In the beginning, directors chose to work with Criterion because we were the only label committed to showing movies as they were meant to be seen, letterboxed with new digital transfers made from the best available elements. Before long we began recording audio commentaries by directors, restoring director's cuts, collecting deleted scenes, gag reels, shooting scripts, early shorts, storyboards. To date, these 35 filmmakers have made our Director Approved library the most significant archive of contemporary filmmaking available to the home viewer.

Robert Altman

Michael Bay

Peter Bogdanovich

Danny Boyle

Peter Brook

Marcel Carne

John Carpenter

Don Chaffey

Francis Ford Coppola

David Cronenberg

Jonathan Demme

David Fincher

Terry Gilliam

Allen and Albert Hughes

Terry Jones

Neil Jordan

Philip Kaufman

Stanley Kubrick

Spike Lee

Mike Leigh

Louis Malle

Anthony Minghella

Alan Parker

Melvin Van Peebles

Roman Polanski

Sydney Pollack

Rob Reiner

Leni Riefenstahl

Nicolas Roeg

John Schlesinger

Martin Scorsese

John Singleton

Kevin Smith

Steven Soderbergh

Steven Spielberg

Michael Steinberg

Barbra Streisand

John Sturges

Lee Tamahori

Quentin Tarantino

Billy Bob Thornton

Paul Verhoeven

Lars Von Trier

John Waters

John Woo