If you're not sure, Entertainment Weekly has a handy list, counting down the top 25 active filmmakers in the world. Lists like this one are generally fraught with annoying/inexplicable/totally lame surprises– not unlike, say, the Oscar nominations– but the biggest surprise about this list is how relevant it actually is. Art-house snobs and mainstream multiplex-goers alike can find plenty to like here. For the former, you've got your Paul Thomas Anderson, your Darren Aronofsky, and, of course, the Coen Brothers– who, if I had made the list, would have been #1, but #10 is okay, I guess. On the other hand, you've also got Sam Raimi (Spider-man), Judd Apatow, and golden boy Ron Howard. Jon Favreau makes the cut, which would probably not have happened were it not for Iron Man, and Christopher Nolan makes the list for that other comic book movie from last summer. You can pretty much guess who takes the #1 spot.
One major surprise: Woody Allen is nowhere to be found. Yes, the man has had some clunkers, but he's probably still made more truly great films than most of the people on this list– certainly more than Apatow, who probably wouldn't have a career if not for Allen's trailblazing work, and certainly more than Zack Snyder, whose biggest claim to fame, 300, is little more than a technically impressive but soulless exercise in violence pornography.
Someone whose absence is not surprising, but who I would have liked to see on the list anyway: Wes Anderson, who, apart from Tim Burton, just might be cinema's greatest stylist– and, with at least some of his movies, a tremendous storyteller.
Are there any other directors who you think should have made the cut? Any who made the cut and perhaps shouldn't have?
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