Terrence Malick

Inarguably one of America's least prolific directors, Terrence Malick is renowned for taking his time between projects, but his films are never anything less than remarkable. For his first feature, 1973's Badlands, Malick crafted a meditative tale that follows a young couple (Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, both brilliantly detached) on the run after a series of murders. The movie revealed Malick's penchant for balancing stunning natural beauty with strikingly realistic violence, and showcased his affinity for existential voice-over narration. His farm-set follow-up, 1978's Days of Heaven, explored similar themes, this time in the framework of a love triangle. Both Badlands and Days of Heaven garnered numerous accolades and established him as a major filmmaker. And then Malick disappeared. Or, to be more exact, he moved to France and completely retreated from the public eye. Always notoriously private, to the point of declining interviews and even most photographs, Malick stayed off the radar until '98, when he unveiled his expansive World War II film, The Thin Red Line. Starring an impressive cast of actors, many of whom only appear for mere moments, the movie was well-received, but unfortunately outshined by Steven Spielberg's own WWII epic, Saving Private Ryan, released the same year. While many expected Malick to withdraw again, he returned in 2005 with The New World, an impressionistic retelling of the Pocahontas story, and has continued to work on new projects, leaving cinephiles to look forward to his next philosophical and undoubtedly beautifully filmed production.