FILM DIRECTORS from Mexico

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Mexican Film Directors of all time. This list of famous Mexican Film Directors is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Mexican Film Directors.

1. Guillermo del Toro (1964 - )

With an HPI of 61.74, Guillermo del Toro is the most famous Mexican Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 60 different languages on wikipedia.

Guillermo del Toro Gómez (Spanish: [ɡiˈʝeɾmo ðel ˈtoɾo]; born 9 October 1964) is a Mexican filmmaker. A recipient of three Academy Awards and three BAFTA Awards, his work has been characterized by a strong connection to fairy tales and horror, with an effort to infuse visual or poetic beauty in the grotesque. He has had a lifelong fascination with monsters, which he considers symbols of great power. He is also known for his use of insectile and religious imagery, his themes of Catholicism, anti-fascism, and celebrating imperfection, underworld motifs, practical special effects, and dominant amber lighting. Throughout his career, del Toro has shifted between Spanish-language films—such as Cronos (1993), The Devil's Backbone (2001), and Pan's Labyrinth (2006)—and English-language films, including Mimic (1997), Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and its sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), Pacific Rim (2013), Crimson Peak (2015), The Shape of Water (2017), Nightmare Alley (2021), and Pinocchio (2022). As a producer or writer, he worked on the films The Orphanage (2007), Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010), The Hobbit film series (2012–2014), Mama (2013), The Book of Life (2014), Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), and The Witches (2020). In 2022, he created the Netflix anthology horror series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, featuring a collection of classical horror stories. With Chuck Hogan, he co-authored The Strain trilogy of novels (2009–2011), later adapted into a comic-book series (2011–15) and a live-action television series (2014–17). With DreamWorks Animation and Netflix, he created the animated franchise Tales of Arcadia, which includes the series Trollhunters (2016–18), 3Below (2018–19), and Wizards (2020), and the sequel film Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans (2021). Del Toro is close friends with fellow Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and they are collectively known as "The Three Amigos of Cinema". He was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018, and he received a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019.

2. Alejandro González Iñárritu (1963 - )

With an HPI of 61.56, Alejandro González Iñárritu is the 2nd most famous Mexican Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 64 different languages.

Alejandro González Iñárritu (; American Spanish: [aleˈxandɾo ɣonˈsales iˈɲaritu]; credited since 2016 as Alejandro G. Iñárritu; born 15 August 1963) is a Mexican filmmaker. He is primarily known for making modern psychological drama films about the human condition. His projects have garnered critical acclaim and numerous accolades including four Academy Awards with a Special Achievement Award, three Golden Globe Awards, three BAFTA Awards, two Directors Guild of America Awards. His most notable films include Amores perros (2000), 21 Grams (2003), Babel (2006), Biutiful (2010), Birdman (2014), The Revenant (2015), and Bardo (2022). Iñárritu's films, Amores Perros (2000), and Biutiful (2010) each received Academy Award for Best International Feature Film nominations. He earned critical and commercial success for his films 21 Grams (2003), and Babel (2006). He won three Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay for Birdman (2014). The following year, he received a consecutive Best Director Oscar for The Revenant (2015). Iñárritu was awarded a Special Achievement Academy Award for his virtual reality installation Carne y Arena (2017). Iñárritu is the first Mexican filmmaker to be nominated for either director or producer in the history of the Academy Awards, the first to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and for Best Picture, the first to receive the Best Director Award at Cannes, and the first to win a DGA Award for Outstanding Directing. In 2019, Iñárritu became the first Latin American to serve as president of the jury for the 72nd Cannes Film Festival. Iñárritu and Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro are known in the film industry as "The Three Amigos".

3. Alfonso Cuarón (1961 - )

With an HPI of 59.80, Alfonso Cuarón is the 3rd most famous Mexican Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 63 different languages.

Alfonso Cuarón Orozco (US: kwah-ROHN, Spanish: [alˈfon.so kwaˈɾon] ; born 28 November 1961) is a Mexican filmmaker. His accolades include four Academy Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. Cuarón made his feature film debut with the romantic comedy Sólo con tu pareja (1991), and directed the film adaptations A Little Princess (1995), and Great Expectations (1998). His breakthrough came with the coming-of-age film Y tu mamá también (2001) which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He gained greater prominence for directing the fantasy film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), the dystopian drama Children of Men (2006), the science fiction drama Gravity (2013), and the semi-autobiographical drama Roma (2018). The later two won him Academy Awards for Best Director. He also won Best Film Editing for Gravity and Best Cinematography for Roma.

4. Emilio Fernández (1904 - 1986)

With an HPI of 55.65, Emilio Fernández is the 4th most famous Mexican Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 33 different languages.

Emilio "El Indio" Fernández Romo (Spanish: [eˈmiljo feɾˈnandes ˈromo]; 26 March 1904 – 6 August 1986) was a Mexican film director, actor and screenwriter. He was one of the most prolific film directors of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema in the 1940s and 1950s. He is best known for his work as director of the film María Candelaria (1944), which won the Palme d'Or award at the 1946 Cannes Film Festival. As an actor, he worked in numerous film productions in Mexico and in Hollywood. He was the father of the Mexican actor Jaime Fernández.

5. Arturo Ripstein (1943 - )

With an HPI of 48.13, Arturo Ripstein is the 5th most famous Mexican Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Arturo Ripstein y Rosen (born December 13, 1943) is a Mexican film director and screenwriter. Considered the "Godfather of independent Mexican cinema", Ripstein's work is generally characterized by "somber, slow-paced, macabre melodramas tackling existential loneliness", often with a grotesque-like edge. He is a nine-time Ariel Award winner, including five for Best Picture and two for Best Director. Three of his films have been nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1997, he received the prestigious National Prize for Arts and Sciences for his contributions to Mexican cinema. He was the second filmmaker (after Luis Buñuel) to receive that honour.

6. Mario Van Peebles (1957 - )

With an HPI of 46.75, Mario Van Peebles is the 6th most famous Mexican Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Mario Van Peebles (born January 15, 1957) is an American film director and actor best known for appearing in Heartbreak Ridge in 1986 and known for directing and starring in New Jack City in 1991 and USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage in 2016. He is the son of actor and filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, whom he portrayed in the 2003 biopic Baadasssss!, which he also co-wrote and directed.

7. Guillermo Navarro (1955 - )

With an HPI of 42.87, Guillermo Navarro is the 7th most famous Mexican Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Guillermo Jorge Navarro Solares, AMC, ASC (born July 29, 1955) is a Mexican cinematographer and television director. He has worked in Hollywood since 1994 and is a frequent collaborator of Guillermo del Toro and Robert Rodriguez. In 2007, he won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography and the Goya Award for Best Cinematography for del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. His subsequent filmography runs the gamut from lower-budget arthouse and genre films to high-profile blockbusters like Hellboy, Zathura: A Space Adventure, Night at the Museum, and Pacific Rim. Navarro's directing debut came with a 2012 music video for musician Mia Maestro titled "Blue Eyed Sailor", co-directed with media artist Juan Azulay, also featuring son Alvaro Navarro's cinematography. He has since directed episodes of series like Hannibal and Luke Cage, and was an executive producer on the National Geographic documentary series Hostile Planet, for which he earned his first Primetime Emmy nomination.

8. Carlos Reygadas (1971 - )

With an HPI of 39.42, Carlos Reygadas is the 8th most famous Mexican Film Director.  Her biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Carlos Reygadas Castillo (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkaɾlos rejˈɣaðas]; born October 10, 1971) is a Mexican filmmaker. Influenced by existentialist art and philosophy, Reygadas' movies feature spiritual journeys into the inner worlds of his main characters, through which themes of love, suffering, death, and life's meaning are explored. Reygadas has been described as "the one-man third wave of Mexican cinema"; his works are generally considered art films, and are known for their expressionistic cinematography, long takes, and emotionally charged stories. His first and third films, Japón (2002) and Silent Light (2007), made him one of Latin America's most prominent writer-directors, with various critics having named Silent Light as one of the best films of its decade. His films Battle in Heaven (2005) and Post Tenebras Lux (2012) divided critics. He has co-produced other directors such as Amat Escalante (Sangre, Los Bastardos, Heli) or Pedro Aguilera (The Influence).

9. Rodrigo Prieto (1965 - )

With an HPI of 37.62, Rodrigo Prieto is the 9th most famous Mexican Film Director.  Her biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Rodrigo Prieto Stambaugh, ASC, AMC (born November 23, 1965), is a Mexican cinematographer. He has collaborated with Martin Scorsese and Alejandro González Iñárritu, among other prominent directors. He is a member of both the Mexican Society of Cinematographers and the American Society of Cinematographers. Throughout his career, Prieto has received many awards and nominations, including four Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Martin Scorsese's Silence (2016), The Irishman (2019), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023).

10. Michel Franco (1979 - )

With an HPI of 36.37, Michel Franco is the 10th most famous Mexican Film Director.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Michel Franco (born 28 August 1979) is a Mexican film director, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his film After Lucia that won the Prize Un Certain Regard at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.His films typically deal with themes of dysfunctional families. Franco has received numerous awards in film festivals like Cannes, Venice and Chicago.