Cynicism

These days, the most successful cynical filmmakers aren't hucksters and/or straightforward, talented businessmen (like a Corman, an HG Lewis, even an Andy Sidaris), but are instead people who actually believe in their own cynicism – in fact might have no cognizance of it cynicism.  This is the feeling I get when watching Christopher Nolan movies.  Another end of the Hollywood spectrum, though?  I only stumble upon a tiny few a year - there may be more I don't see - but I'm always impressed by those films that while being unambiguously commercial still display a certain harmonious balance between understanding what they are not simply as entertainment but also as expressive objects ... 

(i.e., people can enjoy simple pleasures but people also aren't machines whose buttons need to be ticked off with depressing, predictable ploys) 

... and can take their craft seriously without taking important/imported themes too seriously from the get-go.  It's through the latter that genre can be built into something.  Not from bum-bum-BUM music and dark "topical" material copped from a 14-year-old suburban boy's sense of morality.