Named marked with an asterisk are new additions, meaning those directors
had a fifth Skandie-eligible feature released in 2023.
3.17Quentin Tarantino(8
films)
3.14Paul Thomas Anderson(9
films)
3.09Mike Leigh(9
films)
3.08Kelly Reichardt(7
films)
3.04Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne(10 films)
3.04Asghar Farhadi(5
films)
3.02Wes Anderson(11
films)
3.00Guy Maddin(8
films)
3.00Hayao Miyazaki(6
films)
3.00Martin Scorsese(15
films)
2.99Bong Joon-ho(7
films)
2.98Spike Jonze(5
films)
2.97Noah Baumbach(11
films)
2.94Mia Hansen-Løve(6
films)
2.94Rian Johnson(6
films)
2.94Yorgos Lanthimos(6 films)
2.94Christopher Nolan(12
films)
2.94Apichatpong Weerasethakul(8 films)
2.93Lucas Belvaux(5
films)
2.93*Cristian Mungiu(5
films)
2.92Joel Coen(15
films)
2.92Todd Haynes(8 films)
2.92Brett Morgen(5
films)
2.92Jafar Panahi(11
films)
2.92Agnès Varda(5 films)
2.90Nuri Bilge Ceylan(7 films)
2.90James Gray(7
films)
2.90Michael Haneke(9
films)
2.90Alain Resnais(5 films)
2.89Brad Bird(6 films)
2.89Andrew Bujalski(7 films)
2.89Terence Davies(7 films)
2.89Robert Greene(5
films)
2.89Christian Petzold(7 films)
2.89Lars von Trier(14
films)
2.89Frederick Wiseman(12
films)
2.88Jacques Audiard(8 films)
2.88Hong Sang-soo(18
films)
2.88Jeff Nichols(5 films)
2.88Corneliu Porumboiu(6 films)
2.88Céline Sciamma(5 films)
2.87Ethan Coen(9 films)
2.87Steve James(5 films)
2.87Richard Linklater(17 films)
2.87Terrence Malick(8
films)
2.87Bertrand Tavernier(5 films)
2.87Wong Kar-wai(8 films)
2.86David Fincher(10 films)
2.86Alexander Payne(9 films)
2.85Steve McQueen(10 films)
2.85Errol Morris(11
films)
2.85Tsai Ming-liang(8 films)
2.83David Mamet(6 films)
2.82Pedro Almodóvar(12 films)
2.81Claire Denis(12 films)
2.81George Miller(5 films)
2.81Gaspar Noé(7 films)
2.80Olivier Assayas(14 films)
2.80Philippe Garrel(7 films)
2.80Hou Hsiao-hsien(5 films)
2.80Michael Mann(7 films)
2.80Edgar Wright(8
films)
2.79Arnaud Desplechin(9 films)
2.79Hirokazu Kore-eda(13
films)
2.79Paolo Sorrentino(6 films)
2.78Laurent Cantet(5 films)
2.78Luca Guadagnino(5 films)
2.78Jim Jarmusch(10 films)
2.78Abbas Kiarostami(8 films)
2.77Nick Broomfield(5 films)
2.77Alfonso Cuarón(7 films)
2.77Bruno Dumont(12 films)
2.77Miguel Gomes(6
films)
2.76Michael Almereyda(6
films)
2.76*Aki Kaurismäki(5
films)
2.76Park Chan-wook(7
films)
2.76André
Téchiné(8 films)
2.76Joachim Trier(5
films)
2.75Werner Herzog(18 films)
2.75Sebastián Lelio(5 films)
2.74Jonathan Demme(12 films)
2.74James Marsh(5
films)
2.74Carlos Reygadas(5
films)
2.73Kathryn Bigelow(5 films)
2.73Claude Chabrol(8 films)
2.73Andrew Dominik(5 films)
2.73Peter Jackson(11 films)
2.73Laura Poitras(5 films)
2.73Sam Raimi(9 films)
2.73David O. Russell(8
films)
2.73Steven Spielberg(19 films)
2.73Nicolas Winding Refn(7 films)
2.72*Ben Affleck(5 films)
2.72Robert Altman(7 films)
2.72Kirby Dick(8 films)
2.72Benoît Jacquot(8 films)
2.72Jia Zhang-ke(8
films)
2.72Cédric Klapisch(5
films)
2.72Ang Lee(10 films)
2.72Ken Loach(12 films)
2.72Chris Smith(10 films)
2.72Steven Soderbergh(30 films)
2.72Johnnie To(11 films)
2.71Albert Serra(6 films)
2.71Paul Verhoeven(5 films)
2.70Paul Greengrass(8 films)
2.70Kim Ki-duk(6
films)
2.70Alex Ross Perry(5
films)
2.70Matt Reeves(6 films)
2.69Fatih Akin(5 films)
2.69Lukas Moodysson(5 films)
2.69Pawel Pawlikowski(5 films)
2.68Kim Jee-woon(5 films)
2.68David Lowery(6 films)
2.68*Christopher McQuarrie(5 films)
2.68Shane Meadows(6 films)
2.68Roman Polanski(6 films)
2.67Nicole Holofcener(7
films)
2.67Jeff Tremaine(5
films)
2.66Joe Berlinger(6 films)
2.66David Cronenberg(9 films)
2.66Morgan Neville(5 films)
2.65Xavier Dolan(5 films)
2.65Curtis Hanson(5 films)
2.65Kiyoshi Kurosawa(6 films)
2.65Ira Sachs(7 films)
2.65Joe Swanberg(9
films)
2.64Sofia Coppola(8
films)
2.64Jean-Pierre Jeunet(5
films)
2.64Pablo Larraín(9 films)
2.64Takashi Miike(16 films)
2.64John Sayles(9 films)
2.64Zhang Yimou(15 films)
2.63J.J. Abrams(6
films)
2.63Darren Aronofsky(8 films)
2.63Damien Chazelle(5 films)
2.63*Quentin Dupieux(5 films)
2.63Patrice Leconte(6 films)
2.63Spike Lee(20 films)
2.63*Alice Rohrwacher(5 films)
2.63Denis Villeneuve(9 films)
2.62Ramin Bahrani(6
films)
2.62Abel Ferrara(7 films)
2.61Michel Gondry(11 films)
2.61Ulrich Seidl(8
films)
2.60José Padilha(5 films)
2.60Gina Prince-Bythewood(5 films)
2.60John Woo(7 films)
2.59Catherine Breillat(8 films)
2.59*William Friedkin(5 films)
2.59Alex Gibney(11 films)
2.59*Davis Guggenheim(5 films)
2.59Joseph Kosinski(5 films)
2.59Doug Liman(9 films)
2.59Kevin Macdonald(9 films)
2.58Danny Boyle(12 films)
2.58Ryan Fleck(5 films)
2.58Hal Hartley(6 films)
2.58Takeshi Kitano(7 films)
2.58*Jean-François Richet(5 films)
2.58Alexander Sokurov(6
films)
2.58Todd Solondz(7 films)
2.57Michael Apted(7 films)
2.57Baz Luhrmann(5 films)
2.57François Ozon(20 films)
2.56Andrea Arnold(5 films)
2.56Bobcat Goldthwait(5 films)
2.56Peyton Reed(7 films)
2.56Michael Winterbottom(18 films)
2.55Judd Apatow(6 films)
2.55Jane Campion(5 films)
2.55Julian Schnabel(5 films)
2.54John Curran(6 films)
2.54Stephen Frears(13 films)
2.54Christophe Honoré(5 films)
2.54Michael Moore(8 films)
2.54Mike Nichols(5 films)
2.54João Pedro Rodrigues(6 films)
2.54Thomas Vinterberg(8 films)
2.54David Wain(5
films)
2.54Joe Wright(8 films)
2.53Neil LaBute(8 films)
2.52Gregg Araki(6 films)
2.52Cameron Crowe(6 films)
2.52Guillermo del Toro(10 films)
2.52Matteo Garrone(6 films)
2.52Baltasar Kormákur(6 films)
2.52Sam Mendes(9 films)
2.52The Wachowski Siblings(8 films)
2.51David Mackenzie(6 films)
2.51James Mangold(12 films)
2.51Matthew Vaughn(6 films)
2.50Raúl Ruiz(7 films)
2.49David Bruckner(5 films)
2.49Clint Eastwood(21 films)
2.49Paul Feig(5 films)
2.49Mike Mitchell(5 films)
2.49Tom Tykwer(9 films)
2.48John Madden(9 films)
2.47*J.A. Bayona(5 films)
2.47Manoel de Oliveira(7 films)
2.47Marc Forster(8 films)
2.47Greg Mottola(6 films)
2.47Wash Westmoreland(5 films)
2.47Robert Zemeckis(11 films)
2.46Tim Burton(13 films)
2.46James Gunn(7 films)
2.46Mary Harron(5 films)
2.46James Ivory(5 films)
2.46Neil Jordan(11 films)
2.46Lynn Shelton(5 films)
2.46Brian Taylor(5 films)
2.46Gore Verbinski(10 films)
2.46Ti West(8
films)
2.45Gavin O'Connor(6 films)
2.45Robert Rodriguez(12 films)
2.45Anthony & Joe Russo(7 films)
2.45Bryan Singer(9 films)
2.45Taika Waititi(7
films)
2.44Larry Charles(5 films)
2.44Roger Michell(10 films)
2.44Gus Van Sant(13 films)
2.43Brad Anderson(8 films)
2.43John Crowley(5 films)
2.43Ted Demme(5 films)
2.43Tom McCarthy(6 films)
2.43Nancy Meyers(6 films)
2.43Nicholas Stoller(6 films)
2.42Luc Besson(6 films)
2.42Ridley Scott(20 films)
2.41David Gordon Green(16 films)
2.41Jonathan Levine(6 films)
2.41Lone Scherfig(5 films)
2.41Jean-Marc Vallée(5 films)
2.41David Yates(7
films)
2.40Woody Allen(24 films)
2.40David Koepp(6 films)
2.40Justin Lin(6 films)
2.40Michael Showalter(5 films)
2.39Martin Campbell(8 films)
2.39Brian De Palma(8 films)
2.39Jean-Luc Godard(6
films)
2.39Mira Nair(6
films)
2.39Mike Newell(6 films)
2.39Gary Ross(5 films)
2.39Rawson Marshall Thurber(5 films)
2.39James Wan(9
films)
2.38Paul Schrader(9
films)
2.38Mark Waters(9 films)
2.38Wim Wenders(11 films)
2.37Jon Favreau(9 films)
2.37Francis Lawrence(7 films)
2.37Eli Roth(9 films)
2.37James Toback(6 films)
2.37David Twohy(5
films)
2.36Bobby
Farrelly(11 films)
2.36Terry Gilliam(6 films)
2.36Adam McKay(8
films)
2.36Frank Oz(6 films)
2.36Ben Wheatley(8 films)
2.35Jaume Collet-Serra(9 films)
2.35Anne Fontaine(7
films)
2.35Amos Gitaï(5 films)
2.35Jake Kasdan(7 films)
2.35Harmony Korine(6
films)
2.35Alan Rudolph(5 films)
2.35Alan Taylor(5 films)
2.34Joe Carnahan(6 films)
2.34Atom Egoyan(10 films)
2.34Richard LaGravenese(5
films)
2.33Kenneth Branagh(12 films)
2.33Larry Clark(5 films)
2.33F. Gary Gray(8 films)
2.33Joe Johnston(5 films)
2.33Barry Levinson(9 films)
2.33Harold Ramis(5 films)
2.33Walter Salles(6 films)
2.33Adam Wingard(8 films)
2.32Scott Cooper(5 films)
2.32Roger Donaldson(5 films)
2.32Craig Gillespie(6 films)
2.31Nimród Antal(6
films)
2.31Louis Leterrier(7
films)
2.31Dean Parisot(5 films)
2.31Guy Ritchie(13 films)
2.30Paul Weitz(8 films)
2.29Ron Howard(15 films)
2.29Sally Potter(5
films)
2.28Scott Derrickson(6 films)
2.27Tom Hooper(5 films)
2.27Jason Reitman(8 films)
2.27Edward Zwick(8 films)
2.26Bill Condon(8 films)
2.26Peter Farrelly(13
films)
2.26Alejandro González
Iñárritu(7 films)
2.25Wes Craven(9 films)
2.25Fernando Meirelles(5 films)
2.24Tarsem Singh(5 films)
2.23George Clooney(8 films)
2.23Lasse Hallström(8 films)
2.23Ben Stiller(5 films)
2.22Oliver Stone(8 films)
2.21Miguel Arteta(7 films)
2.21Neil Burger(5 films)
2.21Walter Hill(6 films)
2.21Justin Kurzel(5 films)
2.21Karyn Kusama(5 films)
2.21John Singleton(5 films)
2.20M. Night Shyamalan(13 films)
2.19Christopher Guest(6 films)
2.19Gregory Hoblit(6 films)
2.19Paul McGuigan(5 films)
2.19Phillip Noyce(7 films)
2.18Gary Winick(5 films)
2.17Gurinder Chadha(5 films)
2.17Tony Scott(8 films)
2.17Rob Zombie(7 films)
2.16Peter Berg(9 films)
2.16Rob Marshall(7 films)
2.16Tate Taylor(5 films)
2.15Susanne Bier(7 films)
2.15Todd Phillips(9 films)
2.14David Ayer(6 films)
2.14Timur Bekmambetov(5 films)
2.14Mark Pellington(5 films)
2.14Kevin Smith(8 films)
2.13Frank Coraci(6 films)
2.13*Will Gluck(5 films)
2.13Jay Roach(10 films)
2.12Antoine Fuqua(11 films)
2.12Andrew Niccol(6
films)
2.10Alexandre Aja(7
films)
2.10Paul W.S. Anderson(10 films)
2.10Robert Redford(5
films)
2.10Tim Story(6 films)
2.09Rob Letterman(5 films)
2.09Zack Snyder(8
films)
2.09Jon Turteltaub(7 films)
2.08Brett Ratner(8 films)
2.08Barry Sonnenfeld(5 films)
2.07David Dobkin(5 films)
2.07Ruben Fleischer(5 films)
2.07Seth Gordon(6
films)
2.06David R. Ellis(5 films)
2.06Renny Harlin(5 films)
2.05Mike Figgis(6 films)
2.05Lee Tamahori(6 films)
2.04Daniel Espinosa(5 films)
2.04Scott Hicks(6 films)
2.02Pierre Morel(5 films)
2.01Roland Emmerich(10 films)
2.00D.J. Caruso(6 films)
2.00Gary Fleder(5
films)
2.00John Lee Hancock(6 films)
2.00Robert Schwentke(6 films)
1.97Ivan Reitman(6 films)
1.96Harald Zwart(5
films)
1.95McG(5 films)
1.95Adam Shankman(5 films)
1.92Michael Bay(14 films)
1.91Stephen Sommers(6 films)
1.91Andy Tennant(7 films)
1.90Peter Segal(5
films)
1.89Shawn Levy(10 films)
1.87James Foley(6 films)
1.87Kirk Jones(5 films)
1.87Joel Schumacher(11 films)
1.86Rob Cohen(9 films)
1.85*Rob Reiner(5 films)
1.79Chris Columbus(8 films)
1.78Nick Cassavetes(6 films)
1.78Robert Luketic(6 films)
1.77Simon West(6 films)
1.74Garry Marshall(7 films)
1.69Dennis Dugan(9 films)
1.61Tom Shadyac(6 films)
As part of the Skandies, an annual survey I conduct,
participants are asked to rate every film they saw in a given year on the
Maltin-style four-star scale. For my own amusement, I started calculating
the average score for every director some years ago, working on it at an
incredibly slow pace during periods when I had little else to do
(including a big near-final sprint when I briefly had a day job in
2011-2012). And something like eight years later, I'm finally caught
up.
What you see here isn't that master list of
everybody's average, which is insanely huge. (If you desire that, contact
me via e-mail or DM and I'll mail you the file.) It's a list of directors
who've made and released (in New York) at least five films in the Skandies
era. The first year for which I had people submit star ratings was 1996,
so no film released prior to that year is reflected here, which screws
certain filmmakers (notably Hal Hartley and Terry Gilliam). If you can't
find a director on the list, the most likely explanation is that (s)he
hasn't yet made five qualifying films. That's the case with David Lynch,
for example, who's made only four since '96. Also Jonze,
Hansen-Løve, Mungiu, Zvyagintsev, others.
Furthermore, some movies just never got a NYC
release, while others weren't seen by
enough voters (minimum: five) to receive an "official" average. So on the
one hand you have e.g. Hong Sang-soo's average missing what would likely
have been high numbers for unreleased films like Night and Day,
Tale of Cinema and Turning Gate, and on the other hand
somebody like Robert Rodriguez gets away with murder because nobody
bothered to see his last several shitty Spy Kids sequels. Don't
take the numbers all that seriously is my general point.
The spatial divisions are meaningless; I just stuck
in a break every ten names to make the list more readable. Oh, and my
anal-retentive nature demanded that Ethan Coen, who wasn't credited as a
director prior to The Ladykillers, receive a separate entry from
Joel. This is admittedly silly, but it does show you at a glance what the
brothers' average would look like just for the past decade or so.
For the record, at this time the highest-rated
director is Kenneth Lonergan, who has a whopping 3.39 average for his
three-film oeuvre. (Others who are currently beating the
Dardennes, with two or three eligible films each: Bertrand Bonello,
Debra Granik, Joshua Oppenheimer, Asghar Farhadi [who's gonna take a
nosedive soon], Julia Loktev.) And the lowest-rated is Courtney Solomon,
director of such wonders as Dungeons & Dragons and
Getaway, with an anemic 1.20.