The Hateful Eighty

Proving they don't know their own business, the Directors Guild of America has voted for a list of the 80 best-directed films of the last 80 years (the DGA was founded 80 years ago).

Here it is.

1.	The Godfather	Francis Ford Coppola	1972
2.	Citizen Kane	Orson Welles	1941
3.	Lawrence of Arabia	David Lean	1962
4.	2001: A Space Odyssey	Stanley Kubrick	1968
5.	Casablanca	Michael Curtiz	1942
6.	The Godfather: Part II	Francis Ford Coppola	1974
7.	Apocalypse Now	Francis Ford Coppola	1979
8.	Schindler’s List	Steven Spielberg	1993
9.	Gone With the Wind	Victor Fleming	1939
10.	Goodfellas	Martin Scorsese	1990
11.	Chinatown	Roman Polanski	1974
12.	The Wizard of Oz	Victor Fleming	1939
13.	Raging Bull	Martin Scorsese	1980
14.	Jaws	Steven Spielberg	1975
15.	It’s a Wonderful Life	Frank Capra	1946
16.	Dr. Strangelove or: How I  Learned to Stop Worrying  and Love the Bomb	Stanley Kubrick	1964
17.	The Shawshank Redemption	Frank Darabont	1994
18.	The Graduate	Mike Nichols	1967
19.	Star Wars: Episode IV —  A New Hope	George Lucas	1977
20.	Blade Runner	Ridley Scott	1982

21.	On the Waterfront	Elia Kazan	1954
22.	Pulp Fiction	Quentin Tarantino	1994
23.	E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial	Steven Spielberg	1982
24.	Annie Hall	Woody Allen	1977
25.	Saving Private Ryan	Steven Spielberg	1998
26.	Seven Samurai	Akira Kurosawa	1954
27.	A Clockwork Orange	Stanley Kubrick	1971
28.	Raiders of the Lost Ark	Steven Spielberg	1981
29.	Vertigo	Alfred Hitchcock	1958
30.	Sunset Boulevard	Billy Wilder	1950

31.	To Kill A Mockingbird	Robert Mulligan	1962
32.	Psycho	Alfred Hitchcock	1960
33.	The Searchers	John Ford	1956
34.	Forrest Gump	Robert Zemeckis	1994
35.	Singin’ in the Rain	Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly	1952
36.	8 ½	Federico Fellini	1963
37.	The Third Man	Carol Reed	1949
38.	The Best Years of Our Lives	William Wyler	1946
39.	Rear Window	Alfred Hitchcock	1954
40.	The Bridge on the River Kwai	David Lean	1957

41.	North by Northwest	Alfred Hitchcock	1959
42.	One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	Miloš Forman	1975
43.	The Sound of Music	Robert Wise	1965
44.	Taxi Driver	Martin Scorsese	1976
45.	Titanic	James Cameron	1997
46.	The Shining	Stanley Kubrick	1980
47.	Amadeus	Miloš Forman	1984
48.	Doctor Zhivago	David Lean	1965
49.	West Side Story	Jerome Robbins,  Robert Wise	1961
50.	Some Like it Hot	Billy Wilder	1959

51.	Ben-Hur	William Wyler	1959
52.	Fargo	Ethan Coen,  Joel Coen	1996
53.	The Silence of the Lambs	Jonathan Demme	1991
54.	The Apartment	Billy Wilder	1960
55.	Avatar	James Cameron	2009
56.	The Hurt Locker	Kathryn Bigelow	2008
57.	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre	John Huston	1948
58.	Birdman or  (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)	Alejandro G. Iñárritu	2014
59.	All About Eve	Joseph L. Mankiewicz	1950
60.	The Deer Hunter	Michael Cimino	1978

61.	There Will Be Blood	Paul Thomas Anderson	2007
62.	The Sting	George Roy Hill	1973
63.	The Wild Bunch	Sam Peckinpah	1969
64.	Alien	Ridley Scott	1979
65.	Rocky	John G. Avildsen	1976
66.	The Conformist	Bernardo Bertolucci	1970
67.	Gandhi	Richard Attenborough	1982
68.	The Bicycle Thief	Vittorio De Sica	1948
69.	Cinema Paradiso	Giuseppe Tornatore	1988
70.	Brazil	Terry Gilliam	1985

71.	The Grapes of Wrath	John Ford	1940
72.	All the President’s Men	Alan J. Pakula	1976
73.	Barry Lyndon	Stanley Kubrick	1975
74.	Touch of Evil	Orson Welles	1958
75.	Once Upon a Time in America	Sergio Leone	1984
76.	Unforgiven	Clint Eastwood	1992
77.	The Usual Suspects	Bryan Singer	1995
78.	Network	Sidney Lumet	1976
79.	Rashomon	Akira Kurosawa	1950
80.	Once Upon a Time in the West	Sergio Leone	1968

Plenty of classics, but way too many big-name films that don't live up to their reputation, while many great directors get nothing.  Let's look at a few highlights.

Already by #3 and #4, we're getting "director's films" that have long been overrated--Lawrence Of Arabia and 2001.  Kubrick is the most overrepresented on the list--I can see Strangelove, but The Shining or Barry Lyndon? Even Clockwork Orange shouldn't be here.

Chronologically, the list is also screwed up--there isn't a single title before 1939, and precious few from major directors working in the mid-30s to mid-40s.  There were plenty of greats from that era who didn't make it--Chaplin, Hawks, Lubitsch, McCarey, Cukor, Preston Sturges and so on.  Why?  To make room for Barry Lyndon?

There are some foreign films, but too few to justify their inclusion--either the list should be a third or more foreign titles, or they should have been kept out of the voting.  There are a few Japanese and Italian films, but that's it.  No Renoir or Truffaut, no Bergman, no Bunuel, no Ozu, no Antonioni.

When it comes to more modern Hollywood names, the lacunae are shocking.  Where's Robert Altman?  Terrence Malick?  David Lynch?  Fine, have some Spielberg and Scorsese, but leave room for their contemporaries.

So many of these titles have been coasting on unearned prominence for years that I thought maybe the DGA would see through them, but no.  In fact, I'd toss more than half the list.  Which ones?  In addition to those already mentioned, here are some I'd cut before even worrying about what should make it. (I should actually make two lists--good films but not good enough for this list, and films that are just bad--so I apologize in advance for mixing them up):

Raging Bull, The Shawshank Redemption, Blade Runner, Vertigo (I don't care if some think it's the greatest film of all time), To Kill A Mockingbird, The Searchers, Forrest Gump, 8 1/2, The Third Man, Bridge On The River Kwai (Alec Guinness isn't in most of it), One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Next, The Sound Of Music, Titanic, Amadeus, Doctor Zhivago, West Side Story (how is this a director's film?--they fired the first director and let Robert Wise finish it with pedestrian polish), Ben-Hur (I've never been able to make it all the way through), Fargo, The Silence Of The Lambs, Avatar, The Hurt Locker, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, Birdman, All About Eve, The Deer Hunter, There Will Be Blood, The Wild Bunch, Alien, The Conformist, Gandhi, Cinema Paradiso, Brazil (sorry, Terry), The Grapes Of Wrath, All The President's Men, Once Upon A Time In America, Unforgiven, The Usual Suspect, Network.

How about a do-over?