1. Orson Welles
Who else could hold the top spot? At 23 he terrified America with his radio broadcast of
War of the Worlds, his first film - at just 26 years of age - was
Citizen Kane. Citizen f**king Kane! Only one of the greatest films of all time! And to top it off he didn't just star in it but wrote, produced and directed it too. He probably posted every letter and licked the stamps, too. Oh, and he was an acting genius too. He was the ultimate auteur. And if that wasn't enough, he was an accomplished magician as well! Despite all this, or maybe because of it, his career nosedived. The problem with being a genius is that you often struggle to conceal contempt for your inferiors. Welles continually found himself at loggerheads with the studios, struggling for creative control, and refusing to yield to his bosses who failed to appreciate him distinctive and innovative directorial style. Things didn't get better with the RKO funded disasters
The Magnificent Ambersons and
It's All True - films that went way over budget and schedule - leading not only to his contract being renegotiated so that he no longer had final cut but also to RKO changing their slogan to
'showmanship in place of genius'. With directorial options limited, Welles left Hollywood for Europe in 1947 saying that he had chosen 'freedom' yet even though his career was on a downward spiral, and work as a director increasingly hard to find, the quality was ever present. Unlike the others on this list, Welles's quality quotient remained high, including the seminal classics the
Third Man and
Touch of Evil. Fittingly, in 2002, Welles was voted the greatest film director of all time in two separate British Film Institute polls among directors and critics, and a wide survey of critical consensus, best-of lists, and historical retrospectives call him the most acclaimed director of all time. Arrogant? Difficult? Demanding? Maybe. But, like that popular shampoo, he was worth it.