Director: Michael Bay

Michael Bay came from commercials and music videos and built a style so consistent it is used as a verb. Low circling camera, golden hour backlight, hard cuts, military hardware shot as heroic sculpture, and a refusal to hold any shot longer than necessary.

Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon and the Transformers series made enormous amounts of money while being critically dismissed almost without exception. Pain and Gain is the interesting outlier, a small nasty true-crime comedy where the style suits the material.

He has been unusually candid that he makes films for audiences and not for critics, and the box office record supports the position.