Definitive Lists (greatest directors, actors etc.)

Greatest Directors of All-Time
1. Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove)
2. Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho, Vertigo)
3. Jean Luc-Goddard (Breathless, Contempt)
4. Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil)
5. Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Rashomon)
6. Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, Taxi Driver)
7. Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal)
8. Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, The Godfather Part II)
9. Robert Bresson (Au Hasard Balthazar, A Man Escaped)
10. Charlie Chaplin (City Lights, Modern Times)
11. Federico Fellini (La Dolce Vita, 8 ½)
12. Firtz Lang (M, Metropolis)
13. John Ford (The Searchers, The Grapes of Wrath)
14. Carl Dreyer (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Ordet)
15. Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs)
16. Steven Spielberg (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan)
17. Roman Polanski (Chinatown, The Pianist)
18. Joel Coen (No Country for Old Men, Fargo)
19. Jean Renoir (The Rules of the Game, Grand Illusion)
20. Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot)
21. Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story, An Autumn Afternoon)
22. Francois Truffaut (The 400 Blows, Jules and Jim)
23. Woody Allen (Annie Hall, Manhattan)
24. Sergio Leone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars)
25. John Huston (The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon)
26. Howard Hawks (His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep)
27. Michaelangelo Antonini (L'Avventura, Blow-up)
28. F.W. Murnau (Sunrise, Nosferatu)
29. Robert Altman (M*A*S*H, Nashville)
30. David Lynch (Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man)
31. Luis Bunuel (The Discreet Charm of the Burgeouise, Viridiana)
32. Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs)
33. Michael Powell (Peeping Tom, The Red Shoes)
34. Nicholas Ray (In a Lonely Place, Johnny Guitar)
35. Spike Lee (Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X)
37. David Cronenberg (The Fly, A History of Violence)
38. Milos Forman (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus)
39. Oliver Stone (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July)
40. Terry Gilliam (Brazil, Monty Python and the Holy Grail)
41. Elia Kazan (On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire)
42. Terrence Mallick (Badlands, The Thin Red Line)
43. Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon)
44. Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation)
45. Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish)
46. Krzysztof Kiezlowski (Decalogue, A Short Film About Love)
47. Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain)
48. Preston Sturges (Sullivan's Travels, The Lady Eve)
49. Otto Preminger (Laura, Anatomy of a Murder)
50. Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will be Blood, Boogie Nights)

Greatest Actors of All-Time
1. Robert De Niro (Raging Bull, Taxi Driver)
2. Marlon Brando (On the Waterfront, The Godfather)
3. Laurence Olivier (Hamlet, Wuthering Heights)
4. Charlie Chaplin (City Lights, Modern Times)
5. Daniel Day-Lewis (My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood)
6. James Stewart (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Vertigo)
7. Cary Grant (Bringing up Baby, North by Northwest)
8. Peter Sellers (Dr. Strangelove, The Pink Panther)
9. Jack Nicholson (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Chinatown)
10. Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca, The African Queen)
11. Dustin Hoffman (Midnight Cowboy, Kramer vs. Kramer)
12. Sean Penn (Dead Man Walking, Mystic River)
13. Gregory Peck (To Kill a Mockingbird, Gentleman’s Agreement)
14. Henry Fonda (The Grapes of Wrath, Once Upon a Time in the West)
15. Alec Guinness (Bridge over the River Kwai, The Prisoner)
16. Groucho Marx (Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera)
17. Al Pacino (The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon)
18. Buster Keaton (The General, Steamboat Bill Jr.)
19. Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo)
20. Peter Lorre (M, Der Verlorene)
21. Gary Cooper (High Noon, Sergeant York)
22. Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands, Pirates of the Caribbean)
23. Paul Newman (The Verdict, Cool Hand Luke)
24. Anothony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs, The Remains of the Day)
25. Denzel Washington (Malcolm X, The Hurricane)
26. Robert Mitchum (The Night of the Hunter, Cape Fear)
27. Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator, The Departed)
28. Morgan Freeman (The Shawshank Redemption, Driving Miss Daisy)
29. Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, The Third Man)
30. Tom Hanks (Philadelphia, Forrest Gump)
31. Robert Duvall (Tender Mercies, The Godfather)
32. William Holden (Stalag 17, The Wild Bunch)
33. Gene Hackman (The French Connection, The Conversation)
34. Burt Lancaster (The Leopard, The Sweet Smell of Success)
35. Kirk Douglas (Ace in the Hole, Spartacus)
36. Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, The Ruling Class)
37. Spencer Tracy (Adams Rib, Boys Town)
38. George C. Scott (Patton, Dr. Strangelove)
39. Takashi Shimura (Ikiru, Seven Samurai)
40. Michael Caine (Sleuth, The Cider House Rules)
41. Russell Crowe (The Insider, A Beautiful Mind)
42. James Cagney (Yankee Doodle Dandy, The Public Enemy)
43. Kevin Spacey (American Beauty, The Usual Suspects)
44. Frederic March (The Best Years of Our Lives, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
45. Harvey Keitel (Bad Leiutenant, Mean Streets)
46. Ralph Fiennes (Shindler’s List, The English Patient)
47. Max Von Sydow (Pelle the Conqueror, The Seventh Seal)
48. Jack Lemmon (Save the Tiger, The Apartment)
49. Marcello Mastroianni (La Dolce Vita, 8 ½)
50. Geoffrey Rush (Shine, Quills)

Greatest Directorial Efforts of All-Time
To my knowledge, there is no other such list in existence. The following are ranked on ingenuity, visuals, technical expertise, originality and vision, among innumerable other qualities.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Stanley Kubrick (1968)
2. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II – Francis Ford Coppola (1972/1974)
4. Citizen Kane – Orson Welles (1941)
5. The Passion of Joan of Arc – Carl Dreyer (1928)
6. Seven Samurai – Akira Kurosawa (1954)
7. Persona – Ingmar Bergman (1966)
8. Tokyo Story – Yasujiro Ozu (1953)
9. Intolerance – D.W. Griffith
10. Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock (1958)
11. 8 ½ - Federico Fellini (1963)
12. L’Avventura - Michaelangelo Antonioni (1960)
13. Breathless – Jean-Luc Godard (1960)
14. Rashomon – Akira Kurosawa (1950)
15. City Lights – Charlie Chaplin (1931)
16. Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock (1960)
17. The Searchers – John Ford (1956)
18. Raging Bull – Martin Scorsese (1980)
19. Schindler’s List - Steven Spielberg (1993)
20. Au Hasard Balthazar – Robert Bresson (1966)
21. Dr. Strangelove – Stanley Kubrick (1964)
22. The Battle of Aligers - Gillo Pontecorvo (1966)
23. The Seventh Seal – Ingmar Bergman (1957)
24. Sunrise – F.W. Murnau (1927)
25. Pulp Fiction – Quentin Tarantino (1994)
26. M – Fritz Lang (1931)
27. A Clockwork Orange – Stanley Kubrick (1971)
28. The Bicycle Thief – Vittorio De Sica (1949)
29. Un Chien Andalou – Luis Bunuel (1929)
30. Wild Strawberries – Ingmar Bergman (1959)
31. Chinatown – Roman Polanski (1974)
32. The 400 Blows – Francois Truffaut (1959)
33. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - Robert Wiene (1921)
34. Rear Window – Alfred Hitchcock (1954)
35. Taxi Driver – Martin Scorsese (1976)
36. La Strada - Federico Fellini (1954)
37. The Rules of the Game – Jean Renoir (1939)
38. The Third Man - Carol Reed (1949)
39. Apocalypse Now – Francis Ford Coppola (1979)
40. The Wild Bunch – Sam Peckinpah (1969)
41. The Third Man – Carol Reed (1949)
42. Blue Velvet – David Lynch (1986)
43. Diabolique – Henri Georges-Clouzot
44. The General – Buster Keaton (1927)
45. Night of the Hunter - Charles Laughton (1955)
46. Metropolis – Fritz Lang (1927)
47. Saving Private Ryan – Steven Spielberg (1998)
48. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Sergio Leone
49. Ikiru – Akira Kurosawa (1952)
50. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Julian Schnabel (2007)

Greatest Performances: 1920-48
The birth of commercial filmmaking - Hollywood's golden age.

1. Maria Falconneti – The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
The stage actress’s only accessible screen role was lauded by critic Pauline Kael as “The finest performance ever recorded on film.” Falconnetti conveys Joan’s torment and ridicule through devastating physical expressions, the magnitude of which has never been approached in film acting.
2. Peter Lorre - M (1931)
As a pudgy, wide-eyed sexual deviant, Lorre offers a performance of shattering realism, which results in a climactic scene of Shakespearean prowess.
3. Charlie Chaplin – City Lights (1931)
The little tramp is at his comedic best in his masterpiece, which he also directed. Each scene is a different great adventure, as Chaplin deftly fuses heart-braking drama with a raucous comedy, all communicated speechlessly. I concur with the great film critic James Agee in that City Lights’ final scene might be the most finely acted scene in the history of the medium.
4. Laurence Olivier – Hamlet (1948)
Based on the quality and texture of a performance, Olivier’s defining role in his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet would surely be #1, though it is stage-like in nature, and I would much rather place performances tailored for motion pictures ahead of it.
5. Groucho Marx – Duck Soup (1933)
There has never been a more finely executed comedic turn, from the singling, to the priceless dialogue to the absolute insanity that defines each mannerism.
6. Orson Welles – Citizen Kane (1941)
Much more is made of his prodigal direction, though the film itself could not have been as compelling without a sterling performance from Welles, who acts generations above his years (he was 25 at the time) and adds even great depth and complexity the role of one of the most iconic characters in all American culture.
7. Barbara Stanwyck – Double Indemnity (1944)
Stanwyck defines femme fetale in her performance in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity. It is perhaps the iciest, most provocative performance by an American actress.
8. Buster Keaton – The General (1926)
The other master of silent comedies great masterpiece has been compared to Chaplin’s finest work on numerous occasions, due completely in part to Keaton’s masterly direction and acting. The General is his best work in both respects, a gut-busting social satire that demonstrates his unequaled physical talents and timing.
9. Charlie Chaplin – Modern Times (1936)
Like The General, Modern Times is a daring social satire that required exceptional physical talents. What was even more daring about the film is the fact that it was made nearly a decade after silent films had been displaced by talkies, yet Chaplin still shamed the competition with his most consistently laughter-inducing performance.
10. Humphrey Bogart – The Maltese Falcon (1942)
Rick Blaine might have had the lines, but Sam Spade has the juice. This is Bogey at his most commanding, featuring a near monotone delivery and exuding an air of cool that has been often imitated with remote success.

11. Ingrid Bergman – Gaslight (1944)
12. Cary Grant – His Girl Friday (1940)
13. Henry Fonda – The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
14. Humphrey Bogart – Casablanca (1942)
15. James Stewart – Mr. Smith goes to Washington (1939)
16. Gary Cooper – The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
17. Paul Muni – Scarface (1932)
18. Katharine Hepburn – The Philadelphia Story (1940)
19. Joseph Cotton – Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
20. Charlie Chaplin – The Great Dictator (1940)
21. Ingrid Bergman – Casablanca (1943)
22. Buster Keaton – Sherlock Jr. (1924)
23. Gregory Peck – Gentlemen’s Agreement (1947)
24. Groucho Marx – A Night at the Opera (1935)
25. Clark Gable – Gone with the Wind (1939)
26. Janet Gaynor – Sunrise (1927)
27. Max Schreck – Nosferatu (1922)
28. James Cagney – The Public Enemy (1931)
29. Humphrey Bogart – The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
30. Charlie Chaplin – The Gold Rush (1925)
31. Fay Wray – King Kong (1933)
32. Errol Flynn – The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
33. Clark Gable – It Happened one Night (1934)
34. Robert Donat – The 39 Steps
35. Humphrey Bogart – The Big Sleep (1946)
36. Cary Grant – Notorious (1946)
37. Boris Karloff – Frankenstein (1931)
38. Laurence Olivier – Rebecca (1940)
39. Viven Leigh – Gone with the Wind (1939)
40. Edward G. Robinson – Little Caeser (1930)
41. Frederic March – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
42. James Cagney – Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
43. Werner Krauss – The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
44. Lon Chaney – The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
45. Cary Grant – Bringing up Baby (1938)
46. Fred MacMurray – Double Indemnity (1944)
47. James Stewart – The Philadelphia Story (1940)
48. Tyrone Power – The Mark of Zorro (1940)
49. Al Jolson – The Jazz Singer (1927)
50. Bela Lugosi – Dracula (1931)

Greatest Performances: 1949-74
The grit and the glory, or: The peak of Hollywood majesty – The second Godfather

1. Peter Sellers – Dr. Strangelove (1964)
This is the performance that I could ramble on about for ages. In three roles, Sellers is so intoxicatingly exuberant that, after the first of two scenes that features his eternally memorable Dr. Strangelove, we come to believe that it is possible to be inspired, if only in the slightest, by the ingenuity of a movie actor.
2. Marlon Brando – On the Waterfront (1954)
Hailed near universally as one of the premier performances in history, Brando not only defined, but transcended film acting as the conflicted protagonist of this timeless masterpiece.
3. Gloria Swanson – Sunset Boulevard (1950)
The most over-the-top, excessively hammy single performance in the lore of film, and it is also the most consistently enrapturing and captivating.
4. Marlon Brando – The Godfather (1972)
Cinema’s greatest, most enduring character was birthed in Brando’s proud Mafia don, constantly tight rope walking the line between good and evil.
5. Gregory Peck – To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
There has never been a more noble, dignified performance.
6. Gary Cooper – High Noon (1952)
Just what makes a man? That question is posed, and immediately answered in Cooper’s crowning performance as sheriff Will Kane.
7. Malcolm McDowell – A Clockwork Orange (1971)
The young McDowell took on possibly the most challenging performance ever at the time, as a hyper-violent ‘droog’ in futuristic London, and the energy that he poured into the character of Alex DeLarge would drain him for good; he never delivered a noteworthy performance after this. His performance is great miracle, though, haunting, infectiously nihilistic and absolutely riveting.
8. Bette Davis – All About Eve (1950)
No actress has perhaps enjoyed manipulating a role as much as the great Bette Davis did with her turn as Margot Channing in All About Eve, spewing poisonous dialogue with an air of cool confidence that seemingly every actress to this day has failed to develop.
9. Dustin Hoffman – Midnight Cowboy (1969)
As the tragic, deadbeat loner Ratso Rizzo, Hoffman, fresh off one of the most calculated performances as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, aced one of the most daring, hideous, and psychologically complex characters we have ever known.
10. Al Pacino – The Godfather Part II
The Prince of Darkness achieved that title with his second go-around as Michael Corleone, the greatest of all anti-heroes, in a performance that, while frightening and intense, is one of only very few examples of Pacino's powerful restraint.

11. Alec Guiness – Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
12. Humphrey Bogart – The African Queen (1951)
13. Marlon Brando – Last Tango in Paris (1971)
14. Robert Mitchum – The Night of the Hunter (1955)
15. Katharine Hepburn – The African Queen (1951)
16. Giulietta Masina – La Strada (1954)
17. Jack Nicholson – Chinatown (1974)
18. Robert De Niro – The Godfather Part II (1974)
19. Takashi Shimura – Ikiru (1952)
20. Marlon Brando – A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
21. Deborah Kerr – Black Narcissus (1947)
22. James Stewart – Rear Window (1954)
23. Liv Ullmann– Persona (1966)
24. Elizabeth Taylor – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff? (1966)
25. Kim Novak – Vertigo (1958)
26. Cary Grant – North by Northwest (1959)
27. Robert De Niro – Mean Streets (1973)
28. William Holden – The Wild Bunch (1969)
29. Robert Mitchum – Cape Fear (1962)
30. Humphrey Bogart - In a Lonely Place (1949)
31. Toshiro Mifune – Yojimbo (1961)
32. Anthony Perkins – Psycho (1960)
33. Henry Fonda – 12 Angry Men (1957)
34. Jane Fonda – Klute (1971)
35. Marcello Mastroianni – 8 ½ (1963)
36. Jean Servais – Rififi (1954)
37. Sean Connery – Dr. No (1962)
38. Marylin Monroe – Some Like it Hot (1959)
39. Burt Lancaster – The Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
40. Kirk Douglas – Paths of Glory (1957)
41. Faye Dunaway – Chinatown (1974)
42. William Holden – Sunset Boulevard (1950)
43. Marcello Masttroianni – La Dolce Vita (1960)
44. Dustin Hoffman – The Graduate (1967)
45. Donald O’Connor – Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
46. Faye Dunaway – Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
47. Toshiro Mifune – Throne of Blood (1957)
48. Janet Leigh – Psycho (1960)
49. Catherine Denevue – Repulsion (1965)
50. Orson Welles – The Third Man (1949)

Greatest performances: 1975-94
The birth of the blockbuster - The indie revolution

1. Robert De Niro – Raging Bull (1980)
If there is a great, more towering and overwhelming performance in all of film, I have not seen the movie. The facet that propels De Niro’s turn as Jake La Motta above Streep’s perf as Sophie Zawatakowski is his versatility in adding dashes of comedy, or at least adding levity to some scenes, in what still stands as the most devastating powerhouse performance by a male actor.
2. Meryl Streep – Sophie’s Choice (1982)
Streep’s embodiment of the inexpressible pain of life during and after the Holocaust is nothing short of astounding, in her career-defining performance of earth-shattering emotional force.
3. Robert De Niro – Taxi Driver (1976)
The young legend, fresh off an Oscar for The Godfather Part II, stepped into the shoes of perhaps the most iconic character of the ‘70’s and demonstrated, in a no-holds-barred performance of electric bravado, the power that an actor can achieve over his audience when he nakedly invites them into his world.
4. Anthony Hopkins – Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Though a screen vet for over a decade, Sir Anthony seemingly burst onto the world’s stage with his performance as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, in which, though he occupied the screen for a less than 20 minutes, and crafted the image of the greatest villain the cinema has ever known.
5. Daniel Day-Lewis – My Left Foot (1989)
There has never been a role more physically challenging, and Day-Lewis’ emotional gravitas added the necessary weight to comprise this supreme screen performance.
6. Jack Nicholson – One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
The role of Randle Patrick McMurphy was the first that allowed Jack to, well, ‘go nuts,’ but what separates it from the completely maniacal performances of the likes of Al Pacino is his awareness of his limitations, sense of humor and embrace of life that has led this masterpiece to inspire audiences for over 30 years.
7. F. Murray Abraham – Amadeus (1984)
Truly a one movie wonder, Abraham’s villainous Salieri stole the show from Tom Hulce’s pacifistic Mozart, infusing his music with an air of demonic passion and his actions with a that feeling of repression that is spellbinding and most disturbing.
8. Johnny Depp – Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Depp’s turn as the incomplete creation of a demented inventor is a modern work of visual art, the teen heartthrob accepting the eclectic nature of Tim Burton’s vision and mastering the semi-mute role of a decent monster as societal miscast. His communication through simple movements speaks volumes about his raw acting ability.
9. Kathy Bates – Misery (1990)
Here, in another one role wonder, Bates is so understated her smallest aberrations from cool psychosis are greeted will shrill screams from the audiences. Calculated and haunting, she is a female Lecter, a brooding menace disguised in a layered, Oscar-winning performance.
10. Steve Martin – The Jerk (1979)
Because Groucho Marx plays practically the same character in every movie, and Peter Sellers is well, the great master of comedic acting, this must be recognized as the most original, consistently entertaining comic performance that exists in movies. Few times, and I am not just discussing comedies here, has an actor been so immersed in a performance, and from the moment he notes, “I was born a poor black child,” we know we are in for a truly special performance.
11. Al Pacino – Dog Day Afternoon
12. Gene Wilder – Young Frankenstein (1974)
13. Ralph Fiennes – Schindler’s List (1993)
14. Diane Keaton – Annie Hall (1977)
15. Tom Hanks – Philadelphia (1993)
16. Holly Hunter – The Piano (1993)
17. George C. Scott – Patton (1970)
18. John Belushi – Animal House (1979)
19. Jodie Foster – Silence of the Lambs (1991)
20. Kevin Kline – Sophie’s Choice (1982)
21. Jodie Foster – The Accused (1988)
22. Dustin Hoffman – Rain Man (1988)
23. Bill Murray – Groundhog Day (1993)
24. Dennis Hopper – Blue Velvet (1986)
25. Jeremy Irons – Reversal of Fortune (1990)
26. Christopher Walken – The Deer Hunter (1978)
27. Michael Douglas – Wall Street (1987)
28. Liam Neeson – Schindler’s List (1993)
29. Peter Sellers – Being There (1979)
30. Robert Downey Jr. – Chaplin (1992)
31. John Turturro – Barton Fink (1991)
32. Julliette Binoche – Blue (1993)
33. Glenn Close – Fatal Attraction (1987)
34. Johnny Depp – Ed Wood (1994)
35. Samuel L. Jackson – Pulp Fiction (1994)
36. Tom Hanks – Forrest Gump (1994)
37. Joe Pesci – Goodfellas (1990)
38. Tom Hanks – Big (1988)
39. Kevin Kline – A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
40. Marlee Matlin – Children of a Lesser God
41. Morgan Freeman – The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
42. Martin Landau – Ed Wood (1994)
43. Morgan Freeman – Street Smart (1987)
44. Al Pacino – Scent of a Woman (1992)
45. William Hurt – Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)
46. Kathleen Turner – Body Heat (1981)
47. Woody Allen – Take the Money and Run (1971)
48. Sissy Spacek – Carrie (1976)
49. Ben Kinglsey – Gandhi (1982)
50. Jodie Foster – Taxi Driver (1976)