There are hundreds of blog posts out there listing a countdown list of X number of movies you should see before you die, or whatever.   They all tend to specialize by either focusing on a single genre, or on a period of time (my personal favorite’s are from J. Hoberman).

Can you believe they are "rebooting" this movie???

Lists are inherently flawed, but can be really useful at the same time. So here’s my stab at it.

This is my list of Top 10 American Filmmakers a Sophisticated Person Should Know (but probably never heard of), and I really stand by this. Films, like books, are important. They are so much more than just mindless entertainment. They can be textually challenging, and they can inspire insight into our experiences on this planet. In short, they can be art, but context is everything.

Now let me start with an apology for being such an ass about my presumption to know what makes a person sophisticated. My only qualification is that I’m a fan of the medium who is really dissatisfied with the quality of mainstream feature films, and really optimistic about the ability of ordinary people to have good taste. This is why I rarely follow politics.

My hope is that more people will become sophisticated film-goers and that this sophistication, in turn, will spread and shape the films being made and distributed in Hollywood. No more film “reboots” unless they have something interesting to add. No more book adaptations that seek to capitalize on the popularity of the novel, regardless of the quality of the film. No more sequels for the sake of the franchise alone.

How about a revolution that fuses art criticism with commerce? Probably too much to ask, but “aim high,” I always say.

So here is my list of American filmmakers you may or may not have heard of, but with whom you really should know if you hope to navigate the world of American film with a level of sophistication.

The Caveats:

Inevitably, coming up with a list like this really means coming up with the rules for a list like this.

Rule #1
I started by giving you, the humble internet stumbler, some credit. I’m assuming you’ve heard of Orson Welles, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorcese and that you know those guys are important American filmmakers. I’m also assuming you know some of the more contemporary masters like P.T. Anderson, Charlie Kaufman, and Roger Avary (and yes, Quentin Tarantino too) so I’m not listing them.

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

I’m a big fan of lists because they usually give me great ideas for my own online DVD queue. The online service I use is Greencine (see ad to the right) because they have a great newsletter with filmmaker interviews, and their website includes mini film classes they call primers, about various cinematic topics (e.g. New Asian Horror, Modern Romantic Comedies, French New Wave, etc). By the way, I totally get a kickback if you sign up by clicking from this site, but I actually went out of my way to endorse these guys because they’re a small company, and I really love the way they do business. I have to make a little money to run this site, but I don’t feel like I have to be at the mercy of whatever ads Google pastes up in their box.

Rule #2
This is a list about American filmmakers not American films, so even if I thought of a great film that everyone should see (Russ Meyers’ Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! comes to mind) if I didn’t feel like there were enough films in that director’s oeuvre to support a listing, I skipped them. This list is about the complete careers of these filmmakers, not just one great shot.

Rule #3
I probably forgot a bunch of really important and amazing films. If so, please do everyone a favor and write them down in the comments section. At best, I’ve never even heard of the film and you just turned me on to a great director, at worst, well, very few people read the comments section anyway.

Rule #4
This is a “narrative fiction only” list.  Although I believe sophisticated people should be familiar with American documentary film, that category is big enough to justify its own list.  The same is true for experimental film.

Now on to the list!

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