8. David Fincher (Gone Girl) Instead Of Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game) - Best Director
David Fincher has never won an Oscar. The Imitation Game director Morten Tyldum, however, could by all means win one this year; Fincher, meanwhile, doesn't have that chance because he isn't even in the running. Let's put things into perspective: David Fincher is practically his own brand, a filmmaker known for an intense, moody, blackly comic style and a Kubrickian attention to detail, famed for such modern classics as Seven, Zodiac, The Social Network and now 2014 smash hit Gone Girl. Morten Tyldum is the director you'd never heard of until he got nominated for showing up to direct The Imitation Game. That would be because Tyldum is a journeyman helmer with a generic, personality-free technique. The Imitation Game is a big player at the 2015 Oscars (it has eight nominations in total), and you can guarantee it's because Oscar-gobblers the Weinsteins have yet again done a stand-up job of campaigning their film so hard they edged out the competition. Tyldum's nod appears more like evidence of how effective an expensive barrage of Oscar campaigning can be, and at this point, Fincher seems at risk of joining Hitchcock and Kubrick in the 'Greatest Filmmakers Never to Win a Directing Oscar' club.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
