Unexpectedly Influential Directors, 13-16

Influential directors continue to pop up, building on the innovations of their predecessors and using decidedly fresh techniques in their own right.

13. Robert Altman

With his peerless skill at guiding ensemble casts through a rich tapestry of interwoven stories (Nashville, 1975), Robert Altman made films that were short on explosions and shootouts, and long on thoughtful characterization, rueful wit, and the complexities of emotion and desire that nudge (or sometimes propel) us through life. Altman inspired some equally intelligent later filmmakers, including Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, 1999).

14. John Carpenter

A lifelong fan of horror movies, John Carpenter reinvented the genre in 1978 with Halloween, and unwittingly inspired a flood of "holiday" horror films: Mother's Day, My Bloody Valentine, Friday the 13th, and many more. Carpenter laid the ground rules with a young woman in peril inside a weirdly shadowed house, an indestructible maniac on the loose, dark rooms that the heroine has an inexplicable urge to enter, and fiendishly effective shock moments. Halloween is a perennial favorite, and still a high point of blunt, low-budget moviemaking.

15. Andy and Larry Wachowski

Usually credited as The Wachowski Brothers, American writers and directors Andy and Larry Wachowski brought a fresh spin to blackmail and murder with Bound (1996), and became highly influential with The Matrix (1999) and its sequels. These science-fiction thrillers brought a fresh approach to special effects, notions of space and time, and virtual reality. Widely imitated and frequently parodied, The Matrix films may have outstayed their welcome, but their reverberations will be felt for many years.

16. Steven Soderbergh

Steven Soderbergh is a versatile American director who moves easily between smart action films (Ocean's Eleven, 2001), social commentary (Erin Brockovich, 2000), and crime epics (Traffic, 2000). Soderbergh's eclectic career is noteworthy, but his greatest influence may come from Bubble (2005), a low-budget drama about three underachieving employees at a doll factory and the circumstances that lead to jealousy and murder. Unassuming but extraordinarily powerful, Bubble shook up the film industry because Soderbergh elected to release it in theaters, on DVD, and to pay-per-view TV all on the same day, which may be the wave of the future for movie distribution.

Helen Davies, Marjorie Dorfman, Mary Fons, Deborah Hawkins, Martin Hintz, Linnea Lundgren, David Priess, Julia Clark Robinson, Paul Seaburn, Heidi Stevens, and Steve Theunissen