Great Filmmaker Quotes

#1. You have to be able to feel like you can play way outside of the box. If you're with a great filmmaker and someone you can trust, that's encouraged, and Seth was that kind of filmmaker and co-star.

Charlize Theron

#2. I like to read and dream and create music that is based on the imagery of text. If you have the combination of a great book and a great filmmaker, what could be better for the composer?

Howard Shore

#3. I would always rather do a mediocre script with a great filmmaker than a great script with a mediocre filmmaker.

Kirsten Dunst

#4. For me, it's always filmmaker and then character and then story. They're all equally important but if you don't have a great filmmaker, you will not have a great film unless you just get lucky.

Channing Tatum

#5. Susanne Bier's work I've always really enjoyed. She's just such a great filmmaker; she's very cool and very sexy - that always helps, too.

Pierce Brosnan

#6. A filmmaker has to have great vision in order to tell a compelling story that is both distinctive and stylistic. I remember playing all movies in my head hundreds of times before they were ever made. You have to see it in your imagination. It has to be real to you.

Nicholas Ozeki

#7. Music is, for me, a great tool of a filmmaker, the same way cinematography, the acting, editing, post-production, the costumes are. You know, to help you tell a story.

Spike Lee

#8. Horror films are art, it's all make believe. It's great if a filmmaker can try to push boundaries and see how much an audience can take and see what happens. It's fun to be able to do that.

Tom Six

#9. As an independent filmmaker, to develop the money and the financing and the structure and the whole process, and then promoting them and traveling with them, which is a part of the process that I've always enjoyed and I've learned a great deal from.

Todd Haynes

#10. There has never been a great film unless it was created in the spirit of the experimental filmmaker.

Len Lye

#11. I love the studio system. Love that studio system and all their money. They're great; I think they're fabulous . You know, what it is right now is I feel like I'm still learning as a filmmaker, I'm still starting out.

Katie Aselton

#12. If you know the filmmaker is good and the leading actor is a movie star like Diane Lane, you know you're part of something great.

Kevin Connolly

#13. Dancer, bride, runaway wife, radical filmmaker and pioneer -
Shirley Clarke is one of the great undertold stories of American independent cinema.

Manohla Dargis

#14. I don't need to prove that I'm some great international filmmaker. It's not really on my list of goals.

Dermot Mulroney

#15. As a filmmaker, I love the medium. I have a great affection for it and I've been lucky enough to do all different kinds of films. The greatest part of the success I've had comes from horror. I love the idea of mixing humor and horror and to me, it's all a giggle.

George A. Romero

#16. Christopher Nolan's 'Batman Begins' set the bar very high for the superhero movie, as it showed that you could get a great cast for these movies and take a real filmmaker's perspective.

Jon Favreau

#17. There's as much great authorship in the filmmaker community as in the literary community, and I'd love to welcome more filmmakers into the fold.

Nina Jacobson

#18. God has been my number one inspiration. I also look up to Will Smith and Jamie Fox who are also personal friends of mine. They give me great career advice. I would also include Chris Stokes, as a filmmaker and music producer. I've been working with him since I was eight.

Marques Houston

#19. For any filmmaker who has just released a film and who is experiencing some measure of success, the temptation can be great to respond to every screening request that comes in.

Julia Bacha

#20. I hope I can become a good enough filmmaker where I can take a script that I'm not 'heart and soul' into, but I could still make something really great out of it.

Joe Carnahan

#21. An Oscar means a lot of things because it's like the ultimate award for a filmmaker so it feels great. But I think you have to consider awards with some distance and not get obsessed with it. When you're creating you shouldn't think about it.

Alejandro Amenabar

#22. In my view, the only way to see a film remains the way the filmmaker intended: inside a large movie theater with great sound and pristine picture.

Ridley Scott

#23. David O. Russell is probably my favorite filmmaker. He's not only a great director, but he's also a great writer.

Adam McKay

#24. Each one [movie] is very important to us and from a fiscal responsibility, filmmakers understand that it's highly personal for us and they've been great about it.

Thomas Tull

#25. I've worked over four dozen nine-to-five jobs before taking the chance to chase my dream of wanting to become an actor and filmmaker. Growing up in Brooklyn and Harlem, working at jobs like the bus company were great. I had benefits, a great salary, and security. But it wasn't my dream.

Malcolm Goodwin

#26. Now is a very interesting time because of the digital cameras, and the fact that you can edit anywhere. It's a great time to be a filmmaker, is a great time to be starting off.

Michael Pitt

#27. No one's being precious about their music. They want the film to be great. And that was the huge lesson for me along the way to be a filmmaker. And yes, I'm leading the music department kind of thing and that responsibility with the music is with me, but really that job is one of many.

Steven Price

#28. I've always felt really lucky to get to work with really great filmmakers. For me, the whole objective is just to hopefully be of service to what they want.

Bryce Dallas Howard

#29. My style of songwriting is influenced by cinema. I'm a frustrated filmmaker. A fan once said to me, 'Girl, you make me see pictures in my head!' and I took that as a great compliment. That's exactly my intention.

Joni Mitchell

#30. I'd meet a new filmmaker that I'd always loved, and I'd think, "Great! I'm in the right place." It's a weird way to look at it, but I don't care as long as I'm able to make stuff that I want to make.

Amy Seimetz

#31. When you're casting a movie and when you're shooting a film, the eyes are the most important feature of any performer, really. Any great actor literally knows exactly how to use their eyes, and even as a filmmaker I love shooting huge close-ups because it's those eyes that mean so much to me.

Peter Jackson

#32. I chose to tell a personal story. When you tell a movie like this that's as emotionally charged as this is, it's a risk. As one of my great cinematic heroes, Francis Coppola, would say, "If you aren't taking the highest, greatest risk, then why are you a filmmaker?"

Christian Bale

#33. If you're a great documentary filmmaker, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're a great narrative filmmaker. There are fantastic documentary filmmakers that can't direct actors. You don't have to do that in a documentary, if it's a real documentary.

Alexander Skarsgard

#34. I learn so much from watching films like that with commentary and then when you get to hear another filmmaker talk about their films it's a really great experience.

Jay Roach

#35. I'm proud of the way I rearrange and put things together, like a chef who makes a great meal, or a filmmaker who puts together a story - it's casting, editing, cinematography.

Bonnie Raitt