Director: Brian De Palma

Brian De Palma has spent fifty years borrowing openly from Hitchcock and being accused of theft for it, which misses that the borrowing is the argument. Sisters, Obsession, Dressed to Kill and Body Double all take a Hitchcock structure and push it somewhere Hitchcock would not have gone.

The technical signature is the extended set piece: split screen, split diopter shots holding two focal planes at once, and long unbroken takes. The Untouchables staircase sequence and the Snake Eyes opening are the showpieces.

Carrie, Scarface, The Untouchables and Mission: Impossible are the commercial peaks. His work divides critics more sharply than almost any American director of his generation.