Robert Altman
American filmmaker (1925–2006)
A director's score is the sum of their films' composite canon scores — methodology.
- Born
- February 20, 1925 · Kansas City
- Died
- November 20, 2006 · Los Angeles
- Nationality
- United States
- Work
- film director, screenwriter, film producer, film editor
The eavesdropper
Altman is the great American director of the crowd. Where his New Hollywood peers built films around a face — a De Niro for Scorsese, an Al Pacino for Coppola — Altman built them around a room, and let you strain to hear it. Overlapping dialogue, multitrack sound, a restless zoom picking faces out of a milling ensemble: the method sounds like a gimmick and works like a moral argument. No single character owns the frame because no single character owns the world. To my eye that democratic clutter is the closest thing postwar Hollywood produced to how life actually sounds, and it took a man who spent fifteen years in the trades to hear it.
Kansas City to the crowd scene
Born in Kansas City, Missouri on February 20, 1925, Altman flew more than fifty B-24 missions in the war before drifting into filmmaking the long way round — roughly sixty-five industrial shorts for the Calvin Company in the 1950s, then a decade of episodic television (Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bonanza, Combat!). He was forty-five when MASH (1970) took the Palme d'Or at Cannes and made him, overnight, an author. The run that followed is one of the densest in American cinema: McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), The Long Goodbye (1973), Nashville (1975), 3 Women (1977). The 1980s punished him — Popeye (1980) soured the studios and he retreated to filmed theatre — before The Player (1992) bought him a second life, followed by Short Cuts (1993) and, at seventy-six, Gosford Park (2001). He never won a competitive Oscar across nominations for seven of them, taking the Academy's Honorary Award in 2006, the year he died in Los Angeles on November 20. In his acceptance speech he disclosed a heart transplant a decade earlier — the late films were made on a borrowed engine.
What the numbers say
Our library ranks Altman #20 among all directors, composite 20.09 across fifteen films — a total built, unusually, on one commanding peak and a long shallow tail. MASH leads at #47 overall (4.25), cited by 11 of our sources, the most of any Altman film; Nashville follows at #102 (3.41) on an identical 11 citations — the same breadth of regard, a lower intensity. Then the drop is steep and, to my mind, unjust: McCabe & Mrs. Miller, the film many critics call his masterpiece, sits down at #491 (1.71), and The Long Goodbye lower still at #1023 (1.07). The aggregate rewards the films people agree to canonize (MASH, Nashville) over the films they argue about, and Altman made more of the second kind than almost anyone. Gosford Park, his Oscar-crowned comeback, lands at #431 (1.89).
Where to start
Nashville for the full orchestra — a sprawling ensemble and the country listening to itself. Then MASH for the anarchic origin, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller for the elegy the numbers underrate. Save Short Cuts for when you want the method at three-hour scale.
Films in our library, ranked
Ranked by composite canon score across 20+ authoritative lists, awards and polls — our ordering, with every placement citing its evidence on the film's page.
- 1
1970 · United States · comedy, drama, war
Palme d'Or winner 1970 · Oscar Best Picture nominee 1970 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1970 #5
4.2511 citations - 2
1975 · United States · comedy, drama, musical
Ebert's annual top 10 1975 #1 · Siskel's annual top 10 1975 #1 · Oscar Best Picture nominee 1975
3.4111 citations - 3
1993 · United States · comedy, drama
Venice Golden Lion winner 1993 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1994 #3 · Siskel's annual top 10 1993 #2
2.165 citations - 4
2001 · United States / Italy / United Kingdom · crime, mystery, comedy
Oscar Best Picture nominee 2001 · Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2002 #7 · Sarris's annual top 10 2001 #2
1.897 citations - 5
1971 · United States · western, drama
Ebert's annual top 10 1971 #2 · Siskel's annual top 10 1971 #3 · National Film Registry (inducted 2010)
1.719 citations - 6
1992 · United States · drama, crime
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 1993 #3 · Siskel's annual top 10 1992 #2 · NYT Best 1,000 Movies
1.416 citations - 7
1976 · United States · western, comedy
Berlin Golden Bear winner 1976 · Siskel's annual top 10 1976 #8
1.162 citations - 8
2006 · United States · comedy, musical
Kinema Junpo Best Ten (International) 2007 #3 · Sarris's annual top 10 2006 #3 · Film Comment year-end poll 2006 #18
1.124 citations - 9
1973 · United States · crime, film-noir, mystery
National Film Registry (inducted 2021) · Empire 500 (2008) #357 · NYT Best 1,000 Movies
1.077 citations - 10
1984 · United States · biography, drama
Ebert's annual top 10 1984 #6 · NYT Best 1,000 Movies · Siskel's annual top 10 1984 #7
0.674 citations - 11
1977 · United States · drama
Sarris's annual top 10 1977 #3 · Criterion Collection spine #230 · Roger Ebert's Great Movies
0.664 citations - 120.181 citation
- 130.151 citation
- 140.131 citation
- 150.121 citation
Complete filmography
All 41 directorial credits recorded on Wikidata, in chronological order; films in our library link to their canon-score page.
- 1957The Delinquents
- 1957The James Dean Story
- 1964Nightmare in Chicago
- 1967Countdown
- 1969That Cold Day in the Park
- 1970Brewster McCloud
- 1970MASH
- 1971McCabe & Mrs. Miller
- 1972Images
- 1973The Long Goodbye
- 1974California Split
- 1974Thieves Like Us
- 1975Nashville
- 1976Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson
- 19773 Women
- 1978A Wedding
- 1979A Perfect Couple
- 1979Quintet
- 1980Health
- 1980Popeye
- 1982Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
- 1983Streamers
- 1984Secret Honor
- 1985Fool for Love
- 1985O.C. and Stiggs
- 1987Aria
- 1987Beyond Therapy
- 1988The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
- 1990The James Dean Story: A Different Kind Of Motion Picture
- 1990Vincent & Theo
- 1992The Player
- 1993Short Cuts
- 1994Prêt-à-Porter
- 1996Kansas City
- 1998The Gingerbread Man
- 1999Cookie's Fortune
- 2000Dr. T & the Women
- 2001Gosford Park
- 2003The Company
- 2004Tanner on Tanner
- 2006A Prairie Home Companion