Pioneer American film director D. W. Griffith (1875–1948) enjoyed a wide sphere of influence among his colleagues, including several who worked well past the end of the silent era, which proved the demarcation point for the end of Griffith's own career as director. This influence extended from directors that Griffith collaborated with and trained, such as Mack Sennett and Frank Powell, through those who only had glancing contact with him—such as Erich von Stroheim—and yet others in foreign lands who never worked with Griffith directly, for example, Jean Renoir and Sergei Eisenstein. The primary purpose of this list is to document the director names in the first two classes, while a more selective view is to be taken in the last class.
Griffith himself principally learned his craft with cinematographer/director Billy Bitzer, who worked alongside Griffith, with a few interruptions, practically his whole career. Many of the technical developments once credited to Griffith were actually developed by Bitzer before they met. So Bitzer is the true father of film syntax.
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- Cecil B. DeMille
- Edward Dillon
- John Francis Dillon (director)
- Thomas Dixon, Jr.
- Carl Theodor Dreyer
- Allan Dwan