Michelangelo Antonioni

Known for: L'Avventura (1960), Blow-Up (1966)

Michelangelo Antonioni developed a narrative cinema in which psychological states are expressed through landscape, architecture, and emptiness rather than action. L'Avventura (1960), La Notte (1961), and L'Eclisse (1962) form a loose trilogy on modern alienation — booed at Cannes before establishing him as a major European director. His English-language Blow-Up (1966) was among the most commercially successful art films of the decade.