1. Ingmar Bergman
Of all the great filmmakers over the first hundred or so years of cinema, Ingmar Bergman might be the only one who could honestly to be said to be an artist on par with the greatest authors, painters, and philosophers. Bergman took movies from a moneymaking business to a medium that told personal stories filled to the brim with philosophy, beauty, passion, ideas, and pure,unadulterated cinema. Bergman began directing in the late 1940's with his first real success coming in 1953 for Summer With Monika. In the late 50's he began one of the most incredible directorial runs in film history, starting with the one-two punch of The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries in 1957 and continuing with Through A Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence, Persona, and many, many others. After he was falsely accused of tax evasion in the mid 70's, Bergman left Sweden for a self-imposed exile in Munich and while he continued to work, his films were never quite received in the same way with the notable exception of 1982's Fanny and Alexander. Bergman's films have long been noted for their cinematographical beauty, their existential themes, use of close-ups, and their inherent emotive qualities. He achieved a near unmatched level of artistic freedom by a combination of working in Sweden, writing his own screenplays, and generally making small budget films, and the result is some of the most personal films ever made. Bergman has actually fallen out of favor somewhat with many critics for various reasons but in most of the time since his heyday, he has often been considered one of the greatest directors of all-time. Not only does he have as many classic films as anyone, there might not be a director who has received higher praise from more contemporary directors than Bergman has. People as diverse as Woody Allen, Andrei Tarkovsky, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo Del Toro, and Stanley Kubrick have listed him among their favorite, if not just plain favorite, of any director. To sum it up, of all the directors on this list, no one has a better combination of influence, importance, acclaim, and innate filmmaking qualities than Ingmar Bergman.