All All. Sign In. The Best Directors Ever - s. List activity. Tokyo-born Yasujiro Ozu was a movie buff from childhood, often playing hooky from school in order to see Hollywood movies in his local theatre. In he landed a job as a camera assistant at Shochiku Studios in Tokyo. Three years later, he was made an assistant director and directed his first film the next year, Sword of Penitence Ozu made thirty-five silent films, and a trilogy of youth comedies with serious overtones he turned out in the late s and early s placed him in the front ranks of Japanese directors.
Shortly before the war ended he was captured by British forces and spent six months in a P. At war's end he went back to Shochiku, and his experiences during the war resulted in his making more serious, thoughtful films at a much slower pace than he had previously. His most famous film, Tokyo Story , is generally considered by critics and film buffs alike to be his "masterpiece" and is regarded by many as not only one of Ozu's best films but one of the best films ever made.
Ozu, who never married and lived with his mother all his life, died of cancer in , two years after she passed. Ernst Lubitsch. From Ernst Lubitsch's experiences in Sophien Gymnasium high school theater, he decided to leave school at the age of 16 and pursue a career on the stage. He had to compromise with his father and keep the account books for the family tailor business while he acted in cabarets and music halls at night.
He took an extra job as a handyman while learning silent film acting at Berlin's Bioscope film studios. The next year he launched his own film career by appearing in a series of comedies showcasing traditional ethnic Jewish slice-of-life fare.
Finding great success in these character roles, Lubitsch turned to broader comedy, then beginning in started writing and directing his own films.
