It's really a formidable task to choose the greatest Hollywood directors of last two decades as within this time frame we have seen the rise of great many film directors of outstanding directorial ability that presented to the world audience some of the greatest hits as well as critically acclaimed films of all time. Take any list of highest grossing Hollywood films of all time or browse through the lists of all time great films in the world cinema, unexceptionally there would feature dozens of titles from the Hollywood hits in the last two decades. In presenting this short list of top Hollywood movies directors of last 20 years we had to consider not only the box office success and measures of popularity, but the critical acclamation and award winning scores as well. After all it is about greatest directors, not just films and their commercial success! Here we go with our list of best Hollywood films directors of last two decades.
Steven Spielberg
He is probably one of the few internationally acclaimed directors of Hollywood in the arena of world cinema who achieved astounding commercial success along with highest critical acclamation for his artistic cinematography and film making. With the likes of Shindler's List, Saving Private Ryan he is undoubtedly tops the chart among Hollywood directors.
Francis Ford Coppola
When he received the most prestigious Oscar award as the greatest honor for his lifetime achievement in filmmaking, it was rather perceived by his fans as an honor too late to come. Though his Godfather Trilogy and other great films like Apocalypse Now have been invariably featured in all sorts of lists of greatest or most successful movies of all time that have made him a immortal figure much before the nineties, with his continuing role as a working Hollywood director is a compelling factor to mention him here.
Martin Scorsese
Hardly anybody would have any doubt in regard to honoring him as one of the greatest Hollywood directors of last two decades, especially in consideration to his outstanding accomplishment that almost established a different school of filmmaking. He made the world sense his presence as an outstanding director with the sensational film Taxi Driver back in 1976 and after great many productions of international acclamation in the subsequent time right from the nineties he directed some of the most enchanting celluloid drama that we have ever seen, like Goodfellas, The Age of Innocence, The Departed, The Aviator and many more award winning and commercially successful movies of all genres.
Roman Polanski
The sad thing about our present listing of this incredibly gifted filmmaker as a Hollywood director is his controversial situation followed after an alleged rape attempt by him that presently make him work outside of U.S. But a director who made such engrossing movie drama of exceptional merit like The Chinatown or The Pianist would invariably feature among the greatest Hollywood directors of present time.
David Lynch
If you want to know America or for that matter American dream or aspirations in all its delicate and fantastic details David Lynch is your guide with some of the most compelling cinematic explorations of American life, aspirations and fantasies with likes of films such as Mulholland Dr., The Straight story, Inland Empire and many more.
James Cameron
Without James Cameron no gross discussion or critical acclamation of Hollywood films is simply unthinkable. Cameron not only directed some of the greatest blockbusters in the world film but with consecutive great array of films that range from power packed science fiction like Terminator trilogy to all time great romantic film like Titanic to great social comedy like True Lies to the brilliant adaptation of the fantasy world of Spiderman in Spider-man and Dark Angel to the worldwide box office record breaker animated science fiction Avatar he almost covered all genres of celluloid storytelling and most notably his creations have a mix that is truly multifarious. Among the greatest Hollywood directors of last two decades he is the member of those elite few who enjoyed highest number of nomination and winning feat in several departments of Academy award for most of their films. Though number of times he has been nominated for Academy award for director almost for every major film in his career, he got the coveted Academy award as Best director for Titanic.
Ridley Scott
Hollywood is the ultimate destination for a movie lover of science fiction genre and when talking of greatest sci-fi directors of all time Ridley Scott definitely would feature up in the rank. Take his Blade Runner that critical acclamation as one of the most influential science fiction film of all time or his hugely commercial as well as commercial success with Gladiator that won him the Academy award for best picture or just look at his consistent career as director that won in total nine Oscars for different categories for different films, you never can just miss him as a great Hollywood director of contemporary era and film history as a whole.
Clint Eastwood
He is the only all time great actor in the Hollywood film who enjoyed such massive success in direction, so much so that with close to 30 films under his belt as a director and with some of the classics in world film to his directorial credit he is now considered to be one of the most accomplished directors in the cinemas history. His four major films that won him several Oscar awards including two times Best Director, two times Best Picture and several nominations for different categories include Unforgiven (1992), Mystic River (2003), Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006). In the past two decades few directors who overshadowed Hollywood like a big arch over time, Clint Eastwood is definitely one of them.
Quentin Tarantino
Just following his first release back in 1992 he immediately became a legend and with showering critical acclamation and praise for his writing and directorial debut with Reservoir Dogs. But his sense of footing on the ground did not just vanished with this success, just two years later he came up with another gem, Pulp Fiction that premiered at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival and won Palm d'Or, the greatest and one of the most coveted award after Oscar. After the success of his earlier films he continued to direct war films like Kill Bill series and Inglorious Basterds that made out of him a director who can handle diverse range of topics.
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