Movie-making is a multilayered magical art form. Throughout the global history of film, there has been only a handful of filmmakers who mastered the Art, canvassing consummate masterpieces that surely stood out and expected to stand the test of time.
So here are the most masterful movie-makers of all time.
Terence Malick : The director of The Tree Of Life ( 2011), Knight Of Cups (2015), Thin Red Line (1998), Song To Song (2017), To The Wonder (2012)..etc
Terrence Malick’s movies are mostly wordless, visual poems that evoke the most elevated emotions in the viewer. Malick’s primary directorial protagonist is : Beauty
Habitually collaborating with oscar-winner cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, this long-time duo speaks the silent, visual language of multifaceted beauty.
When words are scarcely spoken in Malick’s movies, they are usually metaphorical and philosophical, complementing the particularly pure planet of his movies.
Terrence Malick’s films are highly respected by critics and revered by Hollywood actors like Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Michael Fassbender, Jessica Chastain, Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Ben Affleck…etc to name a few actors who were widely casted in his movies. However, his movies are not all as popular in the Box Office since they are non-commercial uncompromising works of Art.
David Fincher : The director of Fight Club (1999), Seven (1995), Gone Girl (2014), The Social Network (2010), The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (2008), Zodiac (2007), Panic Room (2002), The Killer (2023) and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)..etc
David Fincher is the ultimate pundit of Psychological Thrillers. Fincher is most known for being the first film director to often tackle taboo topics like malignant madness, political power and overall dark psychology. Fincher’s movies are all book adaptations.Though these are usually expected to never measure up to the quality of the books. Fincher’s films are the exceptions to the rule. What’s special about Fincher’s film adaptations is that he puzzles around the pieces of the plot creating a thrilling, mysterious suspense throughout the movie. Fight Club (1999) is ranked number 13 of top 250 films of all time by IMDB users, while Se7en (1995) is ranked number 20.
David Fincher has not only made favored thriller films, he mostly directed and executive-produced the outstanding Netflix series “Mindhunter”. Prior to it he put Netflix on the map by directing the first two episodes and executive-producing the best political thriller of all time “House Of Cards”.
Yorgos Lanthimos : The Greek filmmaker famously directed Dogtooth (2009), Attenberg (2010), The Killing Of Sacred Dear (2017), The Lobster (2015), The Favorite (2018) and Poor Things (2023)…etc
Yorgos Lanthimos’ movies are the ultimate deconstruction of “the strange” and “the eerie” in people. In Yorgos’ world “weirdness” is so normalized and pushed beyond boundaries that it is seen as a made-up stigma by us humans. Lanthimos, after being discovered by Hollywood and more money was invested in his movies, his aesthetic skills as a director started to shine. Yorgos Lanthimos was nominated for multiple Oscars and won plenty of other prestigious awards. However, his two latest movies transformed the careers of actress Olivia Colman and Emma Stone for winning The Academy Awards for best actresses starring in his movies.
Andrei Tarkovsky : The Russian filmmaker of The Mirror (1975), Nostalgia (1983), Stalker (1979), Solaris (1972) and Voyage In Time (1983)…etc
Andrei Tarkosvky’s movies were so ahead of their time, paving the way of picturesque filmmaking. Each shot of the film The Mirror for example can be framed as a perfect painting and each scene can be extracted as a stanza of an existential poem. Classic Russian literature is known for its soul-searching existential sagacity, and Andrei Tarkosvky was a very sage, profound Russian poet who wrote multiple books in addition to making his movies. Till today, Tarvoksky’s films are defined as perfection by many critics and film fanatics.
Xavier Dolan : The French Canadian filmmaker of Mommy (2014), Laurence Anyways (2012), Inside Out (2015), I Killed My Mother (2009) and It’s Only The End Of The World (2016), It Chapter Two (2019), Heartbeats (2010)…etc
Xavier Dolan’s movies can be both described as emotionally cathartic and controversial. Dolan heavily relies on emotionally purging and hence purifying acting scenes in his movies which can be very cathartic to the viewer. Xavier is openly gay which is why many of his early movies represented LGBTQ characters but with rich emotional lives and real issues unlike the stereotypical, surfaced LGBTQ Hollywood representations.
Overall, Xavier Dolan movies are a momentous mix of attention-catching controversy and emotional catharsis.
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