What Are the Best Directorial Debuts of the 21st Century?

UPDATE: I’m bumping this article back up because this Friday sees the release of Sophy Romvari’s “Blue Heron,” and I truly think it’s a great film. For me, it feels like a hauntingly intimate debut—an absolute example of personal cinema.

Set in 1990s Vancouver, the film follows Sasha (Eylul Guven), a young girl in a Hungarian immigrant family, as she navigates the complexities of her troubled older brother, Jeremy (Edik Beddoes).

I found Romvari’s approach both delicate and immersive, capturing the nuances of memory and trauma with remarkable sensitivity. I’m especially struck by how rewarding the film is, particularly in the way it explores how we carry—and try to make sense of—the scars of the past. A must-see.

EARLIER: Here’s a topic of conversation. In my Tony Gilroy piece, I mentioned how “Michael Clayton” was one of the best debut films of the 21st century. What are the other ones?

IonCinema’s Eric Lavallée tells me Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun,” a bittersweet and haunting statement, is his pick for the top 21st-century debut. Wells’ film was such a personal statement, a devastating recollection of the limited time she spent with her late father, that whatever she ends up doing next will likely pale in comparison. Call it the inevitable sophomore curse.

This reminds me of the time Guillermo del Toro called Celine Song’s “Past Lives” the best film debut he’s seen in the last twenty years. Song’s sophomore effort, “Materialists,” which is set for release this summer, already looks like a disappointment.

The sophomore curse also infected László Nemes, who wowed Cannes in 2015 with his Holocaust stunner “Son of Saul.” His second film, “Sunset,” was rejected by Cannes in 2018 and instead premiered at the Venice Film Festival a few months later to a muted reception.

Another thing is that a great debut often sets expectations that are almost impossible to meet. When a filmmaker’s first movie feels fully formed, we start looking for that same magic again, and anything different can seem like a step down. Even if the second film is just as strong — or strong in a different way — it may not hit with the same force as the first discovery. Sometimes it’s not that the filmmaker declined, but simply that lightning rarely strikes twice in quite the same way.

Much like Orson Welles and “Citizen Kane,” or Truffaut and “The 400 Blows,” starting off your career with an all-time banger can turn out to be a real curse — no matter how many great films you make after that, nothing might be able to match the way you caught lightning in a bottle the first time around.

Limiting myself to just the 21st century, my 10 picks for best directorial debuts would be László Nemes’ “Son of Saul,” Steve McQueen’s “Hunger,” Todd Field’s “In the Bedroom,” Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton,” Bennett Miller’s “Capote,” Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing,” Trey Edward Shults’ “Krisha,” Ari Aster’s “Hereditary,” Kenneth Lonergan’s “You Can Count On Me,” and Jordan Peele’s “Get Out.”

It’s time for our readers to chime in. What have been the best first films of the 21st century?