10 Most Important Directors Of The 21st Century (So Far)

Although it was pipped to the post ever so slightly by Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, The Fellowship of the Ring’s’ role in bringing fantasy cinema to the forefront of Hollywood cannot be overstated.

Most Tolkein fans presumed that The Lord of the Rings novels were simply too arch, complex and multi-faceted to be adapted for the big screen, so rich were they in lore, family hierarchies and historic battles. Now it’s hard to imagine The Lord of the Rings looking different to Peter Jackson’s seminal and multi-award winning series.

What makes Jackson so special is the (unexpected) journey he took to become a box office conqueror. He began his career making B-movie creature features in his native New Zealand, utilising practical effects on shoestring budgets.

This somewhat DIY philosophy would permeate his more mainstream work – though his love of prosthetics and tangible effects work might have dissipated somewhat with the lesser Hobbit series, The Lord of the Rings was a magnificent fantasy epic made with an auteur’s eye.

The series went on to win 17 Academy Awards (and about 450 more other gongs to boot), jumpstarted the careers of several big name actors, revolutionised motion capture technology, and proved an early successful example of a now commonplace blockbuster trend: studios picking indie directors, with a respect for the source material, to manage tent pole franchise films.