To whom would you bestow the "Greatest American Director" title?

I can tell you that it is not George Lucas.
How about Michael B… Ba… Dammit, I just can not say it.
Let us just go with Werner Herzog.

@ragingloli Mi..Mich…ael…B…a…dabing badaboom? Lol.

Googling Herzog right now. Thanks.

Ed Wood.

Werner Herzog isn’t American.

It’s Spielberg for me, apart from the very rare hiccup, he is forever hitting it out of the park.

Scorsese is fantastic, but can be hit and miss. Coppola these days is more miss than hit. Michael Mann is a contender, and Paul Thomas Anderson is a genius. But Spielberg leads the pack, hands down in my opinion.

How could I forget Stanley Kubrick? Lived in England for much of his career, but a very strong contender for Greatest American Director!

Spielberg has such great talent, but he has forgotten to apply it, and does too much in a knee-jerk way. His last great movie was Saving Private Ryan or AI Artificial Intelligence, and that has been years.
Woody Allen has been a terrific director of actors, but some camera choices make me crazy.
Frank Capra was terrific, and had a string of wonderful films in the 30’s and 40’s.
Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane is the best directed film of all time, but Welles was fitfully great.
So, my nomination is:
William Wyler. He directed many great films over many years. He was born in Germany, in an area that is now French, but he was truly American.

And Kubrick was born in the US, but moved to England before making his best movies.