Telluride Film Festival guest directors

The Guest Director position is held by a different individual each year who is invited by the Telluride Film Festival Directors to join them in the creation of the festival program. The guest director serves as a key collaborator in all of the festival's programming decisions, bringing new ideas and, quite often, overlooked films to Telluride. Below is a list of each guest director followed by the films the director specifically chose to highlight.

Guest Directors

Edition	Guest Director	Selection(s) (English Title)	Selection(s) (Original Title)	Director(s)	Production Countrie(s)	Year
15th (1988)	Donald Richie	Japan's Cutting Edge		a 2-hour collection of Japanese film dating from 1981 to 1988
		Remembering Sessue Hayakawa		a two film montage of this film great's first roles in the 1914 film Wrath of the Gods
		The Dragon Painter		William Worthington	United States	1919
16th (1989)	Errol Morris	Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer		John McNaughton	United States	1986
		Make Way for Tomorrow		Leo McCarey		1956
17th (1990	Bertrand Tavernier	Justin de Marseille		Maurice Tourneur	France	1935
		Pursued		Raoul Walsh	United States	1947
18th (1991)	Laurie Anderson	Danzon		María Novaro	Mexico	1991
		New Video Art		the first video projection program at the festival which included a series of modern video shorts.
19th (1992)	G. Cabrera Infante	Laughter		Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast	United States	1930
		Víctimas del pecado		Emilio Fernández	Mexico	1951
		La Virgen de la Caridad		Ramón Peón	Cuba	1930
20th (1993)	John Boorman	Fear and Desire		Stanley Kubrick	United States	1953
		Upstage		Monta Bell		1926
21st (1994)	John Simon	Il Sorpasso		Dino Risi	Italy	1962
		One Fine Day	Un certo giorno	Ermanno Olmi		1969
		They Shoot Horses, Don't They?		Sydney Pollack	United States	1969
22nd (1995)[1]	Phillip Lopate	Floating Clouds	Ukigumo	Mikio Naruse	Japan	1955
		The Hard Way		Vincent Sherman	United States	1943
		Welfare		Frederick Wiseman		1975
23rd (1996)	B. Ruby Rich
24th (1997)	Peter Von Bagh
25th (1998)	Peter Bogdanovich
26th (1999)[2]	Peter Sellars	Allah Tantou		David Achkar	Guinea, France	1992
		Dust in the Wind		Hou Hsiao-hsien	Taiwan	1986
27th (2000)[3]	Edgardo Cozarinsky
28th (2001)	Salman Rushdie	Metropolis		Fritz Lang	Germany	1927
		Alphaville		Jean-Luc Godard	France	1965
		Solaris	Solyaris	Andrei Tarkovsky	Soviet Union	1972
29th (2002)[4]	Alberto Barbera	Bitter Rice	Riso Amaro	Giuseppe De Santis	Italy	1949
		Bandits of Orgosolo	Banditi a Orgosolo	Vittorio De Seta		1961
		Il Posto		Ermanno Olmi
30th (2003)	Stephen Sondheim	They Were Five	La Belle Equipe	Julien Duvivier	France	1936
		Un Carnet de Bal				1937
		Panique				1946
31st (2004)[5]	Buck Henry	Million Dollar Legs		Edward F. Cline	United States	1932
		Payday		Don Carpenter
		Hunger	Sult	Henning Carlsen	Denmark, Norway, Sweden	1966
32nd (2005)	Don DeLillo	The Passenger	Professione: reporter	Michelangelo Antonioni	Italy	1975
		Wanda		Barbara Loden	United States	1970
		The Spirit of the Beehive	El espíritu de la colmena	Víctor Erice	Spain	1973
33rd (2006)[6]	Jean-Pierre Gorin	Maldone		Jean Grémillon	France	1928
		Stormy Waters	Remorques			1941
		Summer Light	Lumière d'Ètè			1943
34th (2007)[7]	Edith Kramer	The Way You Wanted Me	Sellaisena kuin sinä minut halusit	Teuvo Tulio	Finland	1944
		Millions Like Us		Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder	United Kingdom	1943
		Spring Shower (or Marie, a Hungarian Legend)	Tavaszi zápor	Pál Fejös	Hungary	1932
35th (2008)[8]	Slavoj Zizek	Nightmare Alley		Edmund Golding	United States	1947
		On Dangerous Ground		Nicholas Ray		1952
		Seconds		John Frankenheimer		1966
36th (2009)[9]	Alexander Payne	Day of the Outlaw		Stelios Roccos & James Burroughs	United States	1959
		The Breaking Point		Michael Curtiz		1950
		Make Way for Tomorrow		Leo McCarey		1937
37th (2010)[10]	Michael Ondaatje	The Ascent	Voskhozhdeniye	Larisa Shepitko	Soviet Union	1977
		Confidence	Bizalom	István Szabó	Hungary	1980
		Here’s Your Life	Här har du ditt liv	Jan Troell	Sweden	1966
		Fat City		John Huston	United States	1972
		The Hustler		Robert Rossen		1961
		Mother Dao, the Turtlelike	Moeder Dao, de schildpadgelijkende	Vincent Monnikendam	Netherlands	1995
38th (2011)[11]	Caetano Veloso	The Apartment		Billy Wilder	United States	1960
		Aniceto		Leonardo Favio	Argentina	2008
		Vivre Sa Vie		Jean-Luc Godard	France	1962
		The Grand Maneuver	Les Grandes Manœuvres	René Clair		1955
		Black God, White Devil	Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol	Glauber Rocha	Brazil	1964
		Nordeste: Cordel, Repente E Canção		Tânia Quaresma		1975
39th (2012)[12]	Geoff Dyer	Stalker		Andrei Tarkovsky	Soviet Union	1979
		Beau Travail		Claire Denis	France	1999
		Together	Tillsammans	Lukas Moodysson	Sweden	2000
		Lessons of Darkness	Lektionen in Finsternis	Werner Herzog	France, United Kingdom, Germany	1992
		The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner	Die große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner		Germany	1974
		Baraka		Ron Fricke	United States	1992
		Unrelated		Joanna Hogg	United Kingdom	2007
40th (2013)[13]	Don DeLillo	La Morte Rouge		Victor Erice	Spain	2006
		The Zapruder Film		Abraham Zapruder	United States	1963
	Phillip Lopate	Naked Childhood	L'enfance nue	Maurice Pialat	France	1968
	Buck Henry	The Terminal Man		Mike Hodges	United States	1972
	Michael Ondaatje	Elephant		Alan Clarke	United Kingdom	1989
		La Jetée		Chris Marker	France	1962
	B. Ruby Rich	One Way or Another	De Cierta Manera	Sara Gómez	Cuba	1974
	Salman Rushdie	Mahanagar		Satyajit Ray	India	1963
41st (2014)[14]	Guy Maddin and Kim Morgan	California Split		Robert Altman	United States	1974
		M		Joseph Losey		1951
		Man's Castle		Frank Borzage		1933
		The Road to Glory		Howard Hawks		1936
		Wicked Woman		Russell Rouse		1953
		Il Grido		Michelangelo Antonioni	Italy	1957
42nd (2015)[15]	Rachel Kushner	The Mother and the Whore	La maman et la putain	Jean Eustache	France	1973
		My Little Loves	Mes Petites Amoureuses		France	1974
		Wake in Fright		Ted Kotcheff	Australia	1971
		Cocksucker Blues		Robert Frank	United States	1979
		A Day in the Country	Partie de campagne	Jean Renoir	France	1936
		Uncle Yanco	Oncle Yanco	Agnès Varda	France	1967
		The Mattei Affair	Il Caso Mattei	Francesco Rosi	Italy	1972
43rd (2016)[16]	Volker Schlöndorff	I Was Nineteen	Ich war neunzehn	Konrad Wolf	East Germany	1968
		It Was in May (or It Was the Month of May)	Byl mesyats may	Marlen Khutsiev	Soviet Union	1970
		The Barefoot Contessa		Joseph L. Mankiewicz	United States	1954
		Les Enfants terribles		Jean-Pierre Melville	France	1950
		The Fire Within	Le Feu follet	Louis Malle		1963
		Spies	Spione	Fritz Lang	Germany	1928
44th (2017)[17]	Joshua Oppenheimer	The Night of the Hunter		Charles Laughton	United States	1955
		Titicut Follies		Frederick Wiseman		1967
		Hello Cinema	Salaam Cinema	Mohsen Makhmalbaf	Iran	1995
		Hotel of the Stars		Jon Bang Carlsen	Denmark	1981
		The Umbrellas of Cherbourg	Les Parapluies de Cherbourg	Jacques Demy	France	1964
		Even Dwarfs Started Small	Auch Zwerge haben klein angefangen	Werner Herzog	West Germany	1970
45th (2018)[18]	Jonathan Lethem	Angel		Ernst Lubitsch	United States	1937
		Bigger Than Life		Nicholas Ray		1956
		Never Cry Wolf		Carroll Ballard		1983
		The Tarnished Angels		Douglas Sirk		1957
		To Be or Not to Be		Ernst Lubitsch		1942
		The White Meadows	Keshtzarhaye sepid	Mohammad Rasoulof	Iran	2009
46th (2019)[19]	Pico Iyer	Late Autumn	Akibiyori	Yasujirō Ozu	Japan	1960
		When a Woman Ascends the Stairs	Onna ga kaidan o agaru toki	Mikio Naruse
		The Makioka Sisters	Sasame-yuki	Kon Ichikawa		1983
		Mr. and Mrs. Iyer		Aparna Sen	India	2002
		Under the Sun	V luchakh solnca	Vitaly Mansky	Czech Republic, Russia, Germany, Latvia, North Korea	2015
47th (2020)	The 47th Telluride Film Festival did not occur in 2020 due the COVID-19 pandemic.
48th (2021)[20]	Barry Jenkins	West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty	West Indies ou les Nègres marrons de la liberté	Med Hondo	France, Mauritania, Algeria	1979
		Chocolat		Claire Denis	France	1988
		Looking for Langston		Isaac Julien	United Kingdom	1989
		Garden		Adi Barash	Israel	2003
		Russian Ark	Russkij kovcheg	Alexander Sokurov	Russia
		Kahlil Joseph: Selected Works		Kahlil Joseph	United States	-
49th (2022)[21]	Kantemir Balagov and Kira Kovalenko	L'Atalante		Jean Vigo	France	1934
		Elegy of a Voyage	Elegiya dorogi	Aleksandr Sokurov	France, Russia, Netherlands	2001
		Getting to Know the Big, Wide, World	Poznavaya belyy svet	Kira Muratova	Soviet Union	1978
		Oasis	오아시스	Lee Chang-dong	South Korea	2002
		Where Is the Friend's House?	Khane-ye dust kojast	Abbas Kiarostami	Iran	1987
		The Wonders	Le meraviglie	Alice Rohrwacher	Italy, Switzerland, Germany	2014
50th (2023)[22]	Steve McQueen	Zero for Conduct	Zéro de Conduite	Jean Vigo	France	1933
	Mira Nair	The Music Room	Jalsaghar	Satyajit Ray	India	1958
	Alfonso Cuarón	Jonah Who Will Be 25 on the Year 2000	Jonas qui aura 25 ans en l'an 2000	Alain Tanner	France-Switzerland	1976
	Rachel Kushner	Juvenile Court		Frederick Wiseman	United States	1973
	Ethan Hawke	All That Jazz		Bob Fosse	United States	1979
	Adam Curtis	The Long Good Friday		John Mackenzie	United Kingdom	1980