Darren Aronofsky

Known for: Requiem for a Dream (2000), Black Swan (2010)

Darren Aronofsky made Pi (1998) for under $70,000 before directing Requiem for a Dream (2000), a film of addiction and disintegration so formally aggressive — jump cuts, extreme close-ups, split-screen — that it transformed the vocabulary of montage for a generation of editors. Black Swan (2010) won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Natalie Portman; The Whale (2022) won Brendan Fraser his first Academy Award.