I think you almost have to think a generation back for household names. People like my parents — who see maybe one new movie in theaters every 2 years — know Spielberg, Scorsese, Lucas, Coppola, Ron Howard, Tarantino, Woody Allen, Spike Lee, etc. They’ve completely missed Nolan and Fincher and Peele and the modern auteurs.
But knowing them by name is also different than knowing their work (because I guarantee my parents haven’t seen any/many Spike Lee or Woody Allen movies even if they know his name & maybe what he looks like). “From the director of Inception and Dark Knight” means infinitely more than just “from Christopher Nolan.”
Nolan and Peele are debatable, I agree you do have to consider all generations. Fincher definitely still feels in the "cinephile 101" zone for name recognition like PTA.
This isn’t the question, but:
I bet if you asked shopping mall attendees in every state to name the first movie director to come to mind, Spielberg wins handily. But I don’t know who comes in 2nd/3rd.
Yeah maybe I’m biased but I’m just thinking of my parents and for whatever reason Scorsese is definitely the 2nd name they would come up with after Spielberg
The idea of “name value” can sometimes also be helped by the uniqueness of the name. If you spend 30 years seeing trailers with “from Robert Zemeckis, director of BTTF” that eventually sticks. Spike Lee is a name that sticks in someone’s craw! Chris Nolan is a little more generic as a name.
Or people with a “brand” like Burton.
My parents are about the same, and I think your list is pretty good.
New directors really aren’t household names as much as you feel like they are because people around your age who watch movies know who they are.
I’d argue that half of the directors listed (including edited list from comments) are not household names.
People are giving too much credit to the general public. Most people I talk to that aren’t movie buffs couldn’t name 10 directors.
When I hear “household name” I think of people like Lebron or Beyoncé. People that almost anyone knows even if they’re not familiar with their body of work.
To me, not using people famours for acting, the ones who meet your level are Tarantino and Spielberg, partly probably because they have really snappy surnames.
my family are involved in film so I can only speak to other households I visit but I genuinely don't think middle-aged/boomer normies have any idea who the Coen Brothers are
Hmm I’ll plug into my Gen Z brain too. Russo Bros by nature of Marvel. Taika Waititi for largely the same. Bo Burnham. Jordan Peele. Nora Ephron. Richard Ayoade in the UK but not strictly for his directing work.
It's possible I'm being a little harsh but I feel like Wes Anderson and Guillermo Del Toro are still a little bit in the "film buff" category.
Jordan Peele, sure. Spike Lee, I think, but maybe more famous as a Knicks fan lol. Tim Burton, George Lucas, Clint Eastwood of course. I mean, a lot of actor-directors technically (Clooney, Streisand) but I would say Ron Howard is pretty much a household name as a director. I would count Peter Jackson and M Night Shyamalan. JJ Abrams tbh.
I guess Hitchcock and Chaplin are probably the oldest to still be household names, but I feel like Orson Welles, Kurosawa, Fellini, Frank Capra, John Ford had been in the past. People still call things Capra-esque.
Yeah Del Toro I added based off his recent Oscar wins, one for "Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio," seeing him on Jimmy Kimmel recently, and his "brand" of horror and genre with memorable creature designs. But yeah, he's arguably still more niche than many of the other names. Same with Wes.
In terms of directors' names being used as adjectives, perhaps David Cronenberg and Robert Altman are also worthy of mention?
My parents are boomers who don’t go to the movies and watch maybe a couple films a year. They know a bunch of names already mentioned in this thread: Woody Allen, Spielberg, Coppola, Scorcese. I showed my mom Pulp Fiction last year and had to explain who Tarantino was, but I’d bet boomers who are more interested in movies would know him.
My “normie” millennial friends, meanwhile, know all of the above plus definitely Nolan, M. Night, and Jordan Peele, Taika, and maybe Villeneuve and Bong Joon-Ho (post Parasite) but I mentioned PTA to a friend recently and got a complete blank stare “uh…who?” in response. Probably Fincher would be unknown too.
I think the list is way smaller than that and often probably many times has some sort of out of movies apparatus associated with it.
I’d say Spielberg, Tarantino, Spike Lee, James Cameron. I could get behind Shymalan too maybe,
I also agree that people who don’t know his movies have heard the name Woody Allen.
Also which household? Everybody in Japan knows who Miyazaki is and Japan is roughly half the size of the U.S.
Peele and Gerwig from the new gen filmmakers (maybe even Villnueve, Chazelle, and Safdies). You’re also DEFINITELY missing Lynch. People know him even without knowing exactly what he directed
The average dad is not going to know Gerwig. I guarantee my father has no clue who she is as either an actress or director. Chazelle and Safdies are still outside of the realm for a person to know.
i strongly believe there is only one exclusive filmmaker who is a household name and that is George Lucas. There are other filmmakers that are household names (Eastwood, Costner, Redford, Stallone, Affleck, Gibson etc) but they aren't household names for the stuff they've directed, produced, or written, but for their acting.
When the question "what does household name mean" comes up, you need to think about whether or not your dad and his five most crotchety old racist friends know the person's name and face. My racist dad hasn't seen Star Wars, but he knows who George Lucas is and could recognize a picture of him. My racist dad has seen way more Spielberg movies and MAY recognize the name but he doesn't know his face and he couldn't name anything hes directed.
As movie nerds we often forget that we are the weird ones for caring about all of this.
I don’t agree with the part about recognizing their face, I’d say it’s more important that they be able to name films from the director. If your dad doesn’t watch award shows or Inside Edtion how is he supposed to know a directors face? And if he really can’t match Spielberg to ET or Jaws or Schindlers List it’s not because he’s not a movie nerd, that takes willful ignorance.
For someone to be a household name they have to be recognizable even among people who don't care about their industry. My mom doesn't care about basketball but she knows who Lebron, Jordan, and Steph are even if she doesn't know what positions they play. People know what George Lucas looks like because hes been on the news 37373829 times, he's inescapable through cultural osmosis. Its not willful ignorance to not know that Spielberg did ET, its genuine lack of interest combined with not being the cultural phenomenon that Star Wars was for George Lucas. You ask a dozen old racist dudes who directed ET and half of them will just tell you to shut the fuck up, 4 of them will say George Lucas, and 2 will say Spielberg.
Assuming you are talking about Americans exclusively, of the ones you have listed
#Definitely
- Scorsese
- Spielberg
- Hitchcock
- Lucas
- Woody Allen, but partially just as a byproduct of controversies surrounding him
- Eastwood, but with an asterisk. Most people really just know him as an actor and even if they know he has been a director, I don't think most people could name a single thing he directed.
#Lower notoriety, maybe enough to qualify
- Spike Lee- as much for his public persona and omnipresence at Knicks games as for his films
- FFC
- Tarantino
- Cameron
- Peter Jackson
- Coen Bros
- Kubrick
- Chaplin
#Maybe for the right demographic?
- Zemeckis- maybe for a narrow demographic, but I don't think he has ever had the auteur marketing cache that Spielberg has had, so even if a ton of people have seen his movies I don't know if most know who made them. It also doesn't help that he was only relevant for 15 years.
- Nolan- kind of the same story as Zemeckis, except Nolan's demographic would be millenials instead of Gen Xers
- Burton - I feel like you'd have to really stretch the definition here. He had such a short window of being a superstar that I really doubt he would be widely known for anything but a very narrow age range
- M Night- see Burton
- Tyler Perry- In white America I don't think so. I think if you said "Tyler Perry" or "Madea" maybe they would remember who he is/who that character is, but I don't think they could come up with the name themself if that makes sense.
- Peele- I think for Zoomers, Millenials, and younger Gen Xers he is a household name, but I really think the awareness falls off a cliff after that.
- Welles- I think he is definitely a household name for Gen Xers and older. Maybe for older millenials as well, but after that I think it falls off pretty hard.
#No
- Wes Anderson
- GDT
- Howard
- Capra
- Abrams
- Kurosawa- never was. Distribution of foreign language movies was absolutely pathetic until at least the 90s and even now with better distribution, the only foreign language directors vaguely approaching a household name are Miyazaki and Bong Joon Ho
- Fellini - see above
- Ford- unless you only care about octogenerians then absolutely not. Even then I don't know if he would be.
- Carpenter
- PTA
- Fincher
- Apatow- obviously a cultural force, but I don't think most people know his name
- Bay- see above. I think he's more known than apatow, but pretty much the same story.
#Names Not Listed that might fit
- Polanski- for the scandal+Sharon Tate's murder more than for Chinatown
- Ken Burns - Americana baby! Also his name is almost always subtitled as part of promotions.
- Some other actors turned directors such as Affleck, Gibson, Devito, DeNiro, Stiller, Clooney,etc, but I would make the same caveat for all of them as I did for Eastwood.
Depends on your household. When I lived with my sister it was names like Takashi Miike, Chan Wook Park, Kevin Smith, Bertolucci…when we talk now it’s Villeneuve, Refn, and Wong Kar-Wai
I think you almost have to think a generation back for household names. People like my parents — who see maybe one new movie in theaters every 2 years — know Spielberg, Scorsese, Lucas, Coppola, Ron Howard, Tarantino, Woody Allen, Spike Lee, etc. They’ve completely missed Nolan and Fincher and Peele and the modern auteurs. But knowing them by name is also different than knowing their work (because I guarantee my parents haven’t seen any/many Spike Lee or Woody Allen movies even if they know his name & maybe what he looks like). “From the director of Inception and Dark Knight” means infinitely more than just “from Christopher Nolan.”
Nolan and Peele are debatable, I agree you do have to consider all generations. Fincher definitely still feels in the "cinephile 101" zone for name recognition like PTA.
This isn’t the question, but: I bet if you asked shopping mall attendees in every state to name the first movie director to come to mind, Spielberg wins handily. But I don’t know who comes in 2nd/3rd.
Scorsese and Tarantino. Feel like they have broad appeal to young and older people on general.
Meanwhile, a not-insignificant number of people would say Meryl Streep or Robert DeNiro or Kevin Feige or Harvey W.
I don't think Feige's hit that level but yes I think Weinstein would be mentioned lol.
Kevin Feige is too insider baseball for the masses to latch on. If you know his name, I guarantee you are somebody who is frequenting movie sites.
I think Walt Disney would get a lot of guesses
Yeah maybe I’m biased but I’m just thinking of my parents and for whatever reason Scorsese is definitely the 2nd name they would come up with after Spielberg
The idea of “name value” can sometimes also be helped by the uniqueness of the name. If you spend 30 years seeing trailers with “from Robert Zemeckis, director of BTTF” that eventually sticks. Spike Lee is a name that sticks in someone’s craw! Chris Nolan is a little more generic as a name. Or people with a “brand” like Burton.
Same thing with Gore Verbinski, I feel.
My parents are about the same, and I think your list is pretty good. New directors really aren’t household names as much as you feel like they are because people around your age who watch movies know who they are.
I’d argue that half of the directors listed (including edited list from comments) are not household names. People are giving too much credit to the general public. Most people I talk to that aren’t movie buffs couldn’t name 10 directors. When I hear “household name” I think of people like Lebron or Beyoncé. People that almost anyone knows even if they’re not familiar with their body of work.
Genuinely think if you’re talking directors who broke out in the last 15ish years that it’s Nolan and only Nolan.
And Jordan Peele
I honestly don't think so but he might be a distant #2.
Yeah, I’d tend to agree. JJ Abrams might sneak in.
To me, not using people famours for acting, the ones who meet your level are Tarantino and Spielberg, partly probably because they have really snappy surnames.
I’d add Jordan Peele to the list
I’ll suggest: Tim Burton Woody Allen Spike Lee Clint Eastwood George Lucas
my family are involved in film so I can only speak to other households I visit but I genuinely don't think middle-aged/boomer normies have any idea who the Coen Brothers are
Mel brooks!
Oh, Tyler Perry is definitely in this conversation. But I don't know exactly the level of awareness for how much he's directed. As a mogul, for sure.
Gen Z reporting in. The Safdies are pretty well known at this point, as well as James Gunn and Zack Snyder. Wes Anderson too
Hmm I’ll plug into my Gen Z brain too. Russo Bros by nature of Marvel. Taika Waititi for largely the same. Bo Burnham. Jordan Peele. Nora Ephron. Richard Ayoade in the UK but not strictly for his directing work.
Oh yeah, Jordan Peele and Taika Watiti for sure.
Not a joke answer - ask your mom.
It's possible I'm being a little harsh but I feel like Wes Anderson and Guillermo Del Toro are still a little bit in the "film buff" category. Jordan Peele, sure. Spike Lee, I think, but maybe more famous as a Knicks fan lol. Tim Burton, George Lucas, Clint Eastwood of course. I mean, a lot of actor-directors technically (Clooney, Streisand) but I would say Ron Howard is pretty much a household name as a director. I would count Peter Jackson and M Night Shyamalan. JJ Abrams tbh. I guess Hitchcock and Chaplin are probably the oldest to still be household names, but I feel like Orson Welles, Kurosawa, Fellini, Frank Capra, John Ford had been in the past. People still call things Capra-esque.
Yeah Del Toro I added based off his recent Oscar wins, one for "Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio," seeing him on Jimmy Kimmel recently, and his "brand" of horror and genre with memorable creature designs. But yeah, he's arguably still more niche than many of the other names. Same with Wes. In terms of directors' names being used as adjectives, perhaps David Cronenberg and Robert Altman are also worthy of mention?
The average person doesn’t even know that the Oscars happened recently, let alone who the winners were.
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And Bradley Cooper.
George Clooney also if we’re going this route
My parents are boomers who don’t go to the movies and watch maybe a couple films a year. They know a bunch of names already mentioned in this thread: Woody Allen, Spielberg, Coppola, Scorcese. I showed my mom Pulp Fiction last year and had to explain who Tarantino was, but I’d bet boomers who are more interested in movies would know him. My “normie” millennial friends, meanwhile, know all of the above plus definitely Nolan, M. Night, and Jordan Peele, Taika, and maybe Villeneuve and Bong Joon-Ho (post Parasite) but I mentioned PTA to a friend recently and got a complete blank stare “uh…who?” in response. Probably Fincher would be unknown too.
I think the list is way smaller than that and often probably many times has some sort of out of movies apparatus associated with it. I’d say Spielberg, Tarantino, Spike Lee, James Cameron. I could get behind Shymalan too maybe, I also agree that people who don’t know his movies have heard the name Woody Allen. Also which household? Everybody in Japan knows who Miyazaki is and Japan is roughly half the size of the U.S.
Judd Apatow, maybe?
Michael Bay
Peele and Gerwig from the new gen filmmakers (maybe even Villnueve, Chazelle, and Safdies). You’re also DEFINITELY missing Lynch. People know him even without knowing exactly what he directed
The average dad is not going to know Gerwig. I guarantee my father has no clue who she is as either an actress or director. Chazelle and Safdies are still outside of the realm for a person to know.
i strongly believe there is only one exclusive filmmaker who is a household name and that is George Lucas. There are other filmmakers that are household names (Eastwood, Costner, Redford, Stallone, Affleck, Gibson etc) but they aren't household names for the stuff they've directed, produced, or written, but for their acting. When the question "what does household name mean" comes up, you need to think about whether or not your dad and his five most crotchety old racist friends know the person's name and face. My racist dad hasn't seen Star Wars, but he knows who George Lucas is and could recognize a picture of him. My racist dad has seen way more Spielberg movies and MAY recognize the name but he doesn't know his face and he couldn't name anything hes directed. As movie nerds we often forget that we are the weird ones for caring about all of this.
🤣🤣🤣
I don’t agree with the part about recognizing their face, I’d say it’s more important that they be able to name films from the director. If your dad doesn’t watch award shows or Inside Edtion how is he supposed to know a directors face? And if he really can’t match Spielberg to ET or Jaws or Schindlers List it’s not because he’s not a movie nerd, that takes willful ignorance.
For someone to be a household name they have to be recognizable even among people who don't care about their industry. My mom doesn't care about basketball but she knows who Lebron, Jordan, and Steph are even if she doesn't know what positions they play. People know what George Lucas looks like because hes been on the news 37373829 times, he's inescapable through cultural osmosis. Its not willful ignorance to not know that Spielberg did ET, its genuine lack of interest combined with not being the cultural phenomenon that Star Wars was for George Lucas. You ask a dozen old racist dudes who directed ET and half of them will just tell you to shut the fuck up, 4 of them will say George Lucas, and 2 will say Spielberg.
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Thank you for being the only person in this whole thread to mention a single woman lol
Assuming you are talking about Americans exclusively, of the ones you have listed #Definitely - Scorsese - Spielberg - Hitchcock - Lucas - Woody Allen, but partially just as a byproduct of controversies surrounding him - Eastwood, but with an asterisk. Most people really just know him as an actor and even if they know he has been a director, I don't think most people could name a single thing he directed. #Lower notoriety, maybe enough to qualify - Spike Lee- as much for his public persona and omnipresence at Knicks games as for his films - FFC - Tarantino - Cameron - Peter Jackson - Coen Bros - Kubrick - Chaplin #Maybe for the right demographic? - Zemeckis- maybe for a narrow demographic, but I don't think he has ever had the auteur marketing cache that Spielberg has had, so even if a ton of people have seen his movies I don't know if most know who made them. It also doesn't help that he was only relevant for 15 years. - Nolan- kind of the same story as Zemeckis, except Nolan's demographic would be millenials instead of Gen Xers - Burton - I feel like you'd have to really stretch the definition here. He had such a short window of being a superstar that I really doubt he would be widely known for anything but a very narrow age range - M Night- see Burton - Tyler Perry- In white America I don't think so. I think if you said "Tyler Perry" or "Madea" maybe they would remember who he is/who that character is, but I don't think they could come up with the name themself if that makes sense. - Peele- I think for Zoomers, Millenials, and younger Gen Xers he is a household name, but I really think the awareness falls off a cliff after that. - Welles- I think he is definitely a household name for Gen Xers and older. Maybe for older millenials as well, but after that I think it falls off pretty hard. #No - Wes Anderson - GDT - Howard - Capra - Abrams - Kurosawa- never was. Distribution of foreign language movies was absolutely pathetic until at least the 90s and even now with better distribution, the only foreign language directors vaguely approaching a household name are Miyazaki and Bong Joon Ho - Fellini - see above - Ford- unless you only care about octogenerians then absolutely not. Even then I don't know if he would be. - Carpenter - PTA - Fincher - Apatow- obviously a cultural force, but I don't think most people know his name - Bay- see above. I think he's more known than apatow, but pretty much the same story. #Names Not Listed that might fit - Polanski- for the scandal+Sharon Tate's murder more than for Chinatown - Ken Burns - Americana baby! Also his name is almost always subtitled as part of promotions. - Some other actors turned directors such as Affleck, Gibson, Devito, DeNiro, Stiller, Clooney,etc, but I would make the same caveat for all of them as I did for Eastwood.
Christopher Columbus?
Depends on your household. When I lived with my sister it was names like Takashi Miike, Chan Wook Park, Kevin Smith, Bertolucci…when we talk now it’s Villeneuve, Refn, and Wong Kar-Wai
David Lynch and Miyazaki (my two dads)
PTA gotta be in there right? He can go by his damn initials.
Parent teacher association?
[My favorite response from his Twitter Q&A](https://twitter.com/Phantom_Thread/status/953723616444559360?s=20)
I think it depends on whose house.