Game Of Thrones Season 6: 10 Ups And 2 Downs From 'Battle Of The Bastards'

1. Miguel Effing Sapochnik

Miguel Sapochnik is now to Game of Thrones what Neil Marshall used to be to, well, Game of Thrones.

Last year he picked up Marshall's mantle of being the man to direct the biggest episode of the season, and delivered the superb Hardhome. He's back again this year, bumped up the list to give us episode 9, and once again he absolutely nailed it.

This episode, for any flaws it might have, is spectacular, at once huge in scale and yet also personal, never losing itself under the sheer weight of numbers its carrying (and with 600 crew members, 70 horses, and 160 tonnes of gravel, just to name a few ridiculous stats, that would've been an easy thing to happen).

The battle at Winterfell is where he truly shines, and for 30 minutes or so it's breathless, frenzied stuff. Various characters are given their moment, while Sapochnik also digs into the history books, taking inspiration from real life Roman battles for the way the Bolton soldiers form a wall, surrounding the Stark men and trapping them in, with a wall of corpses on the other side.

The highlight, though, is the way we follow Jon through the battle. It starts with him standing by himself, ready to face the onrushing cavalry alone, before suddenly his own horses erupt onto the screen. Then we're into a long take of Jon ducking and diving, slashing and dashing his way through the action. It's intense, it's gritty, it's war. From there it only gets better when Jon goes down, trampled upon by horses, enemies, his own men. At times the noise and chaos takes over completely. It's enough to make you at least pause to wonder if they really would kill him off again. Jon is being suffocated, and the way it's shot means it fells suffocating, and extremely claustrophobic to watch, leading to the relieving moment he manages to get his head above the crowd, gasping for air as you yourself are finally able to take a breath.