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2. Alfred Hitchcock

The other obvious entry on this list is the Master of Suspense himself, a British-born director whose career spanned over 50 years and produced several dozen seminars in moviemaking for several generations. Older, scarier movies relied less on gore and blood than they did on bone-tingling suspense and creepiness, and few achieve it in as timeless a way as Hitchcock’s most renowned masterpiece, Psycho. If the iconic shower scene is not one of the most famous scenes in horror movie lore, it certainly comes close.

But Hitchcock was so brilliant that he began as a successful director in the talking film era and even remade one of his own movies (The Man who Knew Too Much). Hitchcock arguably also invented and perfected the use of muses, repeating collaborations with Grace Kelly, as well as with an affable James Stewart. And the list of Hitchcock’s signature achievements goes on: from including himself in most of his pictures during a subtle cameo to using exaggerated close-ups of victims during violent scenes. And, of course, there was his remarkable, tortured relationship with women, whom he presented both as helpless victims but also as resourceful heroines and even dangerous relations in some movies.

I can’t pretend to have seen all or even most of his movies, but the ones that most people have - Rear Window, Vertigo, The Birds, Marnie, North By Northwest, Dial M For Murder, are all unarguable. Hitchcock even directed a Best Picture winner, Rebecca, but that was as close as he would get to an Academy Award for directing (he did received six nominations, including for Psycho, Rear Window, and other earlier work).

I placed Hitchcock ahead of Kubrick because above all I am a fan of suspense and mystery movies, and Hitchcock’s brilliance in this field knows no parallel.

1. Sidney Lumet

No one in their right mind would ever argue that Sidney Lumet was objective a better director than two of the masters of the 20th Century. But the A-List column would be no fun if I just copied AFIs more purportedly objective list over my own personal preferences, and to my own taste, Sidney Lumet’s movies are simply delicious and some of my all-time favorites.

Like Hitchcock, Lumet was eventually honored with a lifetime achievement Oscar, but never a Directing win during a career that spanned nearly 70 years and that produced some of my favorite movies of all time. Network, of course, tops the list, but Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict, Serpico, Murder on the Orient Express, 12 Angry Men, and his last movie, the haunting Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, are movies that belong in the pantheon of film history.

Again, it would be too extensive to list of all Lumet’s contributions to filmmaking. Suffice it to say that few managed court-room style dramas (another favorite of mine) better than he did, and his adaptations of the Agatha Christie classic as well as the jury classic with Henry Fonda are flawless. Indeed, Lumet worked with diverse casts like Altman, incorporated social commentary and satire after turning to epics like Kubrick did, added elements of surrealism and mental illness in movies like Devil ala Aronofsky, and, of course, mastered suspense in ways clearly inspired by Hitchcock.

Few directors without an Oscar have as many movies that provoke so much dialogue, controversy, or thought as Lumet’s. Whether satirical commentaries like the timeless Network, or more subtle pieces on the human condition like Dog Day or 12 Angry Men, to say nothing of his harrowing last piece, Lumet’s work is unimpeachable at every turn.

Hands down, I would say, he is the Academy’s biggest oversight in a history riddled with many such infamies.

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