The decades' best directors

Then don't play.
By decade is part of the challenge.

While I like Scorsese and wouldn't list him as the best of any decade. But I might list him as the best overall.
My criteria was based on films that impacted me, i.e. I'll watch over and over.
GF I and II are THE two movies I will watch anytime they are one. Anytime.
Scorsese made some great movies, but I am not that high on The Departed (overacting by Nicholson and the worst job ever by Alec Baldwin) and The Aviator (meh).

Hughes made some great films, if you like the 1980s, but I think they are period pieces, not much different from Porky's.

As someone said, Eastwood's last few movies have been beautiful stories that were well-crafted. I have a new-found awe of this man.


I'm not a big blockbuster guy ... Special effects don't wow me cause 5, 10 years from now Avatar will look like shit compared to the next generation of effects. A Sci-Fi movie has to be really, really groundbreaking for me to consider it a great movie .. Star Wars, Bladerunner, Alien, Total Recall.. the same with horror.

 

50s: Hitchcock
60s: A toss up between Godard/Truffaut/Kubrick/Leone/Polanski
70s: Coppola
80s: Spielberg
90s: Tarantino or the Coen Brothers
00s: It's hard to say, you could almost give it to Tarantino and the Coens again. I'm not as big of a fan of Eastwood as some of the people here.

 

He hasn't done quite enough yet, of course, but I'll make a guess that Jason Reitman will be the director of the 2010s. For the past decade, Eastwood.

 

If I may quibble:

There was nothing really groundbreaking about the special effects of Alien. The creature was a guy in a suit and they had to keep him in the dark most of the time to keep that from view. Other than that, it was smoke, steam, dripping water and strobe lights. It was, however, a great, great film.

In fact, I'd argue that Star Wars is the only one on that list that qualifies as really, really groundbreaking, special effects-wise. After Star Wars, we didn't really see any groundbreaking special effects untilthe six-year stretch of "The Abyss" (1989), "Terminator 2" (which built off the technology from The Abyss in 1991) and "Jurassic Park" (1993).

 

Sorry, I was rolling.

 

It might be easier to turn this question around, which directors had great movies in different decades? Here's some directors who made excellent-to-great films in four or more decades ...

Polanski: 60s (Rosemary's Baby), 70s (Chinatown), 80s (Frantic), 90s (Death And The Maiden, a very underrated movie), 00s (The Pianist, he won the Academy Award). I am as surprised as anyone to see him atop the list.

Hitchcock: 30s (The 39 Steps is an awesome movie for its time), 40s, 50s, 60s.
Kubrick: 50s (Paths Of Glory, a criminally underrated war movie), 60s, 70s, 80s. I like Eyes Wide Shut, but I don't think it counts as a great film.
Spielberg: 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s.
Wilder: 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s
Scorsese: 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s.
Ford: 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s.
Lean: 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s.
Eastwood: 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s.
Huston: 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s.
Lumet: 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s.
Zinneman: 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s
Bergman: 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s.
Ridley Scott (not his no-talent brother): 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s.

Bubbling under
Mike Nichols. Has made some classic movies and could arguably make the list, but he's also made some immense dreck like What Planet Are You From?

William Wyler. Most nominated director in Academy Award history (12), but most of the nominations came in a three-decade period. Nominated for The Collector in the 60s, but I've never heard that movie mentioned as a classic.

Just missed
Don Siegel
Howard Hawks
Coens (will likely make it in the 10s)
Leone (never got that fourth decade, but he had great movies in the 60s, 70s and 80s)
Cukor ...

... several more. I'm sure there's a director or two I left out of the four-decade list too.

 

19 replies on this thread, and this is the first one involving someone named Ron Howard.

 

However, the only SW movie that would count as a 70s was A New Hope. Empire Strikes Back was in 1980 and Return of the Jedi in 1983.

Agreed. From this decade: Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon, Cinderella Man, A Beautiful Mind. Two Oscars (one for producing ABM) and four nods overall. Not bad.

 

With a little bit of a stretch for Butch that came out in Oct., 1969, George Roy Hill gave us the following in the 1970s...

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Sting
Slap Shot

 

Howard has had amazing success, but I'm trying to think of any of his films that I would consider "a great film"

He's made a lot of very good movies that have had amazing success. Apollo 13 was overrated. The Da Vinci movies were overrated.

Cinderella Man, Night Shift and Parenthood are probably his best movies.

 

I probably have to agree with this list.

Cameron will be considered among the best of all-time because as Cowbell mentioned, he's had a 3-4 "game changers"

Eastwood has had an amazing run. Hell, my two favorite films of 2008 (Gran Torino and Changeling) were both his.

David Fincher would have to be considered in the last two decades as well.

 

The Phantom Menace was a technological pathbreaker, but nobody in his right mind would call it a great or even passably good film.