The longer theaters and other businesses remain closed as the country continues to march through our temporary normal amid the coronavirus pandemic, the more attractive it becomes to look forward to what lies beyond.
For moviegoers, that might mean an extra tinge of excitement over a new trailer or set photo that we might not have felt otherwise, as the year's movie calendar now looks drastically different than it did three months ago. You could say that Thanos snapped his fingers and eviscerated the summer movie season.
You could say that.
Despite how the story of cinema in 2020 turned out, and perhaps also because of it, it's as good a time as ever to look ahead to what directors might make major names of themselves in the coming decade as it gets underway, like we did with actors last week.
You most likely already know about some major young filmmakers – Jordan Peele, Greta Gerwig and the Safdie Brothers, for example – so we're focusing on a handful of lesser-known names that have already turned some heads in the early stages of their career, as well as including an essential watch for each that you can stream or rent this weekend.
Trey Edward Schults
Through three features (“Krisha,” “It Comes At Night” and “Waves”), 31-year-old Trey Edward Shults hasn’t just staked an interest in emotionally-fraught domestic dramas; he’s purged audiences of any notion that they’ll be watching from a safe distance. Like the Safdies, Shults has a knack for claustrophobic storytelling, for using the camera as an almost deadly-curious tool to probe the minds of paranoid protagonists with frenzied energy and uneasy inevitability. The aesthetic can sometimes overwhelm the story, but it’s a style that feels indicative of what’s to come from a generation that grew up on Vine and Tik Tok.
The essential watch: “Krisha,” available to stream on Netflix and Kanopy.
Jennifer Kent
Two of the more uncompromising movies in recent memory have come by way of Australia filmmaker Jennifer Kent’s visceral vision. The emotionally-intelligent horror of “The Babadook” stands out in a decade stuffed with emotionally-intelligent horror, and Kent’s brutal examination of colonial prejudice, 2019’s “The Nightingale,” is the kind of no-easy-answers paradigm that feels destined to grow in esteem and conversation as time rolls on. Kent’s early films didn’t puncture the mainstream, but in the event that she does in the coming years (and she currently has two movies in development), it’s inevitable that the discourse will center on what’s proven to be a bold voice in international cinema.
The essential watch: “The Babadook,” available to rent on Amazon Prime Video.
Joe Talbot
One of 2019’s most visually sumptuous films was also one of its most under-seen. “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” was an impressively radiant feature debut for its writer-director, Joe Talbot, and a movie that shepherds commentary as weighty as history itself in the skin of an ostensibly nondescript friendship between two young men in San Francisco. Talbot hasn’t announced a follow-up project to “Last Black Man” as of yet, but it’s exciting to think about the leap he could make when his directorial bow pulsed with the sun-drenched melancholy of a seasoned storyteller.
The essential watch: “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and Kanopy.
Chloé Zhao
It’s one thing to pluck the zany Taika Waititi or James Gunn from relative obscurity to take the reins on a Marvel franchise. It’s another thing entirely to enlist the director behind one of the most meditative American dramas of the past five years to help lead the way through a post-“Avengers: Endgame” world. Chloé Zhao’s spectacle-in-waiting “Eternals” (and its Avengers-rivaling lineup) arrives in less than a year, and whether Marvel will let the director of “The Rider” run wild with creative license in the next phase of its world domination feels like less of a sure bet than the project will skyrocket Zhao into household-name status. Or at least close to it.
Meanwhile, for the rest of us hoping that Zhao’s Marvel venture won’t mean the end of more intimate dramas from the Chinese filmmaker, there’s “Nomadland,” which stars Frances McDormand “in a new vision of the American West.” In other words, it’s right up Zhao’s alley.
The essential watch: “The Rider,” available for streaming on STARZ and for rent elsewhere.
Leigh Whannell
What do you do with a director whose last two movies have exceeded expectations as confident genre entries that dig their nails under familiar sci-fi concepts to find something grungier, grittier and bitingly visceral? How about giving him the keys to one of John Carpenter’s grungiest, grittiest ‘80s properties? “Upgrade” and “The Invisible Man” director Leigh Whannell’s knack for constructing sequences of gory thrills should come in handy for his take on “Escape From New York,” which continues the Australian filmmaker’s steady progression in box office potential and pop culture cachet. The 2020s may very well see him get to the same place as fellow “Saw” alum James Wan: A DC or Marvel Studios gig.
The essential watch: “Upgrade,” available to stream on HBO.
David Robert Mitchell
I’m inclined to think David Robert Mitchell has the stuff to direct a bona-fide new American classic. I’m also inclined to think he’s perhaps already made two of them. 2014’s “It Follows” is a rich text of strange, agonizingly patient terror, while 2018’s “Under the Silver Lake” is as close to a contemporary cult classic as anything yesterdecade brought us—a Russian nesting doll with overflowing layers of cultural homage and sleuthy cinematic appeal. Where his genre interests will take him next is anyone’s guess, but we can probably expect it to be another galaxy-brain blend of narrative WTFness and alluring commentary. Keep an eye on whatever he’s attached to.
The essential watch: “It Follows,” available for rent on VOD.
Nia DaCosta
“Little Woods” was a stunning feature debut for Nia DaCosta, and her follow-up – a revival of the 1992 horror “Candyman” – has provided one of the year’s more rewatchable trailers so far, buoyed by a perfectly creepy use of “Destiny’s Child” and a candy-corn Halloween aesthetic. The early marketing feels of apiece with recent lower-budget fare a la Blumhouse as well as the sensibilities of executive producer Jordan Peele—solid indications of another early-career success for DaCosta, and perhaps a sign of even greater things to come.
The essential watch: “Little Woods,” available to stream on Hulu.
Robert Eggers
Perhaps you’ve heard of him? One of a trio of devilish young directors who debuted in the realm of horror and unleashed follow-ups in 2019 – along with Jordan Peele and Ari Aster – Eggers is a filmmaker motivated by the psychological consequences of isolation (making “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” either perfect or perfectly disturbing viewing for our current moment). He’s got an affinity for mischievous animals and the dark side of temptation, but also for striking Bergman-esque visions and leaving his audiences feeling a bit less jovial than two hours before.
He’s also the only one out of the aforementioned trio to have his next directorial effort lined up: A star-studded Viking revenge epic called “The Northman” that continues in his tradition of simple titles, but also a movie Eggers is touting as much larger in scope than his first two features.
The essential watch: “The Witch,” available to stream on Netflix and Kanopy.
And might the 2020s herald a triumphant crossover from TV?
These days it’s more common for established Hollywood directors to be attracted to a project for the small screen, but there’s still the occasional JJ Abrams or Joss Whedon—TV showrunners who prove their mettle and go on to direct major movies.
Like the current output of TV and streaming programming, the list of candidates who might make that leap in the next decade is endless. “Mr. Robot” and “Homecoming” creator Sam Esmail is attached to an upcoming miniseries production of Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi staple “Metropolis”; could those sensibilities draw him further into the real of movies? What about Craig Mazin, whose “Chernobyl” is one of HBO’s most hauntingly cinematic offerings this side of “Game of Thrones? He’s following it up with an adaptation of the megapopular “The Last of Us”—a post-apocalyptic world and story equally as grim.
There’s also “Russian Doll’s” Leslye Headland, who Variety reported this week will lead a new “Star Wars” series for Disney+. Might that translate into Headland becoming the first female director of a film set in a galaxy far, far away down the line? Or, in a Hollywood landscape starved for comedy success, could the teams behind “Modern Family,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Fleabag” have something to say for the genre’s survival?
They’re exciting possibilities to consider—just as exciting is remembering that there will be burgeoning industry talents who emerge in 2020 and beyond whose names we don’t yet know.
