Last week, I stirred some folks up with my Top Ten Most Overrated Directors of All Time. To recap, they were: Ridley Scott, Michael Mann, David Lean, Darren Aronofsky, Mike Nichols, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Alfred Hitchcock. And by “stirred some folks up,” I mean faced down a virtual lynch mob. Who knew that Aronofsky supporters were fans of the film Fury?

A few quick items in response to that piece. First, it was not about “bad directors” (although some were plain bad, including Aronofsky), but about overrated directors. Alfred Hitchcock is nowhere near the worst director ever (I was probably too harsh to label him “slightly better than mediocre”), but it is a travesty to label him the greatest director of all time, as so many have. The same holds true for David Lean (I appreciate Great Expectations, Brief Encounter, and swaths of Bridge Over the River Kwai, I just think he doesn’t deserve to make the top 20 list). Second, I neglected three directors who clearly should have made the list: Roman Polanski (somebody stop the Chinatown cult!), Spike Lee (how can he make race relations this dull?), and Tim Burton (damn you for ruining Sweeney Todd). Third, two corrections:

(1) Rebecca and Suspicion are the same film, not Notorious and Rebecca; (2) the Orlando Bloom reference was to Black Hawk Down, not G.I. Jane, and I apologize for the obvious mix-up.

Now, to the real question: the top-ten greatest directors of all time. This is truly a rough decision – there are at least two score great directors who could make this list. Here is my one basic criteria: directors who provide me the most viewing pleasure over the course of their career. That means telling a great story in the best possible way. Subjective? Sure. Deal with it. I’ll admit that this list skews toward older directors, not because older movies are generally better than newer movies (though I think they are), but because directors in the period 1920-1960 generally made more movies, which means more opportunities for directors to shine.

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