They're both master visual stylists who have made some great films and some huge duds. Who do you prefer?

Wake me up when Burton makes a movie anywhere near is brilliant and sublime as Brazil. Gilliam has had his misfires and a genuine stinker, but he's in a league of his own, which is well above Burton.

My vote is for TDK.

The Monty Python dude

This isn't a contest. Time Bandits, Brazil, 12 Monkeys, Monty Python, Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. Burton coasts on his visual aesthetic to the point where his worst movies are on the level of self-parody. Gilliam, even when he fails, always tries and puts himself into the film 100%.

Gilliam bitches

Gilliam

I'm guessing some time within the past week, Terry Gilliam took a shit. Well, he used Burton's career as toilet paper.

It takes way too much to make me laugh these days and all of those so-called comedies they're churning out today aren't worth shit in my book. But back in the day I laughed my ass off at the Monty Python skits on TV, I own 3 of their albums, one of which has 3 sides! Add the one-time brilliance with Monty Python to his later works including Brazil and Time Bandits, and it's one more vote for Terry Gilliam.

Tim Burton's OK, but Terry Gilliam wins by a landslide in my book. -kd5-

Gilliam's output from Time Bandits through Fear & Loathing is pretty much untouchable in my book. Burton has never made a singularly GREAT film. I like many of his movies, but even with the best of them there's always SOMETHING lousy in it: the plot holes, the pacing, weak performances, lack of story, bad editing, total lack of character development, etc.

Creative? Sure. Visionary? Without question. Storyteller? Not quite so good...

I'm a bigger fan of Tim Burton. Having said that -- it was hard to choose. 12 Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas are two of my all time favorite films.

Hate, hate, hate, hate everything Tim Burton has ever touched.

Gilliam, ftw

Oh, and I just remembered Tim Burton's version of Planet of the Apes. Even if all Gilliam had ever done was The Brothers Grimm and Tideland PotA would still be enough to make me vote against Burton.

This was a tough one for me. Looking at all the hate for Burton in the thread prompted me to cast my vote in his direction. He needed some love.

10 years ago I would've said Burton in a heartbeat, but his repetitiveness getting unbearable at this point.

Can't stand Burton's work, Ed Wood being the only exception.

Brazil is in my top 5.

Fear and Loathing, 12 Monkeys and Time Bandits, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (co-directed with Jones) are all top shelf films.

Gilliam all day every day.

There's something I like about the familiarity of Burton's aesthetics. I always feel like I'm seeing the world through the eyes of a morose adolescent. I mean that in a positive way, but I also recognize how others would use the same description to deride his works.

And here's where I'm going to get slammed, because Batman Returns is my favorite Burton film, and I think Sweeney Todd is the best film he's made to date. *Ducks*

I'd like Batman Returns if not for Danny DeVito's Penguin. I don't mind the character design (though I hate the scenes where he's lounging around in what appears to be thermal underwear; I just want the guy to actually get dressed!). It's his delivery of his lines that's so slow it kills any bite the words might have had, which is a shame because on paper I think he had some great dialog. But...it takes him...so...freaking...long...to say them...that I...just...don't...care.

Sweeney Todd is the only Burton helmed film I've not seen, so I can't comment on that one. I did, however, just buy an old paperback copy of Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes and I'm interested to read it and see what I think of Burton's version of the film in relation to the source material, rather than the earlier film adaptation (which I've also still not seen).

The only thing you'll need to duck from me is a high five...or a fist bump or whatever the kids are doing these days.

Still, Gilliam gets my vote. One of my favorite directors.