As movie studios are putting their trust in to original movies less and less, Netflix has come to the rescue, giving some of the greatest living directors a platform to showcase their original work and to all intents and purposes, writing them blank checks.
Netflix have seemingly thrown a net in to Hollywood and pulled in some of the greatest filmmakers of our generation. Between the greatest gangster director of all time, irreverent and self-loathing auteurs, and the greatest politically motivated filmmaker of the 21st century, Netflix has quickly grown an incredible portfolio of collaborators. And now, most surprising of all, David Lynch has been added to the ever increasing list.
10 David Lynch
As David Lynch is a mysterious man, the details surrounding his upcoming project for Netflix are almost non-existent. All people know for sure is that the project’s working title is Wysteria, but they don’t even know if it’ll be a movie or a TV show, as Lynch has crafted both in his career, with movies like Mulholland Drive and the captivating, boundary pushing TV show, Twin Peaks. If it is a movie, it’s time to get excited, as the creative genius hasn’t put out a feature length film since 2006’s Inland Empire.
9 Fernando Meirelles
Fernando Meirelles’ name isn’t mentioned as much as the likes of Martin Scorsese or David Fincher, but the Argentinian director is one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of the 21st century, has been nominated for several Academy Awards, and directed City of God, which is in the top 30 movies on IMDb. The Two Popes, his first Netflix original, is one of the best films of 2019, and it brought Meirelles back in to the conversation of great directors after he had gone through somewhat of a quiet phase in his career.
8 Charlie Kaufman
In the late 90s, Charlie Kaufman quickly became one of the most sought after screenwriters of the time, and that success continued in the 2000s, as he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
His movies feature protagonists often based on himself, as they’re usually self-loathing and down trodden, and his films mix fantasy and reality in extraordinarily depressing ways. I’m Thinking of Ending Things is typically Kaufman-esq, and as few studios daren’t risk giving the auteur a budget, Netlfix funded this irreverent picture that he expertly directed.
7 David Fincher
Usually, Directors seem to turn to Netflix as a last resort, as the company is so willing to dish out blank checks for passion projects where no other studio would.
Because of this, it comes as a surprise that David Fincher directed Mank for the streaming platform, as most of his last few films (The Social Network, Gone Girl) have been massive box office hits and any other studio would undoubtedly give him free reign, just as they have in the past. Nevertheless, not only did Fincher direct one of the best biopics of 2020 for the service, but he’s also signed an exclusive four year deal with Netflix.
6 Spike Lee
Being insanely productive and releasing the movie within just two years of his late-career highlight BlacKkKlansman, Da 5 Bloods puts Lee on an incredible roll. It’s no surprise why Lee made the jump to Netflix, as the company gave the director a budget of up to $45 million for the movie. That number is three times as much as the budget of BlacKkKlansman, and no other studio would have dared risk that much money on a Vietnam war movie with some very relevant overarching social and political themes. But the result is arguably the best Vietnam war movie ever.
5 Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Sorkin is typically best known for his screenplays more than for his directing, as he has penned classics such as A Few Good Men and The Social Network. However, in 2017, Sorkin took to directing like a duck to water with Molly’s Game, and with the newly released The Trial of the Chicago 7, which is being called the greatest movie of 2020 by many, the writer is now just as great of a director as he is a writer. On top of that, the movie is full of incredible performances.
4 Noah Baumbach
With Noah Baumbach movies not particularly being full of spectacle and certainly not the type of movie that would be screened in an IMAX theatre, his depressingly realistic and humdrum portrayals of every day life are perfect for the Netflix format.
On top of that, it’ll be readily available to an audience of millions, as Baumbach’s movies can be typically hard to market. And that could be said for Marriage Story too, but as it was a Netflix original, it was insanely popular and ended up becoming one of the best Netflix original movies.
3 The Coen Brothers
Being possibly the most surprising of all the directors to have transitioned over to Netflix, as they make a huge effort in creating movies feel cinematic with a canon of films that have to be seen on the big screen, the Coen brothers were actually two of the first filmmakers to make the jump. Released in 2018, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is an anthology movie full of short vignettes, and the Coen brothers are on record as saying that they looked to Netflix because they knew they wouldn’t get funding from any other studio.
2 Alfonso Cuaron
As Alfonso Cuaron is another director who enjoys the scale that comes with screening movies on the big screen, as he’s the director of big sci-fi blockbusters such as Children of Men and Gravity, moving to Netflix felt a little off for the director. However, the project he was working on with the streaming service, Roma, was a more grounded and personal affair, and it’s one of the best black-and-white movies of the 2010s.
1 Martin Scorsese
Scorsese, at the ripe age of 78, is still way ahead of the curve than most other filmmakers, as he has shifted over to Netflix before many of his peers. Being the director of many tentpoles in American cinema, including Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas, it was shocking to hear that Scorsese was willing to make the move. Though it comes with an asterisk, as the director only agreed to shoot The Irishman, one of the best gangster movies of the past 15 years, for the service providing that it had a theatrical run, and Netflix couldn’t say “no” to Martin Scorsese.
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