Five directors to look out for.

• Micheal Mann
• Alfred Hitchcock
• Danny Boyle
• Fritz Lang
• Luc Besson

These are names you will often see listed here.  Make a careful note of them, they are good.

Micheal Mann is a contemporary American director.  His hallmarks are wide screens, attention to detail, contemplative pacing.  The films he's made that you will have heard of are "Heat", "Last of the Mohicans" and "Miami Vice".  Though most of his work is epic crime fiction, he also does biopics like "Ali" and "The Insider.

Alfred Hitchcock is one of Britain's most famous movie directors.  He is credited with a lot of revolutionary filming techniques.  Despite his strength of character, he has still bowed to the wishes of Hollywood, even before moving to the US for the middle period of his career.  Films such as "The Lodger" had the ending re-filmed for the American audience as it would just not do for the hero to get lynched unjustly.  Likewise there are two versions of "Strangers on a Train" as it would never do to insult a priest in an American movie.

Danny Boyle shot to stardom with "Shallow Grave" then a year or two later to super-stardom with "Trainspotting".  He also brought Robert Carlyle to the small screen in "Hamish Macbeth", started the "28 Days" franchise, and then in atonement for his whole success deal made the excellent TV movie "Vacuuming Completely Nude in Paradise", staring Timothy Spall as an obnoxious vacuum cleaner sales man.

Fritz Lang had three interesting phases to his career, the first in a Germany struggling to reinvent itself between the wars, Hollywood in the 40's and 50's and then a return to Germany in the 60's.  His outstanding innovative work comes out of his early German career where he worked with Thea Von Harbou, she provided the stories for many of his early films.  Though "Metropolis" is a undoubted classic, the strongest of his films is "M".

Luc Besson first came to my attention in the early 80's with his film "Le Dernier Combat".  His films are full of anti heros, the most famous two being "La Femme Nikita" and "Leon, The Professional".  His other outstanding films include "Angel-A", again a romance set in the crime world of Paris.  In more recent years Besson is spending more time writing than directing.  Some of his works have benefited from this arrangement, for example the "Transporter" franchise has his hallmark writing, but the fight choreography and action direction  benefit from Corey Yuens experience in Hong Kong action flick.