9. Sam Mendes
Filmography:
American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road, Away We Go, Skyfall. Despite winning the Best Director Oscar for debut film, American Beauty, Mendes has strangely gone under the radar when the great directors debate comes up. American Beauty was a masterpiece and was such a confident work for a first-time director, though Mendes had been directing theatre for a number of years prior to 1999. Mendes has continued to build on his debut success, venturing into various fields. American Beauty was followed up with the stunning crime film Road to Perdition, which featured Paul Newman's final screen performance and what a performance it was. Mendes then decided to try a war movie in Jarhead, which explored the boredom experienced by marines in Iraq. The film is unique in its approach and whilst is never quite as good as it should be, is an intriguing and thorough character analysis. Mendes, after directing the impressive Revolutionary Road and comedy, Away We Go signed on to direct the next James Bond film. It was a strange choice, Mendes was an accomplished director known for his deep films and focus on character and realism and had never been close to a film on the scale of Bond, but it was a challenge he was willing to accept and a film we were all looking forward too. Mendes is the first real auteur to try his hand at a Bond movie, he had an impeccable track record, but the stakes were high. Thankfully, Mendes delivered not just one of the greatest Bond films of all time, but one of the greatest action films to it. Mendes delved into the darker, more psychological aspects of Bond and with the assistance of cinematographer extraordinaire, Roger Deakins created a thoroughly brilliant Bond film that more than looked the part. Mendes is six films into his career and all of them possess something wholly different, but they all have one identical quality - they're all impressive pieces of cinema.