23. Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are possibly the greatest filmmaking duo of all-time and certainly the best that weren't related to each other. Together they made some of the most important films in British history before Powell's career ended prematurely because of the immense controversy over one of his last films. While Powell was more the director and Pressurger more the screenwriter, they are ranked here as a team as they worked together on nineteen films. Their first prominent work was 49th Parallel in 1941, after which they officially began to share the same space in the credits. Their mid-World War Two classic The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp survived scathing early reviews to become one of the most respected British films in history. Black Narcissus in 1947 is another very well regarded work by the duo but their most influential film might be 1948's The Red Shoes, which is often considered one of the best looking films ever made. Powell's career was seriously damaged in 1960 after he released Peeping Tom which through its voyeuristic depictions of serial killers and dark psychological overtones became one of the most controversial movies of its time. Although their partner ship was relatively short-lived, Powell and Pressburger's films have been enormously influential, primarily for their use of color, which they were some of the first to experiment with. Their work has been championed in recent years with Martin Scorsese in particular being a huge fan who admits to having been enormously impacted by them. Many contemporary critics list their output as on par with Hitchcock and Lean, and although they weren't quite that important in terms of cinematic importance, they still rank very highly in the annals of British filmmaking.