Frank Oz's success as a director comes from a passion for building believable characters, a quality that is evidenced in his latest film, the star-studded heist flick, The Score.

They don't want freedom. They sometimes complain and say 'You are telling me exactly what I have to do!' but they love it. They love it when the part is laid out for them, and they don't have to make those kinds of decisions. You can't get an actor to do something that is beyond his range, so you have to be aware of the range of the actor and, if necessary, alter the part to suit the actor.

Like the tropical nightmares of Joseph Conrad, the films of John Boorman lead us down rivers-real and imagined-into the heart of what ails us, and the quest for a remedy. Boorman's latest picture, The Tailor of Panama, adapted from the novel by John Le Carre, takes us back to the wasteland-this one of the tropical, urban variety.

There is no greater thing than to keep learning, and you do that when you have the opportunity to work with the most creative people in the world, as you do in the movie business.

We haven't heard much from director James Gray since he wowed us with his directorial debut, Little Odessa. This month, James Gray is back with an all-new film and an all-star cast including Faye Dunaway, Ellen Burstyn and Mark Wahlberg in The Yards.

What does auteur mean? One who repeats himself?

Having enchanted us for a decade with a string of lyrical, exquisitely-crafted domestic dramas, including Sense and Sensibility, Eat Drink Man Woman and The Ice Storm, Ang Lee is one international director who has certainly found success with American audiences.

Though his latest film, Shadow of the Vampire, deals with the undead, director E. Elias Merhige knows that it's the living he depends on for much of his success. Found out how Nicolas Cage, Willem Dafoe and Joan Rivers have all made a difference in his life.

Tim Burton, who gave the horror genre a “Leave it to Beaver” twist with Frankenweenie, made Paul Reubens a role model in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and added a hint of menace to Batman, has moved beyond TV-land inspirations to make a movie about a moviemaker. With Ed Wood, Burton has created a weirdly loving portrait of a man often mentioned as the worst director of all time.

In Love and a .45, writer-director Carty Talkington has created a stylized, darkly comedic journey through the contemporary American landscape of murder, media, music, controlled substances and unbridled love. Fast-paced and infused with a refreshingly twisted take on pop culture, the film lures the viewer in with its peculiar charm before springing a plot and tone shift that at once stuns and captivates. Filled with unexpected strong performances and a rollicking musicality that often runs counterpoint to the dramatic mood, the film hardly plays like a directorial debut.

Financed with his own money, actor and first-time director Tom Noonan's What Happened Was... has become another 1994 indie success story.

Fresh is a knockout of a first film. Well-crafted and poetically paced, it is a movie so simple and straightforward in storyline that it feels like a completely “fresh” approach to moviemaking. So how did director Boaz Yakin do it? Where did it all begin?

Maria Garguilo finds the Seattle scene a source of fledgling actors and cheap labor for her first feature, The Year of My Japanese Cousin.

At the risk of sounding irritatingly cheerleaderesque, this month I had a notion to devote my few hundred words of spout-off space to the public’s receptiveness to independent moviemaking in this country. There is just no question that independent moviemaking in America is entering a Golden Age of sorts, and that the public, the general moviegoing and TV-watching audiences, are responsible for it. Maybe it’s because more viewers today are moviemakers themselves.

With no budget and a toy slate, Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier show all you really need are guts.

There were those who thought his career was over, but with Bullets Over Broadway Woody Allen survived and proved again that even at his worst, he's one of the best.

When Reality Bites for Ben Stiller, he creates his own. And he's on a roll.