Terence Davies

The record is small and unusually concentrated. Davies made about a dozen films in nearly fifty years, and a handful of them are treated by critics as permanent entries in the British canon. Distant Voices, Still Lives won the International Critics' Prize at Cannes in 1988 and has appeared on Sight and Sound's decennial greatest-films poll. The Evening Standard called him Britain's greatest living film director, and The New Yorker made a similar claim in its memorial. His influence shows up in the work of younger British filmmakers who treat memory and family as legitimate cinematic subjects rather than excuses for nostalgia.