Haute Living launched its Los Angeles edition in 2008, and since that time has profiled some of the biggest names in a variety of industries. We even presented our “Haute 100” list, a ranking of the 100 hautest individuals in Los Angeles and Orange County. But it’s awards season, and a global spotlight has been cast upon one of the region’s biggest—if not the biggest—industries: Hollywood.

It may be the name for a town, but Hollywood is synonymous worldwide with the film industry. So in honor of our Hollywood edition, we are presenting our choices for the people who run the biz in a variety of categories. Make some big moves this year and maybe you will be considered haute enough to make the cut next.

Hautest Director
James Cameron

It may seem like an obvious choice, but Haute Living is not about subtlety. Cameron is not only behind the year’s biggest movie (Avatar); he is behind some of the biggest movies of all time. He is responsible for writing Terminator and Rambo: First Blood, and earned his first directing role for his screenplay Aliens. He followed that up with Terminator 2: Judgment Day and True Lies. But he gained true iconic status for Titanic, which cost $200 million to make—a truly exorbitant amount, considering a typical movie at that time managed to work within a budget of $20 to $30 million. But all of his efforts were worth it. The movie made some $1,835,300,000 worldwide, making it the highest-grossing movie of all time, despite being the priciest to make. Titanic broke box office records the world over and brought home a slew of awards, including 11 Oscars. Cameron himself earned a golden statue as “Best Director,” and the film was named “Best Picture.”

This year, he outdid himself. Avatar, the most buzzed-about film since Titanic, is also Cameron’s most ambitious project. If you are one of the few who hasn’t seen it, it’s a science-fiction epic shot in 3D. The production is so cutting-edge that Cameron had to develop the revolutionary camera technology he used himself. Cameron first wrote the script in 1994, and production took four years. But it was worth it; in early 2010, Avatar surpassed Titanic as the highest-grossing film of all time, earning $1.292 billion worldwide as of the end of January. And with the flick still being shown in IMAX, 3D, and conventional screen formats, that number is still growing. (But keep in mind that Titanic is still the highest-grossing film of all time in the States, and take into consideration the cost of tickets for IMAX films and the inflation of ticket prices since Titanic’s release in 1997.) Avatar, like Titanic, is up for “Best Picture,” although isn’t favored to win (that honor goes to The Hurt Locker), and Cameron has been nominated once again for “Best Director”. If he does win, we are hoping he makes reference once again to being “King of the World”. He deserves it.