1. Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen has quickly developed a reputation as one of the best independent filmmakers in the business, despite only having two films to his name. Originally a gallery artist, he made the jump to feature length movies with the haunting Bobby Sands biopic Hunger before following it up with the gripping sexual addiction drama Shame. He's provocative and not averse to the most complex and taboo of subjects as the raw explicitness in his films shows. Coming from an art background, his movies were always expected to have a style and vibrancy to them, but it is his work with actors that is astounding. Both of his pictures have starred Michael Fassbender in the lead and whilst his career-making performance in Hunger didn't seem beatable, he somehow managed it in Shame where his performance was by some distance the greatest of the year. McQueen also directs a phenomenal performance out of Carey Mulligan, who in a difficult role shows a wild vulnerability that is all too rare in cinema. McQueen, like all the great writer-director's is intently focused on character and allowing the story to build from there. His movies, though blunt in their delivery of difficult subject matter, have a poignant delicacy in them that stays with you long after the credits have rolled. His next project is 12 Years A Slave, which again stars Fassbender alongside Brad Pitt, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Paul Dano and he once again tackles a difficult topic in slavery. The pressure will mount with the success of each picture, but the evidence given shows that the future of British cinema is safe in Steve McQueen's hands.
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