Brad Bird

Made his feature debut with The Iron Giant's sincere Cold War parable, then returned to retrofuturism's optimistic register years later with Tomorrowland — two films united by a director unusually unembarrassed about earnestness. He trained at CalArts alongside future Pixar collaborators and worked in television animation for years before his feature debut. He went on to direct several of Pixar's most acclaimed films, including The Incredibles and Ratatouille, both of which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.