Richard Linklater (top) may not be the best-known modern American movie director, but he may be the one that most other directors would secretly like to emulate.

American Masters: Richard Linklater – dream is destiny, which premieres at 9 p.m. ET Friday on PBS (check local listings), explains why: because he’s done it his way.

The Texas-born Linklater has built his reputation on films like Slacker, Before Sunrise and Dazed and Confused, which inspire adjectives like “small” and “quirky.”

With a few exceptions, like the 2003 Jack Black comedy School of Rock (right), his films also haven’t made a lot of money.

But they have built loyal audiences that have steadily grown, and they have shown that in a market where almost every traditional film resource is thrown into finding mega-superhero blockbusters, there is still room for movies about likable, ordinary people.

Linklater talks in dream is destiny about how, as a film student in Texas, he was afraid he’d get swallowed in New York or Los Angeles.

So he followed his own vision for character-driven personal stories, filmed with a bare minimum of equipment and frills, and eventually, enough people found them so he was able to make 1) more movies and 2) a career.

Along the way, he has developed a strong bond with actors like Ethan Hawke and Matthew McConaughey, who have appeared in many of his films and recall it as a peak acting experience because of the collaborative way Linklater works.

Linklater has also used his success to encourage others, founding the Austin Film Society, so independent filmmakers in that cultural center have a place to take their work.

But for the larger moviegoing public, the most entertaining part of dream is destiny may be the behind-the-scenes exploration of Before Sunrise and Dazed and Confused.

Before Sunrise starts with as modest a concept as anyone could imagine. A boy and girl have a chance meeting one evening on a train. He says he has to leave tomorrow and he has no money for a hotel, so after he gets to his destination, he just plans to wander all night. He asks her to wander with him.

That’s the film. One night of wandering, with Hawke and Julie Delpy (left).

It wasn’t anything close to a hit in any traditional sense, but it struck chords, and nine years later Linklater returned for a sequel. Then another nine years later he returned for another

Hawke and Delpy talk about the magic in this small story and the satisfaction in exploring the lives of these characters long after that first night.

With Dazed and Confused, which has come to be regarded as a classic ‘70s coming-of-age film, Linklater recalls that he was frustrated by the studio’s marketing campaign. The campaign made it look like a drug flick, he says, when it was really about the lives of regular old teenagers just trying to figure things out.

A truer perception ultimately kicked in, and even though Linklater still insists he wasn’t trying to make a generational statement, today the film is beloved among those from the era.

In a business that thrives on oversized personalities and images, Linklater comes off just like his characters. He’s precisely life-sized. It’s a good look.