The F-List 
Film Directors
For sure, these picks represent the directorial equivalent of the slow-food movement: although still novice directors, Clooney, Jaoui, and Sachs are already in their 40s and the much younger Bujalski and Bonnell are just beginning to gain nationwide distribution, let alone recognition. But it's just this pace that has enabled these five to cultivate a mature naturalism that doesn't resort to adolescent tics or pious navel-gazing. With a lovely candor, their work philosophizes about the human condition rather than merely pandering to it. -Lisa Rosman
After helming 1996's
Delta,
Ira Sachs disappeared until this year's blessedly hushed
Forty Shades of Blue. A paean to Memphis R&B and lost souls everywhere, it boasts an Altman-like wandering eye and an emotional sophistication that heralds both a new era for Sachs' work and a new bar for American indies. -
Lisa Rosman
French actress-cum-director
Agnès Jaoui has already demonstrated a formidable aptitude for developing character-driven films with a keenly observed naturalism that's at once critical, comical, and strangely uplifting. A deftly executed funhouse mirror-hall of the vanities, Jaoui's sophomore film,
Look at Me (2004), demands we heed its tongue-in-cheek directive. -
Jocelyn K. Glei
A deft, low-key capture of the awkward and aimless "What now?" phase of life just after college,
Andrew Bujalski's
Funny Ha Ha is the film that
Reality Bites and
Kicking and Screaming tried to, but could never quite, be.
Mutual Appreciation, a
Williamsburgian follow-up to his debut feature, will (at last) be released this spring. -
Leigh Goldstein
A film lover's filmmaker, 28-year-old French wunderkind
Jérôme Bonnell sprinkles his films with tributes (stated and implied) to Chaplin, Keaton, and other silent-era greats. Blessed with a rhythm for purely visual storytelling, as well as a yakky intellect reminiscent of recent French maîtres (e.g.
Assayas,
Desplechin), Bonnell's films are joy-riddled larks streaked with loneliness — balletic and unforgettable. -
Leigh Goldstein
Ever since he doffed Dr. Ross' labcoat,
George Clooney has subverted his big-budget roots by aligning with neo-indie mavens like the Coen Brothers and Steven Soderbergh. In his second directorial effort,
Good Night, and Good Luck, he unveils elder-statesman potential with a winking restraint and —
quel un-Hollywood — politics on his new sleeve. -
Lisa Rosman
