4. Jean Renoir
The most important French director of all-time, Jean Renoir was the son of legendary painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and obviously inherited a good deal of his artistic talent. Orson Welles called him the greatest director of all time and in a Sight & Sound poll of greatest directors, he came in number four. Although most of his films have garnered substantial acclaim, most of the talk concerning Renoir comes from the reputation of two films he made in the late 1930's: Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, both of which are generally considered among the greatest movies ever made. Grand Illusion was the first foreign language film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and was such a powerful anti-war statement that it was banned in Nazi Germany. Rules of the Game was actually quite disastrous at the time of its release as it essentially constituted an attack on contemporary Parisian, which did not endear it particularly well to French audiences at the time. Its reputation has grown considerably since its release and nowadays might be considered the most acclaimed French film of all time. Renoir made many other significant films including La Bête Humaine in 1938 and The River in 1951, but almost all discussion about Renoir begins and ends with Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game. Renoir was one of the few great directors to welcome the coming of sound as he considered it "the most direct expression of a human being's personality." Renoir's films are more openly emotional than many other European directors, relying not as much on cinematic experimentation as on just good old-fashioned storytelling. Renoir was more a master craftsmen in the tradition of American directors like John Ford or Howard Hawks than he was an innovator like Godard or Bunuel. Even so, he managed to be immensely controversial in his time and impacted just about every subsequent movie director.