The Top Directors Working Today: Spike Jonze

This is a name I expect to get a lot of flack for. With just 2 features and a video resume to die for, Jonze is out to reinvent the cinematic wheel, and I believe he’ll do it some day. Just not yet. Like Todd Field, he has talent beyond compare, but still needs more maturity. His ambition is his own worst enemy, and I think both of his features collapsed while trying to do too much.

According to the poll on Filmspotting...

22% think that with only 3 features, she's already proven her Greatness.
12% think with only 2 features and a load of videos, he's already proven his Greatness.
55% think he definitely has potential for Greatness
21% think he's worth mentioning, but not as one of the Greats.
12% can take or leave his direction.

I have more respect for him after reading Charlie Kaufman's original screenplays. The fact that he got those movies out of those scripts shows an incredible directorial ability.
-m_r turnage

He's like the Alfred Hitchcock of music videos: just about any one of the videos he did in the 90s would be something that any video director would hope to have made one day and the fact that he made all of them is enough to qualify him with only 2 features. You can get a complete sense of his visual style, sense of humor, singular creativity and storytelling abilities from his videos.

I voted that he's proved his greatness because of everything he's done up to now but he has more potential to lose that greatness. Especially if he does a lesser job with non-Kaufman scripts. Also, if he's not good at picking the right balance of "weird but not too weird" projects, he could end up being the hipster Tim Burton.
-arcnyc