Directors that push the envelope
by gorgeyheath33 | created - 10 Aug 2014 | updated - 10 Aug 2014 | PublicWhether it's provocative, non-conformist, or shocking, these directors make the type of films they want to do and relish it!
1. Gaspar Noé
Director | Enter the Void
Gaspar Noé is an Argentinian filmmaker and screenwriter who lives in France. He is the son of Luis Felipe Noé, an Argentinian artist. He directed I Stand Alone, Irréversible, Enter the Void, Love, Climax, Carne, Lux Æterna, Sodomites and Vortex. His films are known for having a sensory overload ...
2. Larry Clark
Director | Bully
Was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma (1943). Son of Frances Clark (baby photographer) and Lewis Clark. Graduated from Central High school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Attended Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Studied under Walter Sheffer and Gerard Bakker. Film debut was the movie Kids (1995). He was ...
3. Pascal Laugier
Director | Ghostland
Pascal Laugier was born on October 16, 1971 in France. He is a director and writer, known for Incident in a Ghostland (2018), Martyrs (2008) and The Tall Man (2012).
4. Leos Carax
Director | Holy Motors
Leos Carax made several short films and also wrote film criticism, then at the age of 24 years made a very strong first feature Boy Meets Girl (1984). The film played at the 1984 Cannes film festival and was a critical triumph. It paved the way for Carax's second feature Bad Blood (1986) (Bad Blood...
5. Vincent Gallo
Actor | Buffalo '66
Vincent Gallo. American-born, Buffalo, New York, 1961. Left home, moved to New York City in 1978, and began playing in the experimental musical group, Gray, with artist Jean Michel Basquiat. After leaving Gray, he formed the band, Bohack, and recorded the highly regarded avant-garde industrial ...
6. Sarah Polley
Actress | My Life Without Me
Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her ...
7. Jacob Tierney
Actor | The Trotsky
Jacob Daniel Tierney (Born On September 26, 1979 In Montréal Québec, Canada) Is a Canadian-American Actor, Voice Actor, Voice Casting, Voice Director, Singer, Loop Group Actor, Producer And Director. He Was Born On September 26, 1979 In Montréal Québec, Canada. To The Family Terry Tierney And His ...
8. Michael Matteo Rossi
Producer | Chase
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Michael has extensively been involved in writing, producing and directing and actively been involved in film projects for the last few years. At 19, Michael went on to have his first short film, Our Lost Translation, screened at the LA Shorts Fest. After completing ...
9. Lars von Trier
Writer | Dancer in the Dark
Probably the most ambitious and visually distinctive filmmaker to emerge from Denmark since Carl Theodor Dreyer over 60 years earlier, Lars von Trier studied film at the Danish Film School and attracted international attention with his very first feature, The Element of Crime (1984). A highly ...
10. Alexandre Aja
Director | Haute tension
Alexandre Aja was born on August 7, 1978 in Paris, France. He is a producer and director, known for High Tension (2003), The Hills Have Eyes (2006) and Piranha 3D (2010). He is married to Laïla Marrakchi.
11. Anthony C. Ferrante
Director | Sharknado
Anthony C. Ferrante was born in Antioch, California, USA. He is a director and writer, known for Sharknado (2013), Nix (2022) and Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch (2023).
12. Sean Durkin
Director | Martha Marcy May Marlene
Sean Durkin was born on December 9, 1981 in Canada. He is a producer and director, known for Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), The Nest (2020) and The Iron Claw (2023).
13. Destin Daniel Cretton
Director | Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Destin Daniel Cretton is an American filmmaker, writer and producer from Haiku, Hawaii. He is known for directing The Glass Castle, I Am Not a Hipster, Short Term 12, Just Mercy and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. He is the second Asian-American filmmaker to direct a Marvel film ...
14. David Lynch
Writer | Twin Peaks
Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future ...
15. Ruggero Deodato
Director | Deathcember
Ruggero Deodato was born on May 7, 1939, in Potenza, Italy, and grew up outside Rome. One of his close friends at the time was Renzo Rossellini, the son of famed Italian director Roberto Rossellini. Knowing Ruggerio's love for the movies, Renzo persuaded him to work as a second unit director on ...
16. Eli Roth
Producer | Thanksgiving
Eli Raphael Roth was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to Cora (Bialis), a painter, and Sheldon H. Roth, a psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and clinical professor. His family is Jewish (from Austria, Hungary, Russia, and Poland). He began shooting Super 8 films at the age of eight; after watching Ridley ...
17. Brad Anderson
Director | Session 9
Brad Anderson was born in 1964 in Madison, Connecticut, USA. He is a director and producer, known for Session 9 (2001), The Machinist (2004) and Transsiberian (2008).
18. Nicolas Winding Refn
Writer | The Neon Demon
Writer, director, and producer Nicolas Winding Refn was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1970, to Anders Refn, a film director and editor, and Vibeke Winding (née Tuxen), a cinematographer. Just before he turned 11, in 1981, he moved to New York with his parents, where he lived out his teen years. ...
19. Tom Six
Director | The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
Tom Six was born on August 29, 1973 in Alkmaar, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. He is a director and writer, known for The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009), The Human Centipede III (Final Sequence) (2015) and The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) (2011).
20. Meir Zarchi
Producer | Day of the Woman
Meir is a filmmaker most known for I Spit on Your Grave (1978) about one woman and a group of maniacs. In 2010, Steven R. Monroe directed the remake I Spit on Your Grave (2010) starring Sarah Butler & Jeff Branson. Meir executive produced the film and was an associate producer for the remake as ...
21. Rémy Belvaux
Actor | C'est arrivé près de chez vous
Rémy Belvaux was born on November 10, 1966 in Namur, Wallonia, Belgium. He was an actor and writer, known for Man Bites Dog (1992), Pas de C4 pour Daniel Daniel (1987) and Génération Raymond (1990). He died on September 4, 2006 in Orry-la-Ville, Oise, France.
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