Montclair Film · CC BY 2.0

A director who made his name reworking Hollywood's own forms to say things classical Hollywood couldn't — Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story told her life and death using Barbie dolls, and Safe used the conventions of a woman's picture to portray a housewife's mysterious illness as social claustrophobia. Poison won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Safe was later voted the best film of the 1990s by The Village Voice, and Far from Heaven brought his style of historical pastiche to mainstream acclaim.