The 9 Most Underrated American Directors of the 21st Century

Be aware, and keep a lookout.

The 21st century has showcased some of the best creative accomplishments the silver screen has ever known, and it’s largely thanks to the largely unappreciated.

Directors have fallen victim to underrated obscurity all over the world. I just focused on American directors because it was my best chance to not leave anyone out (I still definitely overlooked at least a few people.)

Please note: These are not ranked.

Nicole Holofcener

I love Nicole Holofcener for a few reasons. For one, she’s a female director, which is a Hollywood rarity to say the least. She also wrote and directed her two best: Enough Said (2013) and Friends with Money (2006), and I have a serious soft spot for those who do both (as you’ll soon see), especially when the end result is excellent.

Holofcener directs some great TV shows here and there as well, including Orange is the New Black, Parks and Recreation, and Six Feet Under. (I’d legitimately kill for that résumé.)

Derek Cianfrance

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) was, in my opinion, a better script than it was a movie, but I still thought the movie was great, and the originality of its structure and pacing alone made it a more than worthwhile effort. Cianfrance also wrote and directed Blue Valentine (2010), and while his other big feature, The Light Between Oceans, was supposed to be mediocre (I admittedly didn’t see it), Place Beyond and Blue Valentine alone make him an underrated force I’m looking forward to seeing more of.

Bennett Miller

This one and a few others will be eye-rollers to cine-nerds. Bennett Miller is a well-known beast who’s been nominated for Best Director twice, the first time in 2005 with Capote, and again with 2015’s Foxcatcher. He also directed Moneyball (2011), and while there were a few too many shots of Brad Pitt staring pensively, I enjoyed.

But he’s undeniably not a household name outside of Hollywood. Maybe an original story versus a true story adaption could change that.

Jeff Nichols

Jeff Nichols isn’t underrated because he’s obscure, he’s underrated because he’s not widely regarded as one of the best storytellers in cinema right now. This writer/director has consistently made my knees buckle as I beheld the brilliance, and his overt off-camera chemistry with Michael Shannon is, frankly, unmatched. From stem to stern, everything he’s made is essential viewing for any movie lover, with Shotgun Stories (2007), Take Shelter (2011), Mud (2012), Midnight Special (2016), and the assuredly Oscar nominated Loving (2016) being the “he’s just getting started” extent of it.

Ava DuVernay

Ava DuVernay was totally and absolutely snubbed in 2014 for the Best Director nomination for the unforgettable Selma, reaffirming my theory that getting to where she is as a black woman must have been tantamount to giving Rob Reiner a piggyback up Mount McKinley.

DuVernay also recently directed the astounding documentary 13th (2016), which I’m really hoping gets an Oscar, and she’s signed on as the director for A Wrinkle in Time, set to come out in 2018.

She’s killing it. Learn her name. You’ll keep seeing it, guaranteed.

Don Hertzfeldt

Don Hertzfeldt writes and directs short animations. That’s it. And he’s on par in brilliance, originality, and innovation with anyone who’s done a feature length live action, I promise you. If all he ever did was World of Tomorrow (2015) and It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2011), I’d still regard him as a genius, but he’s done plenty more. Both of the aforementioned films are streaming on Netflix, and to say I’m excited for his next project would be putting it lightly. I’m absolutely giddy about the prospect.

Tom McCarthy

You’ve seen Tom McCarthy’s face before, no doubt, and I definitely wouldn’t call him an underrated actor. (He’s good, but he’s not brilliant.)

He is, on the other hand, an underrated director, with 2015 Best Picture winner Spotlight, The Visitor (2007), and The Station Agent (2003) under his belt. He wrote The Station Agent, The Visitor, and the story to the Pixar movie Up (2009), plus he has a screenwriting Oscar for Spotlight, so he’s pretty perfectly rated on the writing front too. We just need to give him more credit for his directorial prowess. What a multi-talent.

Ryan Coogler

Ryan Coogler wrote and directed Fruitvale Station (2013), which is easily one of the most important films made in the last decade. He also wrote and directed Creed (2015), and he was signed on to direct the Black Panther movie, set to be released in 2018.

Coogler also has pretty much every other movie department credit someone can have, and given the fact that he’s only THIRTY years old (Jeeeesus), you can bet he’ll be underrated for maybe another decade before he’s full on Scorsese status, a bold statement no one will remember to call me on in 2027.

Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck may well have the title of “Most Disrespected White Man in Hollywood History.” (“White man” specified because I’m fairly certain any woman or person of color in Hollywood has been more disrespected over the course of a week than any white man over the course of their entire career.)

This dude wrote and directed Gone Baby Gone (2007) and The Town (2010), and directed Argo (2012), which not only won the Oscar for Best Picture, it was the clear favorite. And he WASN’T EVEN NOMINATED for Best Director! They just couldn’t bring themselves to nominate the guy.

It’s definitely because of the movies he’s appeared in, right? There’s no other explanation. And I’d encourage him to just stick to producing, writing, and directing, but A) I think he’s a great actor, and B) he’ll definitely never read this.

Final Thought

If I missed someone, rather than bite my head off, just let me know in the comments, because the whole goal of this piece is to help people discover new and exciting voices in filmmaking, or to better appreciate people you didn’t realize you already loved.

Basically, let’s work together to spread awareness of cinematic greatness (Seriously, I’m actually asking. I want to discover and appreciate more than most.)

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