scorsese
11. Lars von Trier
12. Michael Winterbottom