Directors who write their own movies have more control over the final product. This is perhaps why movies honored at major award shows frequently feature a single director/writer. However, it is not a perfect recipe for a masterpiece: The Fablemans (2022) is the only major movie directed by Steven Spielberg that Spielberg himself wrote, while Martin Scorsese also did not write some of his most famous movies.
When a director usually writes or co-writes their own movies, they typically become associated with a specific type of storytelling. If they have been successful, there will be a lot of anticipation in the lead-up to their next movie. By repeatedly writing and directing certain movies, some of the most celebrated directors in Hollywood have built a kind of mythos surrounding them and their works.
11 Sofia Coppola
Known For: Priscilla, The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, Lost In Translation
Sofia Coppola’s latest movie Priscilla (2023), adapted from the memoir of Priscilla Presley, is the latest in Coppola’s repertoire of movies exploring the complex experience of girlhood. Priscilla may make Coppola an Oscars contender for the first time in 20 years. Coppola’s other famous biopic, Marie Antoinette (2006), emphasizes that the ill-fated queen of France was a teenager at her marriage. Her first movie, The Virgin Suicides (1999), is about five sheltered sisters in 1970s suburban Detroit. However, Coppola won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation (2003), depicting the relationship between an older has-been movie star and a younger woman.
Related
8 Best Sofia Coppola Movies
Sofia Coppola’s latest film, Priscilla, is set to hit theaters in November. The director has a number of great films to explore before the release.
10 Christopher Nolan
Known For: Oppenheimer, Dunkirk, Inception, The Dark Knight Trilogy
Christopher Nolan’s movies are all similar in their intense tone if not subject, comprising a blend of thrilling science fiction, biopics, and morally gray heroism. In addition to his most famous movies, he also directed and wrote the time-travel thriller Tenet (2020), the space exploration adventure Interstellar (2014), and the murder mystery Memento (2000). Nolan has been nominated at the Oscars for his directing and screenplays for Dunkirk (2017), Inception (2010), and Memento, but everyone is waiting to see if he finally wins for Oppenheimer (2023).
9 James Cameron
Known For: Avatar, Terminator, Titanic
James Cameron is known for big storytelling. Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009) include massive, detailed production designs. Cameron also waited a decade to make Avatar because the technology available at the time was unable to capture his vision, and then waited many more years for Weta’s water CGI software to make Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). One of the biggest questions for the next Avatar movie is how Cameron and his team will top what they have done before in production design and CGI.
8 Barry Jenkins
Known For: Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk
Barry Jenkins’ first feature-length picture was Medicine for Melancholy (2008), but his true breakout was Best Pitcure-winner Moonlight (2016), showing the coming-of-age of a queer Black man in Miami. Jenkins received another Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), about a pregnant woman who tries to prove the innocence of the father of her child. Jenkins also worked as a writer and director for the TV miniseries The Underground Railroad (2021) and was a producer for Aftersun (2022). There was a gap of eight years between Medicine for Melancholy and Moonlight, so Jenkins still might return to feature-length movies in the future.
7 Quentin Tarantino
Known For: Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Inglourious Basterds, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Quentin Tarantino is famous for his violently bizarre action movies that sometimes feature an element of alternate history, and he is a regular at the Oscars. His breakthrough movie Reservoir Dogs (1992) is about a jewelry heist gone wrong and a criminal gang of survivors who descend into chaos, believing that one of them must be an informant. Tarantino’s most recent movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), depicts a version of events where a famous actor and his stuntman inadvertently prevent the murder of Sharon Tate.
6 Emerald Fennell
Known For: Promising Young Woman, Saltburn
Both of Emerald Fennell’s major movies, Promising Young Woman (2020) and Saltburn (2023), offer commentary on university life. The former was highly acclaimed as a visceral depiction of the willingness of college administrators to ignore cases of sexual assault, focusing on a fictional woman avenging her friend who was raped while in medical school. Fennell also worked as a writer on the show Killing Eve and plays Camilla Parker Bowles in seasons 3 and 4 of The Crown.
Related
Promising Young Woman Ending Twists & Real Meaning Explained
Promising Young Woman is an incendiary psychological thriller from first-time director Emerald Fennell, but what does the movie’s ending mean?
5 Jordan Peele
Known For: Get Out, Nope, Us
Jordan Peele’s breakthrough movie Get Out (2017) was one of the stars of the 90th Academy Awards. The movie is about a young Black man meeting his white girlfriend’s parents, only to discover the family is running a horrific kidnapping and modern slavery business. Peele made history as the first Black person to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Since Get Out, Peele has continued to work on horror movies with Nope (2022) and Us (2019). He has so far only directed movies that he has written, although he has worked as a writer on other projects. Peele has another untitled movie scheduled for 2024.
4 Hayao Miyazaki
Known For: Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke
Hayao Miyazaki is one of the founders and main creative minds behind Studio Ghibli, one of the last bastions of 2D animation in pop culture. Miyazaki has only ever been nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars for The Wind Rises (2013) and Howl’s Moving Castle (2005), winning for Spirited Away (2001). He wrote and directed many more beloved Ghibli movies, including Ponyo (2008), Castle in the Sky (1986), and the studio’s most recent movie, The Boy and the Heron (2023). Ghibli’s movies often feature soft, watercolor worlds and themes of environmentalism and pacifism.
Related
Every Studio Ghibli Movie, Ranked Worst To Best
From beginning to end, we’re taking a look at the vast and beautiful filmography of Studio Ghibli, ranked from worst to best.
3 Bong Joon-ho
Known For: Parasite, Okja, Snowpiercer
Bong Joon-ho writes and directs sophisticated commentary on social class, sometimes including elements of dark comedy. He first made his mark with The Host (2006) and Mother (2009), the latter receiving much acclaim at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. His first English-language movie Snowpiercer (2013) is set in a futuristic world where a climate crisis has killed most of humanity and the survivors live in a strict hierarchy on board a train. Joon-ho then saw massive success at the Oscars for Parasite (2019). His upcoming movies include an untitled animated project with no confirmed release date and Mickey 17 (2024), a sci-fi movie with plot details currently under wraps.
2 Guillermo del Toro
Known For: Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape Of Water, Pacific Rim, Hellboy
Guillermo del Toro writes and directs whimsical movies with elements of horror and psychological mystery. Del Toro has been nominated and won Oscars for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022), Nightmare Alley (2021), The Shape of Water (2017), and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006). His upcoming movies include an adaptation of a classic monster story, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, starring Oscar Isaac, Andrew Garfield, Mia Goth, and Christopher Waltz. Del Toro is also working on an adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant. Both upcoming movies are in pre-production with no confirmed release date.
Related
Every Guillermo Del Toro Movie Ranked Worst To Best
From Cronos to The Shape of Water, here’s our official ranking of every movie made by visionary director Guillermo del Toro, from worst to best.
1 Greta Gerwig
Known For: Barbie, Little Women, Lady Bird
Greta Gerwig rose to fame writing and directing narratives about young women’s coming-of-age. She worked in this genre before she became known as a director: Gerwig starred in Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha (2012), which she co-wrote with Baumbach. Gerwig has now been recruited to write and direct at least two movies in Netflix’s reboot of The Chronicles of Narnia. This project represents a genre shift for Gerwig, although Barbie (2023) could arguably be categorized as fantasy. Yet being able to challenge oneself with different projects is the mark of a good director/writer.
