Favorite Film Director?

[Lepidopterous]

Who is your All-Time (active/retired/deceased) favorite film director, your favorite Active film director, and your favorite female director?

Could all be the same person for some. The reason I included female is because I noticed that 19 of my top 20 directors were men, so for such a male-saturated field, I am interested in seeing differing perspectives on female directors you've connected with.

All-Time: Ingmar Bergman
Active: Darren Aronofsky & Michael Haneke
Female: Andrea Arnold

What is interesting to me is how I tend to find that many of my favorite films each year turn out to be heavily influenced by Bergman (perhaps much of film is, but still). And I found that Aronofsky's work and philosophy is influenced by Haneke.

It's been over 10 years since the last favorite director thread so I figured I'd start a fresh thread and change the OP a bit. You can include a top 10 for each as well, but since those lists can go on forever, I'm mainly asking for the above two.

Active (I'll watch anything these directors make):

[Show spoiler]1. Darren Aronofsky, Michael Haneke
3. Andrey Zvyagintsev
4. Yorgos Lanthimos
5. Asghar Farhadi
6. Alejandro Inarritu
7. Guillermo del Toro
8. Alfonso Cuaron
9. Quentin Tarantino
10. Damien Chazelle
11. Lars von Trier
12. Jacques Audiard
13. Pedro Almodovar
14. Denis Villanueva
15. Steve McQueen
16. Terrence Malick
17. Coen Bros.
18. Paul Thomas Anderson
19. Andrea Arnold
20. Ari Aster

Inactive/Deceased:
1. Bergman
2. Miyazaki
3. Bunuel
4. Kurosawa
5. Resnais
6. Chaplin
7. Kubrick
8. Godard
9. Kar-Wai Wong
10. Satoshi Kon

[The Debts]

I don't know many female directors, so I'm afraid I must abstain from that category sadly.

As for my favorite, he's also somebody who's still quite active: Good ol' Ridley Scott.

[Levon]

Sam Peckinpah.

[MassiveMovieBuff]

All Time/Active: Martin Scorsese
Female: 80s-90s Kathryn Bigelow

[Kill Bren]

All-Time: John Carpenter
Active: Denis Villeneuve
Female: Kathryn Bigelow

[jtu128]

Fincher

[imsounoriginal]

All-time: I really don't know -- Hitchcock, Kubrick, Scorsese, Coen Bros., Fincher, Tarantino, Soderbergh, Eastwood, Spielberg, Cameron, Jackson... one of those.
Active: Fincher
Female: Kathryn Bigelow (I admit, I need to broaden my scope of knowledge here, not that Bigelow is a bad choice by any means; I just realize that I can't really think of many other names, and the ones I can think of wouldn't really be in a "best" or "favorite" discussion)

[CreasyBear]

All-Time: Steven Spielberg
Active: Quentin Tarantino
Female: Kathryn Bigelow (Mostly for Near Dark, Blue Steel, and Strange Days. Her latest work doesn't do much for me.)

[Levon]

I'm not too clued up on many female directors either but one who I think is worth checking out is Chloé Zhao. I have admittedly only seen one of her movies The Rider which I thought was fantastic and she is rumoured to be doing a biopic on Bass Reeves which is long overdue. I really have to check out her first movie Songs My Brother Taught Me.

Really looking forward to seeing what else she does, I think she is doing some Marvel movie which I have absolutely no interest in, I hope she doesn't hang around the comic book genre for too long.

[Cremildo]

All-time: Ridley Scott (runner-up: Steven Spielberg)
Active: Ridley Scott (runner-up: Steve Spielberg)
Female: tough choice between Claire Denis and Sofia Coppola.

My top 10 directors list from IMDb.

[GoneJoel]

All-Time and Active: David Fincher & Luca Guadagnino
Female: Sofia Coppola

[BladeRunner2007]

All-Time: John Carpenter
Active: Quentin Tarantino

[EvaDK]

Kubrick
Lynch
Ramsay

[Gacivory]

Originally Posted by Levon

I'm not too clued up on many female directors either but one who I think is worth checking out is Chloé Zhao. I have admittedly only seen one of her movies The Rider which I thought was fantastic and she is rumoured to be doing a biopic on Bass Reeves which is long overdue. I really have to check out her first movie Songs My Brother Taught Me.

Really looking forward to seeing what else she does, I think she is doing some Marvel movie which I have absolutely no interest in, I hope she doesn't hang around the comic book genre for too long.

She did a movie with Frances McDormand called, Nomadland, that should be coming out next year or end of this year.

[stvn1974]

Favorite Film Director: David Lynch

As for female film directors I don't have any favorites. Not a gender thing because other than Lynch I don't have any other favorites either, male or female. Other than Lynch there is not one single director or actor/actress who can get me to see a film based on their name.

[Levon]

Originally Posted by Gacivory

She did a movie with Frances McDormand called, Nomadland, that should be coming out next year or end of this year.

Cheers for that I wasn't aware of this. Just reading the synopsis, sounds like it will be right up my street.

[snipemonkey]

All-Time: Tie: Ingmar Bergman & Stanley Kubrick
Active: David Lynch (semi, sort-of, sometimes active?)
Female: Jeez, I don't know... Helene Cattet, I guess?

[u2popmofo]

John Carpenter

[surfdude12]

Kubrick

[Cremildo]

I guess many people aren't even reading the first post.