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Long-time readers of THE DIRECTORS SERIES will remember that since 2021, we’ve been deep in production on an original horror feature, THE VEIL. We’re excited to share that THE VEIL (written and directed by THE DIRECTORS SERIES host Cameron Beyl) is now available to watch on demand (and just in time for the arrival of…
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In setting out to make a film about nuclear war, Stanley Kubrick realized the only way to properly convey the horror of total annihilation was to make it as absurd as possible. Thus, DR STRANGELOVE was born, and a nuclear-armed world would never be the same. This video is a clip from our multi-part documentary…
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In 2022, Baz Luhrmann released ELVIS, his gargantuan ode to the King Of Rock And Roll. The Australian maximalist director’s take on an American icon was glitzy, gaudy, and appropriately over-indulgent – much like the singer’s latter Vegas years. Like any conventional biopic, ELVIS lionized its namesake, overlooking his moral shortcomings as the necessary byproduct…
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Midway through the production of DAYS OF HEAVEN, Terrence Malick stopped referring to his script. The result was thousands of feet of film, with no clear path to a coherent story. In the ultimate example of “fixing it in post”, he employed a trick that would become a defining signature of his artistic voice. This…
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“We felt the imprisonment of being a girl.” That line, spoken by the grown men still haunted by the Lisbon sisters decades later, is the key to understanding Sofia Coppola’s debut film, The Virgin Suicides. This video breaks down how Coppola used cinematography, music, and a singularly feminine perspective to build a film that men…
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Martin Scorsese was done with mob movies. He’d said everything he needed to say in Mean Streets and Raging Bull, and he had no intention of going back. Then he found Nicholas Pileggi’s book WISE GUYS in galley form on the set of The Color of Money. Just when he thought he was out, they…
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Anton Chigurh is a scary villain for many reasons, but the scariest might just be his inevitability. In 2007, America was exhausted; two failed wars and a collapsing economy were taking its toll, and there was a sense that the world was slipping out of control. Into that void walked a quiet assassin with a…
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Coming off the brutal experience of making (and releasing) THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, Martin Scorsese took a detour into the world of short films, crafting his own entry for the anthology film NEW YORK STORIES. Titled LIFE LESSONS, this short stars Nick Nolte and Patricia Arquette as a successful artist and his ambitious muse,…
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A young Martin Scorsese made a first film so raw and personal that it almost never saw the light of day. Don’t miss our full breakdown on WHO’S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR?, part of our Martin Scorsese series exclusively on Patreon!
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Christopher Nolan had made billion-dollar blockbusters, superhero epics, and films that bent the fabric of spacetime itself. So what does the most technically ambitious director of his generation do next? He strips everything back. With 2017’s DUNKIRK, Nolan created one of the most audacious structural experiments in modern cinema. This video explains how he did…
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The night of August 9th, 1969 saw the grisly murder of Sharon Tate — and the dream of an entire decade. Quentin Tarantino was just six years old at the height of Los Angeles’ Manson era, and had to witness the killing of the Hollywood he had just started falling in love with. His 2019…
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After the catastrophic production of Alien 3, David Fincher was done with Hollywood. Studios had hijacked his vision and released a film that bore his name but not his authorship. He swore off feature filmmaking altogether, retreating to his comfort zone of music videos and commercials. Then a script called Se7en started circulating, with a…
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Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021 film LICORICE PIZZA is part of a wave of nostalgia-laden films from directors set during their own personal formative years — a wave that includes ONCE UPON A TIME… IN HOLLYWOOD, THE FABELMANS, and ROMA. However, Anderson sets out to do something very different with his 70’s period piece, digging deep…