The Wachowskis have frankly never matched or surpassed that first Matrix film, with the three sequels falling into near-incoherence and, in the case of the latest one (The Matrix Resurrections, directed solely by Lana), pointlessness. They scored again with the dystopian V for Vendetta (2006), but while Speed Racer (2008), Cloud Atlas (2012), and Jupiter Ascending (2015) all have their merits, chiefly in terms of visual splendor, they’ve all been ambitious misfires.
Christopher Nolan
“A film by Christopher Nolan” is now a brand unto itself, whatever genre this austere British filmmaker is working in, and it’s a brand that promises (and almost always delivers) incredible visual imagery, nonlinear, experimental narratives, an attention to detail bordering on the fanatical, and a cerebral, reserved, yet still explosive approach to wellworn genre tropes. While he permanently changed the superhero genre with his Dark Knight trilogy, Nolan has also made a tremendous impact on science fiction.
His first foray into the genre, an adaptation of the steampunk novel The Prestige (2006), captured the flavor of that subgenre perfectly, while Inception (2010) explored the workings of the inner mind within the framework of a 007-style action thriller. 2014’s Interstellar has seen its reputation as one of the few space films worthy to stand next to 2001 only grow, and while we still can’t wrap our head fully around Tenet (2020), it was clearly made with the same care and scope that Nolan brings to all his films. Even Oppenheimer (2023) creates a sense of both wonder and terror over the awesome power that the title character helps unlock. We eagerly await what’s next from one of our finest modern directors.
Denis Villeneuve
Who woulda thunk that this French-Canadian director, who started off his career with a string of festival-bait indie psychological dramas, would become arguably the leading proponent of adapting intense, difficult, literary science fiction to the screen? Villeneuve gave his first indication that something was up with 2014’s Enemy, a surreal thriller about a man and his double that defied easy categorization and channeled bits of Davids Lynch and Cronenberg. But Arrival (2016), based on a story by acclaimed sci-fi writer Ted Chiang, signaled Villeneuve’s true passion for the genre. A moving tale of time, language, alien contact, and loss, it instantly became one of the best sci-fi films of the 21st century.
Villeneuve hasn’t stopped since either. Blade Runner 2049 (2017), while a bust with audiences, was a genuine attempt to expand on the original’s ideas and atmosphere. But it was his adaptation of Dune in 2021—a legendary book filmed twice previously with mixed-to-catastrophic results—that has firmly planted Villeneuve at the leading edge of the genre. Dune: Part Two is next and looks just as amazing (and will hopefully allow him to finish with an adaptation of Dune Messiah), and we hear he wants to tackle Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama after he finally departs Arrakis. If anyone can do it, it’s Villeneuve.
Alex Garland
Along with Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan, Alex Garland represents a generation of filmmakers who grew up reading sci-fi, seeing seminal genre films in their youth, and embracing it as a genuine way to explore serious themes and subjects, and not just load up the screen with special effects and laser beams. Garland’s work as a screenwriter on 28 Days Later (2002), Never Let Me Go (2010), and Dredd (2012) is sterling, and when he made the jump to directing, he did it in style as well. His original Ex Machina (2015) is a gem while his adaptation of the novel Annihilation (2018) was an effectively eerie translation of difficult material.
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