Russell Mulcahy

Mulcahy's honours are the kind that do not come with a trophy. He is one of a handful of directors who can credibly claim to have built the visual grammar of the music video, and the industry has treated his 1980s catalogue as a reference point ever since. The MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction in 1983 was the formal recognition, but the real measure is how often his clips still get screened in retrospectives about the format's golden age.With Highlander, he made a film that outlived its own box office by decades and turned into a franchise spanning television, animation and merchandise. Very few directors get to launch a universe, and fewer still see it celebrated 40 years later with a 4K restoration and a theatrical re-release. That anniversary is effectively a career honour in itself.