Jesus H. Christ, this really is hard to pin down to 10. I mean it might be easier to go continent by continent than just cold-blooded top 10. This time, ;) I won't cheat and WILL stop at 10. Here goes, in no particular order.

1. Charles Chaplin
2. Alfred Hitchcock
3. Billy Wilder
4. John Ford
5. Frank Capra
6. Akira Kurosawa
7. Ingmar Bergman
8. Federico Fellini
9. Werner Herzog
10. Zhang Yimou

I've divided evenly between English and foreign language directors, so no one can accuse me of not having a diverse coalition.....and I also lied, here are the runners up:
(De Sica, Truffaut,Lang, Speilberg, Sturges, Cukor, Hawks,Kubrick, Lean, Polanski, Scorsese,Welles. 

Chris