25 Greatest Active Film Directors
With the Oscars on our minds, we're counting down the most talented, in-demand filmmakers behind the camera today, a list including Zack Snyder, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro -- and our No. 1
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Jon Favreau
Made (2001) For his feature directing debut, Favreau reunited with Swingers pal Vince Vaughn in a shaggy dog tale of two inept, low-level mob goons who get involved in a money-laundering scheme. Elf (2003) This unlikely, kid-friendly Christmas comedy, starring Will Ferrell as a man raised by elves in Santa’s workshop who travels to New York to meet his birth father (a Scrooge-y James Caan), became an enormous hit, proving Favreau’s commercial viability as a director and Ferrell’s bankability as a comic leading man. Iron Man (2008) Favreau directed another unlikely lead, Robert Downey Jr., to box-office glory in this smart, idiosyncratic adaptation of the Marvel comic series about an industrialist and weapons designer who turns over a new leaf and fights for the downtrodden in his self-designed suit of armor. —Gary Susman
Image Credit: Zade Rosenthal
February 19 2009 — 12:00 AM EST
