10 Current Directors Who Just Can't Seem To Miss

Filmography: Whiplash, La La Land, First Man

At only 35, the Rhode Island filmmaker has already bagged himself a Best Director gong at the Oscars - for his second full feature, no less - and his first three films have already demonstrated his particularly brilliant aptitude for the art form.

His debut Whiplash feels like the sort of film that may come to be regarded as the best of his earlier works; a tautly constructed character piece that plays with the electricity of the best kind of thriller, built around jazz drumming of all things, while follow-up La La Land was a gloriously old-fashioned ode to movie magic and MGM musicals that played out like a transportive dream.

He managed to avoid most of the pitfalls of the biopic too when he tackled Neil Armstrong in First Man, keeping his focus jarringly intimate as to burrow into the psyche of his subject more than the public perception. He is reportedly poised to make a move into period filmmaking with his next effort Babylon, details of which remain firmly under wraps; it will be intriguing to see what magic he can spin there.