The 20 Best Breakout Films From The Cannes Directors’ Fortnight

“Bug” (2006)
“Bug” may not stand as one of William Friedkin’s best movies, but it’s unquestionably one of his weirdest, and also arguably the first film in which the legendary director seemingly snapped out of the creative doldrums that held him captive in the mid-’90s and early 2000s (think tepid work like “Jade” and “The Hunted”). The first of his batshit collaborations with playwright Tracy Letts, “Bug” feels unusually energized in comparison to a lot of Friedkin’s later, more subdued filmography, and if there’s one thing that can be said for certain about it, it’s that the film is certainly not for the claustrophobic or the faint of heart. Ashley Judd plays Agnes White, a hard-luck Oklahoma waitress with several bad habits who finds herself shacked up in a squalid motel room with a dispossessed drifter played by Michael Shannon. Shannon is, as usual, charismatic and terribly menacing in the role, ranting at length about government conspiracies, the end of the world, and — you guessed it — bugs. On the whole, “Bug” may not be able to match the ferocity of “Killer Joe”’s taboo-violating final act (seriously, has a chicken wing ever been used in a more anatomically inappropriate fashion?), but the film is nevertheless is alive with perversity and invention — a late-career triumph for its accomplished director.

“Control” (2007)
Anton Corbijn had several decades worth of experience as a rock ‘n’ roll photographer behind him before he stepped behind the camera to direct his first feature film. That was “Control,” a film that ended up, somewhat ironically, being about one of the bands Corbijn photographed on more than a number of occasions. I speak, of course, of Joy Division: the hugely influential British post-punk outfit headed up by gloomy, enigmatic frontman Ian Curtis, who is played in Corbijn’s film by a terrific Sam Riley. The movie doesn’t manage to avoid every cliché that can potentially befall a biopic of a musician — seemingly, even the best ones can’t. And yet “Control” is well-acted and absorbing, as well as being an intoxicating evocation of a certain time and place. The movie’s recreations of some of Joy Division’s live performances are downright punishing: We feel the spasmodic convulsions that Curtis exorcised on stage, as well as the crippling depression that was eating away at his heart. “Control” was received well at its Directors’ Fortnight screening, and was quickly snatched up by the Weinstein Company following its positive reception on the Croisette. Perhaps when one considers this, it’s no small wonder that Corbijn has since turned his attention to arty-but-comparatively-mainstream work like “The American” and “A Most Wanted Man.” Still, “Control” cuts deep, and its portrait of aimlessness and youthful despair in 1970s London is hard to shake.

“Blue Ruin” (2013)
If his first two features are anything to go by, Jeremy Saulnier could very well be the next big name in genre cinema. His recent third film, the fiendishly gripping backwoods standoff thriller “Green Room,” is about as nasty and note-perfect as that kind of movie gets; it’s a film that the should rightfully restore the faith of anyone whose investment in nu-exploitation cinema has waned in recent years. Saulnier’s real breakout, though, was “Blue Ruin,” his follow-up to his uneven 2007 debut “Murder Party.” As whittled-down and sharp as a prison shiv, “Blue Ruin” is a savage, uncommonly human revenge picture that examines a seemingly endless cycle of violence and hurt that compels a lost vagabond named Dwight (Macon Blair) to commit heinous acts most of us couldn’t imagine ourselves perpetrating in our worst nightmares. Admittedly, there’s some amusingly awful black comedy in just how inept a killer Dwight himself turns out to be. For the most part, though, “Blue Ruin” is a punishing affair that refuses to wink at its audience and dares to play it straight all the way to the bitter, bloody end. In an increasingly snarky and self-aware cinematic landscape, that kind of true-blue sincerity is a gift. As powerful as it was upon its initial release, “Blue Ruin” is taut, mean as hell and unreasonably entertaining, and Jeremy Saulnier is now officially a directorial force to be reckoned with.

“Girlhood” (2014)
Though it failed to light the world on fire in the same way that Richard Linklater’s similarly titled “Boyhood” did, the French coming-of-age drama “Girlhood” is every bit as substantial a film in its own right, and might even be a more interesting work in the long run. Whereas the Texas-born Linklater sticks with one fairly normal young man as he eases into young adulthood, “Girlhood” director Céline Sciamma turns her focus to a demographic that is sorely under-represented in her native French cinema as well as the U.S.: black teenage girls living in big-city suburbs. The resulting film is messy and melodramatic and often very powerful, evoking the tumultuous surge of conflicting feelings that can come with adolescence and more importantly, actually growing up. The movie’s main group of girls are a rowdy, uncensored and wholly winning bunch, roaming their crime-ridden Paris suburb and coasting on their sense of shared camaraderie the same way that the movie coasts on their considerable charms. “Girlhood” isn’t a perfect film, but it shouldn’t be — more than anything, it’s an important film, particularly as the debate about representation in film and filmmaking voices rightfully rages on.

“Embrace Of The Serpent” (2015)
One of the more striking cinematic experiences in recent memory, Ciro Guerra’s “Embrace Of The Serpent” is a hallucinatory parable about white infringement on indigenous land that turns the ugly colonial narrative inside out and exposes it for the illusion that it is. The film’s political points, however, are secondary to its visual effect and and mood: Like the nature-based films of Werner Herzog (“Aguirre, the Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo” particularly), the jungle of “Embrace of the Serpent” is practically a character unto itself. And like Herzog’s great films, “Embrace Of The Serpent” is a glimpse at a dying world, one that seems so far removed from our modern-day urban experience as to feel like a living, breathing dream. As we learn about the individual customs of the tribes who live along the river that serves as the movie’s primary trajectory, and the sort of unspoken treaty these tribes have forged with the natural world that surrounds them, “Embrace Of The Serpent” develops a slow, hypnotic rhythm. In an independent landscape dotted with self-consciously “quirky” dramedies and auteur efforts loaded with big stars and bigger expectations, the movie stands out as a true oddity, and one of last year’s most arresting breakout works.

Honorable mentions:
Just to name a few other big Quinzaine titles, though their status as “breakout” features for their directors may vary: “Partner” by Bernardo Bertolucci (1968); “Apotheosis” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono (1970); “Makin’ It” by Simon Hartog (1970); “The Devil, Probably” by Robert Bresson (1977); “Americana” by David Carradine (1981); “Soursweet” by Mike Newell (1988); “Mi Vida Loca” by Allison Anders (1993); “Lone Star” by John Sayles (1996); “The Promise” by the Dardenne Brothers (1996); “Trees Lounge” by Steve Buscemi (1996); “Laurel Canyon” by Lisa Cholodenko (2002); “The Host” by Bong-Joon Ho (2006); “Smiley Face” by Gregg Araki (2007); “Tetro” by Francis Ford Coppola (2009); “Sightseers” by Ben Wheatley (2012); “Jodorowsky’s ‘Dune’” by Frank Pavich (2013); and “Dope” by Rick Famuyiwa (2015). Call out any favorite Directors’ Fortnight titles that we’ve missed in the comments below.