Aster. Aster just made his debut in 2018- but Aster’s start is most certainly one of the great starts to a career in recent memory (Steve McQueen comes to mind as a comparable).  On their

Levinson. Barry Levinson is here because of the impressive filmography- I can’t call him a style-plus director. However, both his debut (Diner- one that never gets mentioned among the best debuts of all-time and should)

Greengrass.  There is shaky-cam cinema and then there is Paul Greengrass. His handheld camera visceral style is a brilliant example of auteur cinema working within the Hollywood blockbuster. He has a patented visual approach and

Chazelle. Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash and La La Land combination in 2014 and 2016 made him one of artform’s most accomplished directors at such an age (both before the age of 32).  Indeed, he’s the youngest

Noé. The Argentinian provocateur is not for the timid. Those who mandate subtly in their art will not admire his work. The scandal surrounding his films’ subject matter seem to get most of the headlines

Clément. Clément gets lost in history because he wasn’t from the French New Wave—yet his best film came out in 1960- a year overstuffed with brilliant films. For the purposes of this list, Clément’s strength

John Sturges. No relation to the great Preston Sturges who flourished in a very different decade (1940s) and genre (comedy). John made big budget action movies in the 1950’s and 1960’s and the strength of

David O. Russell. Russell has a put together an impressive body of work. I have not been able to catch his debut yet- 1994’s Spanking the Money- but five of his subsequent six films (has

Jodorowky. Jodorowsky is a talented artist who works in many different formats (not unlike fellow cinematic surrealist David Lynch). The avant-garde Chilean auteur is best known for his 1-2 punch in the early 1970’s (El

Kobayashi. I’ve had the chance now to watch three of the four most highly touted films by Masaki Kobayashi-- hardly exhaustive (painfully- I regret I haven’t been able to catch his 10-hour The Human Condition

Carax. Leos Carax was born in 1960- the year of Godard’s Breathless and has been lauded as the heir apparent to Godard and the French New Wave since he came onto the scene in the

Lanthimos. Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos has a strong case for being cinema’s single greatest voice since 2009 when he arrived on the scene like a blast of fresh air with the utterly bizarre and remarkably