Paste’s Arthouse Powerhouse 100

Directors

1. David Cronenberg

Recent highlights: A History of Violence, Spider
Upcoming: London Fields (adaptation of Martin Amis’ novel)
» With a Cannes Golden Palm nomination for what’s now his second-highest-grossing film (after The Fly), it’s been a historic year for Cronenberg. He’s a visionary whose graphic sensibility isn’t limited to the hallucinatory scenarios he’s infamous for (Videodrome, Naked Lunch, The Fly, eXistenZ); his touch is just as surgically precise when he’s pleasing crowds.

2. Fernando Meirelles

Recent highlights: The Constant Gardener, City of God
» A critical sensation with the Oscar-nominated City of God, Meirelles presents compelling stories with visual panache. The English-language Gardener brought his moxie to an even broader audience in the U.S.

3. Jim Jarmusch

Recent highlights: Broken Flowers, Coffee and Cigarettes
» Cannes favorite from first (Stranger Than Paradise) to last (Flowers), Jarmusch is the iconic iconoclast. A throwback to the days of patronage, the Ohio-born director finances his films with overseas investors who attach no strings. With $14 million in domestic box-office receipts, Jarmusch scored what is, for him, box-office gold on Flowers by teaming up with Focus Features and adding Bill Murray to his long line of impressive cast members (Johnny Depp, Forest Whitaker and ensembles including Cate Blanchett, Steve Buscemi, Roberto Benigni, Tom Waits, Gena Rowlands, Winona Ryder and Rosie Perez).

4. Michael Moore

Recent highlights: Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling For Columbine
Upcoming: Healthcare doc Sicko
» The J-Lo of liberal populism, Moore may be an over-merchandised motormouth who still couldn’t un-elect W, but he’s the father of the “doc-buster” in an era when a documentary on penguins can kick the ass of a Michael Bay wannabe asskicker.

5. Alexander Payne

Recent highlights: Sideways, About Schmidt
Upcoming: Nebraska
» Who else could turn a movie about an alcoholic loser and his philandering buddy into the romantic comedy of the year? Payne’s keen social satires are an actor’s best friend.

6. Wes Anderson

Recent highlights: The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums
Upcoming: The Fantastic Mr. Fox
» Made the world safe for Owen Wilson, adopted Bill Murray as his muse and created whole new dimensions of comic dysfunction. Perhaps the most unique of his peers, Anderson ambitiously one-ups himself each time out but never forgets to entertain.

7. Gus Van Sant

Recent highlights: Last Days, Elephant, Gerry
Upcoming: The Time-Traveler’s Wife
» As indie as he wants to be, Van Sant only pretended to be a feel-good kinda guy long enough to bankroll his more esoteric projects. One part Avedon and one part Warhol, he’s our most above-ground underground filmmaker.

8. Paul Thomas Anderson

Recent Highlights: Punch- Drunk Love, Magnolia
Upcoming: There Will Be Blood
» A demiurge of storytelling wielding a gifted hand with actors, Anderson’s biggest shortfall is that he very nearly makes a century plant look prolific.

9. Richard Linklater

Recent highlights: Before Sunset, Tape, Waking Life
Upcoming: A Scanner Darkly, Fast Food Nation
» No slacker, Linklater could pass for a one-man Texas film industry with a career that’s wide open and full of surprises. Moves so seamlessly between prestige and popcorn that you forget there’s a difference.

10. Sofia Coppola

Recent highlights: Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides
Upcoming: Marie-Antoinette
» Perhaps the only Oscar-winning director under 35 to have a wine named after her, Coppola has proven herself in her family’s other business. Her feminine sensibility sets her apart from the Hollywood boys’ club, while her friendships with hipster music icons make for great soundtracks. Will there be room for Sonic Youth when she tackles period piece Marie-Antoinette?

11. Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Recent Highlights: A Very Long Engagement, Amélie
Upcoming: Life of Pi
» A decade after Delicatessen, Jeunet recaptured—and then some—his own arthouse magic in Amélie and kept his hold for A Very Long Engagement.

12. Hayao Miyazaki

Recent Highlights: Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away
» Mixing fantasy and technology with real-life emotion, Miyazaki’s animation has reached beyond cult status, culminating in his Best Animated Feature Oscar for Spirited Away.

13. David O. Russell

Recent highlights: I Heart Huckabees
Upcoming: A comedy with Wedding Crasher Vince Vaughn
» If wit were money, Russell would be a billionaire. His impeccable track record means he can get away with flighty indulgences and make us like it. Also, he never hesitates to super-size his casts with marquee names. If they’re not, they will be. Just ask Clooney or Ice Cube.

14. Niki Caro

Recent Highlights: North Country, Whale Rider
» A strong woman making films about strong women, Caro also knows how to tug the heartstrings. And North Country looks to be her second film in a row to garner a Best Actress Oscar nomination.

15. Pedro Almodovar

Recent Highlights: Bad Education, All About My Mother, Talk To Her
Upcoming: Volver
» Spain’s favorite rebel is unafraid to shock audiences with exaggerated sexuality, a general flouting of cinema conventions and Carmen Miranda’s sense of color. This Oscar winner is widely considered the most influential Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel.

16. Lars Von Trier

Recent highlights: Dear Wendy (writer), Dogville
Upcoming: Manderlay
» His austere methods compel such high regard that Really Famous Stars like Nicole Kidman and Björk go to Scandanavia and willingly submit to his eccentric whims. Not everyone’s cup of grøgg, but a seminal force who’s always provocative.

17. Michel Gondry

Recent highlights: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Upcoming: The Science of Sleep (with Gael García Bernal)
» Can take a stack of Legos and make a prize-winning rock video, or guarantee you never look at Jim Carrey the same way again. As much magician as director, Gondry shuffles complex screenplays like a deck of cards and makes us wonder how he did it.

18. Alejandro González Iñárritu

Recent highlights: 21 Grams, Amores Perros
Upcoming: Babel
» Put Mexico on the cinematic map with bold storytelling and visceral technique. Put Gael García Bernal on the path to international stardom. Put Hollywood’s A-list in a long line to work with him.

19. Mark Forster

Recent highlights: Stay, Finding Neverland, Monster’s Ball
Upcoming: Stranger Than Fiction (comedy starring Will Ferrell)
» Though his latest is polarizing audiences and critics, Forster has exhibited incredible staying power. His micro-budget debut Loungers won the audience award at Slamdance. His follow-up, Everything Put Together, earned a Grand Jury nomination at Sundance and the “Someone to Watch” Independent Spirit Award. Monster’s Ball then won Halle Berry her historic Oscar, and Finding Neverland scored seven Oscar nominations.

20. Woody Allen

Recent highlights: Match Point
Upcoming: Another comedy with Johansson
» Allen scripted the template for the arthouse comedy with Annie Hall and continued as one of America’s foremost auteurs for the next couple decades. His reputation and audience has faded somewhat—his work has become as repetitive and tiresome as his characters’ neurotic stutters. But in Scarlett Johansson, he’s found a new muse, and we predict he’ll also find a renewed and growing audience.

Arthouse Emergent: Directors

1. Miranda July - July’s debut Me and You and Everyone We Know racked up awards from Cannes to Sundance and announced the 31-year-old as a major creative force.

2. Phil Morrison - With a stellar ensemble and an eye (and ear) for detail, Morrison crafts a subtle, resonant examination of family tension and cultural divides in Junebug.

3. Bennett Miller - Miller won awards at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival for The Cruise, his 76-minute documentary on Timothy “Speed” Levitch. Nearly seven years later, he unleashes Capote. It was worth the wait.

4. Ira Sachs - His Forty Shades of Blue took home the top dramatic prize at Sundance, over Hustle & Flow, Junebug, The Squid and the Whale, Thumbsucker, Loggerheads, Brick and others. ‘Nuff said.

5. Mike Mills - In his feature-film debut, Thumbsucker, the music-video director transformed what at its bare bones is a tired genre film and made it fresh and vital. Please, please take note, Hollywood.