The Director's Series: Damien Chazelle, No. 4


Throughout 2025 I'm turning my focus to Directors. They help craft the vision on screen that makes a movie work. This year I'm looking at five favorite films from 18 directors I admire and 10 films directed by different women that I have enjoyed. Join me Fridays and Saturdays throughout 2025 as we take this journey.

First Man (2018)
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, and Jason Clarke
Director: Damien Chazelle
About: This was the third feature film for Chazelle, and it's a doozy. You don't make a film like this unless you have a great love and reverence for the space race. This film has that. It's an exceptional cast, but it's a great look at the years of training, effort, joys, and loss of these men, and their families, as they fought to get to the moon. We're following Neil Armstrong (Gosling), but it's really about all these early pioneers in space. The production here looks incredible and the power of the narrative really comes through the production. I like the cast and I like the performances. Mostly, I enjoy the way Chazelle tells a story. This is different from his first two films, but it works really well.

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