Director: Sam Mendes

Sam Mendes came from British theatre, running the Donmar Warehouse, and won Best Director for his first film, American Beauty. The theatrical training shows in the blocking, which is precise to the point of being diagrammatic, and in a willingness to let a scene sit still.

Road to Perdition and Jarhead are both about men shaped by institutions they cannot leave, and Skyfall gave the Bond series its most emotionally serious entry by treating the character as aging and obsolete. 1917 is the technical outlier, staged to appear as a single continuous take across two hours.

He continues to direct for the stage between films, which is unusual at this level and probably explains the actors’ performances.