This week sees Gareth Edwards make his feature length directorial debut as his movie Monsters hit the big screen.
Six years after Earth has suffered an alien invasion a cynical journalist agrees to escort a shaken American tourist through an infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border.
So to celebrate the release of the latest sci-fi movie to hit the big screen in recent weeks we take a look at some of the best directorial debuts of all time.
- Hunger (Steve McQueen)
2008 saw Steve McQueen announce himself in a major when he made his debut with Hunger, which followed the Bobby Sands as he went on hunger strike in 1981.
Steve McQueen has made the jump from Turner Prize winning artist to fully fledged filmmaker in one impressive swoop as you will not see another debut movie like this.
It's an intense and powerful movie as McQueen depicts, with unflinching determination, the horror conditions and degrading treatment that these men were forced to endure on a daily basis.
At times it's a difficult watch the setting of the prison is incredibly claustrophobic and McQueen relies more on the power of the images that he creates rather than pages and pages of dialogue.
Since the critical success of Hunger McQueen has been very quiet but he does have a new movie in the pipeline - Shame; which sees him reunite with Michael Fassbender.
- District 9 - (Neill Blomkamp)
As directorial debuts go 2009 belonged to Neill Blomkamp as he brought us District 9, one of the finest movies of last year.
The one thing that can be said about District 9 is it is a true original and, in that respect, can be likened to E.T and Alien.
This movie has relentless pace as Bloomkamp mixes sci-fi with action, comedy, political intrigue but it is very human at it's core, and that is thanks to a great lead performance from Sharlto Copley, around whom the whole movie pivots.
Blomkamp mixes in a real message of racial prejudice and how we all judge on appearance without looking beyond what we see and that makes the movie pack a further punch.
- American Beauty (Sam Mendes)
In 1999 there was only one filmmaker’s name on everyone’s lips and that was Sam Mendes as he burst onto the scene With American Beauty.
The movie brought together an impressive cast of Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch and Mena Suvari and went on to be a huge critical success.
American Beauty is a dark, intelligent and yet emotional movie that won over critics and audiences on its release.
The movie went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars and Mendes has enjoyed further success with the likes of The Road to Perdition and Revolutionary Road.
- Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino)
Reservoir Dogs was Quentin Tarantino's debut movie released back in 1992 which gave audiences a first look at the nonlinear storylines and stylistically excessive violence that he is now so famous.
But as well as showing off Tarantino to the film world as a director to keep an eye on it brought together a great ensemble cast that was a mix of experienced actors and those who used to the film to shoot to the public's attention.
He changed the face of the independent movie making them marketable as he followed up Reservoir Dogs with Pulp Fiction, which was Oscar nominated.
- Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper)
Easy Rider may have been released back in 1969 but it remains one of the most iconic movies of the sixties as Hopper made his directorial debut and the world was introduced to Jack Nicholson.
The movie is widely regarded as the ultimate road trip movie as bikers Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper travelled through the American Southwest searching for freedom.
The film, which was also directed by Hopper and produced by Fonda, was a landmark movie of it's time as it opened up the doors for more new and young filmmakers to get behind the camera in the seventies.
But Easy Rider wasn't just a movie about a bunch of guys travelling across America it looked at the tensions that existed in the country at the time as well as looking at the hippie movement and drug culture.
- Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero)
Night of the Living Dead kicked off the career of George A. Romero back in 1968 - and he has gone on to become one of the greatest horror filmmakers.
The movie was made on a shoe-string and yet it has become one of the most influential horror movies ever made.
The movie kicked off the zombie genre - which is still thriving today with the likes of 28 Days Later and the Crazies.
Night of the Living Dead was the first of five Dead films and has been remade twice.
- Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
Citizen Kane was the directorial debut of filmmaker Orson Welles and is widely regarded as one of the best movies of all time.
The story charts the rise and fall of a newspaper publisher whose wealth and power ultimately isolates him in his castle-like refuge. The film's protagonist, Charles Foster Kane, was based on a composite of Howard Hughes and William Randolph Hearst--so much so that Hearst tried to have the film suppressed.
The film was released to critical acclaim, acclaim which has only grown over the years, and nominated for nine Oscars.
But widely regarded as one of the Academy's biggest mistakes Citizen Kane did not take home the Best Picture award losing out to How Green Was My Valley.
Monsters is out now.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw