Director: Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron was a journalist and essayist before screenwriting, and the prose instinct shows in dialogue that sounds like people avoiding the subject. When Harry Met Sally, which she wrote, is structured as a decade-long argument about whether the premise is true.

She directed Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail and Julie and Julia, all of which pair Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan or Meryl Streep with material about work as much as about love.

Her films are frequently dismissed as light, which underrates how difficult the register is. She was nominated for Best Original Screenplay three times.