Best Hollywood Directors – Our Top Picks

Directors are an essential part of any film, and we are going to give you our top pick from the Hollywood elite. We are going to discuss who the most famous Hollywood directors are, and who are the new Hollywood directors who we need to look out for. In our list, this will include anyone from Christopher Nolan to Stanley Kubrick. You might be wanting to know how much do Hollywood directors make on each film? Well it depends on the calibre of the director, but I’m sure everybody on our list were or are making top dollar that’s all I can say. There are so many genres of film that we may not be able to include all the greats, but we will try our best. 

Hollywood 

With all its glitz and glam, Hollywood is a melting pot of talent and so it is hard to pin down the top Hollywood directors, but I have done my best. There are so many – live and dead – who have made such an impact on all those film buffs out there. Can you imagine a world where E.T. doesn’t exist or Inception for instance?? Pulp fiction will remain in the Hollywood classics and thank goodness for Tarentino. Who are the best Hollywood directors today and what can we learn from them?

Hollywood has become one of the largest film businesses in the world and people are drawn to it. On an enormous scale, talent wants to film there. The backdrops, the studios, the amount of creative people all in one spot, it is the place to be if you want to be a director, actor etc. The glamor and allure it had back in the 50s is still cultivated today, even if it is a bit updated. ‘The Golden Age of Hollywood’ was a time between 1927 and 1939, which started with the use of sound in films and this cemented Los Angeles as a famous emblem of the cinematic world, and has been known as that ever since. Actors, directors and other film professionals thrived in this space and the same can be said today. Which is why the men and women below have made it onto the Hollywood directors list. They all share the same passion for filmmaking and have made films that are maybe if we dare call them classics? Maybe you might disagree, as I suppose we all have different tastes, but here we go. 

Steven Spielberg 

• Schindler’s list, E.T, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic park, Indiana Jones, Jaws and Catch me if you Can, Bridge of Spies, Lincoln 

Martin Scorcese 

• Goodfellas, Taxi driver, Raging Bull, Gangs of New York and Departed, Hugo, West Side Story, Silence, The Irishman, Wolf of Wallstreet 

Kathryn Bigelow 

• Hurtlocker, Zero dark Thirty, Detroit, Point Break 

Sofia Coppola 

• Lost In Translation, Marie Antoinette, The Godfather Part 3, The Virgin Suicides, The Beguiled

Greta Gerwig

• Little Women, Lady Bird, Barbie, Nights and Weekends 

Autumn Wilde

• Emma 

Yorgos Lanthimos

• The Favorite, The Lobster, Dogtooth, The Killing of a Sacred Deer

The Coen Brothers

• Inside Lllewyn Davies, The Tragedy of Macbeth, True Grit, No Country For Old Men, Fargo, the Big Lebowski 

Danny Boyle

• Trainspotting, Steve Jobs, Yesterday, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 hours, Battle of the Sexes 

Ridley Scott

• House of Gucci, Gladiator, The Last Duel, Robin Hood, All The Money In The Word, Alien

Peter Jackson

• The Hobbit, Lord of The Rings, King Kong, The Lovely Bones

Guillermo del Toro

• Nightmare Alley, The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth  

Quentin Tarentino 

• Pulp Fiction, The Hateful Eight, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs

Christopher Nolan

• Inception, Dunkirk, The Dark Knight, Tenet, Oppenheimer, Interstellar, The Prestige

Sam Mendes

• 1917, Revolutionary Road, American Beauty, Spectre, Skyfall, Road to Perdition, Kite Runner, Starter For 10 

Stanley Kubrick

• A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining,  Eyes Wide Shut, Loilita 

Chloé Zhao

• Nomadland, Eternals, The Rider 

Wes Anderson

• The Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch, Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Royal Tenenbaums,  The Darjeeling Limited

Alfonso Cuarón

• Roma, Children of Men, Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Gravity 

M. Night Shyamalan 

• Split, Glass, The Village, The Sixth Sense, Signs 

Highest Grossing Director Worldwide

If I told you that Steven Spielberg was the highest grossing director worldwide, would you believe me? As of May this year, he is worth $287,124,045, and his total worldwide box office earnings amount to $10,623,589,651. His highest grossing film was Jurassic Park which made $1.034 billion at the box office. So, it is pretty clear that he is one of the top Hollywood directors and deserves every accolade given to him. 

Final Thoughts

So there you have it, are these the best classic Hollywood directors? How do the new compare to the old? Are you more of a fan of the Christopher Nolan films or are you drawn to those of Stanley Kubrick? We all have our favorites, but one thing we can all agree on surely is that all the people mentioned above have a supreme talent for storytelling. They know how to invite an audience in, and keep them there, long after the final credits actually. I hope you have enjoyed this article and you can read many more on our blog page.

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