Christopher Nolan & Denis Villeneuve are the Best Directors of the Last 25 Years, According to Poll

Rotten Tomatoes is continuing on with its 25th anniversary polls. This time they’ve asked their readers, not critics, to vote for the Best Director of The Last 25 Years and the results are not that surprising.

Christopher Nolan easily won out, topping Denis Villeneuve, who finished in second place. Two other directors came very close, Damien Chazelle, Jordan Peele. Close to 30,000 users participated in the final round of voting.

Sam Mendes, Alex Garland, Bong Joon-Ho and, ugh, Taika Waititi made it to the quarter finals. Fanboy culture clearly infiltrated the results. Mass appeal is the name of the game here.

The last 25 years. The criteria for eligibility was that a filmmaker had to have released his or her first film, at the earliest, on January 1st, 1998. So, the likes of Scorsese, Lynch, Coen, Cuaron, Anderson, Tarantino, Fincher and PTA do not count.

In fact, Paul Thomas Anderson missed the cutoff date by a year. His debut, “Hard Eight,” was released in February of 1997. Wes Anderson’s “Bottle Rocket” was released in February of 1996.

So, the last 25 years … I need to think about this. I guess Nolan, Chazelle, Peele and Villeneuve have their place somewhere in the upper echelons. However, many of the very best filmmakers out there barely made a dent in the rankings.

I’d add Yorgos Lanthimos, Steve McQueen, Achitapong Weerasethakul, Josh and Benny Safdie, Spike Jonze, Sean Baker, Todd Field, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Lynne Ramsay and Darren Aronofsky.