Derek Cianfrance

Marriages and families under pressure, filmed across years. Blue Valentine cuts between the start and the end of a working-class couple's relationship. In The Place Beyond the Pines, a motorcycle stunt rider leaves a travelling carnival in Schenectady, and one decision follows two families for fifteen years. The Light Between Oceans sends a war-weary lighthouse keeper and his wife to an island, where one day a boat washes ashore.

Signature

• Time jumps that show a relationship at both ends (Blue Valentine).
• Fathers, sons and inherited guilt.
• Ryan Gosling in Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines.
• Long rehearsals and improvised performances.