film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

dark_knight_logo.jpg

Comparing The 25 Greatest Working Directors With the 25 Most Profitable Working Directors

By Dustin Rowles | Lists | February 26, 2011 |

By Dustin Rowles | Lists | February 26, 2011 |


Entertainment Weekly came out with its list of the 25 Greatest Working Directors this week, and while I might have a few small quibbles with it, I thought the more interesting aspect here is the comparison of that list to the list of Most Profitable Working Directors, an opportunity to redundantly demonstrate how infrequently commerce and quality intersect. Indeed, of the 25 Greatest Working Directors, only five are also among the Most Profitable. The comparison is also a testament to those five directors’ abilities to merge the commercial and critical.

Entertainment Weekly’s List of the 25 Greatest Working Directors

25. Wes Anderson

24. Mike Leigh

23. Brad Bird

22. J.J. Abrams

21. Spike Lee

20. Edgar Wright

19. Peter Jackson

18. James Cameron

17. David Lynch

16. David O. Russell

15. Kathryn Bigelow

14. Danny Boyle

13. Roman Polanski

12. Guillermo del Toro

11. Paul Thomas Anderson

10. Pedro Almodóvar

9. Clint Eastwood

8. Terrence Malick

7. Quentin Tarantino

6. Joel & Ethan Coen

5. Darren Aronofsky

4. Martin Scorsese

3. Steven Spielberg

2. Christopher Nolan

1. David Fincher


Box Office Mojo’s List of the 25 Most Profitable Working Directors

25. Garry Marshall

24. Joel Schumacher

23. M. Night Shyamalan

22. Brett Ratner

21. Jay Roach

20. Ivan Reitman

19. Tony Scott

18. Roland Emmerich

17. Ridley Scott

16. Richard Donner

15. Andrew Adamson

14. Christopher Nolan

13. Lee Unrich

12. Clint Eastwood

11. Sam Raimi

10. Gore Verbinski

9. Peter Jackson

8. Michael Bay

7. Tim Burton

6. Chris Columbus

5. George Lucas

4. Ron Howard

3. James Cameron

2. Robert Zemeckis

1. Steven Spielberg