10. Asia Kate Dillon
We’ve written at length on how much we love “Billions,” one of TV’s most entertaining and smart shows right now, and one of the reasons it improved so much in its second season was by adding a host of new characters as compelling as the ones it began with. First and foremost among them was Taylor Mason, played by Asia Kate Dillon, who made history as the first gender non-binary major character on a TV show. Dillon began their career with small roles on “Master Of None” and “Orange Is The New Black,” but from the moment they walked on in “Billions,” they grabbed the audience’s attention: a character who doesn’t remotely fit into the macho hedge-fund world, and yet finds their calling in it. Dillon has a remarkable screen presence, and we can’t wait to see them put it to use both in Season 3, and elsewhere.
9. Nicholas Britell
It’s hard to think of many composers who’ve had such meteoric rises as Nicholas Britell. The New York-born, Julliard-trained composer worked as a hedge fund manager (!) before making his first foray into film thanks to Natalie Portman, performing his piece “Forgotten Waltz No. 2” in her short film “Eve,” then scoring her contribution to the “New York, I Love You” anthology. His first feature score came with Adam Leon’s “Gimme The Loot,” before he contributed the on-camera music to “12 Years A Slave,” and went on to score “The Big Short” and “Free State Of Jones.” But his real head-turner was his remarkable score for Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight,” which mixed classical piano and chopped-and-screwed remixes in fascinating ways, winning Britell what’s likely to be the first of many Oscar nominations. He reunited with Leon this year for “Tramps,” and has “Battle Of The Sexes” this fall before his tentpole debut next summer with “Ocean’s Eight,” and we’re expecting big things from both. But don’t expect his ambitions to end with music: he helped to fund the short film version of “Whiplash,” and was a co-producer on the feature too…
8. Matt Shakman
We’re at an interesting time where TV helmers can quite quickly gain followings thanks to their work on the increasingly visually lavish shows, but few have turned heads so quickly with a single sequence in the way that Matt Shakman did with his recent “Game Of Thrones” episodes. A former child actor (with a regular role on “Growing Pains” spin-off “Just The Ten Of Us”), who then ventured into theater and then TV, Shakman’s worked prolifically over the last decade on shows include “Six Feet Under,” “Everybody Hates Chris” and “Ugly Betty,” but found his most regular home with “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” helming 44 of the show’s 134 episodes. He’s continued to work across genres, with episodes of “Mad Men,” “You’re The Worst,” “Fargo” and “The Good Wife,” but it was that ‘loot train’ sequence at the end of “The Spoils Of War” episode of “Game Of Thrones,” perhaps the show’s most spectacular battle sequence to date, that’s likely to land him on the A-list. Next up is the pilot of Brian Duffield’s teen-cat-burglar show “Olive Forever” for USA, but it’s likely that the movies will come calling soon, and probably with something bigger than his sole feature to date, the somewhat underrated Coen-ish crime pic “Cut Bank.”
7. Zendaya
There’s something a little dismissive about the descriptor ‘former Disney Channel star,’ but Zendaya is helping to erase that pretty quickly. Your younger siblings/kids have probably been on to her for close to a decade — she starred in Disney Channel sitcom “Shake It Up,” as well as a number of movies for the network, and then the ongoing series “K.C. Undercover,” which is currently airing its third season, and she’s also a pop star with a second album awaiting release. But you probably noticed her for the first time in this summer’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” where her delightfully cynical, low-energy classmate of Peter’s turned out to be possibly the highlight of the entire movie, even with limited screen time. She’s got another big movie on the way, in the shape of Hugh Jackman musical “The Greatest Showman,” but the revelation at the end of the movie that that her character’s initials are M.J. suggest that she’s got a lot more to do in the Spidey/Marvel universe, and we couldn’t be happier about that…
6. Kogonada
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture, goes the old saying. But first-time feature director Kogonada, best known previously for a series of contemplative supercuts examining the work of everyone from Robert Bresson to Stanley Kubrick, makes the intellectual discussion of architecture feel so light and effortless that dancing or music is an obvious comparison. “Columbus,” which details a nascent relationship between a Columbus, Indiana native played by a glorious Haley Lu Richardson (see above) and a visitor played by breakout John Cho, is a beautifully modulated, serene piece of work that is tonally comepletely different from anything else you’ll see this year. Unapologetically cerebral, yet also lit by the warmth of its lovely performances, it’s basically amazing that this should be a first film, but clearly Kogonada’s close study of those abovementioned masters has paid off–“Columbus” is heartstoppingly beautiful to look at, but also immensely wise and unusual in its outlook, the kind of film that doesn’t shout but whispers, so that you lean in closer to hear it.