Best Director 2014

05. Bong Joon Ho for Snowpiercer - For creating an intense, singular existence; a life in a moving train that is both claustrophobic and awe inspiring in its depth and scope. For making the most bleak, tragic dystopia sci-fi movie in years. For that scene in the classroom.

04. Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher - For making an adult film that is intense and thrilling without being crass or crude. For taking a true story that feels outlandish and making a movie that feels intimate, almost like a documentary.  For that unleashing the horses scene.

03. David Fincher for Gone Girl - For continuously being unafraid to make movies with complicated women. For making the most perfect adaptation of a novel I've ever seen. For making a movie that is a thrilling whodunit, a send up of media sensationalism, and a commentary on marriage in the modern world. For that first shot of Amy in the car.

02. Jonathan Glazer for Under The Skin - For making a dreamy, surreal, beauty of a film. For making the one film that I have not been able to stop thinking about all year, like a lovely melody stuck in my head. For that scene at the end in the woods.

01. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Birdman - For making the most gutsy, artsy, purely enjoyable film of the year.  For the total immersion with those long, spiraling takes. For being unafraid to go there in its final act. For ending on that shot of Emma Stone's amazed face, that maybe is meant to mirror the face of the audience after you've just watched this gamechanger.