British directors and writers are revolutionizing how stories are told in the UK. The tiny isle is home to diverse communities and experiences, all of which should have their voices heard.

The UK is helping nurture talents and bring forward the next generation of British directors and writers thanks to Film festivals and tutoring schemes.

1. Charlotte Wells

Scottish director Charlotte Wells hit the mainstream with her Debut film, Aftersun. The poignant film depicts a father and daughter on holiday in the late 1990s. Her autobiographical debut was ambiguous enough to resonate with all audiences, no matter how they perceived that ending. It received international acclaim and earned Paul Mescal an Academy Award nomination.

Based in New York, Wells had no intention of filmmaking and wanted to get into production. Her debut short films are about grief and denial, universal topics, always sourced from her own experiences.

2. Nida Manzoor

Nida Manzoor is best known for creating the Peacock comedy We Are Lady Parts and writing and directing her debut feature film, Polite Society. Her work often depicts her background as a Pakistani Muslim in the UK from a unique angle.

She started her career as a screenwriter in children’s TV before moving to directing British television shows. She notably directed two episodes of Doctor Who in 2020. Manzoor’s work regularly earns praise for acknowledging no single experience as a Muslim woman growing up in London.

3. Jessica Magaye

British director and writer Jessica Magaye is one of the most exciting names in British cinema. Her career started as a runner with Netflix before working in writers' rooms on British television. She is one of the new exciting filmmakers depicting Black British life and the underbelly of life rarely represented on TV.

An eight-part television series based on her short film Daddy’s Girl is currently in the works. Magaye is also working on a sci-fi mystery drama set in 2012 about a class of children who are mysteriously abducted in broad daylight.

4. Naqqash Khalid

Born and raised in Manchester, Naqqash Khalid started as an art and media lecturer at Salford University. His breakout came when the low-budget film production scheme iFeatures chose his screenplay.

Khalid's debut, In Camera, follows an aspiring actor and his journey through Kafkaesque auditions. The film used surrealism to explore race and class within the film industry. Khalid believes in breaking the norms to move the industry forward.

5. Luna Carmoon

Luna Carmoon is a British director-writer and Sundance Ignite Fellow. Her first short debuted at the BFI London Film Festival, which is especially remarkable as she has no family connection or formal training.

Her debut feature film, Hoard, premiered in September at the Venice Film Festival, winning three prizes. Hoard is a haunting tale of childhood trauma and adult loneliness. This dream-like coming age story firmly places Carmoon on the map of ones to watch.

6. Nicôle Lecky

After taking her one-woman show from stage to the small screen, Nicôle Lecky has earned comparisons to Phoebe Waller-Bridge. BBC's Mood is based on her comedy-drama-musical and stars Lecky as a wannabe singer who becomes involved in the seductive world of social media. It cemented her as a fresh female voice in British television.

Lecky started her acting career before discovering her love of writing on BBC soap opera spin-off E20. She then secured writing credits for Youngers and Channel 4’s Ackley Bridge. Her episode of ITV’s drama shorts series Unsaid Stories focuses on a light-skinned woman having to reevaluate her relationship with her white mother after giving birth to a dark-skinned baby.

7. Raine Allen-Miller

Rye Lane was one of the brightest debuts in modern British cinema. Director and writer Manchester-born Raine Allen-Miller moved to London at 12 and studied at the Brit School. She started her career in marketing and music videos, discovering her love for bright, poppy visuals. Rye Lane showcases Peckham as a radiant and youthful place, contradicting the criminal gangland often depicted in the media.

Allen-Miller’s debut short film Jerk, which depicted an elderly Jamaican man’s battle with depression, had its premiere at the BFI London Film Festival to huge acclaim. It caught the eye of the Head of Film at BBC, who approached her to make Rye Lane. Allen-Miller admits the British sitcom Peep Show inspires her, and she wants to celebrate funny female leads in romantic stories.

8. Remi Weekes

British director and writer Remi Weekes shot on the scene after writing and directing his debut feature, His House. The horror thriller tells the story of a refugee couple from South Sudan struggling to adjust to life in the UK. Weekes manages to undo the overfamiliar haunted house genre and quick many of the tropes associated with the genre. His House went on to win numerous awards, including a British Independent Film Award and a BAFTA.

Weekes uses a classic horror format to humanize refugees and get inside the perspective of another community. His love for using horror to reveal the truths of humanity makes him one of the most interesting up-and-coming British genre directors.

9. Molly Manning Walker

London-based director Molly Manning Walker started her career as a cinematographer, working on videos for A$AP Rocky, James Blake, and Tom Walker. Her 2020 short film Good Thanks, You? was selected at the International Critics' Week in Cannes and launched her career.

Her most recent work won the Un Certain Regard award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The movie follows three 16-year-olds from London on a post-exam vacation to Crete. Manning Walker uses her debut to unpack the horrors of being a teenage girl, earning acclaim on the film festival circuit. 

10. Savannah Leaf

Savannah Leaf has transitioned from an Olympian to an award-winning filmmaker. Working in advertising, she cut her teeth with brands like Nike, Beats, and Zalando. Her short documentary The Heart Still Hums earned accolades, and her music video for ‘This Land” for Gary Clark Jr. was nominated for Best Music Video at the 2020 Grammys.

Her directorial feature film debut, Earth Mama, premiered to praise at Sundance in 2023. Earth Mama is a raw story about a pregnant single mother with two children in foster care fighting to reclaim her family. The ex-volleyball player is one of the most interesting British directors with a promising future telling raw female stories. 

11. Dionne Edwards

British director and writer Dionne Edwards was named one of Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow with her comedic tale on complex topics. Her early roles include work on Top Boy, That Girl, and Channel 4’s On the Edge.

Her debut feature film, Pretty Red Dress, tackles the fluidity of attraction and black gender identity with a gentle touch. They may feel like timely topics, but the script has existed for over a decade. Her work is frequently praised for its honest depiction of Black Britishness.

12. Paris Zarcilla

Paris Zarcilla is a British Filipino BIFA-nominated director and writer whose debut, Raging Grace, was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Best Film & Debut at SXSW. Raging Grace depicts the story of a Filipina house cleaner and her young daughter facing Britain’s class and racial divide.

Zarcilla uses well-worn stereotypes to explore socio-political matters and topics that face working-class immigrants in the UK. He is working with the BBC Writers Room on an original series and adapting Boy In The Tower and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando for television.

13. Charlotte Regan

Charlotte Regan is one of the most honest voices depicting the working class in Britain. The British director and writer often speak about the barriers people from working-class communities face to enter the privileged film industry. She started her career working for the paparazzi, and it was shooting film sets, including Skyfall, which inspired her to want to make her films.

Regan started making music videos when she was 15, going to direct more than 200 promos. In 2023, her debut feature film, Scrapper, won the Grand Jury Prize for the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. The comedy-drama tells the story of a father trying to connect with his 12-year-old daughter after he returns from a very different life in Ibiza.

14. Alex MacKeith

Playwright Alex McKeith made his screenwriting debut this year with The Lesson, a sleek thriller about a writer and his son’s tutor. McKeith’s break in the industry came as a stand-up comedian, taking his debut show to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022.

McKeith has a bright career ahead of him in television. He works in the writer’s room for Boarders and with Jamie Fraser on an original series called Mansion.

15. Marley Morrison

British director and writer Marley Morrison's knockout first feature, the witty, queer romance Sweetheart, greatly impacted the industry. She followed her spiky debut by directing the ITV teen drama Tell Me Everything.

Sweetheart was praised for depicting the joyful side of being young and gay. While Morrison acknowledges the importance of stories like Boys Don’t Cry and Milk, she also wants young gay people to know the world isn't always tragic and lonely.