5. David Lean and Alec Guinness
Before he was a legendary actor, Alec Guinness worked in a number of stage plays, one among which was an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ iconic story, ‘Great Expectations’. In the audience was a young film editor, David Lean who was inspired by the play and adapted it into a film, where Alec reprised his role as Herbert Pocket. This led to a deep friendship which transpired some iconic films. They collaborated again in another adaptation of a Dickens’ story, ‘Oliver Twist’. After a break of nine years, the worked again in the prisoner of war story, ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’. In 1962, Alec Guinness played Prince Faisal in one of the best movies ever made, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. This will probably remain their most iconic collaboration but they went on to work together again for ‘Doctor Zhivago’ and ‘A Passage to India’. Their works spanned almost forty years and made them a British duo that will forever be remembered.
4. Wong Kar-Wai and Tony Chiu Wai Leung
If they had together made just ‘In the Mood For Love’ and retired, they would still have been fondly remembered. But they made seven films together over two decades. Three of them was officially selected as competition film in Cannes Film Festival, including Happy Together (1997), In the Mood for Love (2000) and 2046 (2004). They started their journey with Chungking Express (1994) and their most recent one being The Grandmaster (2013). Surely, like most other collaborations on this list, when they come together magic happens on-screen. You only have to look at ‘Chungking Express’, where Leung plays a lonely policemen. It is a relatively small role but Leung makes sure that he gets noticed. Then, in ‘Happy Together’ and ‘In the Mood For Love’, Leung just exploded on-screen and emerged as one of the finest acting talents from Asia. Meanwhile, Kar-Wai, himself, after ‘In the Mood For Love’ became one of the global icons of cinema.
3. John Ford and John Wayne
This must stand out because of the sheer number of movies the duo made together. John Ford has made a lot of movies in his career and he has also stayed very loyal with his actors, especially frontmen like Henry Fonda, James Stewart and of course John Wayne. The duo of Johns revitalized the genre of Westerns and became the inspiration for later directors. Their most important work was Stagecoach which established John Wayne as an actor to stay. In 1952, John Ford won his fourth Oscar for Best Director for ‘The Quiet Man’, another collaboration between the two. They went on to work till 1963 in ‘Donnovan’s Reef’ which marked 35 years of movies together.
2. Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune
Akira Kurosawa has often been cited as one of the most influential directors of all time. And he has worked with Toshiro Mifune in more than half of them. Their first work together was 1948’s ‘Drunken Angel’ but it was their fifth collaboration that put them on the map. This movie was ‘Rashomon’. It broke the traditional method of storytelling. The movie showed different contradictory perspectives of a single incident by different people. This phenomenon has been dubbed the Rashomon effect. The effect has since been used in many contexts like politics, international relations and debates. Within 4 years of making one of the best films of all time, the duo came together to make ‘Seven Samurai’, another Kurosawa masterpiece. They went on to make 16 movies spanning 17 years including ‘Yojimbo’, ‘Sanjuro’ and ‘Red Beard’. Toshiro Mifune and Akira Kurosawa will always be remembered for the number of great films that went on to inspire the best directors of the world.
1. Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro
There are a few directors who are as widely well-known and respected by the layman and critic alike, as is Martin Scorsese. And he has banked on impressive performances to get to where he has. He has made stars out of so many actors, it would take up an entire article to itself but some of them are Harvey Keitel, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joe Pesci and the most important of all; Robert De Niro. De Niro and Scorsese started the partnership in 1973 with ‘Mean Streets’. But their second film together blew them up to become cornerstones of the film industry for decades to come. This masterpiece was ‘Taxi Driver’ which is widely acclaimed to be one of the best movies of all time. And then four years later, they made ‘Raging Bull’ which carried on their name as well as earned De Niro an Oscar. After the black and white sports drama they returned to bring three more classics; ‘Goodfellas’, ‘Cape Fear’ and ‘Casino’. Their incredible work together has been applauded by audiences of all ages. The magic of brilliant direction of a really talented actor in character-driven roles has made them the best and most successful director-actor duo in cinema. We just can’t wait to see them both get back together for another future classic.
