What is the best directorial debut of the 1990s?

The 1990s indie boom produced an astonishing crop of first features — no-budget neo-noirs, Sundance sensations, and debut films that rewrote the rules of filmmaking. Which is the best?

1. 1
   Reservoir Dogs

   Quentin Tarantino's 1992 heist-gone-wrong debut crackled with pop-culture dialogue and non-linear bravado, launching one of the most influential directorial careers of the era.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Clerks

   Kevin Smith's 1994 debut — shot for $27,575 at a convenience store, mostly at night — became an indie-cinema touchstone for its raw, funny, philosophically digressive dialogue.
   641pts
3. 3
   Hard Eight

   Paul Thomas Anderson's 1996 debut follows a veteran Las Vegas gambler who takes a lost young man under his wing — a patient, precisely observed character drama with an A-list cast.
   641pts
4. 4
   Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

   Guy Ritchie's 1998 debut re-energized British crime cinema with rapid-fire wit, labyrinthine plotting, and a visual energy that made Tarantino-inspired crime films feel fresh again.
   494pts
5. 5
   Following

   Christopher Nolan's 1998 debut — a black-and-white neo-noir shot on weekends for $6,000 — displayed his genius for non-linear structure and moral ambiguity in embryonic form.
   384pts
6. 6
   Pi

   Darren Aronofsky's 1998 debut follows a paranoid mathematician spiraling toward madness in a relentless, high-contrast black-and-white hallucinatory thriller shot for $68,000.
   231pts
7. 7
   Being John Malkovich

   Spike Jonze's 1999 debut — a surrealist comedy in which people discover a tunnel into John Malkovich's head — announced a fearlessly original directorial imagination.
   231pts
8. 8
   Boys Don't Cry

   Kimberly Peirce's 1999 debut — Hilary Swank's Oscar-winning portrayal of Brandon Teena — brought wrenching urgency and moral clarity to a devastating true-crime story.
   231pts
9. 9
   Bound

   The Wachowskis' 1996 debut, a stylish neo-noir with Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon, showcased the precise visual grammar and kinetic wit they would amplify in The Matrix.
   231pts
10. 10
    El Mariachi

    Robert Rodriguez shot his 1992 debut for $7,000 on a consumer camcorder, creating a kinetic Mexican action thriller that won Sundance and launched a defining action-auteur career.
    1pts
11. 11
    American Beauty

    Sam Mendes' 1999 debut swept five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, dissecting suburban American complacency through a darkly comic, elegiac lens.
    1pts
12. 12
    Boyz n the Hood

    John Singleton's 1991 debut became one of the first studio films to earn its director an Academy Award nomination — a landmark portrait of South Central Los Angeles with a 96% RT score.
    1pts
13. 13
    Bottle Rocket

    Wes Anderson's 1996 debut introduced his signature deadpan whimsy and the Wilson brothers through a charmingly inept heist — a slight but instantly distinctive first film.
    1pts