David Fincher

I am a huge fan of his overall work, especially the radio years, and tend to clump his film directing masterpieces with the brilliant 1937 Les Miserables radio series that he directed at 22, his numerous portrayals of the Lucille Fletcher classic The Hitchhiker (that was written for Orson's Voice), and his larger body of work.
The The Third Man was an outstanding movie but the radio show (soon to likely be on one my websites in MP4 format) really expanded the character in quite a enjoyable fashion.

Strangely, his last work was doing voice for Transformers the Movie (which i own btw).

James Cameron
Quentin Tarantino
Oliver Stone
Martin Scorsese
John Carpenter
Francis Ford Coppola
Steven Spielberg

you people are too cool
every single director I could evr name as a fave has been listed and listed again. This is a great question to ask people to figure out weather or not you'd wanna hang out with them.

the only person I could add would be Clint Eastwood I think that no one mentioned him anyway.

I really enjoy Guy Riche, Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino

i forgot to add:

John McTeirnan
Luc Besson
Dominec Sena
Richard Donnor
Joel Schumaker
Steven Soderbergh

Fincher, Cronenberg, Miike, (Beat)Takeshi, Gondry, Besson

Tsui Hark
Gordan Chen (or Chan)
Steven Speilberg
Peter Jackson
Jet Li, Yep! THE Jet Li...he got mad skills for it man
Donnie Yen - also mad skills

I forgot Steven Soderbergh & Ang Lee

Terry Gilliam


Coen Bros
Tim Burton
Peter Jackson
James Cameron

I recently really enjoy Michel Gondry's visuals.

Kurosawa - his stuff is visual poetry

Darren Aronofsky

And Alex Proyas, if only for the Crow and Dark City

Farrelly Brothers

Quentin Tarantino
Francis Ford Coppola
Orson Welles
Martin Scorsese

So many brilliant directors, but here's some of my absolute favourites:

Francis Ford 'The Godfather' Coppola
Akira 'Too many fucking awesome movies to name' Kurosawa
Martin 'You talkin to me?' Scorsese
Orson 'I am Unicron' Welles
Stan the Man Kubrick
Alfred Hitchcock - of course.
Sergio 'Greatest westerns ever' Leone
Takeshi Kitano
Sam Peckinpah
Don Siegel
Segei Eisenstein
Milos Forman
Quentin Tarantino
Brian De Palma
Oliver Stone

Quentin Tarantino
Francis Ford Coppola
Jean Luc Godard

I'll post more later.

Christopher Guest
Darren Aronofsky
David Lynch
Richard Kelly
Quentin Tarantino
P. T. Anderson
Oliver Stone
Tim Burton

Oh, I forgot Cameron Crowe

In no particular order
 

Ryuhei Kitamura
Sam Raimi
Peter Jackson
Quentin Tarantino
Terry Gilliam
David Fincher
Alfred Hitchcock
François Truffaut
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Darren Aronofsky

One name that hasn't been mentioned is Ingmar Bergman, certainly one of the greatest directors ever.
Kubrick and Bunuel are favorites of mine as well.
Still waiting to see if Fincher and Aronofsky can fulfill their early promise.

No one has said M. Night Shyamalan. Even though he has only done a few films, I think 6th Sense, Signs and Unbreakable were brilliant. Definately one of my favorite new directors. I have great expectations for The Village after seeing a trailor for it.

Aronofsky
Bergman
Welles
Burton
Bunuel
Coppola
Hitchcock

Hmm besides what has already been named..

Krysztof Kieslowski ( SP ? ) for his trilogy Red, White and Blue
Lars Von Trier ( recently with dogville )

probably miss a bunch but off the top of my head: Quentine tarantino, Ridley scott, spilberg, kubrick, .....

David Fincher
Quentin Tarantino

Joel Coen
The Farrely Brothers
John Singleton
Tim Burton
Quentin Tarantino
Guy Ritchie
Oliver Stone

I was surprised to not see Stone on more people's lists.

Guy Ritchie