Filmography: Chopper (2000), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007); Killing Them Softly (2012) If you're scratching your head on this entry, you're most likely not alone. While some of you may be wondering what Dominik's name is even doing on this list, others will definitely be surprised at the high rank, particularly given the fact the man has only made three films in his career thus far. However, in the cineaste's never ending quest to find the heir apparent to the great Stanley Kubrick, we may come as close as we're ever going to with the New Zealand-born Andrew Dominik. Dominik's most "successful" film financially was 2012's Killing Them Softly, a film that, despite starring Brad Pitt, grossed a measly $15 million in the U.S. Many people then have not had the pleasure of seeing his work. Dominik's style is visceral and brutal, which makes for uneasy digesting for some viewers. In fact, while his unrelenting focus and acerbic outlook is one of Dominik's primary strengths, he can be blunt to a fault. The on-the-nose narration of The Assassination of Jesse James held back a terrific film from being one of the best films of the last few decades, while Dominik's need to constantly throw in snippets of political speeches from George W. Bush and Barack Obama made the allegorical nature of Killing Them Softly so obvious as to become annoying. Despite these weaknesses though, other elements of Dominik's films are so strong, that to let these minor quibbles blind us to the genius of Dominik as a filmmaker is absurd. And if he ever does gain a tad more subtlety, expect Dominik to shoot up to the top spot on this list.
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.
