2. Stanley Kubrick
Filmography:
Killer's Kiss, The Killing, Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001:A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut. As Paul Thomas Anderson once said "We're all children of Kubrick, aren't we? Is there anything you can do that he hasn't done?" Kubrick's influence on American cinema is unparalleled as everybody making movies right now looks up to him or owes a debt to him in some way. Looking at his filmography, it's impossible not to say something great about every single one of his films. Eyes Wide Shut has received a lot of criticism, but so did A Clockwork Orange upon release and many of his films have gone underappreciated by a contemporary audience. Kubrick could make comedies - Dr. Strangelove is political satire at it's very best. He could do horror as seen in his adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining. He could do sci-fi in 2001:A Space Odyssey, which may well be the finest cinematic achievement of them all. He could do the epic with the masterful Spartacus. He did war as well as anyone not named Francis Ford Coppola with Full Metal Jacket. He even made a brilliant heist movie with the underrated The Killing. Kubrick could do it all without question. A meticulous perfectionist, he made so few films because he took so long creating a concept, shooting the movie and then taking an age to edit it, but it was always worth it. He was fearless in ambition and whilst Lolita was no A Clockwork Orange, he never mis-stepped and his filmography is an A-Z of bonafide American classics.