Cuarón and Hitchcock and Scorsese, Oh My! The Greatest Directors Of All-Time

24. Elia Kazan

Image Source: Senses of Cinema

Elia Kazan was an actor, then stage director, then filmmaker and novelist, often embarking on several of these endeavors simultaneously. Known for introducing Marlon Brando to the world of cinema, Kazan is considered one of the most influential American filmmakers of all-time. While Kazan’s films were often marked by social issues to the outsider, the filmmaker was much more drawn to the pathos of the human condition — the painfully vulnerable, complicated and emotional naked places of the human psyche.

He loved and nurtured the vanity-free actors who were willing and able to facilitate such ends and emotional complex truths. Some of the most impactful works from Kazan include such undoubted masterpieces as Gentleman’s Agreement, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront and East of Eden.