10) The Gift (Joel Edgerton)
You cannot overestimate what Joel Edgerton achieved with The Gift. As actor, writer, director and producer, Edgerton – on a measly $5 million budget – completed filming on the movie in a month, had completed editing on the film by June, and had the whole thing in cinemas in August. And he did all that on his first time behind the camera.
That The Gift turned out so great feels almost like just a welcome bonus. The movie is a remarkable achievement for a first-time filmmaker: a deliberately-paced, intelligent, at-times scary, at-other-times darkly comic thriller that features career-best work from all three principle actors (Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall, Edgerton himself). If this is what Edgerton managed on his first try, just imagine what he’ll be able to do going forward.
9) Zoolander (Ben Stiller)
It might be crude, it might be silly, but Zoolander is still one of the best comedies to come out of the studio system in recent times. (Potential proof of its genius: the fact that Terence Malick, acclaimed arthouse filmmaker who’s a genre unto himself, loves it.) And, while we all know that Ben Stiller is the star, not many people know that he also co-produced, co-wrote and directed the film himself.
Bouncing back from the disappointment of The Cable Guy, Zoolander was Stiller’s way back in with both audiences and critics. Underwhelming sequel be damned: the original Zoolander is some kind of masterpiece of dumb comedy, revelling in the stupidity of the material so gleefully that it becomes a smart satire of the fashion industry and of vapid Hollywood itself.