WHILE REELING FROM THE WASH OF COMMENTARY AFTER THE DEATHS OF INGMAR BERGMAN AND MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI ON THE SAME DAY, much of which ventured who, beyond the prolific near-centenarian from Porto, might be the oldest surviving world directors, it was striking to realize how many persist at their craft even as they grow older. Other patterns emerged: it’s intriguing to consider the work of dissimilar directors born in the same month or year. Is it meaningful in any way that the director of Annie Hall and the director of Our Hitler were born in the same week? Or that Carl Reiner and Alain Resnais are the same age? (Abbas Kiarostami and Victor Erice collaborated on “Correspondences,” a beautiful book about their work and the age that they share.)
Which led to this, rather than yet another rumination on the work of the two men—a project for later, perhaps, after coming to grips with Rivette’s Out 1—a necessarily selective survey of over 310 directors from around the world, all of whom are 60 or older, who have had lasting impact or a moment that matters in one way or another. More will be added: comment or email (pride_at_moviecitynews.com). Entries are listed by year of birth, date, their most recent project completed or in production and its release date. Directors between the ages of 98 and 80 are immediately below; the rest are at the jump.
1908
Manoel de Oliveira, 11 December, The Singularities of Rapariga Loira (2008)
1909
Richard L. Bare, 12 August, “Green Acres” (43 episodes, 1965-1971)
1911
Jules Dassin, December 18, Circle of Two (1980)
1912
Kaneto Shindô, April 28, Fukuro (2003)
1915
Mario Monicelli, 15 May, Le rose del deserto (2006)
Kon Ichikawa, 20 November, The Inugamis (2006)
1916
Dino Risi, 23 December, Le Regazze di Miss Italia (2002)
1917
Mel Shavelson, 1 April, Yours Mine And Ours (1968) [DIED AUGUST 8, 2007]
1918
Gabriel Axel, 18 April, Leila (2001)
1920
Eric Rohmer, 4 April, Les amours d’Astree et de Celadon (2007)
Mickey Rooney, September 23. The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960)
1921
Chris Marker, 29 July, The Case of the Grinning Cat (2004)
Miklos Jancso, 29 September, Ede megeve ebedem (2006)
1922
Carl Reiner, 20 March, That Old Feeling (1997)
Alain Resnais, 3 June, Private Fears In Public Places (2006)
Blake Edwards, 26 July, Son of the Pink Panther (1993)
Jonas Mekas, 24 September, Elvis (2001)
Arthur Penn, 27 September, Inside (1996)
Ebrahim Golestan, Ghost Valley Treasure (1974)
1923
Norman Mailer, January 31, Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1987)
Franco Zeffirelli, 12 February, Tre Fratelli (2005)
Irvin Kirschner, 29 April, RoboCop 2 (1990)
Seijun Suzuki, 24 May, Princess Raccoon (2005)
Sir Richard Attenborough, 29 August, The Snow Prince (2003)
Arthur Hiller, 22 November, National Lampoon’s Pucked (2006)
1924
Stanley Donen, 13 April, Love Letters (1999)
Sidney Lumet, 25 June, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)
Robert Frank, 9 November, Sanyu (2000)
Robert M. Young, 22 November, “Battlestar Galactica” episodes (2004-2007)
1925
Paul Newman, 26 January, The Glass Menagerie (1986)
Fernando Birri, March 13, ZA 05. Lo viejo y lo nuevo (2006)
Peter Brook, 21 March, The Tragedy Of Hamlet (2002)
D. A. Pennebaker, 15 July, Addiction (2007)
Joseph Sargent, 22 July, Sybil (2007)
Claude Lanzmann, 27 November, Sobibor (2001)
1926
Youssef Chahine, 25 January, 47 Years After (2007)
Haskell Wexler, 6 February, From Wharf Rats to Lord of the Docks (2007)
Bud Yorkin, 22 February, Love Hurts (1991)
Andrzej Wajda, 6 March, Katyn (2007)
Jerry Lewis, 16 March, Smorgasbord (1983)
Roger Corman, 5 April, Frankenstein Unbound (1990)
Herschell Gordon Lewis, 15 June, Blood Feast 2: All You Can Eat (2002)
Mel Brooks, 28 June, Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)
Norman Jewison, 21 July, The Statement (2003)
Lina Wertmuller, 14 August, Peperoni ripieni e pesci in faccia (2004)
Bud Greenspan, 18 September, Pride Against Prejudice: The Larry Doby Story (2007)
Albert Maysles, 26 November, American Prison: The Forgotten Jews (2007)
1927
Kenneth Anger, 3 February, Mouse Heaven (2004)
Ken Russell, 3 July, Trapped Ashes (2006)
Elliot Silverstein, 3 August, The Car (1977)
Marcel Ophüls, 1 November, The Troubles We’ve Seen (1994)
Jerry Schatzberg, The Day the Ponies Come Back (2000)
Alfred Leslie, Cedar Bar (2002)

1928
William Peter Blatty, 7 January, The Exorcist III (1990)
Jacques Rivette, 1 March, Don’t Touch The Ax (2007)
William Klein, 19 April, Messiah (1999)
Agnes Varda, 30 May, Quelques veuves de Noirmoutier (2006)
James Ivory, 7 June, City of Your Final Destination (2007)
Nicolas Roeg, 15 August, Puffball (2007)
Mel Stuart, 2 September, Charlie and the Chocolate Factor
Harold Becker, 25 September, Rififi (2008)
Clu Galager, 16 November, A Day With The Boys (1969)
1929
Ulu Grosbard, 9 January, The Deep End of the Ocean (1999)
Vera Chytilová, 2 February, Pleasant Moments (2006)
Alejandro Jodorowsky, 7 February, The Rainbow Thief (1990)
Claude Goretta, 23 June, Sarte, the Age of Passions (2006)
Buddy van Horn, 20 August, Pink Cadillac (1989)
Vittorio Taviani, 20 September, La massseria delle allodole (2007)
Alain Tanner, 6 December, Paul s’en va (2004)
Michael Snow, 10 December, *Corpus Callosum (2002)
1930
Frederick Wiseman, 1 January, State Legislature (2007)
Richard Donner, 24 April, 16 Blocks (2006)
Paul Mazursky, 25 April, Yippee (2006)
Jess Franco, 12 May, Snakewoman (2005)
Clint Eastwood, 31 May, The Changeling (2008)
Claude Chabrol, 24 June, The Woman Cut In Half (2007)
Robert Culp, 16 August, Hickey And Boggs (1972)
Sir Peter Hall, 22 November, Never Talk To Strangers (1995)
Jean-Luc Godard, 3 December, Vrai faux passéport (2006)
Richard Rush, Color of Night (1994)
1931
Robert Duvall, 5 January, Assassination Tango (2002)
Hal Needham, 6 March, Street Luge (1996)
Masahiro Shinoda, March 9, Spy Sorge (2003)
Ettore Scola, 10 May, Gente di Roma (2003)
Irwin Winkler, 25 May, Home of the Brave (2006)
Jan Troell, 23 July, Maria Larsson’s Everlasting Moment (2008)
Ermanno Olmi, 24 July, One Hundred Nails (2007)
Alain Cavalier, 14 September, Le Filmeur (2005)
Marta Meszaros, 19 September, Hanna Wende (2008)
Paolo Taviani, 20 September, La masseria delle allodole (2007)
Bruce Baillie, September 24, The P-38 Pilot (1990)
Mike Nichols, 6 November, Charlie Wilson’s War (2007)
1932
Carlos Saura, 4 January, Io, Don Giovanni (2008)
Alfonso Arau, 11 January L’Imbroglio nel lenzuolo (2007)
Richard Lester, 19 January, Get Back (1991)
Milos Forman, 18 February, Goya’s Ghosts (2006)
Nagisa Oshima, 31 March, Gohatto (1999)
Elaine May, 21 April, Ishtar (1987)
George Sluizer, 25 June, The Chosen One (2007)
Monte Hellman, 12 July, Trapped Ashes (2006)
Melvin Van Peebles, 21 August, The Real Deal (2003)
Robert Benton, 19 September, Feast of Love (2007)
Dusan Makavejev, 13 October, Danish Girls Show Everything (1996)
Edgar Reitz, 1 November, Heimat-Fragmente: Die Frauen (2006)
John G. Avildsen, 21 December, Dancing Into the Future (2007)
John Mackenzie, Quicksand (2001)
1933
Jean-Marie Straub, 8 January, Quei loro incontri (2006)
Liliani Cavani, 12 January, Albert Einstein (2009)
John Boorman, 18 January, The Memoirs of Hadrian (2008)
Costa-Gavras, 12 February, The Ax (2005)
Bob Rafelson, 21 February, No Good Deed (2002)
Ken Jacob, 25 May, Razzle-Dazzle (2007)
Ivan Passer, 10 July, Nomad (2005)
Roman Polanski, 18 August, Pompeii (2009)
Lucian Pintilie, 9 November, Tertium non datur (2005)
Bruce Conner, Looking for Mushrooms (1996)
1934
Otar Iosseliani, 2 February, Jardins en automne (2006)
Peter Kubelka, 23 March, Dichtung und Wahrheit [Poetry and Truth] (2003)
Mark Rydell, 23 March, Even Money (2006)
Claude Berri, 1 July, La graine et la mullet (2007)
Sydney Pollack, 1 July, Sketches Of Frank Gehry (2006)
Gilbert Cates, 6 June, Backfire (1987)
Jan Svankmajer, 4 September, Sileni (2005)
Kira Muratova, 5 November, Two In One (2007)
Garry Marshall, 13 November, Georgia Rule (2007)
Robert Towne, 23 November, Ask the Dust (2006)
Chor Yuen, Pu ti you gui (1993)
1935
Theo Angelopoulos, 17 April, The Dust of Time (2007)
Joan Micklin Silver, 24 May, A Fish In The Bathtub (1999)
William Friedkin, 29 August, Bug (2006)
Michael Winner, 30 October, Parting Shots (1999)
Peter Watkins, 29 October, Commune (Paris, 1871) (2000)
Les Blank, 27 November, All in This Tea (2007)
Woody Allen, 1 December, Woody Allen Spanish Project (2008)
Hans- Jürgen Syberberg, 8 December, Hohle der Erinnerung (1997)
1936
Alan Alda, 28 January, Betsy’s Wedding (1990)
Burt Reynolds, 11 February, The Final Hit (2000)
Haile Gerima, March 4, Adwa (1999)
Kwon-taek Im, 2 May, Across the Years (2006)
Dennis Hopper, 17 May, Homeless (2000)
Ken Loach, 17 June, It’s A Free World (2007)
Robert Redford, 18 August, Lions For Lambs (2007)
Hugh Hudson, 25 August, I Dreamed Of Africa (2000)
Lau Kar Leung, August, Heroes of Shaolin (2008)
Philip Kaufman, 23 October, Twisted (2004)
1937
Warren Beatty, 30 March, Bulworth (1998)
Jack Nicholson, 22 April, The Two Jakes (1990)
Jorgen Leth, 14 June, Aarhus (2005)
Tom Stoppard, 3 July, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)
Francis Veber, 28 July, The Valet (2006)
Andrei Konchalovsky, 20 August, Gloss (2007)
Carroll Ballard, 14 October, Colter’s Run (2008)
Luc Moullet, 14 October, The Liter of Milk (2006)
Claude Lelouch, 30 October, Crossed Tracks (2007)
Sir Ridley Scott, 30 November, American Gangster (2007)
Tom Palazzolo, I Married a Munchkin (1994)
1938
Istvan Szabo, 18 February, Journey by Moonlight (2008)
Paul Morrissey, 23 February, Veruschka (2005)
Jirí Menzel, 23 February, Obsluhoval som anglického krála (2006)
Jerzy Skolimowski, 5 May, Ferdyduke (1991)
Richard Benjamin, 22 May, Conditional Love (2008)
Kevin Brownlow, 2 June, I’m King Kong! (2005)
Paul Verhoeven, 18 July, Azazel (2009)
Ralph Bakshi, 29 October, Last Days of Coney Island (2007)
Liv Ullman, 16 December, Faithless (2000)
Rudy Wurlitzer, Candy Mountain (1988)
1939
Edgardo Cozarinsky, 13 January, Night Watch (2005)
Michael Cimino, 3 February, No Translation Needed (2007)
John Hancock, 12 February, Suspended Animation (2004)
Bertrand Blier, 14 March, How Much Do You Love Me? (2005)
Volker Schlöndorff, 31 March, Ulzhan (2007)
Francis Coppola, 7 April, Youth Without Youth (2007)
Krzysztof Zanussi, 17 July, Black Sun (2007)
Peter Bogdanovich, 30 July, The Broken Code (2007)
Wes Craven, 2 August, Red Eye (2005)
Michael Sarne, 6 August, Glastonbury the Movie (1995)
John Badham, 25 August, Incognito (1997)
Joel Schumacher, 29 August, Town Creek (2008)
Marco Belocchi, 9 November, The Wedding Director (2006)
Dariush Mehrjui, 8 December, Santoori (2007)
Fred Schepisi, 26 December, Last Man (2008)
1940
George A. Romero, 4 February, Diary of the Dead (2007)
Stuart Samuels, 8 March, 27 (2007)
Bernardo Bertolucci, 16 March, The Dreamers (2003)
Godfrey Reggio, 29 March, Naqoyqatsi (2002)
Paul Cox, 16 April, Human Touch (2004)
Al Pacino, 25 April, Salomaybe? (2007)
Abbas Kiarostami, 22 June, Certified Copy (2008)
Victor Erice, 30 June, Soliloquio (2006)
Brian De Palma, 11 September, Redancted (2007)
Bruce Beresford, 16 August, The Contract (2006)
Chris Menges, 15 September, the Lost Son (1999)
Dario Argento, September 7, Mother Of Tears (2007)
Fredi M. Murer, 1 October, Vitus (2006)
Terry Gilliam, 22 November, Untitled Gorillaz Project (2007)
Slava Tsukerman, Stalin’s Wife (2008)
1941
Hayao Miyazaki, 5 January, Ponyo On A Cliff (2008)
Henry Jaglom, 26 January, Irene in Time (2007)
Michael Apted, 10 February, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2009)
Adrian Lyne, 4 March, Unfaithful (2002)
Wolfgang Petersen, 14 March, Poseidon (2006)
Stefan Jarl, 18 March, Flickan fran Auschwitz (2005)
Bertrand Tavernier, 25 April, In The Electric Mist (2007)
Nora Ephron, 19 May, Bewitched (2005)
Bob Dyland, 24 May, Renaldo and Clara (1978)
Stephen Frears, 20 June, Skip Tracer (2007)
Denys Arcand, 25 June, The Age Of Ignorance (2007)
Raul Ruiz, 25 July, Love and Virtue (2008)
Denys Arcand, 26 June, L’Âge des ténèbres (2007)
Jean Pierre Lefebvre, 17 August, See You In Toronto (2000)
Barbet Schroeder, 26 August, Terror’s Advocate (2007)
Michael Wadleigh, 21 September, Jimi Hendrix Live At Woodstock (1999)
1942
Walter Hill, 10 January, Broken Trail (2006)
Terry Jones, 1 February, The BFI London IMAX Signature Film (1999)
Margarethe von Trotta, 21 February, I Am the Other Woman (2006)
Mike Newell, 28 March, Love in the Time Of Cholera (2007)
Peter Greenaway, 5 April, Nightwatching (2007)
Douglas Trumbull, 8 April, Luxor Live (1996)
Michael Haneke, 23 March, Funny Games (2007)
Barry Levinson, 6 April, What Just Happened? (2007)
Barbra Streisand, 24 April, The Mirror Has Two faces (1996)
Raymond Depardon, 6 July, Profils paysans: la vie moderne (2007)
David Steinberg, 9 August, Frangela, 2007
George Kuchar, 31 August, Beastial Comforts (2005)
Mike Kuchar, 31 August
Werner Herzog, 5 September, Antarctic documentary (2007)
Michael Crichton, 23 October, The Thirteenth Warrior (1999)
Martin Scorsese, 17 November, Shine a Light (2007), Silence (2008)
Rosa von Praunheim, 25 November, Your Heart in My Head (2005)
Prince Chatrichalerm Yukol, November 29, Tamnaan somdet phra Naresuan maharat: Phaak prakaat itsaraphaap (2007)
George Armitage, The Big Bounce (2004)
1943
Larry Clark, January, Destricted (2006)
Tobe Hooper, 25 January, Mortuary (2005)
Michael Mann, 5 February, Hancock (2008)
Mike Leigh, 20 February, Untitled Mike Leigh Project (2008)
Andre Téchiné, 13 March, The Witness (2007)
David Cronenberg, 15 March, Maps to the Stars (2008)
Roy Andersson, 31 March, You the Living (2006)
Jean-Pierre Gorin, 17 April, My Crasy Life, 1992
Jon Jost, 16 May, La lunga ombra (2006)
Iain Sinclair, 11 June, London Orbital (2002)
Walter Murch, 12 July, Return to Oz (1985)
Peter Hyams, 26 July, A Sound Of Thunder (2005)
Alain Corneau 7 August, Le deuxieme soufflé (2007)
Robert DeNiro, 17 August, The Good Shepherd (2006)
Hugh Wilson, 21 August, Mickey (2004)
Jean-Jacques Annaud, 1 October, His Minor Majesty (2007)
Bob Swaim, 2 November, La France Made in USA (2007)
Terrence Malick, 30 November, Tree Of Life (2008)
Arturo Ripstein, 13 December, Carnaval del sodoma (2006)
Alan Rudolph, 18 December, The Secret Lives Of Dentists (2002)
Harry Shearer, 23 December, Teddy Bears’ Picnic (2002)
Thom Andersen, Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)
1944
Sir Alan Parker, 14 February, The Ice At The Bottom Of the World (2008)
Jonathan Demme, 22 February, He Comes In Peace (2008)
Jacques Doillon, 15 March, Le premier venu (2008)
John Milius, 11 April, Journey of Death (2008)
Charles Burnett, 13 April, Red Soil (2007)
George Lucas, 14 May, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Frank Oz, 25 May, Death at a Funeral (2007)
Tony Scott, 21 June, Emma’s War (2008)
Peter Weir, 21 August, Master and Commander (2003)
Harun Farocki, 1 September, Nicht ohne Risiko (2004)
Patrice Chereau, 2 November, Gabrielle (2005)
Danny DeVito, 17 November, Duplex (2003)
Harold Ramis, 21 November, Year Zero (2008)
James Toback, 23 November, When Will I Be Loved (2004)
Eliseo Subiela, 27 December, El resultado del amor (2007)
Taylor Hackford, 31 December, Ray (2004)
1945
Andrew Bergman, 20 February, Joe’s Last Change (2008)
George Miller, 3 March, Happy Feet (2006)
Werner Schroeter, 7 April, Deux (2002)
Ventura Pons, 25 July, Barcelona (un mapa) (2007)
Wim Wenders, 14 August, The Palermo Shooting (2008)
Bob Balaban, 16 August, Bernard and Doris (2007
Robert Greenwald, 28 August, Supermarket Swindle (2008
Willard Huyck, 8 September, Howard The Duck (1986)
Nikita Mikhalkov, 21 October, 12 Angry Men, Burnt By the Sun 2 (2007)
Terrence Davies, 10 November, The House of Mirth (2000)
Neil Young, 12 November, Greendale (2003)
Penelope Spheeris, 2 December, The Kid and I (2005)
Victor Nunez, Coastlines (2002)
Jim Sharman, Shock Treatment (1981)
1946
David Lynch, 20 January, Inland Empire (2006)
Christopher Hampton, 26 January, Imagining Argentina (2003)
Hector Babenco, 7 February, El pasado (2007)
Luis Puenzo, 19 February. The Whore and the Whale (2004)
Michael Radford, 24 February, La Mula (2008)
Bigas Luna, 19 March, Yo soy la Juani (200g)
Lajos Koltai, 2 April, Evening (2007)
John Waters, 22 April, A Dirty Shame (2004)
Franc Roddam, 29 April, K2 (1992)
Bill Plympton, 30 April, Idiots and Angels (2008)
Bruce Robinson, 2 May, The Rum Diary (2008)
Lasse Hallström, 2 June, Sammy (2007)
Sylvester Stalllone, 6 July, John Rambo (2007)
Paul Schrader, 22 July, Adam Resurrected (2008)
Bill Forsyth, 29 July, Gregory’s Two Girls (1999)
Barbara Kopple, 30 July, Shut Up & Sing (2006)
Martha Coolidge, 17 August, Zorro 2110 (2008)
Dennis Dugan, 5 September, I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry (2007)
Frank Marshall, 13 September, Eight Below (2006)
Tommy Lee Jones, 15 September, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)
Steven Spielberg, 18 September, Indiana Jones IV (2008)
John Woo, 23 September, Red Cliffs (2008)
Jean-Jacques Beineix, 8 October, Mortel transfert (2001)
Ivan Reitman, 27 October, My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)
Joe Dante, 28 November, The Greatest Show Ever (2007)
Andy Davis, The Guardian (2006)
1947
Takeshi Kitano, 18 January, Kantoku Banzai! (2007)
Paul Auster, 3 February, The Inner Life of Martin Frost (2007)
Benoît Jacquot, 5 February, L’intouchable (2006)
Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, 2 March, What No One Knows (2008)
Hsiao-hsien Hou, 8 April, Untitled Kung Fu Project (2008)
Ann Hui, May 23, Yi ma de hou xian dai sheng huo (2006)
Tim Hunter, 15 June, Mad Men (2007)
Albert Brooks, 22 July, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (2005)
Stuart Gordon, 11 August, Stuck (2007)
Péter Gothár, 28 August, Hungarian Beauty (2003)
Stephen King, 21 September, Maximum Overdrive (1986)
Alan Moyle, Weirdsville (2007)
[Coincidentally, this is entry 1908 in this version of this site.]

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