It's been a good year for new directors.

While not making the cut, a few showed immense promise right out of the box: Bejoy Nambiar's Shaitan showed off great visual flair; Kiran Rao's Dhobi Ghat did well in terms of mood and atmospherics; and Luv Ranjan's Pyaar Ka Punchnama gave us wonderfully foulmouthed male bonding.

And this while of the top 5 directors, three happen to be debutants as well.

Here, then, is my list:

5. Tigmanshu Dhulia

The performances he coaxed out of Jimmy Shergill and Randeep Hooda were incredible.

Also Read: Tigmanshu Dhulia's Favourite Films of 2011

Overlooking Game, which few saw and most shouldn't have, Deo had quite a year with Delhi Belly, showing not just a great sense of pace and comic timing, but also wonderfully cheeky irreverence not often glimpsed in our cinema.

We'd had lads' films before, but this one enjoyed its vulgarity in grown up fashion even as its characters got increasingly juvenile.

I was watching snatches of Shor In The City on television last afternoon and it's hard not to be impressed by just how assured the filmmaking is.

A highly confident film that knows what it's doing even when painting in broadstrokes, Shor... gave us interesting characters, a peculiar Mumbai point of view, an aggressive use of music and a climax so rousing it's celebratory.

Reader note: Raja Sen wrote the dialogues for Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK's film 99.

Much has been said about Ali's template of cinema -- of how his films continue to go on about innocent, smitten protagonists getting married to other people before realising how much they love each other -- but with this rock-infused take on Heer-Ranjha gave us a tremendously high-intensity romance with a leading man at the height of his powers.

His most earnest offering since his debut, Socha Na Tha, Rockstar isn't everybody's film.

But those who did fall in love with the film will remain more than grateful.

Gupte almost directed Taare Zameen Par a couple of years ago, but it's one of those really good 'almosts' since his Stanley Ka Dabba this year proved to be a far more honest and raw film about schoolchildren.

Clearly adept at working with children, Gupte proved himself a master of evocative imagery as he built a world so wonderfully familiar to us all that it was hard not to get swept away by nostalgia.