Not too long ago, the thought of a sketch comedian writing and directing horror was inconceivable. After all, they’re completely different genres in two separate lanes with so little in common. Naturally, no one could have expected the outcome when Jordan Peele announced his move from an award-winning series into feature filmmaking. Yet here we are; five years into his creative odyssey, Peele’s work continues to excite, disrupt, and ultimately mystify.

Examining Peele’s prior work, it makes sense how his background in comedy helped shape his vision as a filmmaker. Immersing himself in a genre defined by extremity, his past work on Mad TV and Key & Peele molded his mastery at identifying archetypes and weaving them into exaggerated circumstances.

Clearly, he was really good at it; winning an Emmy for his work in sketch comedy, Peele’s prominence was elite as a writer/performer. Despite being draped in preposterous wigs, dressed in drag, or bearing false teeth, his comedy was unanimously recognized as one of the hottest commodities in the improv scene. In spite of all this, something within him remained unfulfilled; that’s when he and longtime partner Kegan Michael Key called it quits to explore their potential outside the realm of their Comedy Central series.

Two years after the split, Peele wrote and directed Get Out, a groundbreaking debut that follows Chris, a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya) who travels to meet his white girlfriend’s family, only to find their overt pleasantries hide a menacing secret. Scoring big with Oscar nominations in Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture on his very first outing, Get Out was a resolute entry for Peele that welcomed a whole new era of artistic expression.

“The best comedy and horror feel like they take place in reality. You have a rule or two you are bending or heightening, but the world around it is real. I felt like everything I learned in comedy I could apply to this movie.”

Jordan Peele | The New York Times

Aside from its ensemble cast, sharp humor, and nail-biting suspense, Get Out established Peele’s reputation as a storyteller with something important to say. Disguised as a puzzling psychological horror-thriller, it’s also a pressing study about racial tension at its core. Peele’s tight script and inspired direction navigate timely social issues with thoughtfulness, resulting in an expert blend of subversion and conventionality, both balanced in equal measures.

In an age of horror that was overpopulated by demonic possession movies, Peele and his creative team at Monkeypaw Productions rejected the blueprint offered by the Conjuring franchise in favor of slow-burning social commentary about the black experience in America—for a fifth of its budget. Released to widespread acclaim and spirited discussion, Get Out upended expectations by bucking against the trends of its time. And with it came a new generation of ambitious visual storytelling that uses metaphor to explore the modern human condition like never before.

Eager to keep the momentum alive, Peele set out to capitalize on his newfound success as a filmmaker of substance. His second creative venture was Us, another film that uses genre to convey a deeper message about society as a whole. Wearing the veil of a blood-curdling slasher movie, his sophomore feature explored family dynamics through the macro lens of socioeconomic status. In doing so, forced audiences to re-evaluate the blurred line between heroes and villains.

Us finds darkness beneath the sunny shorelines of Santa Cruz, where the middle-class Wilson family (Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex) are terrorized by their own vengeful doppelgängers. Modeled after an episode of The Twilight Zone, man-against-self becomes literalized in Peele’s full-blown horror film that examines the class divide between those with privilege and those without.

Earning comparable returns to Get Out though it wasn’t as well-received, the general masses seemed to have reached an agreement. While Us was a bold swing of creative ambition with a career-defining performance from Nyong’o, it was unfocused at times, which muddled the story it tried to tell. Yet still, it justified Peele’s aim as a filmmaker who boldly attempts to one-up himself with each new story. Each of them original, each significant in its own declarative right, regardless of critical consensus.

Thrust into the jetstream of his first two films, Peele’s intrepid momentum screeches to a halt as the COVID-19 pandemic forces him into a state of re-evaluation. Can movies survive this unprecedented standstill? Emerging from that headspace, he set out to write a love letter to the great American spectacle with Nope, a cacophonous sci-fi/horror movie about a pair of siblings who come face-to-face with a strange flying object over their late father’s ranch. Employing decades of influence in the well-treaded alien subgenre, Peele implores viewers to abandon their notions of an extraterrestrial thriller by adorning Spielbergian pageantry with a sharp and pointed twist.

Led by Daniel Kaluuyaa and Keke Palmer, Nope is a daring cosmic western that makes great use of its multi-layered construction. At its most basic level, it functions as an IMAX movie with deep visual immersion and supersonic sound design. Hidden beneath, there’s a thought-provoking study of society’s toxic addiction to spectacle and how it’s fed by a need to exploit others for our own monetary gain.

From one character’s incessant urge to make money from UFO sightings to a series of grisly flashbacks depicting a trained chimpanzee’s rampage during a live studio taping, Nope is earnestly pining for larger concepts. It’s the kind of movie that rewards multiple viewings; if not for the showy pomp of its spectacle, come back for the full comprehension of what it’s really trying to say.

Though it’s seen as an improvement over his last, Nope isn’t quite flawless. Like many other movies are guilty of, the atmospheric setup can’t match how its resolution takes shape in the third act. But its relentless commitment to ambition helps cement Peele’s prestige in the realm of stories that dare to stand out. Nope defies genre while still drawing a large audience, and it contains moral complexity without bordering on preachiness. Viewers can’t help but leave the theater with a palpable sense of awe for what an original movie can be in 2022.

“I really connect with Peele’s films: His approach to filmmaking is very much like an artist, like somebody who’s done a painting or sculptures. It’s very open-ended, but it has a direct view.”

Keke Palmer | The Washington Post

The 43-year-old filmmaker’s belated reach expands beyond his own directorial scope, with a CV that includes co-producing credits on HBO’s Lovecraft Country and a co-writing credit on Nia DaCosta’s Candyman reboot. Both are noteworthy projects that stand beside Peele’s own, by virtue of poise and execution. His work speaks for a voiceless generation of artists whose films reframe the context of contemporary American society by way of familiar narrative templates.

Taking his place among the boldest cinematic voices of the 21st Century, the former comedian now stands as a figure whose work is more than just postmodern—it’s inevitable. Enriched and inspired by decades of film history, his platform elevates a time-honored genre to give horror more relevance in our surreal new world. Building his edifice at the intersection of progress and tradition, Peele’s work interrogates how we navigate an eruptive social climate.

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