Fernando Meirelles

Movie director

City of God (2002) C+

The Constant Gardener (2005) A–

Bursting on to the scene with City of God (co-directed with Kátia Lund) pulled out every trick in the book: Slo-mo! Fast-mo! No-mo! But since he had less to say (Rio! Violent!) than Scorsese at his dumbest, the result was one of the decade's most overrated movies. Despite signs of big-movie bloat, he handled The Constant Gardener better, allowing his performers to develop its reasonably cerebral content while foregrounding poverty and keeping the action visceral. He even occasionally keeps the camera still long enough to take in some fetching Kenyan landscapes.