5. Andrei Tarkovsky
Tarkovsky only directed seven films in his lifetime but he is considered by many to be the greatest director of all time, regardless of nationality. He obviously doesn't place that highly here but the differences between the top five on this list are so marginal you could literally put them in any order and no one could complain. So although you could still call Tarkovsky the "best" director of all time, the fact that he made fewer movies than the four people in front of him was the deciding factor in ranking him objectively below them, although again you could just as easily put him number one depending on the criteria you use. As you'd expect from a filmmaker this respected, Tarkovsky was a virtuoso at nearly every level of filmmaking but was probably most notable for his visual style which made extensive use of long takes. His movies were also notable for their metaphysical properties and very slow pace. His career kicked off in 1962 with the relatively conventional war film Ivan's Childhood which dealt with a young child in World War Two, his second and much more ambitious feature was Andrei Rublev in 1966 which was a massive epic centering on the famous russian painter that dealt with the very nature of art. Next was Solaris in 1972 which has become an essential science fiction film on par with, and frequently compared to, 2001: A Space Odyssey. In 1975 he directed The Mirror which might be his most experimental and acclaimed work although his follow-up, 1979's Stalker, is also routinely listed as his greatest work. His remaining three films were made after he left the Soviet Union and although they are acclaimed, they are a tier below the four previously listed films in terms of critical recognition and respect. Tarkovsky's films are defined by their innovative uses of color, focus on nature, and extensive use of long takes. His films are often mentioned in discussions about the best movies of all-time from a visual standpoint and his four middle films show up all the time on list of greatest films. Tarkovsky was yet another director who died at a relatively young age but he did more than enough to become one of the all-time great directors of world cinema.