Auteur (French for 'author') is a word used to describe film directors who are considered to be artists with their own unique vision. The style of an auteur is recognisable in his/her films regardless of their genre and subject matter. However, this style does not need to be purely visual — any unique point-of-view or obsession could be considered the mark of an auteur. It's more a stamp of the director's personality that marks a body of work as auteurist.

Some directors only work in one genre, and are still seen as auteurs (hence the somewhat derogatory phrases, schlock-auteur and horror-auteur, for those who work exclusively in those genres).

A director may of course be talented without being an auteur; directors such as Michael Curtiz and John Huston were great filmmakers but they are not usually considered auteurs because they did not have a recognisable style that appeared in all their films.

List of auteurs

Well known auteurs include: