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Top Directors of the 2012 Sight & Sound Poll

Rank Director # of Votes % of Votes Top Film
1 Alfred Hitchcock 390 3.24% Vertigo (1958)
2 Jean-Luc Godard 311.5 2.58% Breathless (1960)
3 Orson Welles 299 2.48% Citizen Kane (1941)
4 Ozu Yasujirô 253 2.10% Tokyo Story (1953)
5 Stanley Kubrick 252 2.09% 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
6 Andrei Tarkovsky 234 1.94% Mirror (1974)
7 Francis Ford Coppola 227 1.88% Apocalypse Now (1979)
8 Federico Fellini 226 1.87% 8½ (1963)
9 Ingmar Bergman 225 1.87% Persona (1966)
10 Jean Renoir 223 1.85% Règle du jeu, La (1939)
11 Robert Bresson 214 1.78% Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
12 Carl Theodor Dreyer 213 1.77% Passion of Joan of Arc (1927)
13 Akira Kurosawa 198 1.64% Seven Samurai (1954)
14 John Ford 195 1.62% Searchers, The 91956)
15 Luis Buñuel 177 1.47% Viridiana (1961)
16 Martin Scorsese 172 1.43% Taxi Driver (1976)
17 F. W. Murnau 163 1.35% Sunrise (1927)
18 Michelangelo Antonioni 158 1.31% Avventura, L' (1960)
19 Charles Chaplin 149 1.24% City Lights (1931)
20 David Lynch 121 1.00% Mulholland Dr (2003)
21 Billy Wilder 116 0.96% Some Like It Hot (1959)
22 Roberto Rossellini 114 0.95% Journey to Italy (1954)
23 Fritz Lang 113 0.94% Metropolis (1927)
24 Mizoguchi Kenji 108 0.90% Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)
25 Sergei M Eisenstein 103 0.85% Battleship Potemkin (1925)
26 Howard Hawks 96 0.80% Rio Bravo (1958)
27 John Cassavetes 95 0.79% Woman Under the Influence, A (1974)
28 François Truffaut 92 0.76% 400 Blows, The (1959)
29 Abbas Kiarostami 89 0.74% Close-Up (1989)
= Wong Kar Wai 89 0.74% In The Mood For Love (2000)
31 Jean Vigo 87 0.72% Atalante, L' (1934)
32 Buster Keaton 84.5 0.70% General, The (1926)
33 Dziga Vertov 84 0.70% Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
34 Vittorio de Sica 81 0.67% Bicycle Thieves, The (1948)
35 Chris Marker 75 0.62% Jetée, La (1962)
36 Luchino Visconti 73 0.61% Leopard, The (1963)
= Satyajit Ray 73 0.61% Pather Panchali (1955)
= Terrence Malick 73 0.61% Tree of Life, The (2010)
39 Alain Resnais 69 0.57% Last Year At Marienbad (1961)
40 Béla Tarr 68 0.56% Sátántangó (1994)
41 Woody Allen 67 0.56% Annie Hall (1977)
42 Sergio Leone 66 0.55% Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
43 Rainer Werner Fassbinder 65.18 0.54% Fear Eats the Soul (1974)
44 Pier Paolo Pasolini 61 0.51% Gospel According to St Matthew, The (1964)
45 Ernst Lubitsch 59 0.49% Trouble in Paradise (1932)
46 David Lean 55 0.46% Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
47 Lars von Trier 54.5 0.45% Breaking the Waves (1996)
48 Max Ophüls 54 0.45% Madame de… (1953)
= Werner Herzog 54 0.45% Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972)
50 Jacques Tati 53 0.44% Playtime (1967)
= Krzysztof Kieslowski 53 0.44% Three Colours: Blue (1993)
= Roman Polanski 53 0.44% Chinatown (1974)
53 Michael Powell 52.5 0.44% Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The (1943)
54 Chantal Akerman 50 0.41% Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
= Claude Lanzmann 50 0.41% Shoah (1985)
56 Emeric Pressburger 48.5 0.40% Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The (1943)
57 Apichatpong Weerasethakul 48 0.40% Tropical Malady (2004)
= Edward Yang 48 0.40% Brighter Summer Day, A (1991)
59 Hsiao-hsien Hou 47 0.39% City of Sadness, A (1989)
= Michael Haneke 47 0.39% Hidden (2004)
61 Gillo Pontecorvo 46 0.38% Battle of Algiers, The (1966)
= Robert Altman 46 0.38% Nashville (1975)
63 D.W. Griffith 44 0.37% Intolerance (1916)
= Steven Spielberg 44 0.37% E.T. (1982)
65 Ridley Scott 43 0.36% Blade Runner (1982)
66 Nicolas Roeg 42.5 0.35% Don't Look Now (1973)
67 Claire Denis 41 0.34% Beau Travail (1998)
68 Charles Laughton 39 0.32% Night of the Hunter, The (1955)
69 Nicholas Ray 38 0.32% In a Lonely Place (1950)
70 Jean Eustache 37.5 0.31% Maman et la putain, La (1973)
71 Douglas Sirk 36 0.30% Imitation of Life (1959)
= Víctor Erice 36 0.30% Spirit of the Beehive, The (1973)
= Vincente Minnelli 36 0.30% Meet Me In St. Louis (1944)
= Wim Wenders 36 0.30% Wings of Desire (1987)
75 Jacques Rivette 35 0.29% Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
= Jean-Pierre Melville 35 0.29% Samouraï, Le (1967)
= Marcel Carné 35 0.29% enfants du paradis, Les (1945)
78 Bernardo Bertolucci 34 0.28% Conformist, The (1970)
= Sam Peckinpah 34 0.28% Wild Bunch, The (1969)
80 Carol Reed 32 0.27% Third Man, The (1949)
81 Erich von Stroheim 31 0.26% Greed (1925)
= Preston Sturges 31 0.26% Lady Eve, The (1941)
83 Leo McCarey 30 0.25% Duck Soup (1933)
= Miyazaki Hayao 30 0.25% My Neighbour Totoro (1988)
= Paul Thomas Anderson 30 0.25% There Will Be Blood (2007)
= Quentin Tarantino 30 0.25% Pulp Fiction (1994)
= Sergei Parajanov 30 0.25% Colour of Pomegranates, The (1968)
= Stanley Donen 30 0.25% Singin' in the Rain (1951)
= Theodoros Angelopoulos 30 0.25% Travelling Players, The (1975)
90 Jacques Demy 29 0.24% Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The (1964)
91 Gene Kelly 28.5 0.24% Singin' in the Rain (1951)
92 Aleksandr Sokurov 28 0.23% Russian Ark (2002)
93 Djibril Diop Mambéty 27 0.22% Touki Bouki (1973)
= Eric Rohmer 27 0.22% My Night with Maud (1969)
= Michael Snow 27 0.22% Wavelength (1967)
96 Elem Klimov 26 0.22% Come And See (1985)
= John Huston 26 0.22% Treasure of Sierra Madre, The (1947)
98 Michael Curtiz 25 0.21% Casablanca (1942)
99 Naruse Mikio 24 0.20% Floating Clouds (1955)
= Ousmane Sembene 24 0.20% (tie) Black Girl (1965) and Xala (1974)
101 David Cronenberg 23 0.19% Videodrome (1983)
= Milos Forman 23 0.19% One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
= Victor Fleming 23 0.19% Wizard of Oz, The (1939)
104 Ken Loach 22 0.18% Kes (1969)
= Maurice Pialat 22 0.18% A nos Amours (1983)
= Stan Brakhage 22 0.18% Mothlight (1963)
107 Andy Warhol 21.5 0.18% Empire (1964)
108 Abel Gance 21 0.17% Napoleon (1927)
= Glauber Rocha 21 0.17% Black God, White Devil (1964)
= Jacques Tourneur 21 0.17% Out of the Past (1947)
111 Mikhail Kalatozov 20 0.17% I am Cuba (1964)
= Pedro Almodóvar 20 0.17% All About My Mother (1999)
113 Agnès Varda 19 0.16% Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)
= Spike Lee 19 0.16% Do The Right Thing (1989)
115 Danièle Huillet 18.5 0.15% Sicilia! (1998)
= Jean-Marie Straub 18.5 0.15% Sicilia! (1998)
117 Ethan Coen 18 0.15% Big Lebowski, The (1998)
= Jane Campion 18 0.15% Piano, The (1992)
= Joel Coen 18 0.15% Big Lebowski, The (1998)
= Ritwik Ghatak 18 0.15% Cloud-Capped Star, The (1960)
121 Frank Capra 17 0.14% It's a Wonderful Life (1947)
= Josef von Sternberg 17 0.14% (tie) Saga of Anatahan, The (1953), Scarlet Empress, The (1934), and Shanghai Express (1932)
= Tomás Gutiérrez Alea 17 0.14% Memories of Underdevelopment (1968)
= Tsai Ming-Liang 17 0.14% Viva l'Amour (1994)
= Zhang Yimou 17 0.14% Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
126 Fei Mu 16 0.13% Spring in a Small Town (1948)
= Jim Jarmusch 16 0.13% Stranger than Paradise (1982)
= Michael Cimino 16 0.13% Deer Hunter, The (1977)
= Pedro Costa 16 0.13% Colossal Youth (2006)
130 Alexander Mackendrick 15 0.12% Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
= Clint Eastwood 15 0.12% Unforgiven (1992)
= Mike Leigh 15 0.12% Naked (1993)
= Terence Davies 15 0.12% Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
134 Aleksandr Dovzhenko 14 0.12% Earth (1930)
= Elia Kazan 14 0.12% On The Waterfront (1954)
= Joseph L. Mankiewicz 14 0.12% All About Eve (1950)
= Louis Malle 14 0.12% Au Revoir les enfants (1987)
= Manoel de Oliveira 14 0.12% (tie) Abraham's Valley (1993) and Amor de Perdição (1978)
= Peter Weir 14 0.12% Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975)
= Robert J. Flaherty 14 0.12% Nanook of the North (1922)
= Sidney Lumet 14 0.12% Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
= William Wyler 14 0.12% Best Years of Our Lives, The (1946)
143 Brian De Palma 13 0.11% Scarface (1983)
= Frantisek Vlácil 13 0.11% Marketa Lazarová (1967)
= Frederick Wiseman 13 0.11% Titicut Follies (1967)
= George Lucas 13 0.11% Star Wars (1977)
= Georges Méliès 13 0.11% Trip to the Moon, A (1902)
= Imamura Shohei 13 0.11% (tie) Ballad of Narayama, The (1983), Insect Woman, The (1963), and Vengeance is Mine (1979)
= Jean Cocteau 13 0.11% (tie) Belle et la Bete, La (1946) and Orphée (1950)
= Jia Zhang Ke 13 0.11% Platform (2000)
= King Vidor 13 0.11% Crowd, The (1928)
= Peter Kubelka 13 0.11% (tie) Arnulf Rainer (1960) and Unsere Afrikareise (1961)
= Robert Hamer 13 0.11% Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
154 Andrzej Wajda 12 0.10% Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
= Cristi Puiu 12 0.10% Death of Mr Lazarescu, The (2005)
= Errol Morris 12 0.10% Thin Blue Line, The (1989)
= Lucrecia Martel 12 0.10% (tie) Ciénaga, La (2001) and Headless Woman, The (2008)
= Nuri Bilge Ceylan 12 0.10% Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)
= Raúl Ruiz 12 0.10% Mysteries of Lisbon (2010)
This page was last modified on August 12, 2013