13. Francois Truffaut
Arguably the founding father of the French New Wave and probably the least experimental of its great directors, there might not have been a filmmaker in history who had more pure, unbridled passion for cinema. He originally made his name in the film industry as a critic, relentlessly attacking the stale French film industry of the time and helped to create the auteur theory, essentially the belief that the director is the author of the film and that the personality and feel of the film is almost solely due to him. Eventually he decided to try to make films instead and after a few short films, Truffaut stunned the film world with one of the most impressive debuts in film history, The 400 Blows. Alongside Resnais's Hiroshima mon Amour and Godard's Breathless, The 400 Blows established the French New Wave and the film world would never be the same. Although Truffaut didn't try to stretch the boundaries of the form as much as some of his contemporaries, Truffaut's films were hardly conventional, and he was still able to churn out acclaimed films like Shoot the Piano Player, Jules and Jim, Day for Night, and many others. In addition he began to act in his own films and in others, most notably as the lead scientist in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He also continued with his film criticism and writing, putting together the definitive series of interviews of film legend Alfred Hitchcock. Just as much as he threw criticism at directors and films he found uninspired, he was equally effusive in praise of the filmmakers he admired including Herzog, Spielberg, Scorsese, and Hitchcock. He was one of the best loved filmmakers of his time but unfortunately, his premature death at only 52 years old robbed us of the rest of his career, although what remains is more than enough to rank him this high.