Best directing debut

So! Title is pretty self-explanatory. Who in your most humble opinions had a great film debut as a first time director? These have to be feature length. films, so short films don't count.

I know most people are going to say Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs is one of the best director debuts, and I guess it is a very good debut. But there are others that have made good films as a debut.

I think that Sophia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides is not a bad debut. I actually rate it highly as a debut. It's far from being my favourite film, but I do find it captivating.

Also, one can't make a thread about great debuts without mentioning Christopher Nolan's Hitchcockian thriller Following , which is a miracle film that was made with no money and a cast of friends. It's a great debut by a great director who'll be up there amongst the best one day.

Anyways, if anybody else can think of other great debuts then feel free to post! Or if you agree with my choices then don't be afraid to post.

Look forward to the replies.

Tony Kaye's directorial debut > Everyone else's

American History X is brilliance (Sorry for the lot of you that think it's overrated) and it was Kaye's debut. The only debut movie from a director that I would call a masterpiece.

There's already a thread about this here. I see I only listed two in that other thread so here are some more:

Hal Hartley - The Unbelievable Truth
Hiroshi Teshigahara - Pitfall
Sean Penn - The Indian Runner
Roman Polanski - Knife in the Water
Juzo Itami - The Funeral
John Huston - The Maltese Falcon
Vincent Gallo - Buffalo '66
Ridley Scott - The Deullists
John Sayles - Return of the Secaucus 7
Steven Soderbergh - Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Brad Bird - The Iron Giant

I think Virgin Suicides is one of the best movies ever made!!

although I'm gonna rep kevin Smith for Clerks.

He made that on a super low budget and its classic in my book!

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Citizen Kane (1941 - Orson Welles)


The Maltese Falcon (1941 - John Huston)


The Great McGinty (1941 - Preston Sturges)


They Live by Night (1948 - Nicholas Ray)


12 Angry Men (1957 - Sidney Lumet)


The 400 Blows (1959 - François Truffaut)


Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966 - Mike Nichols)


Diner (1982 - Barry Levinson)


Henry V (1989 - Kenneth Branagh)


The Lives of Others (2006 - Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)

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Robert Redford............Ordinary People 1980

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Zach Braff for Garden State Definetly. I doubt He'll ever top that movie.

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-Aragorn: The Lord of the Rings the Return of the King

Peter Jackson- Bad Taste

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GREAT RESPONSES, GUYS!

Holden Pike, yeah, totally forgot that Citizen Kane was Orson Welles' debut. Probably the greatest debut ever if you put it into perspective.

Pyro, Peter Jackson's Bad Taste was a good horror debut, but in terms of horror debuts, nothing compares to Wolf Creek, which was as taut as it was vicious.

I also didn't care much for Zach Braff's Garden State but maybe it's because I don't like him much. I couldn't get into the film because of him, and found it to be some indulgent semi-autographical ******** that I couldn't relate to. At freakin' all.

Several of my favorites have already been mentioned, here are handful more...

Zhang Yimou - Red Sorghum

Wong Kar-Wai - Ashes of Time

Hiroyuki Nakano - SF: Episode One - Samurai Fiction

Garden State is one of my all time favorite movies, so I am going Zach Braff.

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Frank Darabont - Shawshank Redemption

(if any of u say he had the film "Buried Alive" before , yes he did but he didnt direct it alone so i consider shawshank his own because it was only him directing)

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is this true Sean Penn are now also in field of directing? if that so i go for Sean Penn, i know he will be a good director since he is a good actor. cheers

I agree with all these, especially Sean Penn's Indian Runner. Loved it and the first place I saw Viggo!

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Was Ashes of Time his debut? Thought it was As Tears Go By which IMDB has as well.

Also, why negative rep for Bad Taste? Considering where Jackson's gone it's a very interesting debut at the least.

I actually meant As Tears Go By, but I had Ashes of Time sitting in plain view from my desk, so I entered the wrong title.

I didn't rep you, so I suppose this question isn't aimed at me...

Erm, mate...you can't list The Indian Runner as a great debut when you haven't even seen the damn film. Pick something you've seen, for god sakes.

I think that was aimed at me. I'm not giving Bad Taste negative rep.

I said it was a good debut. However, when compared to the debut of Greg McLean's Wolf Creek it falls flat. I compare these two because they are both horrors and are both debuts.

The neg rep thing was because someone gave me neg rep for that post and wondered why, not for any thread comments.

I don't know why, but prefer to list debuts from directors who've gone on to do more than just one or two films. But if we're talking horror Switchblade Romance owns the hell out of Wolf Creek which was a bland and uninspired horror from what i remember, i enjoyed it but not a landmark.

Actually, he's been directing movies for over a decade, starting with The Indian Runnner, then The Crossing Guard and finally The Pledge. They're all great films but in my opinion, each is better than the last, and I can't wait for his next movie, Into the Wild.