The Most Famous

FILM DIRECTORS from Estonia

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This page contains a list of the greatest Estonian Film Directors. The pantheon dataset contains 2,041 Film Directors, 1 of which were born in Estonia. This makes Estonia the birth place of the 85th most number of Film Directors behind Haiti, and New Caledonia.

Top 4

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Estonian Film Directors of all time. This list of famous Estonian Film Directors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity.

Photo of Priit Pärn

1. Priit Pärn (b. 1946)

With an HPI of 54.09, Priit Pärn is the most famous Estonian Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages on wikipedia.

Priit Pärn (born 26 August 1946 in Tallinn) is an Estonian cartoonist and animation director whose films have enjoyed success among critics as well as the public at various film festivals. Pärn formerly worked as a plant ecologist; his career in animation began when he accepted Rein Raamat's proposal to make a design for Kilplased (1974). After a brief apprenticeship in Joonisfilm, he directed his first film Is the Earth Round? in 1977. Pärn's most important films are considered to be Triangle (1982), Breakfast on the Grass (1987), Hotel E (1992), 1895 (co-directed by Janno Põldma, 1995) and Night of the Carrots (1998). Pärn's style is characterized by black humour, playful surrealism and a unique graphic style. His somewhat crude style marked the departure from both Rein Raamat's overtly serious and moralizing films as well as the Disneyesque style propagated by the directors of Soyuzmultfilm. In his footsteps (and occasionally copying his style to a large degree) have followed numerous new generation Estonian film makers, most notably Ülo Pikkov and Priit Tender. Influences of Pärn's graphical style can also be seen in such commercial animated series as Rugrats and AAAHH!!! Real Monsters! directed by Igor Kovalyov. In 2002 Pärn was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Animated Film Association, and he received Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Festival of Animated Film - Animafest Zagreb in 2008. Divers in the Rain (2010), co-directed with his wife Olga Pärn, became the most successful Estonian animated film of all time with its 18th award at KROK International Animated Film Festival in Ukraine.[1] Pärn had taught animation at the Arts Academy of the Turku University of Applied Sciences in Turku, Finland since 1994 and now he is teaching at Estonian Academy of Arts.

Photo of Elmo Nüganen

2. Elmo Nüganen (b. 1962)

With an HPI of 47.72, Elmo Nüganen is the 2nd most famous Estonian Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Elmo Nüganen (born 15 February 1962 in Jõhvi) is an Estonian theatre director, film director, and actor. He has been the artistic Director of the Tallinn City Theatre since 1992. He was a graduate of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in 1988 and then a professor at the academy from 1998–2002 and 2008–2012. He directed the war films Names in Marble from 2002 and 1944 from 2015. Names in Marble was seen by more than 168,000 people in Estonia and was selected for the 2003 Taormina Film Fest, while 1944 had the highest opening-week audience numbers in Estonian film history and became the country's submission for the Academy Awards. Nüganen has received multiple awards for his work in theatre, including the Estonian Annual Theatre Award for Best Director in 1992, 1995, 2000, 2007, and 2010, and the Estonian National Cultural Award in 1996, 1999, and 2009.

Photo of Ilmar Raag

3. Ilmar Raag (b. 1968)

With an HPI of 45.77, Ilmar Raag is the 3rd most famous Estonian Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Ilmar Raag (born 21 May 1968 in Kuressaare) is an Estonian media executive, actor, screenwriter and film director, best known for his socio-critical film The Class. He was CEO of Estonian Television from 2002 to 2005. He is a well known columnist in many prestigious Estonian newspapers (Postimees, Eesti Päevaleht). He has written many scripts and directed critically acclaimed films, notably August 1991 and The Class.

Photo of Veiko Õunpuu

4. Veiko Õunpuu (b. 1972)

With an HPI of 41.83, Veiko Õunpuu is the 4th most famous Estonian Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Veiko Õunpuu (born 16 March 1972, in Saaremaa) is an Estonian film director and screenwriter who is best known for his artistic movies Autumn Ball (Sügisball, 2007) and The Temptation of St. Tony (Püha Tõnu kiusamine, 2009). Õunpuu's films are usually slow-paced artistic movies with eccentric characters.

People

Pantheon has 4 people classified as Estonian film directors born between 1946 and 1972. Of these 4, 4 (100.00%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Estonian film directors include Priit Pärn, Elmo Nüganen, and Ilmar Raag. As of April 2024, 3 new Estonian film directors have been added to Pantheon including Elmo Nüganen, Ilmar Raag, and Veiko Õunpuu.

Living Estonian Film Directors

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Newly Added Estonian Film Directors (2025)

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