'Entertainment Weekly' Hates Directors Who Are Good, Foreign, Or Female

Strap in, kids. Entertainment Weekly just put out their list of the 25 greatest active film directors, and here's who isn't on it: Woody Allen, David Lynch, or a single woman. So who is?

Before reading the list of the magazine's Top 25 (helpfully transcribed by Slashfilm), we advise you to take a deep breath and maybe finish off that rum and coke you've snuck into your Diet Pepsi can. Ready?

1. Steven Spielberg
2. Peter Jackson
3. Martin Scorsese
4. Christopher Nolan
5. Steven Soderbergh
6. Ridley Scott
7. Quentin Tarantino
8. Michael Mann
9. James Cameron
10. Joel and Ethan Coen
11. Guillermo del Toro
12. David Fincher
13. Tim Burton
14. Judd Apatow
15. Sam Raimi
16. Zack Snyder
17. Darren Aronofsky
18. Danny Boyle
19. Clint Eastwood
20. Ron Howard
21. Ang Lee
22. Paul Thomas Anderson
23. Paul Greengrass
24. Pedro Almodóvar
25. Jon Favreau

We told you to finish that drink. Yes, indeed, that is Zack Snyder and Jon Favreau you see up there. "How could we not include the man who gave us Zooey Deschanel and Will Ferrell singing 'Baby, It's Cold Outside'?" EW asks in its writeup of Favreau. Oh...by, say, not putting his name on the list, maybe? Don't get us wrong, we liked Iron Man too, but this Top 25 is so heavily weighted toward action and fantasy directors that it might as well have been compiled by a thirteen-year-old from Boise whose mom just started letting him watch rated-R movies.

We were surprised that EW didn't include the worthy choice and absolute, obvious gimme of Sofia Coppola in its Top 25, and then we heard that there was an extended list of the directors ranked 26-50. Pour a little more rum, why don't you?

26. Woody Allen
27. Brad Bird
28. David Cronenberg
29. Sofia Coppola
30. Bryan Singer
31. Sam Mendes
32. Mel Gibson
33. The Wachowski Bros.
34. J.J. Abrams
35. Alfonso Cuaron
36. Hayao Miyazaki
37. Mike Leigh
38. Oliver Stone
39. Roman Polanski
40. Spike Jonze
41. Richard Linklater
42. Spike Lee
43. David Lynch
44. Wong Kar-Wai
45. Wes Anderson
46. Mira Nair
47. Andrew Stanton
48. Michael Moore
49. Mary Harron
50. Sidney Lumet

Oh look: foreigners! They do exist. Also, apparently you can be one of the greatest working directors today (greater, at least, than David Lynch or Wong Kar-Wai) if, like J.J. Abrams, your only feature credit thus far is Mission: Impossible 3.

By the way, Jane Campion hates you, EW. And she never liked Twilight, either!

• Woody Allen and Miyazaki Not Included on EW's 25 Greatest Active Film Directors List [/film]

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