The 23 best film directors in the world today
1 - Paul Thomas Anderson
Though he's released only five films over a 16-year career, Paul Thomas Anderson has risen from promising young whiz-kid to Hollywood royalty with barely a bump along the way. As the scope of his work has tightened – from the sprawling ensembles ofBoogie Nights andMagnolia through the intimate duologue ofPunch-Drunk Love to the all-consuming solipsism ofThere Will Be Blood – so his dedication to his craft has intensified, with his disdain for PR and celebrity marking him out as the most devout film-maker of his generation (as well as the owner of one of Wikipedia's most glitz-free "personal life" sections). His upcoming filmThe Master, a controversial look at the birth of a cult not entirely dissimilar to the Church of Scientology, should make that title inarguable.
2 - Lynne Ramsay
When it was first announced that Lynne Ramsay was to direct an adaptation ofWe Need To Talk About Kevin, there were enormous sighs of relief all round: "It's in safe hands." And so it proved to be. Kevin was a heavenly marriage of the source material and its Glaswegian director's long-running preoccupations (kids, death, guilt), allied to her startling, hypnotic visual sense. Making her feature debut with 1999's hauntingly beautifulRatcatcher (although a clutch of award-winning shorts preceded it), she's remained a critical darling ever since. Her forthcoming take onMoby Dick should be as powerful as it is personal. As Tilda Swinton says, "She's the real McCoy."
3 - Nicolas Winding Refn
Like a patient zen archer, this is one film-maker who doesn't let fly until he's absolutely ready. Refn has made only nine films in 15 years but the end product is as singular as it is stunning. Refn's films look like nobody else's (although, admittedly, 2009'sValhalla Rising was pretty Malick-like). From his brutalPusher trilogy to the weird and wonderful anti-biopicBronson, these films are more like art installations, shimmering with stylish violence and near-hallucinatory moments. Last year'sDrive suddenly made a whole lot of people remember his name, however. His next two projects also star Ryan Gosling: Thai boxing filmOnly God Forgives, and a remake of carousel-based 70s sci-fiLogan's Run. They will soon be sick of the sight of each other.
4 - Joss Whedon
Joss Whedon's background as a writer/director of cult TV –Buffy The Vampire Slayer,Angel, the short-livedFirefly – ensured a loyal following, which paid off with the rabidly successful (but only to a vocal minority) continuation of the latter series inSerenity, which marked his movie directorial debut in 2005. Since then, Whedon has pulled off the rare trick of turning niche popularity into blockbuster success, with films that appease fanboys and fangirls alike while maintaining serious box-office traction. This year, Whedon pulled off a rare one-two by delivering not just one of the year's biggest hits – Marvel'sAvengers Assemble – but one of its best-reviewed counter-programming titles, the postmodern horror-comedyThe Cabin In The Woods, which he wrote and produced. ThoughAvengers 2 is pencilled in for 2015, his micro-budget B&WMuch Ado About Nothing adaptation, shot in his own house in eight days and starring Whedon favourites, is due first.
5 - Lars Von Trier
With his juvenile love of provocation, it's easy to forget thatLars von Trier is, first and foremost, a film-maker, and a truly remarkable one at that. In the past 10 years alone, he's turned out a nightmare-fuelling psychological horror, a shattering arthouse disaster movie, a fluffy Danish office comedy, an experimental documentary on the nature of creative endeavour and the first two parts of a trilogy about American culpability. His next project,The Nymphomaniac, is set to become the first film to feature both Shia LaBeouf and graphic scenes of unsimulated sex. No other director can straddle the arthouse/Hollywood divide with such audacity.
6 - Jason Reitman
Hollywood nepotism is a well-documented force for evil, inflicting upon the world horrors as wide-ranging as "rapper" Chet Haze (son of Tom Hanks) and Jaden Smith (son of Will). So Jason Reitman, offspring of Ghostbusters director Ivan, had his work cut out when he followed his father into the family business with the independent Big Tobacco satireThank You For Smoking. In the seven years since, though, he's had four Oscar nominations and matured exponentially with each film, his efforts culminating in this year's devastating tragicomedyYoung Adult, which furnished Charlize Theron with a career-best role as embittered ghostwriter Mavis Gary. Next, he directs Kate Winslet inLabor Day. Ivan "father of Jason" Reitman, by contrast, was last seen churning out the Ashton Kutcher vehicle No Strings Attached.
7 - Steve McQueen
Making the jump from gallery artist to film-maker, Steve McQueen was expected to deliver provocative ideas with imagery to match. What few could foresee was his talent with actors, drawing a career-defining performance from Michael Fassbender in the IRA dramaHunger and following it with another in the sex-addiction storyShame. In the flesh, McQueen is straightforward, imposing and hates pretension. His films, despite their beautifully composed tableaux, follow a similar template. His first two dealt with willpower and the lack of it, in that order, and his next –12 Years A Slave – reunites him with Fassbender alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti and one Brad Pitt. The pressure will be on but don't expect McQueen to duck the issues on another hot-button movie.
8 - Leos Carax
Alex Oscar Dupont – his working name is an anagram of the first two – came to prominence in the early-80s with the intimate, ultra-stylised romanceBoy Meets Girl, and from there went the way of all auteurs, wasting time and money on long-gestating passion projects. His two films in the 1990s,Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf andPola X, were respectively a hit and a miss, but his new filmHoly Motors restored his crown as French cinema's arthouse counterpart to the mainstream Luc Besson. Often cryptic, sometimes boring, Carax nevertheless has a showman's touch, and though his films deal with navel-gazing issues – blocked artists are a recurring motif – it's hard to think of another film-maker whose work features hair-eating leprechauns, accordion blues solos and Kylie Minogue.
9 - Edgar Wright
The two men and a dog who watched late-night 90s ITV comedy Asylum will have been alerted to his talents early on, but for the rest of us it was Spaced that first introduced us to Edgar Wright, as well as collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The trio successfully brought their reference-heavy humour to the big screen with zom-comShaun Of The Dead and cop pasticheHot Fuzz. Wright then went solo withScott Pilgrim vs The World and 2013 promises to be busy as he reunites with Pegg and Frost forThe World's End, then helms top-secret sci-fi filmCollider, before starting work on his most high-profile feature to date, Marvel'sAnt-Man.
10 - Andrea Arnold
A formerchildren's TV presenter, Kent-born Andrea Arnold has not only overcome the commercial obstacles of a) being female and b) making non-genre British movies, she has done so on her own terms, creating an instantly recognisable brand of social realism. With her Oscar-winning shortWasp she drew a beautiful performance from Danny Dyer, withRed Road andFish Tank she took Loach's improvisatory technique to new levels, and even with her one misfire, last year'sWuthering Heights, she proved herself radical in the face of traditional material. We eagerly await her next move.
And the rest...
11 - Steven Soderbergh
To move from male stripping inMagic Mike to pharmaceutical addiction inThe Bitter Pill is classic Soderbergh. Still the least bracketable director in Hollywood.
12 - Quentin Tarantino
Inglourious Basterds dragged the arch stylist back towards critical and commercial esteem. Next up: slave drama/westernDjango Unchained.
13 - Lena Dunham
Director, writer, producer and just about everything else in between, Dunham made waves with debut featureTiny Furniture, and HBO's much-talked-about seriesGirls.
14 - Christopher Nolan
The go-to director for the thinking person's blockbuster divided opinion with theThe Dark Knight Rises, but still made a killing at the box office.
15 - Jacques Audiard
Now 60, Audiard has made two of the best thrillers of the past decade inThe Beat That My Heart Skipped andA Prophet. Next isRust & Bone, the story of a tortured love affair.
16 - JJ Abrams
Surely the busiest man in Hollywood, and indeed TV, production whiz Abrams returns to directing with a sequel to his massively fun reboot ofStar Trek.
17 - David Fincher
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was not the undisputed smash that everyone expected, but Fincher remains Fincher, his ability to sustain tone and tension is still the model to which other directors aspire.
18 - Werner Herzog
The German master has been sticking to documentaries lately (cave drawings, death row, you name it). Next up, however,Queen Of The Desert – a biopic of 19th-century adventurer Gertrude Bell.
19 - Ben Wheatley
The queasy mix of the banal and the brutal inKill List marked Wheatley as a potentially genre-redefining figure in horror.Sightseers will provide his take on black comedy.
20 - Mia Hansen-Løve
Her third feature,Goodbye First Love, confirmed the 31-year-old as having a rare ability to define mood and tone. She makes her leads look gorgeous, too.
21 - Gaspar Noé
Noé's segment in directorial megamix7 Days In Havana proved a timely reminder of the talents of the man behind the dizzying, provocativeEnter The Void.
22 - Terrence Malick
With last year'sThe Tree Of Life, Malick reignited the old visionary/pretentious debate. With at least two projects set for next year he's certainly upping his productivity.
23 - Gareth Edwards
WithMonsters, Edwards reinvented a genre – and did it on a minuscule budget. Naturally, the next project he signed up for was the mega-money reboot ofGodzilla.
