Rank Good Director's Films in Order of Goodness

the above is a good overview, but i think Tanner '88 and Secret Honor get overlooked

Altman
(these are all worth seeing)

01. Nashville
02. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
03. MASH
04. California Split
05. The Long Goodbye
06. The Player
07. Short Cuts
08. Gosford Park
09. Thieves Like Us
10. Secret Honor


i didn't think that Vincent and Theo and Cookie's Fortune were great, but they are worlds better then the rest of his stuff

Edit:
after letting my painfully slow memory do it's work, i find that i really like Gosford Park and don't remember a thing about Tanner '88

i think Tanner '88 and Secret Honor get overlooked

I thought both of those were pretty unwatchable, especially years later.

I've probably seen less than 10, but I'd pick The Player tops, and Three Women doesn't quite get enough credit. it's flawed, but there's something special about it anyway.

I thought both of those were pretty unwatchable, especially years later.

I've probably seen less than 10, but I'd pick The Player tops, and Three Women doesn't quite get enough credit. it's flawed, but there's something special about it anyway.

Since I didn't like either Secret Honor or Tanner at all, and The Player is easily #1 among the ones I've seen, what are #2, 3, etc among the ones you've seen? Three Women is in my pile to watch, as is The Long Goodbye.

Short Cuts is certainly flawed, but it's easily 2nd-most enjoyable among the ones I've seen.

yeah, Short Cuts, Nashville, Three Women, something like that. it's been a while since I've seen most of the ones I've seen.

its been a few years since i saw Tanner '88 and i don't remember much about it, but for whatever reason it made a good impression at the time.

no love for Philip Baker Hall though?

i found 3 Women and Images pretty unwatchable (but those tile creatures in 3 Women were nice)

Fans of broad, campy overacting will treasure this film like a rare jewel. Everyone else will be perplexed. Hall plays Nixon like a Tourette syndrome ridden psychotic dialed up to 11 who is barely able to string toge†her three complete sentences. Hall waves his arms around like a maniac. I found "Secret Honor" to be corny, campy, and totally disconnected. It doesn't even have a story structure as Nixon rambles, rants, and raves incoherently. It reveals no insights into the character of Nixon, it only distorts him to the broadest possible extent.

Watched Buffalo Bill yesterday, really fantastic film if emotionally unengaging, and that’s something that holds true for much of Altman, I fear. But his best work was crucial for me once upon a time.
1 McCabe & Mrs. Miller. It’s really an alternate theory of what film can be (or how to subvert a genre, but that's a much cheaper task.)
2 The Long Goodbye. A crime movie that didn’t care about where the story went! Absolutely loved this as an adolescent.
3 Thieves Like Us. Don’t ask me, I have a weak spot for Keith Carradine, even though he has mighty teeth. I have an even weaker spot for John Carradine, maybe it’s because of that.
4 Nashville. Of course the most perfect realization of the everyone talks at the same time thing. At the same time, it only feels like his best unemotional film to me, more like a virtuoso exercise.
5 Vincent and Theo. Well, it’s a tired genre. Remember the Pollock thing by Hollywood’s most well-meaning actor. Has more passion than Charlton Heston’s Michelangelo, so it’s a good thing.

I guess I’ve seen most of the rest, but can’t be bothered to rank them. Hate Mash, today (or the day before yesterday) it would have starred Adam Sandler. Stuff like 3 Women or Quintet were like Beckett’s video works light, very important to me when growing up, no rewatch value whatsoever. His official comeback with the Player initially felt good at the time, something like the Pere Ubu reunion. But Shortcuts already was so mainstream, I left the theater after half an hour. Kansas City contains some successfully bottled fake excitement that’s supposed to happen when music seems to grow out of the moment but is a shitty movie apart from that.

I think McCabe and Three Women are my favorites. Or at least they've held up the best for me. I really liked Gosford Park too, but I've only seen that once--when it first came out.

I haven't seen the Magician, but I prefer Through a Glass Darkly to all of the others you listed ahead of it. I know I'm in the minority, which is why I was psyched that Mr. Lescalleet agreed with me the other day.

My favorite of his is Fanny and Alexander, which people don't seem to be rating very highly.

I found that just watching Bergman chronologically was a lot of fun. There's so much leakage between films (re-used actors and character names all over the place, plus more direct connections) that it really adds a lot to the experience.

Bergman:
1. Hour of the Wolf
2. Cries and Whispers
3. Through A Glass Darkly
4. Serpent's Egg
5. The Passion of Anna
6. Persona
7. Autumn Sonata
8. The Silence
9. The Seventh Seal

Edit: I also never finished Fanny & Alexander. I stopped somewhere in the middle of the first disc and I've been meaning to pick it back up for about two years now.

Ok, seems like a fun first post here –

Some of my favourite directors below. Might be missing some good ones, these are the only ones I’ve seen however:

Tsai Ming-liang:
1 Good Bye, Dragon Inn
2 The Hole
3 The Skywalk is Gone (short film)
4 What Time is it There?
5 I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone
6 The River
7 The Wayward Cloud
8 Rebels of the Neon God

Jacques Rivette:
1 Celine and Julie go Boating
2 Paris Belongs to Us
3 The Story of Marie and Julien
4 Gang of Four
5 The Nun
6 La Belle Noiseuse
7 Love on the Ground
8 Wuthering Heights
9 Merry-Go-Round

Jean-Pierre Melville: (need to see a lot more, only seen what’s on that excellent Optimum 6 DVD set)
1 Le Cercle Rouge
2 L’Armee des Ombres
3 Le Doulos
4 Bob le Flambeur
5 Un Flic
6 Leon Morin, Pretre

Hou Hsiao-hsien:
1 Three Times
2 Cafe Lumiere
3 Millennium Mambo
4 Flight of the Red Balloon
5 Flowers of Shanghai

edit: updated 04/08/2010

jean luc godard:
1. Pierrot Le Fou
2. Oh, Woe Is Me
3. Slow Motion/Every Man For Himself
4. My Life to Live
5. Week End
6. Notre Musique
7. King Lear
8. Masculin/Féminin
9. Passion
10. De l'origine du XXIe Siècle Pour Moi
11. Historie(s) Du Cinema (complete series -- actually would probably be # 1 if there were more subtitles in the official release! As it is, only maybe 60% is subtitled..)
12. Keep Your Right Up
13. Hail Mary
14. Tout Va Bien
15. La Chinoise
16. Alphaville
17. Nouvelle Vague
18. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her
19. In Praise of Love
20. First Name: Carmen
21. A Married Woman
22. A Woman is a Woman
23. Breathless
24. Numero Deux
25. Wind from the East
26. Liberte Et Patrie
27. For Ever Mozart
28. Little Soldier
29. Band of Outsiders
30. The Old Place
31. Germany Year 90 Nine Zero
32. Made in USA
33. Joy of Learning/Le Gai Saviour
34. One Pennebaker Movie
35. Contempt
36. Les Carabiniers
37. British Sounds
38. Ici et ailleurs
39. Vladimir and Rosa
40. Je Vous Salue, Sarajevo
41. Detective
42. JLG/JLG
43. Letter to Jane
44. Sympathy for the Devil
45. Soft and Hard
46. Meetin' WA
47. Comment Ca Va?
48. Struggles in Italy
59. Pravda
50. Letter to Freddy Buache Regarding a Short Work About the Town of Lausanne

takeshi kitano=
1. hanabi
2. sonatine
3. achilles and the tortoise
4. dolls
5. violent cop
6. scene at the sea
7. takeshis'
8. boiling point
9. kikajiro
10. getting any?
11. glory to the filmmaker
12. kids return
13. brother
14. zatoichi

james fotopolous=
1. back against the wall
2. christabel
3. migrating forms
4. zero