Items27The creator’s order
  1. 1Vittorio De SicaVittorio De SicaBorn 7 Jul 1901Vittorio De Sica was a matinee idol of 1930s Italian comedies before he turned to directing in the early 1940s. Shoeshine (1946), Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Umberto D. (1952) made him a central figure of neorealism, and he kept taking acting work for the rest of his life partly to fund the films he…0i
  2. 2Laurence OlivierLaurence OlivierBorn 22 May 1907Laurence Olivier was already Britain's leading stage actor when he directed and starred in Henry V (1944), a wartime Shakespeare in bold Technicolor. Hamlet (1948) won the Oscar for Best Picture and Richard III (1955) completed a trilogy that set the template for Shakespeare on film.0i
  3. 3Ida LupinoIda LupinoBorn 4 Feb 1918Ida Lupino, a Warner Bros. leading lady of the 1940s, took over Not Wanted (1949) when its director fell ill and then set up an independent company, The Filmakers, to make low-budget films on difficult subjects. The Hitch-Hiker (1953) is often cited as the first American film noir directed by a…0i
  4. 4John CassavetesJohn CassavetesBorn 9 Dec 1929John Cassavetes made Shadows (1959) with his acting students on borrowed money, and spent the next two decades using fees from studio roles such as The Dirty Dozen and Rosemary's Baby to fund his own films. Faces (1968) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974) made him a founding figure of American…0i
  5. 5Richard AttenboroughRichard AttenboroughBorn 29 Aug 1923Richard Attenborough spent more than twenty years as a screen actor, from Brighton Rock (1947) to The Great Escape (1963), before directing Oh! What a Lovely War (1969). He worked for two decades to get Gandhi made, and its Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director in 1983 crowned a directing…0i
  6. 6Elaine MayElaine MayBorn 21 Apr 1932Elaine May came to fame in the comedy double act Nichols and May, then wrote, directed and starred in A New Leaf (1971) and directed The Heartbreak Kid (1972) and Mikey and Nicky (1976). The costly failure of Ishtar (1987) stalled her directing career, but her films have since been reassessed as…0i
  7. 7Clint EastwoodClint EastwoodBorn 31 May 1930Clint Eastwood moved from television westerns and Sergio Leone's films to directing with Play Misty for Me (1971), and has directed around forty features since. Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004) won him Best Director Oscars, and his lean, unfussy style has stayed recognisable into…0i
  8. 8Sidney PoitierSidney PoitierBorn 20 Feb 1927Sidney Poitier, the first Black man to win the Oscar for Best Actor, began directing with the western Buck and the Preacher (1972) after its original director left. His comedies with Bill Cosby, including Uptown Saturday Night, and Stir Crazy (1980) with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder made him one…0i
  9. 9Ron HowardRon HowardBorn 1 Mar 1954Ron Howard grew up on screen as Opie in The Andy Griffith Show and Richie in Happy Days, and made his directing debut with the low-budget Grand Theft Auto (1977) for Roger Corman. Splash, Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind, which won him the Best Director Oscar, made him one of Hollywood's most…0i
  10. 10Warren BeattyWarren BeattyBorn 30 Mar 1937Warren Beatty used the leverage of producing and starring in Bonnie and Clyde to move behind the camera, co-directing Heaven Can Wait (1978) with Buck Henry. Reds (1981), his long-planned epic about the journalist John Reed, won him the Oscar for Best Director, and Dick Tracy (1990) and Bulworth…0i