8. Jean Luc Godard
Equally influential as both a filmmaker and film theorist, Godard was the 1B to FrancoisTruffaut's 1A in forming the French New Wave of filmmaking. He burst onto the art-house world with his 1960 film Breathless, which he co-wrote with Truffaut. The film's use of jump cuts and unusual editing had a profound influence on later French films. Godard put more importance into cinematic innovation and the advancement of cinema as an art form than achieving popular acclaim, and many of his movies were more about how the narrative is presented on the screen rather than anything else. His theoretical writings about cinema, and his dislike of everything mainstream, has made him a symbol for cinematic elitism. Despite his relative lack of movies regarded as masterpieces, he was voted the 3rd best director of all time by Sight and Sound, and there have been few directors who have had as lasting an influence on cinematic thought as Godard.
Defining Films: Breathless (1960), The Riflemen (1963), The Little Soldier (1963), Alphaville (1965)