Unexpectedly Influential Directors, 9-12

These influential directors helped create new genres and refine others, from blaxploitation, to thoughtful documentary, to edgy horror.

9. Mike Nichols

An iconoclastic American director, Mike Nichols came to movies after a successful live comedy career with partner Elaine May. Nichols's first splash was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which came along at a time when America was on the verge of a great liberalization of thought and cultural mores. With The Graduate in 1967, Nichols wittily examined youthful angst with the story of a freshly minted college grad who desires the daughter but beds the mother. Hollywood grew up in the mid-1960s, and Nichols was at the forefront.

10. Frederick Wiseman

Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman made a controversial splash with his first picture, 1967's Titicut Follies, a harrowing look at a Massachusetts institution for the mentally ill. The movie became the template for Wiseman's subsequent work -- a keen interest in the everyday but frequently hidden aspects of American life. Titicut Follies was followed by a score of poignant documentaries, and Wiseman's work is a direct link to latter-day socially conscious documentaries, such as Hoop Dreams (1994), Stevie (2002), The Thin Blue Line (1988), and even Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004).

11. Gordon Parks

Brilliantly talented African-American photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks revolutionized black cinema with Shaft in 1971. For the first time, audiences saw a black man -- here, a private detective named John Shaft -- pursue his own agenda in the white world and control his own life, establishment be damned. The movie launched the so-called "blaxploitation" genre that brought stardom to Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, Ron O'Neal, and Shaft's Richard Roundtree. Blaxploitation flourished throughout the 1970s and has lately been honored -- and gently parodied -- by nonconformist directors Quentin Tarantino and Larry Cohen.

12. Tobe Hooper

In 1974, Tobe Hooper was a young indie filmmaker in Texas. Hooper and his partner, writer Kim Henkel, wanted to do something more commercial, so they decided to make a horror thriller, which they called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This tale of college kids victimized by a family of demented cannibals shocked audiences who thought they saw gore where there was none (blood appears only once, when a man purposely cuts his thumb). Texas Chainsaw Massacre exploited extreme psychological unease as audiences witnessed the helplessness of innocent victims. Other filmmakers followed with similar films that were heavy with gore but lacking Hooper's flair for bilious suspense and sick humor.

The last of the list includes mildly familiar names and undoubtedly familiar movies.