Top 100 Directors Stats

Top 50 Directors’ Statistics

The highest-placed movement was Akira Kurosawa (overtaking Martin Scorsese)
Directors who fell out of the top 50 were William Wyler and Michael Haneke.
Directors who entered the top 50 were Agnes Varda and D.W. Griffith.
The highest rises were Wong Kar-wai (+12), D.W. Griffith (+11) and Agnes Varda (+9)
The biggest fallers were Krzysztof Kieslowski (-16), Werner Herzog (-14) and Terrence Malick (-10)
D.W. Griffith’s rise is likely due to a change in approach towards early films, not a shock opinion change on a racist.
The following directors’ ranking positions didn’t move – Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Bergman, Luis Bunuel, Jean-Luc Godard, John Ford, Stanley Kubrick, Yasujiro Ozu, Howard Hawks, Michael Powell, Coen Brothers, John Huston, David Lean and Hou Hsiao-hsien.

Most directors are from the following countries, the USA (34%), France (10%), the UK (8%), Japan (8%), Germany (8%) and Italy (8%)
8% of the directors are from Tokyo or New York City. 6% are from London or Paris.
98% of the list is male, while Agnes Varda represents 2% as the sole female. Before this year’s update, no female directors were in the top 50.
50% of the list is from Europe, 34% is from North America, and 16% is from Asia.
74% of the directors on this list are dead, and just 26% are alive.
The earliest-born director on the list is D.W. Griffith, born on the 22nd of January 1875, over 148 years ago.
The latest-born director is Paul Thomas Anderson, born on the 26th of June 1970, 95 years after Griffith. (A.G.?)
The average year of birth for a director on this list is 1919. Which probably smells pretty bad.

The only directors to fall out of the top 100 were Nicolas Roeg, Peter Jackson, Marcel Carne and Louis Malle.
The directors who rose in their place were Spike Lee, Chantal Akerman, Pedro Almodovar and Claire Denis.
The biggest falls within the top 100 were the following: Krzysztof Kieslowski (-16), Jacques Rivette (-16), Werner Herzog (-14), Theo Angelopoulos (-12) and James Cameron (-11)
The biggest risers within the top 100 were: Spike Lee (+29), Chantal Akerman (+15), Wong Kar-wai (+12), David Cronenberg (+12) and D.W. Griffith (+11).

34% of the directors were from the USA, 12% were from France, and 8% were from Italy.
53% were from Europe, 36% from North America and 12% from Asia.
Frank Capra, being from Europe and spending his formative years in America, is an anomaly. So I put him down as from Europe, yet a director from the USA.
65% of the directors on this list are deceased, and 35% are alive.
97% of the directors on the list are male, against just 3% of women directors.
8% of the directors on the list come from Paris, 6% from New York and 5% from Tokyo.
The average year of birth for a director on this list is 1925. Even if this hypothetical director were alive, he wouldn’t get his letter from the Queen.