It takes a long time to become a movie director. Paying one’s dues isn’t like paying off a library fine. To get a feature film off the ground, it takes time. And commitment. And experience. And proof of concept. And money. This is why most notable directors don’t helm their debut feature until their late twenties or early thirties. However, film history is dotted with rare directors who bucked that trend, including these 25 features that were helmed by filmmakers who were under 25 years old.
1. Aladdin (1922)
One of cinema’s earliest wunderkinds was Norman Taurog, who directed or co-directed at least 27 movies before turning 25 in 1924. While the sheer quantity of movies had more to do with their short runtimes than any outsized prolificness on Taurog’s part (feature films were just starting to be standardized at that point in film history), he was nevertheless an early standard-bearer of young filmmaking excellence.
1922’s Aladdin, which is a comedy about a tailor goosing his business by hiring a dog to ruin people’s clothes, was Taurog’s second solo directorial project, and he made it when he was just 23 years old. Taurog later went on to win the Best Director Oscar for 1931’s Skippy, becoming the youngest director to ever win an Oscar (until Damien Chazelle swept in 85 years later to take the crown with his win for La La Land).
2. Dementia 13 (1963)
Future five-time Oscar winner Francis Ford Coppola got to make his mainstream feature debut at the age of 24 thanks to legendary exploitation producer Roger Corman, who hired Coppola after he worked sound on 1963’s The Young Racers.
3. Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967)
‘Who's That Knocking at My Door’ (1967)Credit: Joseph Brenner Associates
Oscar winner Martin Scorsese didn’t exactly burst onto the scene with this indie drama, which debuted two days before his 25th birthday and only made $16,000 against its $70,000 budget. However, his career was later resurrected by - you guessed it - Roger Corman, who liked Who’s That Knocking at My Door and hired Scorsese to direct 1972’s Boxcar Bertha. After that, he was off to the races.
4. Duel (1971)
Steven Spielberg was only 24 when this pulse-pounding TV movie thriller premiered. Duel pushed the envelope of what could be done on a TV budget and was the catalyst for a filmmaking career that would change cinema forever.
5. Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman was just 24 years old when Jeanne Dielman premiered (only a few months after her 1974 debut, Je Tu Il Elle). While many people that age are still figuring out how to cook anything that isn’t ramen, Akerman defied logic by turning out a seminal piece of slow cinema that famously topped Sight and Sound’s list of the best movies of all time in 2022.
6. Phantasm (1979)
The dreamlike 1979 horror movie Phantasm launched a five-film franchise in spite of the fact that wet-behind-the-ears director Don Coscarelli was just 23 to 24 years old during the yearlong production (though he had just turned 25 by the time it premiered).
7. The Long Island Cannibal Massacre (1980)
The cult horror movie The Long Island Cannibal Massacre (which coincidentally features a character named “Inspector James Cameron”) debuted when director Nathan Schiff was just 18 years old. And it wasn’t even his first feature! He had previously helmed the low-low-low-budget 1979 release Weasels Rip My Flesh. Before turning 25, he also went on to make the 1985 hillbilly slasher They Don’t Cut the Grass Anymore.
8. The Evil Dead (1981)
Sam Raimi’s gonzo horror masterpiece The Evil Dead debuted just a week before his 23rd birthday, kicking off a career that led him to everything from Spider-Man to Drag Me to Hell.
9. Suffer, Little Children (1983)
While the directors of the 1983 supernatural horror movie Suffer, Little Children were overseen by a grown-up (screenwriter Alan Briggs), they were almost all under the age of 25, as they were students at the Meg Shanks Drama School in London.
10. Day of the Reaper (1984)
Just like Nathan Schiff and the Suffer Little Children crew, 17-year-old Tim Ritter took advantage of the burgeoning home video market to distribute this low-budget slasher without having to go through traditional Hollywood channels. He would repeat the trick at ages 18 (1985’s Twisted Illusions), 19 (1986’s Truth or Dare? A Critical Madness), and 23 (1990’s Killing Spree).
11. The Nail Gun Massacre (1985)
The woozy B-slasher classic The Nail Gun Massacre was co-directed by Bill Leslie (whose age is unknown) and Terry Lofton (who was 23 when it debuted)
12. Boyz n the Hood (1991)
John Singleton is to this day the youngest filmmaker to ever be nominated for the Best Director Oscar, all thanks to his electrifying work on the early ‘90s classic Boyz n the Hood (which debuted when he was just 23 years old). Singleton later wrapped production on his follow-up feature, 1993’s Poetic Justice, at the tender age of 24.
13. El Mariachi (1992)
Robert Rodriguez’s feature directorial debut, which famously cost just a few thousand dollars to make, debuted when he was 24 years old, as documented in his 1995 book Rebel Without a Crew, or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player.
14. Clerks (1994)
One of the other giants of 1990s indie cinema was Kevin Smith, whose offbeat comedy Clerks debuted when he was 24 years old.
15. Gummo (1997)
‘Gummo’ (1997)Credit: Fine Line Features
Cinematic provocateur Harmony Korine followed up a gig writing the screenplay for Larry Clark’s Kids by taking the reins of his own feature, the future Criterion Collection title Gummo, at age 24.
16. George Washington (2000)
David Gordon Green, who has dabbled in everything from stoner comedies to horror sequels to hit HBO series, made his feature debut at 24 with the Southern Gothic outing George Washington.
17. Pathogen (2006)
‘Pathogen’ (2006)Credit: Cheesy Nuggets Productions
Some middle schoolers use their free time to film fun music videos with their friends. Others take things a step further and direct full-length zombie movies. Well, maybe there’s just one of those: 12-year-old Emily Hagins, whose beyond-her-age commitment to bringing Pathogen to life is documented in 2009’s Zombie Girl: The Movie.
The now 33-year-old filmmaker directed four other features before turning 25: 2009’s The Retelling, 2011’s My Sucky Teen Romance, 2013’s Grow Up, Tony Phillips, and 2017’s Coin Heist.
18. I Killed My Mother (2009)
Canada’s official submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar in 2009 was I Killed My Mother, the blistering debut of then 20-year-old Québécois filmmaker Xavier Dolan, who also released Heartbeats at 21, Laurence Anyways at 23, and Tom at the Farm at 24.
19. Tiny Furniture (2010)
Lena Dunham was 23 years old when her sophomore feature Tiny Furniture debuted (her first feature was 2009’s Creative Nonfiction), catching enough attention for her to get the seminal HBO dramedy Girls on the air.
20. Love You Baba (2014)
The Nepali family drama Love You Baba holds the Guinness World Record for Youngest Film Director (Male), having been helmed by Saugat Bista, who was 7 years and 340 days old when the National Film Award-winning movie was released. He comes from a filmmaking family, which certainly helped, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a director of any age who doesn’t work alongside a team of people with filmmaking backgrounds.
21. Burning Cane (2019)
The 2019 Wendell Pierce drama Burning Cane made Philip Youmans the first Black director to win the Tribeca Film Festival’s Founder's Award for Best Narrative Feature. He was also the youngest-ever recipient of the award, considering the fact that he was 19 years old at the time.
22. Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022)
The Dakota Johnson rom-com Cha Cha Real Smooth stars writer-director Cooper Raiff as a college student, which was a role that he could very convincingly play, considering the fact that he was only 24 years old. It wasn’t even his first feature! His 2020 debut, S#!%house, came out when he was 23.
23. Hell of a Summer (2023)
Ghostbusters: Afterlife co-stars Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk co-directed this slasher comedy, which debuted when they were 20 and 23 years old, respectively.
24. Milk & Serial (2024)
Obsession director Curry Barker put himself on the horror map after developing a career in comedy by releasing this chilling found footage movie on YouTube a month before he turned 25.
25. Backrooms (2026)
The buzzy horror movie Backrooms debuted on May 29, just three weeks before director Kane Parsons’ 21st birthday. How’d someone who can’t legally drink get the gig helming an A24 movie starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve? He created the original viral web series on which it is based.
While these 25 filmmakers are certainly worth celebrating, it’s also important to note that it’s never too late to make one’s directorial debut. For instance, Master of Horror Wes Craven’s first mainstream feature, The Last House on the Left, debuted on his 33rd birthday, while four-time Oscar nominee Ridley Scott was 39 when he released his debut feature, The Duellists. Heck, Charles Laughton was 56 when his only solo directorial effort, the legendary The Night of the Hunter, arrived in cinemas.
For more information on how to become a director, explore No Film School’s archives, which feature information about everything from lessons on being a first-time director to instructions for making $0 short films to a list of ways to break into Hollywood.
