Terrence Malick is one of the most unusually esoteric filmmakers working today. Some cinephiles consider Malick to be part of the “New Hollywood” generation of directors that emerged in the 1970s alongside George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola, but a majority of his work has been released in the 21st Century. After taking a break from directing after the critical success of his 1970s films Badlands and Days of Heaven, Malick made his much anticipated return with 1998’s The Thin Red Line. While his subsequent projects The New World, The Tree of Life, and To The Wonder all received positive responses from his fans, reactions to his 2016 film Knight of Cups were more divisive.