10 Emerging Film Directors You Need To Check Out | ScreenRant
With the explosion of independent cinema, there have been many rookie film directors that broke into mainstream consciousness and took on high-profile projects as a response. It is exciting to speculate as to what they will do next since they built up audience goodwill with their first projects.
This list honors these emerging directors that everyone should watch out for. To make the choices more varied, directors on this list should neither have won Oscars, nor helmed blockbusters. Here are 10 emerging film directors to check out.
10 Panos Cosmatos
Panos Cosmatos is the son of Tombstone director George P. Cosmatos, who let him work on the modern-day Western as a second unit video assist operator. From there, his gift for creating flourished, starting with the horror sci-fi Beyond the Black Rainbow. While it underperformed in the box office, it gained a dedicated cult following.
He gained further attention with 2018s Mandy, starring Nicolas Cage as a man taking on a deadly cult. With his Kubrick-esque style of dream-like horror, Cosmatos has solidified his status as a horror auteur.
9 Jennifer Kent
Still in the horror realm, Jennifer Kent was driven by the notion that there is a lack of female voices in horror. Thus, from her short film Monster, she made her big break with The Babadook. This psychological creature-feature horror film about a troubled mother and her son grabbed everyone’s attention and gained widespread acclaim.
Following her Babadook success is another psychological thriller entitled The Nightingale, about a woman convict who takes revenge on her family’s perpetrators. Both films deal with trauma in a German Expressionist style, making her a must-watch.
8 Chloé Zhao
Chloé Zhao finds her footing in telling ordinary stories from rural America. This was solidified in her first feature, Songs My Brothers Taught Me. The film is focused on the relationship between a Sioux brother and sister from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
In 2018, she directed The Rider, a heart-wrenching tale about a cowboy who struggles to cope after his head injury. The film received universal acclaim and she has most recently been working on the Frances McDormand drama Nomadland and the MCU entry, The Eternals.
7 Leigh Whannell
Leigh Whannell had his start as a co-writer on Saw with his college friend, James Wan. They then collaborated for the next two Saw movies, Dead Silence and the Insidious movies (with Whannel directing Chapter 3). Apart from this, he solidified his status with 2018’s Upgrade. This sci-fi thriller centers around Logan Marshall-Green who is being controlled by a chip and is regarded as a better version of Venom.
Just this year, he was working on an update of The Invisible Man with Elizabeth Moss, which also received critical and financial success.
6 Destin Daniel Cretton
During his tenure at San Diego State University, aspiring director Destin Daniel Cretton crafted a short film that was inspired by his experiences at a shelter for troubled teenagers. From here began his splendid film journey, which started with the full-length feature of this short, Short Term 12. The film boasts a tremendous cast, including Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr., Rami Malek, Kaitlyn Dever, Lakeith Stanfield and more.
This success prepared him for The Glass Castle and Just Mercy. Fans are now getting excited for his next work, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
5 Marielle Heller
Marielle Heller's roots are in theater. However, she found her footing with the indie coming-of-age tale The Diary of a Teenage Girl. This comedy-drama, about a 15-year-old girl named Minnie (Bel Powley), who is confident in her sexuality and flirts with her mother's (Kristen Wiig) boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgård), became a critical darling.
From there, Heller got to direct two Oscar runners, the Melissa McCarthy drama Can You Ever Forgive Me? and the Tom Hanks’ Fred Rogers biopic, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
4 Ari Aster
For horror fans, Ari Aster is a breath of fresh air for the genre. With his humble beginnings as an AFI alumnus who directed two vital short films, he got his opportunity with his film debut, Hereditary. This horror centers on a normal family who faces a supernatural presence that tears them apart. Hereditary was a standout horror film in 2018, with special recognition for Toni Colette's performance, and one of A24’s highest-grossing films.
The year next, he released the horror Midsommar, which received mostly positive reception. Who can stop Ari Aster now?
3 Alex Garland
Alex Garland first started as a novelist, whose best work was his book The Beach (which became a Leonardo DiCaprio feature). He has other writing credits for solid fare like 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Dredd. It was only in 2015 that he was able to direct his own feature film, the sci-fi Ex Machina. It tells the cautionary tale of a programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) who conducts a Turing test on an AI called Ava (Alicia Vikander).
After his success with Ex Machina, Garland helmed the similarly received Annihilation. For those who look forward to new sci-fi releases, follow Garland’s work.
2 Lynne Ramsay
The works of Lynne Ramsay are not for the faint of heart. While she had her start with Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar, she found leverage in the 2010s with two fascinating films. The first one, We Need to Talk About Kevin, tells the tale of a mother (Tilda Swinton) trying to deal with her sociopathic son (Ezra Miller).
Meanwhile, You Were Never Really Here focuses on a hired gun (Joaquin Phoenix) and his mission to rescue a politician’s daughter. Both films are heart-wrenching cautionary tales.
1 Robert Eggers
From this list, it appears that the majority of the era’s emerging film directors came from horror backgrounds. Thus, it is fitting that rising horror auteur Robert Eggers is the definitive director to watch out for. Eggers had his start as a production designer before he directed his first feature, The Witch. This gothic horror film follows a Puritan family’s encounter with an evil presence in the woods.
Realizing his knack for period horror, he crafted The Lighthouse, about two lighthouse keepers who succumbed to psychological ills of isolation. With his two suspenseful offerings achieving cult status, Eggers is an exciting talent to behold.
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