How might we establish the GOAT director? What qualities and accomplishments should we consider?

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Recently I was talking to @chickenluver and I mentioned that I thought Steven Spielberg just might be the GOAT director.

My exact comment was:

Frankly, I think he's the GOAT. When you look at profitability, popularity, reliability, longevity, and industry power, I just don't know who can touch him.
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And he responded with:

Most of those categories aren't artistically meaningful. If by reliability you mean consistent quality, Kubrick absolutely crushes Spielberg in that regard IMO. As does Scorsese and a handful of others.
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It seems to me that if we're going to try to determine the GOAT, then we have to look beyond merely the artistic qualities of the films. After all, if we're just judging on artistic quality then anyone can say any director is the greatest. I mean, I'm sure @Cint will be in here shortly to tell us that Nicolas Winding Refn is the the greatest director of all time, and there's no clear refutation if we're only judging by subjective qualities.

So what do you guys think? How exactly should we determine the GOAT director? What factors should we consider? And if you'd like to toss out a name, who do you think is the greatest director of all time and why?

Edit: AegonSpengler and I have worked on a list. Here are some of the criteria we've come up with:
  • Quality of the director's best work - How good are his very best films?
  • Quality of the director's work over time - Did he just have a few big hits and then a lot of mediocre films or has he been able to sustain a high level of quality over several years?
  • Profitability - How well have his films performed at the box office?
  • Popularity - How well known is the director? How beloved are they by the public? How large and devoted is their fan base? Could they be called an "icon?" Have they penetrated pop culture in any way?
  • Longevity - How long have they stayed relevant? Did they have a brief prime and then fade into obscurity or have they had a career that has remained notable across decades?
  • Awards - What notable awards have they won? What other industry recognition have they received?
  • Range - How varied is their output? Do most of their films "feel" the same? What genres have they worked in?
  • Are they story creators or only directors? - Do they usually write their own screenplays in addition to directing? Are those screenplays usually original ideas or adaptations of others' ideas?
  • Impact on other filmmakers - What impact did they have on other filmmakers? How have they influenced the way that movies are made?
 
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Can't have a GOAT in a subjective discipline. That being said its gonna be hard for anyone to dethrone Kubrick.
 
shadow_priest_x said:
Recently I was talking to @chickenluver and I mentioned that I thought Steven Spielberg just might be the GOAT director.

My exact comment was:



And he responded with:



It seems to me that if we're going to try to determine the GOAT, then we have to look beyond merely the artistic qualities of the films. After all, if we're just judging on artistic quality then anyone can say any director is the greatest. I mean, I'm sure @Cint will be in here shortly to tell us that Nicolas Winding Refn is the the greatest director of all time, and there's no clear refutation if we're only judging by subjective qualities.

So what do you guys think? How exactly should we determine the GOAT director? What factors should we consider? And if you'd like to toss out a name, who do you think is the greatest director of all time and why?
Click to expand...


Making classics helps. Doing it in a variety of genres helps. That's why my pick is Kubrick.

Dr. Stragelove (satire)
Full Metal Jacket (war)
The Shining (horror)
A Clockwork Orange (avant garde?)
2001 (sci-fi)

Honorable mention to:

Barry Lyndon (period piece)
Eyes Wide Shut (relationship drama)
 
Losfer Words said:
Can't have a GOAT in a subjective discipline. That being said its gonna be hard for anyone to dethrone Kubrick.
Click to expand...

The problem with Kubrick, as I see it, is two-fold.

First, he has a relatively limited body of work. For another, the actual quality of some of his films could be legitimately debated.

Take The Shining, for instance. I love The Shining, but if someone wanted to build an argument that the film is actually an incoherent mess then they could do it. After all, there are elements of that film whose meaning are still debated today, forty years later. One could argue that that is not a mark of quality.
 
Cubo de Sangre said:
Making classics helps. Doing it in a variety of genres helps. That's why my pick is Kubrick.

Dr. Stragelove (satire)
Full Metal Jacket (war)
The Shining (horror)
A Clockwork Orange (avant garde?)
2001 (sci-fi)

Honorable mention to:

Barry Lyndon (period piece)
Eyes Wide Shut (relationship drama)
Click to expand...

I would agree that making classics helps. Though I feel like Spielberg's range is exactly one reason why he's an awesome as he is.

Jaws
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Indiana Jones
E.T.
Jurassic Park
Schindler's List
Munich
Catch Me If You Can
Lincoln

Those are all very different films that span a pretty wide range in terms of genre.
 
Quality of film, amount of quality films made, and the enjoy-ability/rewatchability (timelessness) of such films.

Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorcesse are some of my favorite directors ever.


Leave that artistic/meaningful nonsense to the side and let the pretentious critic circlejerks talk about it.
 
shadow_priest_x said:
The problem with Kubrick, as I see it, is two-fold.

First, he has a relatively limited body of work. For another, the actual quality of some of his films could be legitimately debated.

Take The Shining, for instance. I love The Shining, but if someone wanted to build an argument that the film is actually an incoherent mess then they could do it. After all, there are elements of that film whose meaning are still debated today, forty years later. One could argue that that is not a mark of quality.
Click to expand...
So in your mind, the criteria for greatest director is not just quality of work but magnitude? What else?
 
shadow_priest_x said:
The problem with Kubrick, as I see it, is two-fold.

First, he has a relatively limited body of work. For another, the actual quality of some of his films could be legitimately debated.

Take The Shining, for instance. I love The Shining, but if someone wanted to build an argument that the film is actually an incoherent mess then they could do it. After all, there are elements of that film whose meaning are still debated today, forty years later. One could argue that that is not a mark of quality.
Click to expand...

Clearly Michael Bay is your man then. Keeps it simple so that any retard can follow what's going on.
 
80s-90s Oliver Stone. He’s made garbage post 2000 but his earlier stuff is great. I will argue JFK is best movie ever made. Everything about that movie just works. The cast is super deep and even the ones that are only in it for 2-3 minutes are phenomenal. I actually thought gary oldman was oswald when i first saw it, looks almost like him.

Between that, platoon, the doors, natural born killers, born on the 4th of july, any given sunday, and wall street, he’s my pick of goat.
 
It's not even up for discussion, Spielberg is the only one who's been able to succeed in so many different genres. And Kubrick only doing movies once every 5 or years should be held against him more so then a director who's able to put out quality movies on a yearly basis. Granted Spielberg has more so so movies then Kubrick but he has more overall great movies then Kubrick by sheer volume of movies that he's made.
 
shadow_priest_x said:
The problem with Kubrick, as I see it, is two-fold.

First, he has a relatively limited body of work. For another, the actual quality of some of his films could be legitimately debated.

Take The Shining, for instance. I love The Shining, but if someone wanted to build an argument that the film is actually an incoherent mess then they could do it. After all, there are elements of that film whose meaning are still debated today, forty years later. One could argue that that is not a mark of quality.
Click to expand...
Thats why I said no GOATS in subjective disciplines. However Kubrick did stuff that is not subjective on the technical side of film making. 2001 pushed all kinds of technical limits.
 
Secret Agent said:
So in your mind, the criteria for greatest director is not just quality of work but magnitude? What else?
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Well, as I mentioned in the OP, here are some qualities that I think should at least be considered:
  • Quality of the director's best work (how good are his BEST films?)
  • Reliability (how consistent has the quality been across the director's career?)
  • Profitability
  • Popularity
  • Longevity
  • Industry power
I could maybe come up with other criteria if I thought about it more but I think that's a good starting point.
 
I don't think you need to come up with more so much as define the parameters for each criterion. So people know what you're looking for and how best to accommodate responses.
 
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