







Occupation
FILM DIRECTORS
With 2,041 biographies, Film Directors are the 10th most common occupation in Pantheon, behind Religious Figures, Musicians, and Military Personnels.
People
Pantheon has 2,041 people classified as film directors born between 1854 and 2000. Of these 2,041, 1,094 (53.60%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living film directors include Simon Wells, Tigran Keosayan, and Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The most famous deceased film directors include Roger Corman, Jeannot Szwarc, and Charles Shyer.
Living Film Directors
Go to all RankingsSteven Spielberg
1946 - Present
HPI: 87.65
Martin Scorsese
1942 - Present
HPI: 85.42
Hayao Miyazaki
1941 - Present
HPI: 83.44
Roman Polanski
1933 - Present
HPI: 79.81
Woody Allen
1935 - Present
HPI: 79.34
Pedro Almodóvar
1949 - Present
HPI: 78.76
Ridley Scott
1937 - Present
HPI: 78.61
Francis Ford Coppola
1939 - Present
HPI: 77.90
George Lucas
1944 - Present
HPI: 77.35
Wim Wenders
1945 - Present
HPI: 76.64
Michael Mann
1943 - Present
HPI: 75.77
Quentin Tarantino
1963 - Present
HPI: 75.35
Deceased Film Directors
Go to all RankingsAkira Kurosawa
1910 - 1998
HPI: 82.76
David Lynch
1946 - 2025
HPI: 82.53
Federico Fellini
1920 - 1993
HPI: 82.49
Ingmar Bergman
1918 - 2007
HPI: 82.46
Alfred Hitchcock
1899 - 1980
HPI: 82.16
Stanley Kubrick
1928 - 1999
HPI: 81.71
Sergei Eisenstein
1898 - 1948
HPI: 80.15
D. W. Griffith
1875 - 1948
HPI: 79.78
Pier Paolo Pasolini
1922 - 1975
HPI: 79.68
Leni Riefenstahl
1902 - 2003
HPI: 78.74
Bernardo Bertolucci
1941 - 2018
HPI: 78.50
Luchino Visconti
1906 - 1976
HPI: 78.42
Places
Most film directors were born in United States (633), France (179), and United Kingdom (156). By city, the most common birth places were New York City (91), Paris (66), and Los Angeles (39).
Places Over Time
The earliest biographies classified as film directors in Pantheon are Georges Méliès, William Kennedy Dickson, and Birt Acres. The concentration of film directors was largest during the Radio & Film Era, which lasted from 1900 to 1949. Some birth or death locations for earlier film directors are unknown, which may account for timeline differences below.
Lifespans
Which Film Directors were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 25 most globally memorable Film Directors since 1700.