The Top 30 Maddest Directors of all time

30. Howard Hughes (1905 – 1976)

"I'm not a paranoid, deranged millionaire. Goddamit, I'm a billionaire!"

Womanizer, film-making, aviator and a flaming ball of ego. Howard Hughes was a rich heir from the moment he was conceived; and died in 1976 as one of the richest men who ever lived. In 1932, he made gangster movie Scarface (which was thought at the time to be violent), but beforehand, he made what is probably one of the most overblown films of all time: Hells Angels. A film in which Hughes bought out dozens of planes, cameras and experts for everything including holding off filming for weeks in order to wait for clouds to settle on the landscape in which he was filming. Known for having obsessive-compulsive disorder, Hughes became obsessed with cleanliness after an accident which almost claimed his life; in which he flew a newly-built plane over Berverly Hills and crashed it, breaking most of the bones in his body and suffering burns to around 80% of his body. Hughes may have suffered for his art; but actors, distributors and company executives had suffered themselves for his art.

Maddest moment: After the gruellingly long shoot for Hells Angels, talkie pictures came along. Hughes wanted to refilm the entire movie for sound.

29. Neil LaBute (1963 –)

"My father was a truck driver and part-time son-of-a-bitch"

LaBute looks at first glance like the Uncle who never bought you any birthday presents, but under that trashy exterior lies the heart of a deranged genius. LaBute graduated from Brigham University with degrees in Theatre and Film, eager to pave his own way to fame which he accomplished with his brilliant 1997 dark comedy, In the Company of Men. A film about two jokey office workers who manipulate a deaf secretary in which they use her, abuse her and then dump her to exact revenge on the opposite sex. This sort of sexism carried on, the female protagonist in Nurse Betty was a total wackjob, his (awful) remake of the Wicker Man starred a man who felt it necessary to punch everyone woman he met in the face. What makes LaBute a little bit wacko is the projects he picks to do; remaking The Wicker Man being an obvious one, or more recently, remaking Death at a Funeral; the original was made only the year before, and his wasn't much better.

Maddest moment: Allowing the sort of dialogue in The Wicker Man to actually be used: "Not the bees! No! Not the bees! They're in my eyes!"... Christ...

28. Russ Meyer (1922 – 2004)

"I love big-breasted women with wasp-waists. I love them with big cleavages"

A life-long fascination for women with large breasts (and obviously not ashamed of it), Meyer was to become one of cinemas weirdest inspirations. Lynch and Waters were weird too, yeah. But they never quite spouted as much random, wtf-esque stuff that Meyer did. As a film-maker, he's a man who belongs to the exploitation genre, and a bright career he has handled from it. Having created some of the most prominent gothic dramas of the period including Motor Psycho, Lora, Mudhoney and his classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Whatever he has done, Meyer's craziest feats usually orbit around his infatuation with abnormally large breasts. His autobiographies were called "Breast of Russ Meyer" and "A Clean Breast", most of the main female characters in his films have stupidly large busts, oh and he won't shut up about it. His sex-and-violence films had garnered controversy on their release and Meyer was thought to be one of the major controversy-merchants of his time.

Maddest moment: Lost his virginity in the Second World War when Ernest Hemingway paid to have a chesty prostitute pop his cherry for him.

27. Cecile B. DeMille (1881 – 1959)

"You are here to please me. Nothing else on Earth matters"

A film-obsessed egoist of the highest order, Cecil Blount DeMille wouldn't direct a film during his higher career unless it was an expensive epic. The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Show on Earth, DeMille directed countless films; almost every one having a budget the size of Russia. However, his perfectionism on set would become famous; scenes being filmed dozens of times each, extras getting a good seeing-to, making his actors cry; DeMille made Kubrick look like Doris Day. He called Victor Mature "100% yellow" when he refused to wrestle a lion for Samson and Delilah, and had a falling-out with Paulette Goddard after she declined to do a scene that heavily involved fire. If it were DeMille's world; the world body-count would be pretty high; his expectancy of his stars risking definite life and limb was pretty priceless. Although he had big budgets, DeMille was always still willing to cut costs by throwing away special effects and putting his actors in the middle of hell.

Maddest moment: For a battle scene he had planned; DeMille came up with a way of keeping costs down, by having the actors fire real bullets at eachother.

26. Takashi Miike (1960 –)

"I don't understand people who would walk out on a movie"

The man is as calm as cucumber in real life as it seems, but when you watch his films, there is no way that anyone who would create what he has created is perfectly sane. Take Ichi the Killer for instance; a man cuts off his tongue, someone gets cleaved neatly in two, one guy gets sexual pleasure from violence and at the beginning, the films title emerges out of a small puddle of semen. But its nothing compared to Visitor Q, a film which begins with a prostitute having sex with her father, and then goes on to other matters like domestic abuse and female lactation. This may not all be so crazy if Miike was secretly trying to tell us something, but as it seems; he's just trying to freak us out, and he does it incredibly well. Like the Japanese lovechild of Tarantino and David Lynch, Miike has divided critics and audiences, and has proved wrong many a people who can huff in their chest and say "I can take anything you can throw at me". The man has forever been assaulting sexual and violent taboos.

Maddest moment: Directing Masters of Horror episode "Imprint", which includes violence and aborted foetuses. Even after heavy cuts, it was still banned from TV.

25. Michael Gondry (1963 –)

"Every great idea is on the verge of being stupid"

Gondry, a French auteur became a man fascinated and obsessed with dreams as he got into the film-making field, almost every film he has made boarders around the construction of dreams; allowing him to manipulate reality, and how he does it. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (in which he teamed up with fellow mind-messer, writer Charlie Kauffman); his acclaimed comedy drama revolved around a man running around his own subconscious trying to escape memory-wipers, Science of Sleep (one of the weirdest films in a long time) was about... well, God only knows. But if you want a real reminder on how wonderfully weird he is, you can pay a visit to his music-vid career, his big ones being Bjork's Human Behaviour and Hyperballad. Probably the most entertaining story about him is his Youtube video he posted in 2006, in which he solves a rubik's cube with his toes. It's pretty insane, but then again he's pretty insane. But we love him for it. He's like David Lynch, only cuddlier.

Maddest moment: To remind him of an ex-girlfriend, Gondry made a necklace out of fingernails.

24. Lars Von Trier (1956 –)

"I don't think I tortured Nicole on Dogville, but I know she said I was tough"

It takes a brave man to release a mainstream film with pornographic images (The Idiots) and then carry on way into fame (Antichrist), it takes a real Lars Von Trier to seek shock tactics well into a successful mainstream career. Von Trier hasn't grown softer like Wes Craven, he's grown more powerful in his attempt to truly sicken his audience, and it shows in his off-camera personality. Von Trier, like Bertolucci before him, is known for giving his actors a hard time. On the set of Dancer in the Dark, he gave Bjork such a hard time that she never acted again, he made almost the same effect on Emily Watson and Nicole Kidman, but maybe it's just that which propelled said actors to give such incredible performances. However the fact remains that someone who manufactures such explicit imagery as him has got to be a little bit off the rocker, is he trying to make a point? Or does he really just not hold his career that dear? What we do know is, Von Trier is a scary man.

Maddest moment: Working a scene into Antichrist in which Willem Dafoe has his penis mutilated, and is masturbated until he ejaculates blood.

23. John Ford (1894 – 1973)

"I didn't show up at the ceremony to collect any of the first of my three Oscars. Once I went fishing, another there was a war on and on another occasion, I was suddenly taken drunk..."

Lee Van Cleef once said "John Ford is a complete bastard", and many would agree. Despite having created many incredible films, Ford was known for having a rather unsettling temper. He kicked John Wayne in the ass, called Jimmy Stewart a racist, reduced Henry Fonda to tears and wound up Maureen O'Hara so much, that she broke a bone in her hand hitting John Wayne too hard in a fight scene in The Quiet Man. Whatever your perception on Ford and his antics and his films, it all comes together some way; although some people found him a breeze to work with, others wound him up a bit too hard and found themselves on the receiving end of a furious tantrum chanted through a bullhorn. Ford is hailed as one of the all-time greatest directors, but people who had worked with him often thought different and many have in fact lived to tell the tale. Frank Capra said "John is half-tyrant, half-revolutionary, half-saint, half-Satan, half-genius and half-Irish".

Maddest moment: Whilst filming Mister Roberts, Henry Fonda got a bit too mouthy for Ford, who rewarded Fonda with a tantrum and a punch to the face.

22. Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1924 – 1978)

"If you want to know me, See Glen or Glenda. That's me, that's my story, no question. But Plan 9 is my pride and joy..."

As Tim Burtons masterpiece of a film Ed Wood taught us, the worst director ever (as proclaimed by the 1980 Golden Turkey Awards) was something of a creepy personality; Wood confessed to being a transvestite and wearing women's underwear underneath is uniform whilst he fought in the war, and still did for the entirety of his career. His first film, Glen or Glenda was about a transvestite (played by Wood) who can't make up their mind what gender they wanted to be, then there was Bride of the Monster, a furiously horrible Bela Lugosi vehicle in which Lugosi wrestles with a toy octopus in a river (no, really!), and then the cult sci-fi film, Plan 9 from Outer Space. Which is hailed as one of the worst films ever made; cardboard graves fall over, sets wobble, dead characters make cameo's later on in the film, and car hubcaps on fishing rods are used as flying saucers. When Lugosi died during filming for Plan 9, Wood – assuming no-one would notice – replaced Lugosi with his wife's chiropractor.

Maddest moment: Tricked the local church into giving him money to make Plan 9, stupid enough to think they would believe it was a "religious picture".

21. Kenneth Anger (1927 –)

"Mickey Mouse used to twist the udders of cows. That's the only mouse I'm interested in – this kind of demon fetish figure"

Anger, a man so in touch with his own weirdness, that he'll put on a free show for whoever happened to be within receiving distance of the man. Notorious for homosexual-fetish Satanist pictures including Lucifer Rising and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. Lucifer Rising in particular was something of a stirrer, including a shamefully tickling story about when Anger got in an argument with Led Zeppelin as they were supposed to record the soundtrack to Lucifer Rising, to which extent he instead sought music from Bobby Beausoleil, a member of the infamous Manson Family who was doing life in prison for first-degree murder at the time. Despite everything, Anger has created some startling imagery in many of his experimental shorts, most of which make little sense but make up for that with brain-melting psychopathicy put into broad visuals. Some say that Anger's stage name was garnered when he was 5-years-old, so what does that tell you?

Maddest moment: The rumours of regular Satanic practices with his good friend, the late Alesister Crowley.

20. Ruggero Deodato (1939 –)

"That's my star! Get him into make-up!"

When you're stuck in the middle of a jungle with only cannibalistic natives and a crazy Italian director for company, what can you do? That was on the minds of the many cast and crew members of the notorious grind house film Cannibal Holocaust, whose director, Deodato ensured there be maximum realism, and maximum blood... and is still thought to be one of the most violent films ever made. Deodato made no such effort to put decency into this story of a college professor who goes to the Amazon to find missing students who disappeared there whilst filming a documentary about cannibalism. Deodato had insisted real sex be performed in both sex and rape scenes, real blood was shed and of course, real animals were slaughtered. Most people cringe like a mother fucker while watching the scene in which a monkey gets its faced cut off. When the shot for it didn't go right, Deodato – without batting an eyelid at the faceless monkey simply said "Get another one and do it again!"

Maddest moment: Deodato insisted to the actors that a river turtle be torn to pieces and then eaten for real. One of the actors burst into tears after filming the scene.

19. Catherine Breillat (1948 –)

"The problem is that censors create the concept of obscenity. By supposedly trying to protect us they form an absurd concept of what is obscene.

Who would think that one of the most sexually explicit films of all time would be from a female director? Sexism aside, it just doesn't happen, but then again it surprises people to know that a woman also directed Point Break and The Woodsman. Breillat is doing things on film however, that men usually do: Sexy sex. Her controversial 1999 film Romance saw a lengthy scene in which the largely built Rocco Siffredi has freaky sex with Caroline Ducey, a scene made uncomfortable simply by the somewhat helpless expression on Ducey's face. The rest of the film however goes against taboos' too; there's an uncut ejaculation scene and Ducey is raped furiously on public stairs, but Breillat didn't stop there, she followed up with Anatomy of Hell, which saw her casting Siffredi again, this time as a gay man who is paid by a random woman to watch her pleasure herself. Also, there are garden tools used in that film too, so watch out.

Maddest moment: Wrote an explicit erotic novel aged 17.

18. Francis Ford Coppola (1939 –)

"We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane"

The lords in the blue sky know Coppola for what he is; one of the greatest proprietors of classics and masterpieces. The Godfather and its sequel being an obvious one, The Conversation and Apolcaypse Now; the man has inspired directors from all around to take on the duties of film-making and do it purely for the creation and handling of art. Coppola's career in the 1970's went better than most other directors of the time including Scorsese and Kubrick. But mad how? Coppola has been known to take risks, instead of shooting Apocalypse in a studio (the budget was definitely big enough for that), he instead chose the conscious, slightly erratic decision to bugger off to the middle of no-where, dragging Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando along with him and film in the middle of a snake-infested rainforest. Realism was everything to Coppola, and although his career may have taken a slight dip recently (with the exception of his comeback, Youth without Youth), he's still known as a master.

Maddest moment: Making multiple masterpieces in career, then in 1996, directs the film, Jack; sentimental comedy about a fully-grown man with the mind of a small child, the film was panned by critics and audiences everywhere.

17. Tim Burton (1958 –)

"I always liked strange characters"

Burton's strange appearance and iconic stance to film-making have become something of legend. Directing his first film in 1985 (Pee-Wee's Big Adventure), Burton moved on to the films that would contain his now very well-known conventions (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands), but the difference between him and other film-makers of his time was that Burton had always put a special ingredient into his films, and that was death. Somewhere, somehow in (almost) every Burton film, there's something about death. Corpse Bride is about a dead bride, Sleppy Hollow is about a Victorian-day serial killer, in Mars Attacks, everyone dies, in Sweeney Todd... Well, you know. However all of these death-fuelled hosts in his films are often incorporated into the family movies, which some people may find a little disturbing. Plus he seems to have an unhealthy attachment to Johnny Depp.

Maddest moment: Um... Marrying Helena Bonham Carter?

16. Terry Gilliam (1940 –)

"One of Hollywoods greatest visionaries?? I'm not even a Hollywood director!"

Do you think that a kitten being thrown into sharp, spinning blades is funny? Terry Gilliam sure does. The ex-Monty Python went on to direct films when the award-winning comedy team all went their separate ways. It's Gilliam who has enjoyed the most critical acclaim since the disperse of the Pythons. Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, Time Bandits and his recent Imaginarrium of Dr Parnassus have all been socially adored, but like Burton before him, Gilliam has an odd habit of throwing in the surreal and the unordinary and incorporating it into his own style. Brazil for instance; a sci-fi film about a man running around a dystopian future on the run, what does that have to do with Brazil? Or anything for that matter? Everyone surely adores the film, but for god sakes, what the hell is going on? Gilliam's known mainly for his prize squabbles with everyone from Warner brothers to the Weinsteins.

Maddest moment: During the filming Brazil, Gilliam became so stressed that he temporarily lost the use of his legs, which only returned to normal several weeks later.

15. William Friedkin (1935 –)

"I expect a little controversy..."

And that he got it, Friedkin was a frightening presence back in his hey-day, probably because he had created the ultimate horror film: The Exorcist. But the rest of his career played pretty close to said nightmare, many people called him a genius, but was outweighed by the majority of people who called him crazy. Mainly because Friedkin cared little for his actors and cared little for actual decency, he cared mainly about the effect that his films give, and the effect he wanted to give. On the set of the Exrocist, Friedkin yanked Ellen Burstyn around, injuring her back, slapped William O'Riley to get a reaction out of him and fired a gun into the air on-set to pump fear into the hearts of his stars. But it didn't end there; he sent a car speeding across a train-track without any controls, shot a backwards/against-traffic car chase in To Live and Die in LA and drove against gay protest groups with Cruising. People who worked with him still recall the odd ounce of craziness. Yeah, no shit.

Maddest moment: The steam coming out of the mouths of the actors in The Exorcist during the exorcism? Its real. Friedkin froze the room solid to make the actors breath visible. 14-year-old Linda Blair wore nothing but a frilly night-dress at the time.

14. Abel Ferrara (1952 –)

"It's bad enough paying a guy $200 to fuck your girlfriend, then he can't get it up"

In 1978, Ferrara wrote, directed and starred in a cheap exploitation horror film called Driller Killer, which garnered attention simply for being one of the first films to be introduced into the "video nasties" scandal of the 1980's. Now floating around somewhere in public domain, Ferarra has abandoned the film (and rightfully so, because lets face it; it's awful) and has gone on to climb much higher cliffs. Ferarra collaborated with Christopher Walken in the cult thriller King of New York, but his most disturbing (and best) work to date remains his 1992 drama, Bad Lieutenant, which has bobbed the surface again recently when Werner Herzog made a film with the same title, which Ferrara was not pleased about. It takes a real mad genius to make something as distressing but downright compelling as Bad Lieutenant, and Ferarra fits the quota quite well, some of his biggest fans even recall being genuinely scared by the man when they finally met him...

Maddest moment: Directing a pornographic film called "9 Lives of a Wet Pussy", starring his then-girlfriend.

13. Gaspar Noe (1963 –)

"With a short film you are allowed to do whatever you want. It's like if you have a girlfriend and she tells you that you can do whatever you want. That's very exciting"

One of the fearless wizards of modern independent cinema, Noe took several disturbing ideas and decided to incorporate them into his acclaimed drama Irreversible, which survives currently with the title of one of the most disturbing films ever made. Noe is a master manipulator too, convincing rising star Vincent Cassell to perform some very erotic love making on screen with his real-life wife Monica Bellucci, and of course the mother of controversial scenes; Bellucci's rape scene, which – after much deliberation – was filmed with Jo Prestia actually penetrating Bellucci, to which Cassells character goes out to find the man who did it. It doesn't take a sane man to make a film like this; in fact it doesn't even take a crazy man, it takes a very brave, very nuts but very understanding merchant of filth to put something like this on screen. Noe has recently finished filming Enter the Void, which looks like the greatest acid trip ever.

Maddest moment: To convince the gay community that Irreversible isn't a homophobic film, Noe made a cameo as a naked man masturbating in the nightclub scene.

12. Mel Gibson (1956 –)

"Why do I say things like that? It gets me in trouble..."

Mel used to be sane... Braveheart was a long and healthy shoot for everyone and the film turned out a masterpiece. But in recent years, Mel has taken the short flight back down to the ground from which he started from. Probably the first inconveniences arising when he started getting arrested for drunken disorderly. A memorable confrontation between Gibson and arresting officers ending with Gibson saying to the officers things like "Jews are responsible for all the worlds wars" and "Are you a Jew?". Soon recovering, he directed The Passion of the Christ, which showed the suffering of Jesus Christ before he is crucified; the disturbing, incredibly violent but remarkably powerful film was a box-office success and Gibson showed his talents for directing and refusing to fall further into his slum, which he showed once again with acclaimed drama Apocalypto. He fell further into dark times more recently when an explicit phone conversation between him and his ex-wife arose.

Maddest moment: Depressed to the point where he nearly committed suicide, Gibson claims he made Passion to "heal" himself.

11. Sam Peckinpah (1925 – 1984)

"One night I ended up in this Mexican whorehouse, as I have a habit of doing..."

How many people have the balls to try and stab Charlton Heston with a prop sword? Only one; Sam Peckinpah was hailed as a master of insanity whilst he was directing, his films seemed perfectly normal (well, apart from Straw Dogs); but behind the camera, Peckinpah was not only difficult to work with, but was in some peoples claims, "Impossible". Peckinpah was mostly under the influence of booze, despite doctors warnings to the man that he was close to serious liver damage. The Wild Bunch was his classic, but it was wild for a good reason; because there was a real-life wild-man helming the film, and the gasps he got from some members of the cast were priceless; asking of the most incredibly unsanitary things from the crew. Including a drunken slant on a day of filming; to make it look like a horse had been shot from underneath the rider, Peckinpah wanted to shoot the horse.

Maddest moment: "There was a dangerous instability in Sam" recalled Charlton Heston, after Peckinpah lunged at him with a sword.

10. David Cronenberg (1943 –)

"I identify with parasites..."

A subtly scary, quietly creepy man of power, Cronenberg is the highest and best proprietor of body-horror films. His madness sure does show through the violence in his movies; a big one being The Fly, in which we watch a man painfully transform into an insect, which Cronenberg stretches out to a painful extent. But then along came his maddest picture yet; Crash. A film about a journalist who stumbles upon a secret society of perverts who find themselves becoming sexually excited by car accidents. One of the weirdest and craziest cult films of all time, Cronenberg had struck gold and a career to match by supplying us with such cinema. His body-horror days may be behind him today, but he's still making gloriously violent (and overly brilliant) films with A History of Violence and Eastern Promises to show off with. Eastern Promises a good one in showing he hasn't slowed down on the insanity, having Viggo Mortensen strip naked and wrestle two thugs which ends in bloodshed.

Maddest moment: Turning down every great directing opportunity including Return of the Jedi, Top Gun, Total Recall and Robocop.

9. Stanley Kubrick (1928 – 1999)

"The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes"

When you go to work for Kubrick, you sign your name in blood. But then you're also bound in legend, but for some people, it just wasn't worth it. The control-freak director had a notorious reputation of putting his poor actors through the same scene sometimes hundreds of times until they got it right (in his eyes anyway). He had Sydney Pollack walk through a door 90 times in Eyes Wide Shut, reduced Scatman Crothers to tears on the set of The Shining having been axed by Jack Nicholson 40 times, Malcolm McDowell was left wearing an eyepatch as the result of two scratched corneas whilst filming A Clockwork Orange, and of course the stuff of legend; Shelley Duvall's teary begging to her crazy husband in The Shining was shot over 100 times. Which of course sent Duvall on the war-path. But no matter how the tears flowed or who got injured and how, Kubrick always delivered the goods; releasing a whole chronicle of biblically scaled but ultimately remarkable motion pictures.

Maddest moment: And perhaps the funniest, whilst transporting the negative for one of his films, Kubrick had the editor drive in front of him as a human shield.

8. Roman Polanski (1933 –)

"First comes my love of my work. But secondary to that is the need to get laid"

Polanski has lived quite a life; his mother was slaughtered by Nazi's during the holocaust (which he narrowly escaped from) and his heavily pregnant wife was butchered by the Manson family. The man has suffered tragedy through thick and thin, but only the ones who have really lived through such tragedy could truly afford to create it. However Polanski took quite a beating from distributors when his films were being made. Upon hearing that his horror film Rosemary's Baby was about a young woman who is raped by Satan, censors hit the roof, and as they did this, Polanski gave a playful wink. However his work isn't always blundered by controversy; his 1974 detective drama Chinatown is one of the most critically and socially acclaimed films of the century and continues to make masterpieces to this day like the upsettingly realistic holocaust drama, The Pianist.

Maddest moment: Arrested in 1977 for having (consensual) sex with a 13-year-old girl, he quickly fled Europe to avoid being arrested...

7. John Waters (1946 –)

"Animal rights activists always say to me 'how could you kill a chicken for a movie?' I think we made the chickens life better; he got to be in a movie, got fucked and then right after filming the next take, the cast ate the chicken"

A charming, fitfully amusing man in real-life, it takes John Waters' films to convince you that John Waters is a few sandwiches (and a blanket) short of a picnic. Although films of his like A Dirty Shame and Serial Mom infused laughs off of dark matter, it's all nothing compared to the granddaddy of midnight movies, Pink Flamingos. An exploitation movie to end them all; this random saga of vomit, incest, chicken sex, transvestite, cannibalism and... well, everything you can possible name, is still one of the most vile films ever made. Waters confessed that he was under the influence of marijuana whilst writing the script, although that's not really an excuse, because even a cocaine-snorter with a gun to his head couldn't even come up with something so disgusting. Water's relationship with good friend, transvestite Divine was certainly put to the test on set; having Divine perform unsimulated fellatio and of course; the classic scene in which Divine scoops up freshly laid dog shit and eats it... for real.

Maddest moment: the very moment he though Pink Flamingos was a good idea.

6. Larry Clark (1943 –)

"I wondered about the availability of porn everywhere and how it affected what they thought about sex, what it was, what influence it had"

AID's is a touchy subject... but not for Larry Clark, a man who really doesn't give a shit whether you like him or hate him. But more importantly, doesn't care what the censors think either. The man leapt onto the scene with a little film called Kids, made back in 1995 with minimal budget, it became one of the decades most controversial (and critically acclaimed) films for revealing the ugly truth behind the New York teenage scene. In which an AIDs-infested teenager skips around Manhattan infecting young virgins with the virus. Underage drinking, underage sex, drugs, rape, its all covered, and in explicit detail. Clark's lack of judgment and lack of fear remains both impressive and frightening, combining to create one of the scariest non-horror films of all time. Then came Bully, which was OK (heavy on sex and violence) and then along came Ken Park; a film so in touch with sex, that it features real scenes of masturbation, ejaculation, penetration and oral sex... Most of it pretty pointless.

Maddest moment: Ruining a UK release for Ken Park when Clark punched distributor Hamish McAlpine in the face.

5. Uwe Boll (1965 –)

"I'm not a fucking retard like Michael Bay or Eli Roth making the same shitty movies over and over again"

1965 was a grim year... Coming into the world was what was soon to become probably the worst director that planet Earth has ever know; Uwe Boll. The ego-maniacal German manic burst onto the scene somehow in the early 00's, becoming famous simply for being bad. His obsession with adaptating below-par video games became a pretty weird ground-mark for him, with Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne and In the Name of the King receiving extremely negative reviews; Boll carried on making bad films, and in the process; outed himself several times as "the only fucking genius in this industry" when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. He made a Youtube video in which he insulted other directors and proclaimed love for himself but this was just met with laughs, then he challenged his harshest critics to a boxing match. After many childish tantrums and threats, Boll is unfortunately still making movies. Probably just to piss people off.

Maddest moment: Thinking it would make people respect him, Boll records himself delivering swear-covered insults to audiences, critics and other directors in one of the all-time funniest temper tantrums, but this one was by a 40-something year old man.

4. Ken Russell (1927 –)

"I'm not interested in reality. There's too much of it about"

It was Ken Russell who made the ultimate blasphemes film; The Devils. A film in which naked nuns strip Jesus naked and rape him, a film which Warner Bros still refuse to release uncut, but who could blame them? The man's dominating temper has been an important part of his work. He would push his actors to the absolute edge on the first day of filming to defeat any self-importance they had in themselves, and it often worked. Russell just loved to cause trouble, and its because of this, that he's one of independent cinemas most distinguished trouble-makers; a raging ball of human erosion, Russell was the definitive confidence-assassin and is exactly what Kubrick would be like if he shouted and pillaged a lot more. Russell's relationship with actors has often been unstrung; he would leave naked Glenda Jackson in the winter cold for half a day, have wild rhinoceroses chase after his stars and had a habit of shaving his actors heads, especially if they were working for a rival director at the time.

Maddest moment: To make a point about censoring; Russell made a short film about a young Jewish boy who brings Hitler a present, and is turned into a lampshade.

3. David Lynch (1926 –)

"There's something deeply satisfying about directing the flow of water"

Lynch has been a master at his game for decades; one of the greatest brain-washers cinema has ever had the pleasure of housing, Lynch has been entrancing and frightening audiences with some truly haunting visionary masterpieces. Eraserhead – a film which most closely resembles a nightmare more than any other – was and still is one of his masterworks, and only a true madman could create something like it. Not just a random series of events, but a horror which subtly takes on many stories including parenthood, rehabilitation and murder. Lynch followed it up with many an entrancing stories including the amazing Mulholland Drive and 3-hour lucid dream Inland Empire. Many people attempt to look through microscopes and dismantle Lynch's films to find the deep meaning, but it's no use, just surrender to the experience. A man so beautifully mad, that not one of the 9 billion or so population of Earth can even come close to decoding his work.

Maddest moment: Against the word of... everyone, Lynch still doesn't release any of his movies to have chapter stops; insisting that films must be viewed from beginning to end.

2. David O. Russell (1968 –)

"I worked on this fucking film three years not to have some fucking cunt yell at me"

Russell, a walking time-bomb with a Jesus complex; is a man of few powers, many talents, but a huge display of gout in order to show everyone that he doesn't take shit from no one. His first film, Spanking the Monkey was a little nuts, seeing as it's a comedy about a teenage boy who returns to his childhood home and shags his mum, then there was Three Kings, in which Russell famously smacked George Clooney, then Russell put director Christopher Nolan in a headlock after learning that Nolan was going to cast Jude Law in The Prestige (Law was Russell's first choice for I Heart Huckabees a film every bit as weird as it sounds). Russell's flightless ego seems its most powerful when its doing battle with the big stars; showing that he's a kid dropped right in the middle of Tinseltown and he's not afraid to get his hands dirty. We just wonder if Mark Wahlberg will survive him during the filming of Russell's new film, The Fighter.

Maddest moment: Secretly filmed on the set of Huckabees, Russell uses the words "cunt" and "fuck" at machine gun pace when screaming at actress Lily Tomlin as Dustin Hoffman paces awkwardly in the background.

1. Werner Herzog (1942 –)

"I told him I would do him in if he left the set now, that I had a gun with nine bullets, eight of which I would use on him, leaving the final one for myself..."

Herzog is a man too crazy to fully comprehend, but that's why we love him. The most talented director to ever emerge from Germany, and still going strong, Herzog had found his use early in life by filming several surrealist films in some of the world's most inhospitable environments. In fact, he promised the pint-sized cast of Even Dwarfs Started Small that if they successfully completed filming, then Herzog would jump into a pile of Cacti... He was pulling thorns out of his body for days. Then there's the one time he ate a shoe, he walked from Munich to Paris to visit a sick friend, he was shot by a sniper during a televised interview (he brushed off and continued the interview) and probably most importantly; his relationship with actor Klaus Kinski, a man just as crazy as Herzog. The two collaborated together on 5 films and were always in each others faces; Herzog threatened to shoot Kinski if he left the set of Aguirre and during the filming of Cobra Vedre, the chief native of the tribe he was filming offered to have Kinski killed, but Herzog declined. Why? Simply because he needed his star to finish the film. The craziness and stress sometimes rubbed off onto his films, but he certainly was incredibly talented at creating beautiful, visually gorgeous epics which ranged from dragging dozens of cast members in heavy armour around the jungle (Aguirre) to hauling a huge steamboat over a mountain (Fitzcarraldo). The stuff written right here may be very hard to believe, but its all real, uncensored acts of insane grace that make Herzog the genius that he is today.

Maddest moment: Picking just one is near impossible.