14 Sneaky Director Cameos

Sometimes sitting behind the camera just isn't enough. Directors throughout film history have snuck their way onto the silver screen in silly, funny and often precarious ways.

• 1. Wes Craven in 'Scream'

  

  Having written and directed some of the greatest classics of the horror genre, Wes Craven is the master of all things scary. Films like The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes and A Nightmare on Elm Street were so good they made them twice. Craven made an appearance in Scream as a Freddy Krueger inspired janitor, and also popped up as a doctor in Scream 2, a man with a camera in Scream 3 and as a passenger in the airplane thriller Red Eye.

• 2. Todd Phillips in 'Due Date' and 'Old School'

  

  Todd Phillips has had comedy cameos in such funny classics as Road Trip, Old School, The Hangover 1 & 2 and Due Date. Fun fact: Phillips was a driver on the first season of HBO's Taxicab Confessions!

• 3. Terrence Malick in 'Badlands'

  

  Terrence Malick is the king of beautiful films that will confuse you with their conceptual imagery. He has written and directed such critical successes as Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life. The director makes his appearance in his most straight forward (and arguably best?) movie, Badlands as "caller at rich man's house."

• 4. Steven Soderbergh in 'Ocean's Eleven'

  

  Powerhouse director, Steven Soderbergh appears for a blink-of-an-eye in the Ocean's Eleven scene where we first meet Don Cheadle's character Basher. He plays a fellow vault-bombing thief who is all covered up in a hat and goggles.

• 5. Sam Raimi in 'Evil Dead 2'

  

  Sam Raimi has had an incredible number of cameos in the films of others and a handful in his own. He appeared in all three of the Evil Dead films and had a quick moment in Spider-Man 2 as a university student. In Evil Dead he was a hitchhiking fisherman, in the second a medieval soldier and in Army of Darkness a knight in a sweatshirt and sneakers. Fun fact: Joel Coen was an editor on Evil Dead and the Coen brothers co-wrote The Hudsucker Proxy with Raimi (in which he has a cameo as well as the Coen film Miller's Crossing.)

• 6. Roman Polanski in 'Chinatown'

  

  This is a pretty famous one. Roman Polanski is the dude in Chinatown that yells out "hold it there, kitty cat," and slashes Jack Nicholson's nose. Fun fact: Polanski appeared as a French detective in Rush Hour 3.

• 7. Rob Reiner in 'Misery'

  

  Rob Reiner has appeared in many films and TV shows over the years, but his most sneaky cameo is in his 1990 film Misery. Reiner plays a hat and sunglasses wearing helicopter pilot on the hunt for poor James Caan.

• 8. Quentin Tarantino in 'Pulp Fiction'

  

  Quentin Tarantino is no stranger to on screen appearances. Most notably he appears as the worried-that-his-wife-will-come-home Jimmie Dimmick in Pulp Fiction and also as the ill fated Mr. Brown in Reservoir Dogs. He pops up in Planet Terror as Rapist #1 and as a zombie eating roadkill. Tarantino blends in as one of the Crazy 88 members in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and also plays the first scalped Nazi in Inglorious Basterds. Fun fact: Quentin also appears as a crazy blind Deacon on the streets of NYC in Little Nicky.

• 9. Peter Jackson in 'Lord of the Rings'

  

  Peter Jackson has had quite a few fun cameos. In The Fellowship of the Ring, Jackson plays a drunken man out in the rain who is eating a carrot, in The Two Towers, he plays a chainmail clad warrior, and in The Return of the King he is seen as an oaf on board a corsair ship. Jackson also makes an appearance in The Lovely Bones as a customer in a camera store, and in King Kong Jackson appears as a pilot trying to shoot down King Kong (the same cameo that the director of the original director, Merian C. Cooper made in his 1933 film.) Fun fact: Peter Jackson appeared in the British comedy Hot Fuzz as a thief dressed as Santa.

• 10. Francis Ford Coppola in 'Apocalypse Now'

  

  Francis Ford Coppola only has only cameo'd in one of his films. He plays a TV news director in Apocalypse Now who is trying to get a good shot of the battle scene ahead, saying "Don't look at the camera! Just go by like you're fighting. Like you're fighting. Don't look at the camera! This is for television. Just go through, go through."

• 11. M. Night Shyamalan in 'The Sixth Sense' and 'Signs'

  

  Long Before bad things like The Last Airbender started happening, M. Night Shyamalan used to show his face in his films. Pictured above are his cameos in The Sixth Sense and Signs, he also played an important role in Lady in the Water, and appeared in Unbreakable as a drug dealer at a stadium, and in The Village as a guard.

• 12. Michael Bay in 'Armageddon'

  

  Next time you hear someone saying that Michael Bay is no rocket scientist, tell them they're wrong! Bay played a lab coat wearing NASA scientist in Armageddon, as well as the very pivotal role of "crappy driver" in Bad Boys 2.

• 13. Martin Scorsese in 'Taxi Driver'

  

  Martin Scorsese has been making notable cameos for decades. First in Mean streets as the gunman Jimmy Shorts, then in Taxi Driver as the terrifying back seat passenger of Travis Bickle. He also shows up quickly in Raging Bull as a stagehand, in The King of Comedy as a TV director, and made his last on screen film appearance in Gangs of New York as a wealthy homeowner.

• 14. David Lynch in 'Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me'

  

  David Lynch makes appearances in Dune and reprises his Twin Peaks character FBI Chief Gordon Cole in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

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  View the full list at Buzznet.com