Most directors are uneven. Even great directors make some bad films. A small number are consistent enough that I would see anything they make without checking reviews first. Here are 6 contemporary directors at that level.
1. Paul Thomas Anderson
Best films: There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), Phantom Thread (2017), Licorice Pizza (2021).
Why he is great: Each film is completely different from the others. Visual mastery. Works with the same actors across multiple films, building real depth. Every film rewards multiple viewings.
Where to start: If you have not seen any: Phantom Thread (most accessible). If you want the masterpiece: There Will Be Blood. If you want unique: The Master.
Skip: Inherent Vice (2014). His one weak film.
2. Bong Joon-ho
Best films: Memories of Murder (2003), The Host (2006), Snowpiercer (2013), Parasite (2019).
Why he is great: Genre-bending in ways most directors cannot match. Funny, dark, politically engaged, and entertaining simultaneously. Parasite finally got him the Oscar recognition he had earned a decade earlier.
Where to start: Parasite (the obvious choice and worth the hype). Then Memories of Murder.
Skip: Nothing. Even his lesser films are interesting.
3. Lynne Ramsay
Best films: Ratcatcher (1999), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), You Were Never Really Here (2017).
Why she is great: Spare, intense, visually distinctive. Makes a film every 5-7 years and each one is a complete vision. Joaquin Phoenix performance in You Were Never Really Here is one of the great recent screen performances.
Where to start: You Were Never Really Here. Most accessible of her work.
Note: Her films are dark. Not for casual viewing.
4. Yorgos Lanthimos
Best films: Dogtooth (2009), The Lobster (2015), The Favourite (2018), Poor Things (2023).
Why he is great: Singular voice. Dark comedy that nobody else makes. The deadpan absurdism is a love-it-or-hate-it taste, but if you love it, no one else delivers it.
Where to start: The Favourite (most accessible) or The Lobster (most distinctively his).
Skip: If you do not like the absurdist tone of his work, skip his entire filmography. He commits hard.
5. Hirokazu Kore-eda
Best films: Nobody Knows (2004), Like Father Like Son (2013), Shoplifters (2018), Monster (2023).
Why he is great: Quiet, deeply humane films about family in various unconventional configurations. The Japanese counterpart to what Yasujirō Ozu did in his era. Patient, restrained, devastating.
Where to start: Shoplifters (Palme d'Or winner, accessible to non-Japanese audiences).
Note: His films require patience. Quiet pacing throughout. Worth it.
6. Kelly Reichardt
Best films: Wendy and Lucy (2008), Meek's Cutoff (2010), First Cow (2019), Showing Up (2022).
Why she is great: Patient American filmmaking that resists everything Hollywood demands. Slow pacing, quiet performances, working-class subjects, visual restraint. Most consistently undervalued American director currently working.
Where to start: First Cow (most accessible recent work).
Note: Her films are slow even by indie standards. Either you love the patience or you do not.
What these directors have in common
Several patterns across these six:
- Distinct authorial voices that you can recognize from one film to the next
- Working independent of major studio systems
- Modest budgets even on their bigger films
- Long careers — they have built bodies of work over 15+ years
- Critical recognition that has built slowly rather than from one breakthrough
This is roughly the profile of contemporary directors worth following. Distinct vision, sustained work, no compromise on artistic intentions for commercial reasons.
Directors I almost included
Honorable mentions, in case you want to expand:
- Christopher Nolan: Dropped because his work is so widely covered already. Still worth seeing.
- Jane Campion: Brilliant but works less frequently.
- Asghar Farhadi: Iranian filmmaker doing exceptional family-drama work.
- Andrew Haigh: Quiet British filmmaker with several great films.
- Sebastian Lelio: Chilean filmmaker with strong recent work.
- Mati Diop: Newer voice making distinct films.
Directors I excluded deliberately
Some big names I did not include and why:
- Quentin Tarantino: Brilliant when he is on. Has made bad films too. Not consistent enough for the "see anything sight unseen" category.
- Wes Anderson: Distinctive but his recent films are increasingly self-parody. Diminishing returns.
- Most superhero directors: Studio constraints prevent the kind of authorial work this list is about.
The pattern across great directors
The thing all of these directors share: they make films that are clearly THEIR films. You can identify them after seeing one or two. The voice is consistent across very different subjects.
This is the marker of cinema worth following — directors with distinctive voices that produce work over years. The opposite — anonymous studio films that could have been made by anyone — is the dominant mode of contemporary commercial cinema. The directors above are the alternative.
The takeaway
If you want to watch better films, follow directors rather than franchises. The 6 above will give you 25+ great films across their filmographies, plus more to come over the next decade.
Pick one director from this list whose work you have not seen. Watch their best film this weekend. Then work through their filmography. You will have a substantially better year of film watching than chasing whatever is currently in theaters.
