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Max Braden: An easy way to win this question is to always go to Billy Wilder. His 1944-1960 directing string goes: Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Death Mills, The Emperor Waltz, A Foreign Affair, Sunset Boulevard, Ace in the Hole, Stalag 17, Sabrina, The Seven Year Itch, The Spirit of St. Louis, Love in the Afternoon, Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment - the last three earning him his sixth, seventh, and eighth Oscar nominations for directing. Frank Capra was nominated five times in seven years, and John Ford won two out of three consecutive nominations at the Oscars with Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, and How Green Was My Valley (though the movies weren't back to back, and he directed Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Long Voyage Home, and Tobacco Road in the same years). William Wyler directed The Letter, The Little Foxes, and Mrs. Miniver in succession, and had a dozen Oscar nominations for directing out of his 35 films total. Those are from a long ago Hollywood era, though. In the '70s you had The Godfather, The Conversation, Godfather II, and Apocalypse Now in succession from Francis Ford Coppola, and Annie Hall, Interiors, and Manhattan from Woody Allen. Picking someone from the last three decades is tough. I think there's a case for David Fincher, whose successive list is Seven, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. How about John Lasseter for Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Toy Story 2?

Kim Hollis: There are some amazing people in the conversation here, and I'm with Edwin that Y Tu Mama Tambien should included when we talk about Cuaron's work, but wasn't sure how many people have actually seen it. For me, the discussion begins with Alfred Hitchcock, who had a couple of different great runs. The first was Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble With Harry and The Man Who Knew Too Much, followed by a second set that included Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and The Birds. Stanley Kubrick had Dr. Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining andFull Metal Jacket. Depending how you feel about Lolita, you can actually go even further back into his filmography (Lolita, Spartacus, Paths of Glory and The Killing. You could probably make an argument for a couple of different periods of Martin Scorsese as well.

For modern directors, Hayao Miyazaki really ought to be on the list. He has had a run of films that have been simply magical, and while they might not have earned a ton of box office in the U.S., they have consistently earned over $100 million (and frequently much more) from overseas venues for many years now. Five of his films are in IMDb's top 250. He's directed 11 full-length movies total.

Kim Hollis: If you saw Gravity, what are your thoughts on the film?

Edwin Davies: I thought it was pretty much brilliant, with a few caveats. The story is so lean and tight, remarkably so considering that every blockbuster these days seems to be at least an hour too long, which makes it such a thrilling experience but does make the moments of excess, such as some of the back story that gets thrown out to fill the quiet moments, feel a little clumsy in its implementation. Other than that, though, I was gripped from that first insane single-take and was pretty much on edge right up until the credits rolled. I thought Sandra Bullock was amazing and that this is the role she really should have won an Oscar for, the effects were outstanding. It reminded me a lot of Cloverfield, in that it's an incredibly focused story that never cuts away from its characters to show the broader context, and it is similarly constructed to be as much a ride as a film, which is no great knock against it because it is a hell of ride.

Kim Hollis: I described it as beautiful and terrifying, and I think that choice of words is very apt. For anyone who has studied the romantic poets, the movie does a masterful job of toying with the notion of sublimity. For those unfamiliar with the philosophy, sublimity refers to a greatness beyond calculation. Space is obviously the perfect setting for such a metaphysical story, but Cuaron takes it further by impacting us with something as simultaneously amazing and frightening. Even as we marvel at the beauty of seeing Earth from thousands of miles away, the sense of danger is never gone. Gravity is one of the finest films I've seen in some time.

David Mumpower: I'm self-conscious of the fact that 15 years of film criticism has impacted me negatively in that I am hyper-aware of any and all mistakes in movies. There are some I can shrug off as harmless while there are others that agitate me to the point that I struggle to regain the requisite escapism to enjoy the proceedings. Gravity is a rarity for me, and what I mean by rarity is that I was actively engaged in the proceedings for the full 90 minutes. There was never a moment where I absentmindedly started creating comparisons to other movies nor calculated quips for later discussions of the project. I was wholeheartedly riveted, something I cannot recall happening in several years.

There is a moment in Gravity that involves the International Space Station. The foreshadowing of what will transpire includes these tiny little blips at the top of the screen. There are the early warning signal for the ensuing danger. When I first noticed those during an already tense moment, I grabbed my wife's arm, something I cannot recall ever doing during a movie before. Over the next couple of minutes, I gripped tightly as the catastrophic events unfolded. She mentioned later that I was grabbing her in exactly the same spot where she had received a flu shot the day before. While I was completely engrossed, I was ruining that scene for her as my gigantic, strong hands tightly gripped her bruise. I was thinking, "This is breathtaking." She was thinking, "Flu shot! FLU shot! FLU SHOT!!!" She was kind enough to bite her tongue because she could appreciate how hypnotized I was by the onscreen action.

For several days now, I have debated how I would improve Gravity. I have seen comments describing the dialogue as clunky, and a few poor souls have even stated that they find the movie boring. Hypercritical as I have become, there is absolutely nothing I would change about Gravity. I think it's a perfect film, an instant classic and one of the few recent releases I am convinced people will still be discussing a decade from now. Gravity is a masterpiece.

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