Most of the iconic directors of Hollywood are all past their prime. Plus, a lot of them are dead or have totally lost their mind. Woody Allen is sleeping with his stepdaughter, Roman Polanski is allegedly a pedophile and Clint Eastwood is a trump supporter (it's definitely not as bad as the other two, but its pretty bad). Its easy to proclaim the abysmal nature of movie making, but there are still a couple filmmakers whose movie releases are an event and usually end up justifying the fanfare made about their films. We need to take our attention from the Spielbergs and Scorseses and focus on the new icons who we talk about but dont show enough respect. The new icons are Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and David Fincher. These are directors under sixty that rose to prominence in the 90s, but still at a creative phase where they could still possibly make their magnum opus in the next ten years.
Christopher Nolan
Nolan created a superhero movie that was non-corny or cheesy. He made Batman at a time it was coming off one of the worst streaks of movies in the history of superhero movies (thats saying a lot considering all the bad superhero franchises). The irony is he is known for his out of this world visuals and his mind boggling story lines, but he has been the only director to bring some realism to the toy box looking franchise. However, its not that surprising since hes the only person making adult friendly blockbusters with big budgets.
Tom Hardy in Inception and Heath Ledger (R.I.P.) in the Dark Knight are two of the top ten movie performances of the 21st century. The best aspect of those performances is that you dont need to be told they are great by some middle-aged white male critic you find on Rotten Tomatoes. These arent great in artsy ways like some actors make their living on (Im talking about you, Daniel Day-Lewis). Just like there are Oscar bait movies, there are Oscar bait performances like Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln or Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Capote. These are close to the gold standard for fan favorite movie performances is close Denzel Washington in Training Day. Few directors make movies that are fun and popular, while still being able to extract personal best performances from great actors.
Quentin Tarantino
Everything Ive read about Pulp Fiction is all some way saying that it is the coolest shit theyve ever seen. A running theme like with Nolan is that he makes movies people and the critics love.
The type of content he works with and the imagination he possesses would not be fully realized if he was any other director. He makes bloody, gory movies that insult all sensibilities. Back to back to back, he made a movie that offended Semites, women, and African-Americans. Not only is he left standing, but people still go to see his movie in droves, thats talent.
Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA)
If you ever watch PTA in an interview its quite strange. Tarantino is weird in a goofy, nerdy way. PTA is weird in an aloof way. The contrast is best seen when watching the interview with both PTA and Tarantino discussing the joys of 70mm film (I imagine these type of discussions is sexually arousing for filmmakers). In the interview, Tarantino with nervous anxiety rambled on about how 70mm improves film making, while Anderson broke it down cerebrally as if he was a golden age of Hollywood foreign film critic.
Boogie Nights with all its deep meanings and social critic is still a story about porn and the act of fucking takes up a large portion of the movie. Plus, it is still a movie about childhood nostalgia. Those are all things regular immature kids like and as an armchair psychologist thats what deep down I believe PTA is (an immature kid) and thats his superpower as a director. He has been able to balance every mans boyish nature to be attracted to sex (Boogie Nights) or give into primitive instincts like vengeance (There Will be Blood) while engrossing these in subtle themes and societal critics.
David Fincher
Few directors have been able to touch young people across generations. Fight Club and The Social Network were released almost ten years, but both appeal to a similar audience. They are smart visually and rhetorically distinctive movies. Even if Fight Club may have gotten slandered by some critics and wasnt a big hit at the box office, but there is a particular group that loved the film they were males at that time college age. Fortunately, The Social Network received universal acclaim (except by the Oscars which awarded The Kings Speech the best picture).
Fight Club when it was released in 1999 came at the end of a century where men had seen their roles in society change due to the rise of progressive feminist movements. The Social Network was released at the peak of Facebooks cultural relevance, plus the beginning of twitter. It set the stage for a decade where in order to feel more connected to people online people become more isolated. Unlike the other directors, he is not a guy who seems like he had no friends in high school, but appears to cool guy. He comes from creating mainstream pop music videos and that takes an understanding of the psychology of the youth, but at the same time, he was creating great unique pop videos. When these two abilities together you get a man that creates movies that are technically great and extracts a reaction from young people.
Spike Lee
At first, I struggled whether he fits in this group age and timeline wise. He is almost sixty and his masterpiece came out in 89. The final indictment against Lee not meeting the criteria is that his newest movie begs the question is he even a good director anymore. It has been ten years since he made his last universally acclaimed movie (Inside Man).