25 Best Film Directors of the 21st Century (So Far)
Which directors have received the best reviews from professional critics since 2000? Find out below, where we rank this century's top filmmakers by their average Metascores.
To be included, a director must have four or more eligible films. Such films have seven or more reviews from professional critics and were first released (in any country) on or after January 1, 2000, and must have been released (including as a straight-to-Netflix streaming release) at some point in the USA. Multi-director anthology films are excluded, as are theatrical re-releases of older films. Averages were calculated using Metascores from July 12, 2017, and include films released through July 7, 2017.
#22
Guy Maddin
Whether they are ballet-filled takes on the Dracula story, or psuedo-autobiographical tales of growing up in Winnipeg, Guy Maddin movies might be an acquired taste (and that acquisition will be helped if you are predisposed to liking surreal, hyper-stylized, black-and-white, silent melodramas), but critics continue to reward them with stellar reviews, and we can guarantee you won't see anything like them from any other director.
| Films directed, 2000-2017 | ||
|---|---|---|
| ▣ | Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary | 2002 |
| ▣ | My Winnipeg | 2007 |
| ▣ | The Forbidden Room * | 2015 |
| ▣ | Cowards Bend the Knee or The Blue Hands | 2003 |
| ▣ | Brand Upon the Brain! | 2006 |
| ▣ | The Saddest Music in the World | 2003 |
| ▣ | Keyhole | 2011 |
* with Evan Johnson