Super Festivals from Ft. Lauderdale, USA · CC BY 2.0

Sam Raimi turned The Evil Dead, a low-budget cabin-in-the-woods film he made with friends in 1981, into a franchise and a directing career defined by a kinetic, comic-book-influenced visual style. He went on to direct the Spider-Man trilogy, helping establish the modern superhero film as a mainstream genre, and founded two production companies, Renaissance Pictures and Ghost House Pictures, along the way.