From Emerald Fennell to Darius Marder, several debutant under banners like A24, a new wave of storytellers is being ushered in.
The horror genre, for instance, is flourishing despite the hegemony of auteurs like James Wan and Mike Flanagan. Several A24 releases in the last few years offered remarkable debuts to horror talents like Ari Aster, Rose Glass, and Robert Eggers. Some of these noteworthy debut directors have also achieved popularity way before the start of their directing career, including the likes of Jordan Peele, Greta Gerwig, and Regina King.
Emerald Fennell
Audiences might recognize Emerald Fennell from Season 4 of The Crown, in which she played Camilla Bowles. 2020 also marked her screenwriting and directing debut with the dark comedy/drama Promising Young Woman made headlines and garnered universal praise.
The ending surely polarized audiences but otherwise, unanimous acclaim has been generated for Fennel's debut. Currently, she's the only British woman to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar.
Jordan Peele
Along with his comedic partner Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele had gained popularity with his series of sketch comedies. The duo even acted in a feature film called Keanu, with other appearances like Epic Rap Battles of History in which Peele played Muhammad Ali.
No one could have guessed that the comedian would end up becoming one of Hollywood's hottest new filmmakers with two horror films under his belt. His debut Get Out was a sleeper hit boasting a unique socio-political tone of horror. It eventually won him an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. His sophomore effort Us was similarly an impactful horror with political undertones.
Greta Gerwig
In the same year as Peele's Oscar win, Great Gerwig was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for her debut feature Lady Bird. A coming-of-age drama, Lady Bird followed a simplistic approach to document a high-schooler's insecurities with friends and family. Rather than resorting to clichés, Lady Bird's raw, no-drama style of writing and direction was heavily praised.
Known for her acting roles in s Ha and 20th Century Women, Gerwig continued her directing career with a more ambitious release, an adaptation of Louis M Alcott's Little Women. The period romance/drama was similarly well-received and showed her versatility at switching genres.
Florian Zeller
French novelist and playwright took a leap towards directing with the Anthony Hopkins-starrer The Father. Adapted from his own play of the same name, Zeller weaved an intricately emotional story, attempting to recreate the life of an aged man dealing with dementia. The film is a moving portrait of old age without romanticizing any of the trauma that ensues.
Flawless editing is employed in the film while Zeller's screenplay fizzles the boundary between what is real and what is not (without relying on surrealism for shock value). Part real-life horror, part human drama, The Father marks Zeller as a talent to watch out for.
Radha Blank
Radha Blank's Sundance-winner The 40-Year-Old Version was arguably one of the freshest films of last year, showcasing her skills at acting, writing, directing, and even rapping. Even though it's her debut feature, one can see her mastery over her art as she presents an autobiographical, comedic story of her incoming mid-life crisis and her theatre career. Her character bears a certain naivety and charm that makes her all the more likable.
Before her breakthrough, Blank had served as a writer on Empire as well as She's Gotta Have It.
Ari Aster
Within no time, Ari Aster's first two films Midsommar have gained a loyal and committed fanbase, establishing their status as cult classics for the future. Ari Aster is easily one of those new-age directors who tend to employ more terror than actual horror. His films do employ disturbing imagery but not for cheap jump scares but to build an actual sense of human dread.
And despite the imagery, the performances of his lead actors like Toni Collette and Florence Pugh are noteworthy in adding to this fear. As both films continue to live in popular memory, Aster's future horror experimentations could add to his success.
Darius Marder
Even before Riz Ahmed's acting prowess, thanks to screen credits like The Night Of. However, the film managed to win over everyone not just because of Ahmed's committed performance but also Darius Marder's nuanced filmmaking. Having directed the 2008 documentary Loot, Sound of Metal marked his feature film debut.
The film deals with a drummer who loses his hearing and struggles to adjust to his new life. Much like what Florian Zeller did with The Father, Marder also prioritized empathy rather than sympathy in his exploration of the deaf community. Casting people from the deaf community as well as Children of Deaf Adults (CODA) like Oscar-nominee Paul Raci was another major step-up at normalizing the onscreen portrayal of people with disabilities.
Remi Weekes
After directing two short films earlier, Remi Weekes made his mainstream debut with the BAFTA-winning horror His House. The 33-year-old filmmaker received praise for tackling a highly-relevant immigrant issue, and blending it with folklore and horror conventions.
The 'haunted house' trope has oversaturated the horror genre over the years. The house in His House however is no mere creepy mansion. It is a shoddy government-mandated building for two South Sudanese refugees. As the protagonists struggle to adjust with their new life, a paranormal presence haunts them. With inventive storytelling and atmospheric world-building, Remi Weekes proved his ability to reinvent a familiar narrative.
Rose Glass
Another overdone horror element is to emphasize Christian rituals to ward off evil spirits. Rose Glass in her feature psychological horror, Saint Maud is a stunning debut. Fans of horror features like The Exorcist and Carrie would have a blast viewing this new-age take on such classic tales.
Glass was nominated for a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British, Writer, Director or Producer, but ended up losing to the aforementioned Remi Weekes.
Cathy Yan
Cathy Yan's debut Dead Pigs drew raves at Sundance in 2018 but was only finally released worldwide on Mubi in 2021. The Chinese-language comedy-drama was inspired by real-life incidents that Yan worked on as a journalist. The satire dealt with the sudden emergence of pig corpses at Shanghai; a grotesque sight in an otherwise-modern city. Parallel storylines and China's recent tryst with capitalism form the remainder of the story.
Yan, of course, went on to achieve further success after the best DCEU film, Birds of Prey still benefited greatly from its flashy aesthetics, action sequences, and Margot Robbie's ever-reliable portrayal of Harley Quinn.
