2. Lynne Ramsay
Best Film: Ratcatcher (1999) We move from an excellent New Zealand director who tweaks classical style to a Scottish director who makes her own. Lynne Ramsay is an auteur of the highest order, one who makes films that are both wholly original and eerily familiar if you've seen her other work. She has only made three features, Ratcatcher, Morvern Caller (2002), and We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), but each one is a cinematic wonder. Having to choose a best film is difficult, but her debut Ratcatcher showcases her ominous style and her masterful grasp of music perfectly. A story about a young boy suffering from a significant amount of guilt shows Glasgow at its grittiest during a trash collectors strike. Ramsay doesn't adhere to a specific range of stylistic tendencies: she goes from harsh realism to formalistic grandeur to surreal dream sequences. And we need to talk about We Need to Talk About Kevin, one of the most gripping stories about the non-innocence of children. The red-soaked film is at turns scary and darkly comedic, and Ramsay gets excellent performances from Tilda Swinton, Ezra Miller, and the magnificent John C. Reilly. She famously dropped out of filming Jane Got a Gun earlier this year, but hopefully her upcoming Moby Dick adaptation gets in progress soon so we can delight at another film by a master.