Jeff Nichols Ranked

Although it is just plain fun to rank a director's movies, it may also help me think about the director's oeuvre of work as a whole. Comparisons can help me to discover elements of film that I am drawn to, what the director finds value in revealing through their movies and possibly how the director has grown artistically.

Nichols makes movies about regular Americans who are usually a part of a rural or small town community. As individuals, they are not exceptional. They have real worries and concerns that most other people have, like how to pay bills, take care of their family members, or how to respond when a fellow human being wrongs them. They don't wear cool, expensive…

Nichol's characters feel wholly a part of the community and a lot of his drama stems from his protagonists becoming marginalized because of a value or belief they hold that differ's from the community's mores. Nichols focuses on just how impactful it can be on an individual to be ostracized in some way from a close-knit community.

Just like the weight of losing community is fully reckoned with in Nichol's films so too is violence often a major component of his films and is dealt with seriously. His characters cannot commit acts of violence without feeling a psychological impact. Values like honor and family that his characters typically possess sometimes lead to violence, a justifiably American response when these become threatened. However, Nichols does not let his characters off the hook, as in most action films, instead showing how violence negatively affects the perpetrator, no matter the reason for wielding it.

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Jeff Nichols Ranked