What does it take to be a great movie director? Obviously you need a style all your own that still maintains a mass appeal if you want to do it more than once. An unswerving belief in yourself and the ability to draw great performances about of temperamental actors are also a plus.

Even with all that, it still takes time to fully develop your directing chops. You have to pay your dues, working your way up from fledgling indie novice to all-conquering auteur. Sometimes, a director's debut effort might give us the slightest whiff of the greatness to follow, but more often than not they will, at best, serve as lessons on what not to do.

And then there's the people on our list. The ones who hit the ground running so fast on their first attemp that they left us all wondering what the hell just happened. For some it was a springboard to even greater success, for others it was the high point in a subsequently underwhelming career. For others still it would be their last time behind the camera. These are all, in their own way, masterpieces.

Enjoy our list of the 15 Best First Movies By Great Directors.

15. The Babadook - Jennifer Kent

Based on her own 2005 short film Monster, first-time feature director Jennifer Kent manages to take the familiar trope of the malevolent children's fairytale character and inject it with a fresh and genuinely scary originality.

Deeply troubled single mother Amelia, still grieving the loss of her husband after six years, is struggling to raise her son Samuel. Plagued by hallucinations of the terrifying monster from a picture book, Samuel's behavior is starting to spiral out of control. Convinced that the monster, Mr. Babadook, is coming to kill them all, the boy's behaviour turns increasingly violent and erratic until Amelia is forced to medicate him. But, after a series of chilling glimpses of a sinister presence around her, she starts to wonder if her son was on to something.

Part psychological thriller, part all-out horror movie, first-timer Kent directs with an incredible flair and maturity. Citing inspirations as wide ranging as The Thing and Let The Right One In, as well as the influences of Roman Polanski and Georges Méliès, The Babadook has moments of real pee-in-your-pants fear. Highly praised by critics on its release, perhaps the highest accolade came from The Exorcist director William Friedkin when he said he'd, "never seen a more terrifying film."

14. Hunger - Steve McQueen

A harrowing, devastating assault on the senses, artist-turned-director Steve McQueen's debut feature film Hunger documents the hunger strike of IRA prisoner Bobby Sands in 1981. Refused political status by the British government, Sands leads a group of fellow inmates of the notorious Maze prison in Northern Ireland in a series of protests. Refusing to wash or wear prison issue uniforms, the convicts smear the walls and floors of their cells in their own feces and suffer vicious beatings by the guards.

Much of the movie es with minimal dialogue, which makes the scene between Sands and his priest halfway through especially intense. The static 17-minute sequence, filmed in one shot, shows the priest desperately trying to appeal to Sands' sense of duty to his family and talk him out of the approaching hunger strike that will eventually take his life and the lives of nine of his comrades.

McQueen's film impressively refuses to take sides on the complex issue of the Irish Troubles, but instead becomes a deeply affecting story of sacrifice, with the rapid decline of Sands proving incredibly gruelling to watch. Star Michael Fassbender shed a total of 42 pounds in his portrayal of Sands, who eventually succumbed after 66 days.

13. Mad Max - George Miller

Non-existent budgets and first time directors lead to more classic movies than logic would suggest possible. Replacing money with hunger and experience with ion sometimes produces films with so much ingenuity and raw energy, they can create legends. Mad Max is one such example. Spawning a phenomenally successful franchise, including 2015's triumphant Fury Road, the original Mad Max was so low on funding that some of the crew were paid in beer. Going on to rake in over $100m from its $350,000 production budget, it held the title of most profitable movie of all time for nearly 20 years.

First time director George Miller brings us his nihilistic vision of a pre-apocalyptic society on the verge of collapsing into total anarchy, with savage motorcycle gangs terrorizing the few good people left. An unknown, but shortly to become stratospheric Mel Gibson plays Max Rockatansky, a world-weary and jaded police officer, doing his best in a losing battle to uphold what remains of law and order.

While it looks and feels like a movie with no budget, Miller handles the direction with a masterly touch. Amid the action and violence, he brings also a tenderness between Max and his family that lifts the movie above standard B-movie fare.

12. American Beauty - Sam Mendes

Although highly successful directing theatre productions such as Oliver and Caberet, Sam Mendes was only considered to bring writer Alan Ball's American Beauty to the screen after it had been ed on by twenty other film directors. ing a very short list of people who won an Oscar on their first time behind the camera, Mendes beat another directing debutant that year—Spike Jonze for Being John Malkovich.

Frustrated advertising executive Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is in the grip of a full-blown midlife crisis. His neurotic shrew of a wife is having an affair. His daughter is dating the weed-dealing neighbour and Lester has become infatuated by one of her beautiful but vapid friends. When his boss tries to lay him off, Lester instead blackmails the man for $60,000, buys a sports car, and takes a job flipping burgers.

There has been endless discussion about the themes and message behind American Beauty, with even its writer and director unable to agree on what it all means. Mendes himself itted the script seemed to be about something new each time he read it. What most acknowledge is the  adept handling by the first-time feature director, with Mendes making full use of his theatrical background. With very little camera movement throughout, the static and peaceful cinematography contrasts vividly with the sometimes violent onscreen action.

11. Night of the Hunter - Charles Laughton

Although it was given such a critical lashing upon its release that its director Charles Laughton vowed never to set foot behind the camera again, Night of the Hunter has since become a bona fide classic and a movie that only seems to improve with age.

Its style of stark expressionism and good versus evil morality harks back to the silent era of cinema that makes it somehow dated but still timeless—and perhaps too far ahead of its time in 1955.

The story follows Robert Mitchum in a career-best performance as a vengeful preacher, ingratiating himself into the lives of a widow and her children as he searches for the money their criminal father has hidden somewhere on their property. Eventually fleeing into the night, the children are pursued relentlessly by the evil reverend after he murders their mother.

The highly stylized quality of the film, the spell-binding portrayal of evil by Mitchum, and the assured handling by Laughton on his one and only outing as director, ranks Night of the Hunter as not only one of the best debuts, but one of the most effective and impressively crafted movies of all time.

10. The Virgin Suicides - Sofia Coppola

With the lineage of Hollywood royalty, Sofia Coppola's debut was always going to be scrutinized by critics to see how far, if at all, the apple had fallen from the tree. That she chose to adapt an almost unfilmable novel points to her being a risk-taker as confident in her own abilities as her legendary father.

Hauntingly memorable, The Virgin Suicides tells the story of a seemingly contented middle-class suburban family. It follows devoutly religious mom, hen-pecked dad, and their five beautiful daughters whose lives are torn apart following the suicide of the youngest girl, Cecilia. The remaining sisters, who've become the objects of obsession for a group of neighbourhood boys, are kept in total isolation by their now overly protective and increasingly paranoid parents. The repression of the girl's freedom eventually leads to unspeakable tragedy.

Coppola manages to mix gentle humour into the melancholy and perfectly captures the anxieties and awkwardness of her subjects-- the boys as well as the girls. She directs with the subtle delicacy that she brought to her later movies, most noticeably the Oscar-winning Lost in Translation. It's a brilliantly assured debut from a true visionary.

9. Clerks - Kevin Smith

One of the warmest depictions of Generation X's crippling angst, Clerks launched the career of a 23-year old Kevin Smith and introduced the world to slacker anti-heroes Jay and Silent Bob.

Filmed at night in the convenience store in which Smith was working and funded by ten of his maxed-out credit cards, the movie was shot on a $23,000 budget and populated with a ing cast of family and friends, some of whom played four different customers.

Shot entirely in black and white, the story presents a day in the life of two disaffected store clerks, their various trials, and anxieties. Dialogue-heavy, with brilliantly astute observations on everything from sex to relationships to whether the destruction of the unfinished Death Star in Return of the Jedi took the lives of innocent contractors, the movie rang almost too true with twenty-somethings in the '90s.

Smith has since gone on to bring us enjoyable movies such as Chasing Amy and Dogma, but nothing has captured the raw energy of his first outing.

8. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Tobe Hooper

One of the most influential horror movies of all time, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is counted alongside Psycho as being at the very pinnacle of the slasher subgenre. Ironically both movies were inspired by the same serial killer, Ed Gein.

The cultural impact of the movie has been intense and far-reaching—the isolated group in the abandoned house has since become a staple device in horror plots and Leatherface stands with Freddie Krueger and Jason Vorhees as one of the most iconic figures of horror. It's been identified as an inspiration by directors such as Ridley Scott for Alien and Sam Raimi for The Evil Dead.

Chainsaw director Tobe Hooper started his career as a documentary cameraman, with much of the cinematography in his most famous creation reflecting his early training. The shaky, predominately hand-held footage only adds to the unrelenting insanity, never giving the audience a chance to take a breath. It's a ceaseless onslaught that still has the power to shock, some 40 years after its release.

Spawning a slew of remakes and sequels, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a groundbreaking landmark in movie history.

7. The Evil Dead - Sam Raimi

The horror-comedy that introduced us to B-movie megastar Bruce Campbell and his chin, The Evil Dead also marked the explosive debut of one of the film world's most innovative directors in Sam Raimi.

Barely out of film school, Raimi secured funding for his first feature by producing a short film called Within The Woods to show potential investors. Only succeeding in scraping together $90,000 forced the 20-year old to get inventive, which gives The Evil Dead its singular style. Unable to afford anything in the way of conventional shooting rigs, Raimi came up with his own version of the Steadicam, called the Shaky Cam. Nothing more than a camera running at 18fps bolted to a 2x4, the Shaky Cam would be run through the woods by two operators to create the effect of the malevolent supernatural force chasing the innocent and hapless victims.

Controversial upon its release for its graphic violence and gore as well as one particular scene involving a tree, the movie went on to garner an enormous cult following. Thanks in part to a glowing review by Stephen King, its reputation was also greatly enhanced by being banned from video release in the UK, which did more for its popularity than any marketing campaign could have ever achieved.

6. The Shawshank Redemption - Frank Darabont

A self-confessed "rabid" Stephen King fan, director Frank Darabont secured the film rights to the author's short story "Rita Heyworth and the Shawshank Redemption" in 1987 for the princely sum of $1. Having already adapted another of King's novellas into the short film The Woman in the Room in 1983, Darabont became one of the affectionately titled "Dollar Babies", the group of aspiring filmmakers and students whom King would authorize to bring his work to the screen for the nominal fee.

The story of hope, integrity, and resilience in the face of insurmountable odds struck such a universal chord with movie goers that it continuously rates among the greatest films ever made. With Darabont's effortlessly assured direction of his own adapted script, along with the obvious chemistry between the two leads, Shawshank is one of the most accomplished debuts ever.

A mystifying box-office flop on its release, The Shawshank Redemption now sits comfortably alongside The Shining as one of the very best cinematic versions of King's work, and the writer's favourite to date.