Mike Nichols vs Joseph E. Levine

David Lean and Alec Guinness

Alec Guinness, who would later star as Obi-wan Kenobi in the Star Wars movies, first appeared in four of director David Lean's top 5 domestic box office movies (all of the above except Ryan's Daughter).

Links to interesting websites and on-line movie trailers can be found at DavidLean.com. 

William Wyler #1 Director

With a lifetime total of 12, William Wyler was nominated for more directing Oscars than anyone else.

Top Director Oscar Nominations (Wins)

• William Wyler 12 (3)
• Billy Wilder 8 (2)
• David Lean 7 (2)
• Fred Zinnemann 7 (2)
• Woody Allen 6 (1)
• Frank Capra 6 (3)
• Martin Scorsese 6 (1)
• Steven Spielberg 6 (2)

Wyler also shows a 100% Rotten Tomatoes celebrity "Tomatometer" reading with the range of his movies garnering between 67% and 100% positive reviews.  As is often the case, Wyler's top 5 biggest box office grossers aren't necessarily people's favorite movies.  Here's how the top 5 line up against Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer of positive reviews:

• Ben Hur, 1959 91%
  
• The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946 97%
• Mrs. Miniver, 1942 86%
• Funny Girl, 1968 92%
• Friendly Persuasion, 1956 100%

Other Wyler films with 100% Tomatometer ratings might be higher on my list of box office hits if I had the missing rental information (that includes 100% rated Wuthering Heights, 1939; The Letter, 1940; and The Little Foxes, 1941)

Director Roman Polanski Top 5 Movies

I'm out of order!  Chinatown is only #243 out of 300 movies,  in terms of domestic box office (of the films featured in our Blockbusting book) but with Polanski in the news, and because I'm a big fan of his films, I thought I'd add this now.  Although I loved Chinatown (written by Robert Towne who also script doctored the magnificent film The Godfather), it's Polanski's older & less financially successful films that I like best:  Knife in the Water, 1963; Repulsion, 1965 (best horror film I've ever seen) and The Tenant, 1976.

Director Robert Wise Top 5 Movies

Editor/Producer/Director Robert Wise directed The Sound of Music, the #3 all-time domestic box office film (adjusted for ticket price inflation). He was nominated for eight Oscars by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - three times for directing. His two directing Oscars were for West Side Story, 1961 and The Sound of Music, 1965 - two of the Top 10 Musicals of all time. The other eight Top 10 Musicals are: Mary Poppins, 1964; Grease, 1978; My Fair Lady, 1964; This is the Army, 1943; Fiddler on the Roof, 1971; Going My Way, 1944; The Jolson Story, 1946 and Funny Girl, 1968.

Robert Wise's Life Achievement Award page is here at American Film Institute (afi.com).

The West Side Story movie trailer is here at Movies.NYTimes.com

Director Victor Fleming Top 5 Movies

Victor Fleming got his start in the movie business as a cameraman during the silent era and worked with D.W. Griffith on Intolerance (1916), the most expensive movie made up until that point in time (at a cost of $489,653 or $9.7 million in 2008 $s).

Four of the movies Fleming later directed were nominated for Best Picture Oscars (Captains Courageous (1937), Test Pilot (1938), The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone With the Wind 1939) but he was nominated (and won) only one time for Gone With the Wind, which had had multiple directors - although Fleming was the only one to end up with the "Directed by" screen credit.

With a total of nine re-releases (1941, 1942, 1947, 1954, 1961, 1967, 1974, 1989 and 1998), following its initial 1939 release, Gone With the Wind is the #1 all-release domestic box office movie of all time (adjusted for ticket price inflation). In fact, its 1967 re-release made more money at the domestic box office than all original releases that year with the exception of The Graduate.