Jacques Tati

Known for: Mon Oncle (1958), Playtime (1967)

Jacques Tati directed only six feature films across a career of nearly three decades, each a sustained comic investigation of modernity's intrusion on human-scaled life. Mon Oncle (1958) and Playtime (1967) — the latter shot in a purpose-built replica of a modernist Paris and nearly bankrupting Tati in the process — used wide-angle lenses and the full width of the CinemaScope frame to distribute gags at the periphery rather than the center. He received an honorary Academy Award in 1973.