21st century directors: any great ones?

Discuss your favorite actors, directors or screenwriters
paulofilmo
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Re: 21st century directors: any great ones?

Post by paulofilmo »

can't help but fondly veto reichardt as river of grass is so much fun.

soderbergh balances the centuries - sex, lies is so '90s (oh, '89*), and the knick is very not.

lynne ramsay just sort of popped her head into this century. i think of her as late '90s/

I want to see The Duke of Burgundy. In my eyes.

Moribunny
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Re: 21st century directors: any great ones?

Post by Moribunny »

I'm going to be really strict here and not count some favorites of mine who emerged in the late 90s like Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Jafar Panahi, Lynne Ramsay, Harmony Korine, Shane Meadows etc. I'm sticking strictly to millennials.

My top three:
1. Asghar Farhadi (most definitely first place, actually a contender for my all-time favorite director)
2. Cristian Mungiu
3. Calvin Reeder

Other great or at least highly promising ones: Andrei Zvyagintsev, J. C. Chandor, Nina Paley, Sylvain Chomet, Andrew Bujalski, Laszlo Nemes, Radu Jude, Joachim Trier, Marjane Satrapi, Greg McLean, Clio Barnard, Oren Moverman...

Yiannos
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Re: 21st century directors: any great ones?

Post by Yiannos »

According to my own rankings I can only vouch for Albert Serra, who is a bit of a divisive figure in cinephile circles.

Stepping outside the established criteria though (sorry!), I'd say a few directors have potential. e.go Mungiu, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, maybe Alonso etc.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan is perhaps a little too derivative to ever be one of the greats though.

EDIT: Ceylan actually started in the 90's. I keep forgetting that. Maybe it's because Uzak was the film where he really arrived, and that came out in the early 00's.

LEAVES
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Re: 21st century directors: any great ones?

Post by LEAVES »

I don't like to follow rules, so I'll list someone with a single feature if it's better than 3 others' films combined! Probably nobody listed below meets "the criteria", mostly because it takes 8 years for each of them to make a film.

Michelangeo Frammartino - Only seen 1 feature, still better than your grandma
Ramon Zurcher - 1 feature, comparable to your grandma
Ruben Ostlund - We are not worthy
Mia Hansen Love - For some reason people don't think that Goodbye, First Love is an incomparable masterpiece. It really is.
Lucrecia Martel - Amazing films, just can't make enough
Maren Ade - Amazing films, just can't make enough. I'll just assume her Cannes competition film is amazing.

And since I don't ever have time for films anymore, there are probably a thousand others because there are so many undistributed films out there. Oh well!

lisa-
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Re: 21st century directors: any great ones?

Post by lisa- »

if anyone could ever catch the films of arnaud gerber, i'd definitely add him to the list.

http://dafilms.com/director/8776-arnaud-gerber/

Neonman
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Re: 21st century directors: any great ones?

Post by Neonman »

The only director that goes by this criteria for me is Charlie Kaufman with Synecdoche NY (t10) and Anomalisa (t9). Two directors that were very close (with the t8 films on the cusp of t9) were Greg McLean with Wolf Creek (t10) and Wolf Creek 2 (t8) and Ben Wheatley with Kill List (t10) and A Field in England (t8).

I'm sure (hopefully) in the future Alejandro González Iñárritu would make my list (if he ever makes a dramedy as good as t10 Birdman instead of another mopey sad-fest) along with S. Craig Zahler (who made Bone Tomahawk and hopefully his next film is also in my t10).

CosmicMonkey
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Re: 21st century directors: any great ones?

Post by CosmicMonkey »

Ignoring tierlists, here are the directors that I feel have made 2 or more films I'd consider to be great and had their directorial debut in year 2000 or later:

Alejandro González Iñárritu (4 Films: Amores Perros, Babel, Birdman, The Revenant)

Apichatpong Weerasethakul (3 Films: Tropical Malady, Syndromes and a Century, Uncle Boonmee)

Pete Docter (2 Films: Up, Inside Out)
Jason Reitman (2 Films: Juno, Up in the Air)


Director I think is most likely to join this list: Honestly, probably Stephen Daldry. Billy Elliott is great, The Hours is very good and while his more recent stuff has mostly been fluffy yet competently-made Oscarbait, he certainly has the ability and potential to crank out another great film.

djross
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Re: 21st century directors: any great ones?

Post by djross »

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Last edited by djross on Thu Jul 20, 2023 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

CosmicMonkey
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Re: 21st century directors: any great ones?

Post by CosmicMonkey »

CosmicMonkey wrote:Ignoring tierlists, here are the directors that I feel have made 2 or more films I'd consider to be great and had their directorial debut in year 2000 or later:

Alejandro González Iñárritu (4 Films: Amores Perros, Babel, Birdman, The Revenant)

Apichatpong Weerasethakul (3 Films: Tropical Malady, Syndromes and a Century, Uncle Boonmee)

Pete Docter (2 Films: Up, Inside Out)
Jason Reitman (2 Films: Juno, Up in the Air)


Director I think is most likely to join this list: Honestly, probably Stephen Daldry. Billy Elliott is great, The Hours is very good and while his more recent stuff has mostly been fluffy yet competently-made Oscarbait, he certainly has the ability and potential to crank out another great film.


Update: After watching more films this year, I'd like to add another director to this list:

Damien Chazelle (2 Films: Whiplash, La La Land)

I doubt that this is a very controversial addition, he is Hollywood's new wunderkind at the moment.
Last edited by CosmicMonkey on Fri Jan 27, 2017 7:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Stewball
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Re: 21st century directors: any great ones?

Post by Stewball »

There are many. For me, any director who produces one masterpiece (10/10) is great--and I have eleven of those from this century. But without a second tier 9 (9/10 for me, which is also tier 10), there are only Three:

Ridley Scott: Gladiator, The Counselor (10/10), and The Martian (9/10)
Christopher Nolan: Inception (10/10) and Interstellar, The Dark Knight, Memento (9/10).
Kantheryn Bigelow: Zero Dark Thirty (10/10), and The Hurt Locker (9/10).

But since I went ahead and dug the others up, I'll list them too:

Marc Webb--500 Days of Summer
Craig Brewer--Black Snake Moan
Gavin O'Connor--The Accountant (10+/10, my most perfect movie)
Spike Jonze--Her (10+/10, my most important movie)
Ang Lee--Life of Pi
Frank Whaley--Like Sunday, Like Rain
Coen Brothers--O Brother Where Art Thou!
Walter Hill--Undisputed
Last edited by Stewball on Thu Sep 24, 2020 1:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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