Director Showdown – Round 1, Match 3 – Steve McQueen vs. Alejandro González Iñárritu
July 10, 2024
Welcome back to the third episode of Director Showdown! In this series, we pit 64 of the biggest directors to debut since 1998 against each other in an elimination bracket to determine who will be crowned the greatest director of the last 26 years!
In the last episode we examined juvenile tragedy through the lens of Denis Villeneuve’s Polytechnique and Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, with Villeneuve advancing to Round 2! With our first Round 2 matchup determined, we turn our attention to the third matchup of Round 1.
Hailing from London, England, Sir Steve Rodney McQueen, CBE is a British filmmaker best known as the first black filmmaker to win the Academy Award for Best Picture with his film 12 Years a Slave. After winning the Oscar in 2013, it would be 5 years before McQueen assemble a host of big-name collaborators forhis next film, Widows.
In the opposite corner, we have one of the most prominent Mexican filmmakers working in Hollywood, a member of the Three Amigos alongside Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro, the man who would take the next two Best Picture wins after McQueen: Alejandro González Iñárritu! Iñárritu would burst onto the scene in 2000 with his debut Amores Perros, gain more renown with his followup 21 Grams, and win the Best Director award at Cannes with his opus Babel, which would be nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Babel is well-known for its enormous ensemble, and non-linear approach to storytelling surrounding a crime and its consequences. Consequences and ensemble are two major features of Widows as well, which our hosts will break down as we discuss early-career Iñárritu vs. recent McQueen!
This episode was inspired by Rotten Tomatoes’ Best Director Showdown, which was conducted among RT users over the summer of 2023. The results of that competition are summarized in this article.
Special thanks this week to our good friend Cris, who made the cover art for this episode! Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and Letterboxd to see more of her artwork, film opinions/reviews, or both!
