Jim Jarmusch could be called the father of American Independent Film -- if it didn't seem uncouth to bestow such a grandiose title on a man still so relatively young, and to declare the paternity of such a squirming and bastard art form. Jarmusch moved to New York from his hometown of Akron, Ohio, to

Absurd, Death, Dystopic, Fantastic, Melancholy, Witty

A visionary, revitalizing force in the New German Cinema of the 1970s, Werner Herzog articulated the dreams of the human spirit. In contrast to his contemporaries, who focused on frenzied, high-tech effects and chaotic jump cuts, Herzog used a lyrical film language to depict quiet spaces of epic unfo

Dystopic, Epic, Excessive, New german cinema, Pioneering, Political, Rebel, Tribal

Two killers -- former friends split by the ordeals of life. One turns to a life of crime. The other, to law enforcement. Each transforms into a human weapon and they face off in slow motion. Welcome to the world of filmmaker John Woo, a master of hyper-stylized action flicks, who proffers "heroic blo

Cartoonish, Cool, Hong kong action, Kinetic, Slick, Sublime, Tense, Violent

With an unerring ability both to describe evil and to place himself in its path, Polanski has created a body of work that never fails to elicit shudders and raise questions. He possesses a mordant insight into the politics of sex and violence, an inherent feel for the macabre, and an eccentric and

Erotic, Excessive, Homoerotic, Perverse, Polish new wave, Psychological