Learning the names of the directing pairs

I don't really know if it's possible to do a quiz on a blog, but I can at least try, right?

As I've been doing some list work recently -- getting my movie spreadsheet up to date, which has now been done for a couple months, and a new project that I'll reveal within a few weeks -- I've gotten reacquainted with who directed what. 

And I've come to notice how many directing pairs there are out there -- and how many are not just brothers or sisters or maybe husband and wife, which tend to be easier for us to remember.  

In the names I'm about to go through, there may be a husband and wife represented -- no clues -- but if there are, they don't have the same last name, so you'd only know it by checking their Wikipedia page. And therefore the task of learning both names takes on a bit of added complexity, so you only do it if they've really broken through for you.

And in many of these cases, these people do share a Wikipedia page, because their professional personas have become intertwined. 

Your task today: See one name in a directing pair, and supply the other.

For people to be included in this quiz, they have to have directed more than one feature together. Just a one-off collaboration is not enough for them to get mentioned here. But rarely in these situations is there only one collaboration, if they're successful, which is why we cinephiles have even come to learn their names in the first place. 

Also, I'm sticking only to directors today, though it doesn't mean some of them aren't also writers and/or producers. It's just that they have to also be directors or else they're not in this. 

Simple enough?

It'll be 22 questions, but don't worry, you can move through them quickly. I'll start easy and get progressively harder. Depending on your level of casual vs. serious movie fandom, though, they might all be fairly hard. (Why 22? That was the number of pairs I saw that I wanted to include.)

Before we start, I should tell you the reason I'm writing this post today. Thursday night I watched Novocaine, which was okay to pretty good, and I noticed it was directed by guys named Dan Berk and Robert Olsen. This is actually the sixth film (including one short) directed by the pair, but since I hadn't seen (or even heard of) the other five, they wouldn't have made it into this quiz. However, I'd say they have enough ability that I might have the occasion to memorize their names in the future. 

Okay here we go. At the end, after a giant blank space, I will reveal the answers, as well as the films you would know them from -- using only the ones I've seen from my big movie spreadsheet, which was my source for finding these names. Give yourself half credit on an answer if you get the first or last name of their partner but not both. 

1) Phil Lord and ... ?

2) Seth Rogen and ... ?

3) Jean-Pierre Jeunet and ... ? 

4) Ron Clements and ... ?

5) Michael Powell and ... ?

6) Daniel Kwan and ... ?

7) Anna Boden and ... ? 

8) Mark Neveldine and ... ?

9) Jason Friedberg and ... ?

10) Brett Morgen and ... ?

11) John Francis Daley and ... ?

12) Nat Faxon and ... ?

13) Justin Benson and ... ?

14) Jonathan Dayton and ... ?

15) Glenn Ficarra and ... ? 

16) Josh Gordon and ... ?

17) Shari Springer Berman and ... ?

18) David Siegel and ... ?

19) Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and ... ?

20) Danielle Krudy and ... ?

21) Jimmy Chin and ... ? 

22) Severin Fiala and ... ?

NO CHEATING!!

SERIOUSLY!!

Okay here are the answers:

1) Phil Lord and ... Christopher Miller. Of course. "Lord and Miller" has become a brand name that indicates the sort of pop culture aware approach we've gotten familiar with in such movies as The Lego Movie, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and both Jump Street movies. They also had an initial take on Solo: A Star Wars Story but were ultimately canned from that project. However, they remain a creative force in the industry with a whole lot of producing credits as well. 

2) Seth Rogen and ... Evan Goldberg. I don't know if this is really second easiest, but it's easy (for me anyway) to remember that Rogen has worked regularly with his best friend from childhood on both writing and directing projects. Their directing credits include The Interview and This is the End. (Note: I usually list first the person in the pair whose last name comes first alphabetically, but I thought this might make it easier, and besides, Rogen is waaaay more famous than Goldberg.)

3) Jean-Pierre Jeunet and ... Marc Caro. I should say "et" rather than "and." You have to be just a little bit older to get this one because they don't work together anymore, but if you are my age and you really liked movies around the turn of the century, you knew these guys well. The French directing pair were the minds behind Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children. It's funny though ... I'm not going to change the order of these questions or anything, but now that I look at it, "Jeunet et Caro" became a brand name to a certain type of cinephile, indicating their unique production design and slightly dystopian world view, even though they only actually directed these two movies together -- that I've seen, anyway. Jeunet has a much longer career working by himself. 

4) Ron Clements and ... John Musker. This one is very familiar to me because I've been seeing it for a long time. Although many Disney movies are directed by multiple people and they tend to work in different combinations depending on the project, Clements and Musker were the two listed directors on a surprising number of films: Hercules, The Princess and the Frog, Treasure Planet, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. They are also the listed directors for Moana but are credited alongside fellow Disney company man Chris Williams there. 

5) Michael Powell and ... Emeric Pressburger. This is the easiest one for classic cinephiles, as the British pair known as the Archers represented one of the earliest examples of a creative team working together regularly, that weren't part of some studio system contract. Their list of highly regarded films that always have good showings on the Sight and Sound list includes The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Matter of Life and Death and I Know Where I'm Going! (It's not that I'm a huge fan of that last one. The exclamation point is in the title.) When Powell did work by himself he made one of the crazier films of that vintage you are likely to see, Peeping Tom.

6) Daniel Kwan and ... Daniel Scheinert. This could be harder for some people except for the fact that the two directors have the same first name, causing them to be nicknamed "the Daniels," and their most recent collaboration won best picture. The directors of Everything Everywhere All at Once also directed Swiss Army Man, firmly establishing their absurdist world view. Because of their big success we tend to think of them as more established, but their third feature isn't set to debut until 2026 (though Wikipedia also says it was booted from its expected release date by Steven Spielberg to make way for his own movie on that date). Scheinert did also direct The Death of Dick Long, which I also really liked. 

7) Anna Boden and ... Ryan Fleck. This pairing might be more obscure for some people except they did recently direct a Marvel movie. Their career prior to Captain Marvel was a lot more independent in spirit. Sugar, It's Kind of a Funny Story and Mississippi Grind are the movies where they are both credited as director, as I'm surprised to learn that Boden was actually not credited as director on the movie I know them from most: Half Nelson, their debut, where she only got a writing credit while Fleck got both. Damn film industry letting men take all the credit. They did date once but they are not married. 

8) Mark Neveldine and ... Brian Taylor. These two have gone their separate ways, but "Neveldine andTaylor" became a brand for their particular frenetic brand of action movie, seen in such titles as Crank, Crank High Voltage and Gamer. Although I really like the Crank movies (not so much Gamer), my favorite of their collective creative output might by Brian's equally gonzo solo effort Mom and Dad. Taylor has not been able to follow that up as his most recent effort was the truly terrible Hellboy: The Crooked Man last year. 

9) Jason Friedberg and ... Aaron Seltzer. The names on this list who should be most ashamed of themselves. If you know these names, and many of you would have the misfortune of knowing them, you know them from their awful movie parodies. Although their writing of the original Scary Movie was a promising(ish) start -- I enjoyed that movie back when I first saw it -- it got a lot worse from there, quickly. In terms of actual directing credits, we can blame them for Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans and Vampires Suck. I never subjected myself to Disaster Movie. 

10) Brett Morgen and ... Nanette Burstein. Might be starting to get a bit more obscure now, but again, this is a pairing I've known about for a long time. They now work separately and have both made some really good films by themselves. But together, the first documentarians on this list were the names behind On the Ropes and The Kid Stays in the Picture. Wait, those are really the only joint efforts I know them from? Funny which things stay with you, as On the Ropes was not even very memorable. (I also noticed I listed their names in reverse alphabetical order, because that's the order I've always thought of. Damn patriarchy.)

11) John Francis Daley and ... Jonathan Goldstein. These are the new power players on the block. They've made a trio of recent comedies that I consider reasonably successful, those being Vacation (which I like more than most people), Game Night (which most people like more than I do) and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (see comment about Game Night). They also had writing credits on Spider-Man: Homecoming and The Flash, and hey, Daley was on Freaks and Geeks! 

12) Nat Faxon and ... Jim Rash. While we are on the topic of people who act. You'd know Rash from Community and Faxon from ... well, a lot of things, no signature roles really. Together, you'd know them from directing The Way, Way Back and Downhill, the American remake of Ruben Ostlund's Force Majeure. I guess they don't have a significant directing career as such, but since they are both actors, they seemed like the 12th "easiest" in this quiz. (I learn actor names even more quickly than I learn director names.) 

13) Justin Benson and ... Aaron Moorhead. In among more independent-minded movies underpinned by science fiction and/or mind-blowing ideas, Benson and Moorhead are considered to be low-level visionaries. They've directed The Endless and Something in the Dirt, in which they also both appeared as actors, and finally decided to side-step the starring role in favor of the more established Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie in the bigger budgeted (but less successful) Synchronic. 

14) Jonathan Dayton and ... Valerie Faris. This one is especially known to me because they are the only directing pair to direct one of my #1 movies of the year. Dayton and Faris got there with Ruby Sparks in 2012, but the other good films they've made are Little Miss Sunshine (perhaps more universally praised/known than Sparks) and Battle of the Sexes. And yes, this is the first of three pairings on this list who are actually married. They have three children together. 

15) Glenn Ficarra and ... John Requa. The standout for this duo is the surprisingly likable Crazy Stupid Love (I refuse to put in the commas, as discussed here), but they're also responsible for a trio of okay to good other movies I've seen: I Love You Phillip Morris, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and Focus. I don't have a lot more to say about them so I will just continue to filibuster for a moment here to get in enough text to properly format the text and the photograph together. They're good! (There, have I filibustered long enough?) 

16) Josh Gordon and ... Will Speck. As another group of more recent comers, these might have been listed higher in the quiz for newer cinephiles. However, for me they are more obscure because although I remember their names, I can't off the top of my head remember what they directed. As it turns out, it was Blades of Glory, Office Christmas Party, The Switch and Lyle Lyle Crocodile. Okay then! Blades of Glory was from 2007 so maybe they aren't quite as "new" as I think. 

17) Shari Springer Berman and ... Robert Pulcini. These two have a similar middling output to Gordon and Speck, with higher highs and lower lows. In fact, if not for the film where I first heard of them -- American Splendor -- I might not have bothered to learn their names at all. Nanny Diaries and Girl Most Likely are definitely much worse, with the former managing to squander a young Scarlett Johansson. This pair are also married and have been so since 1994. 

18) David Siegel and ... Scott McGehee. This one is pretty obscure -- what do you expect for #18 on a list of 22? But my love of one of their films -- 2013's What Maisie Knew, which made my top 25 of last decade -- really incentivized me to put them on my radar. The Deep End (2001) is also really good, though I'm more uncertain on Uncertainty and Bee Season. Because I need to filibuster a moment longer, I noticed they have a new movie this year starring Bill Murry and Naomi Watts, The Friend, which I will probably see. 

19) Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and ... Tyler Gillett. This could be much higher as this pair has stormed on the scene in recent years, but I contend that Bettinelli-Olpin's extremely complicated last name (there's a lot going on there) makes it much more difficult to learn. I always have to check how many T's and L's there are. After getting our attention in 2019 with Ready or Not, the pair directed the first two Scream reboots as well as last year's horror movie Abigail, which I just saw a few weeks ago. I haven't liked any of those movies as much as I felt I should have, but they're definitely a pair to watch.

20) Danielle Krudy and ... Bridget Savage Cole. You really might not know them because they are just starting out, but I expect a fruitful future from sadly the only pair of women to make this list. I was quite taken with their 2019 film Blow the Man Down, and I thought they followed it up reasonably well last year with House of Spoils. I can't easily find out anything else about them because they are the first pair to have no presence on Wikipedia other than being listed as the director of their films. They'll get there I think. 

21) Jimmy Chin and ... Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. This is the first of the final two that I expect no one to get, and it has everything to do with the complexity of the names. Jimmy Chin? Easy to remember. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi? Not so easy to remember. You'll know them from their documentaries about extreme sports, most likely climbing (Meru, Free Solo), but also the documentary they did on the rescue of the trapped Thai soccer team called, appropriately, The Rescue. They most recently moved into narrative filmmaking with Nyad. And yes, this is the last married couple.

22) Severin Fiala and ... Veronika Franz. The least likely pair for you to know is a pairing of what I thought was two women until I just looked at a picture of Severin Fiala. I've only seen two of their films, but their Goodnight Mommy made enough of an impression to get an American remake starring Naomi Watts, and I really like both films. (They didn't get to direct the remake.) They also made The Lodge, which I saw at MIFF but did not like. The pair are Austrian and they bonded over their love of horror movies. 

How many did you get? 

Here's how to judge your score:

0-5 - You don't pay attention to credits at all and I'm wondering if you really like movies.

5-10 - Very respectable, clap yourself on the back. 

10-15 - Superlative knowledge, you are not only a cinephile but you have a good memory. 

15-20 - Expert level knowledge, and you have also seen a lot of the same films I have.

21-22 - Me.