Top 50: Directors Whose Work I Need To Explore

After a couple of years of film watching with purpose, I've seen quite a few films and have become familiar with many directors works. But as always (and as is evident by this previous post) there are some directors whose work I have yet to experience. Some are internationally famous directors, other more obscure, but I have been recommended their work many times and feel that the time has come for me to watch at least one of their films.


I've seen at least one film of a great many directors, and while I cannot include these names on my favourites list as I prefer to have seen at least 3 of a directors films before doing such a thing, I also cannot place them on this list, as this is reserved solely for those of whom I have not seen even 1 film.

I'd welcome any recommendations from those familiar with these directors of course, as I wouldn't know where to start.

Pedro Almodovar

Theodoros Angelopoulos

Andrea Arnold

Hal Ashby

Peter Bogdanovich

Stan Brakhage

Robert Bresson

Charles Burnett

Jane Campion

Leos Carax

Marcel Carné

John Cassavetes

Claude Chabrol

 Jean Cocteau

Lu Chuan

Maya Deren

Costa Gavras
 

Hal Hartley

Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Tadashi Imai

Miklos Jancso
 
Alejandro Jorodowsky

 Wong Kar Wai

Aki Kaurismäki

Buster Keaton

Abbas Kiarostami

Kim Ki Duk

Satoshi Kon

Patrice Leconte

Guy Maddin

Samira Makhmalbaf

Deepa Mehta

Max Ophuls
 

Sergei Parajanov

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Otto Preminger

Lynne Ramsay

Satyajit Ray

Nicholas Ray

Kelly Reichardt

Jacques Rivette

Glauber Rocha

 Nicolas Roeg

Roberto Rosselini

 Vittorio De Sica

Erich Von Stroheim

Aleksandr Sokurov

Jan Svankmajer

István Szabó

Bela Tarr

Julie Taymor

Hiroshi Teshigahara 

Lars Von Trier

Shin'ya Tsukamoto

Jan Troell

Agnes Varda

Andrez Wadja

Bo Widerberg

Michael Winterbottom

Yoji Yamada

Well, that isn't really 50 directors, it's 42. So I'm going to need your help. Please recommend some more directors and if I haven't seen any of there work, or even heard of them before, then I'll add them to the list.
 I'm sure there are many I have overlooked. But as I'm not a Horror fan, please go lightly on all the classic Horror directors (Romero, the many Giallo directors etc...)

This section will chronicle my progress as I work my way through at least one film of each of these directors. 
Click on their names for a link to the review in which I share my thoughts on the film and my first impressions of the directors.


Sergei Parajanov

Peter Greenaway

Pedro Almodovar

Ones added after the original date of posting this will be in italic
Note: I'm also working on a list of my top 50 directors, so keep an eye out for that.