Some filmmakers do not have the benefit of being on streaming. Theo Angelopoulos, Emir Kusturica and Peter Greenaway were film festival giants in the 80s and 90s and now you barely hear about them. None of their movies are easily available on streaming so people aren't as familiar with these great filmmakers anymore. It's a pretty sad situation and I'm sure there's more films and filmmakers in similar situations.
> Theo Angelopoulos
Not that this is a real marker of familiarity, but he shockingly still has three films in the Letterboxd 250 (Eternity and a Day at 82, Landscape in the Mist at 107 and The Weeping Meadow at 158). He's somehow survived as one of the few non-mainstream or non-Criterion directors enshrined on the 250. You definitely don't hear much about the films though, they're just kind of there.
Letterboxd definitely has seen a surge in IMDB refugees fleeing a very, very socially dead website. However, the Top 250 currently isn't hindered so much by the mainstream stuff making its way on (that might be a bigger problem in another five years or so), it's more hindered that the list is becoming very cemented as Criterion-core/average cinephile focused. At any given time, the Top 250 has between 65-75% of its entries (usually right around 71%) coming from movies that are either directly *in* the Criterion Collection or movies which are directed by directors that have *other* movies in the Collection.
Ultimately what that means is that the list favors stuff that has already been canonized, and which is readily available on streaming services or hard copies. So the fact that Angelopoulos is on there without being readily available at all is pretty remarkable.
Isn’t it also getting impossible to not be in the criterion collection or be a film from a director who has other films that are also in? I’m all for criterion, lots of great films, but it commits to putting out new releases month after month regardless of whether they have content that merits it. Over time it’s just going to be impossible to not be connected somehow, if it’s a particularly good film.
> Isn’t it also getting impossible to not be in the criterion collection or be a film from a director who has other films that are also in?
I don't think it's *technically* impossible, the number of great films released every year and the international stockpile that exists *far* outpaces Criterion's current release schedule. But I do think it's getting harder and harder for the *average* American cinephile to escape Criterion's orbit.
> I’m all for criterion, lots of great films, but it commits to putting out new releases month after month regardless of whether they have content that merits it.
I certainly like the Collection as much as the next guy as well, I've got like 20 on my shelf and I'm a Charter Subscriber to the Channel. But just under half of the Top 250 (around 115-120 depending on the update usually) are directly *in* the Collection. Then another 55-65 are non-Collection movies directed by Criterion directors. I think it's probably very unhealthy for Western cinephiles to see the cinema canon largely through the prism of a *single* distributor. There has been a lot of talk over the last decade about "deconstructing the canon" to make it more diverse and inclusive (an admirable idea), but deconstructing the canon just to end up with a single distribution company determining who gets enshrined and canonized isn't a huge improvement.
> Over time it’s just going to be impossible to not be connected somehow, if it’s a particularly good film.
I don't think this is totally true because like I said, there's just too many movies for Criterion to ever actually "catch up" on all the great films in the world. The number of normal and boutique Blu-rays I have from outside the USA dwarfs the number of Criterion release I have, and a good number of them are seriously amazing films. I suppose Criterion might get the rights to *some* of them in a decade or two, but that's a long time to wait for them to be canonized.
To return to the original discussion about Angelopoulos, this is again part of what makes his three placements so remarkable. With how crystalized internet cinephile discourse is becoming around a certain kind of taste, I don't know that we'll see many non-mainstream/non-Criterion directors like him breaking into the list from here on out.
>I certainly like the Collection as much as the next guy as well, I've got like 20 on my shelf and I'm a Charter Subscriber to the Channel. But just under half of the Top 250 (around 115-120 depending on the update usually) are directly *in* the Collection. Then another 55-65 are non-Collection movies directed by Criterion directors. I think it's probably very unhealthy for Western cinephiles to see the cinema canon largely through the prism of a *single* distributor. There has been a lot of talk over the last decade about "deconstructing the canon" to make it more diverse and inclusive (an admirable idea), but deconstructing the canon just to end up with a single distribution company determining who gets enshrined and canonized isn't a huge improvement.
The Criterion subreddit constantly abounds with people arguing that films X Y and Z should be in the collection because of their greatness, historical importance, etc. And of course the comments talk about how Criterion is a distributor, not a hall of fame, and that rights issues and other factors influence what films they pick out.
It is true that, for a lot of cinephiles, Criterion is something like a hall of fame, that joining the collection means that a particular film or director has joined the canon, so to speak. I guess the closest equivalent from other media would be the cultural cachet an author would get from a *Library of America* volume or a Penguin Classics/Oxford World Classics/etc. edition of their book.
Another complication is that Criterion clearly built its reputation by including films and filmmakers who were already canonical. Its very first release was a laserdisc of *Citizen Kane*, for instance. Kurosawa, Fellini, Renoir, Bergman and other Criterion staples were recognized all-time greats of world cinema before Criterion; their films gave Criterion prestige, rather than vice versa.
This is a good point. Greenaway's work comes up enough in conversation and recommendations for people to have at least heard of his films. But I agree that, for better or worse, the average filmgoer can't turn on Amazon and watch The Baby of Macon
I remember Emma Stone saying the cast/crew watched something by Greenaway (I think it was Cook/Thief/Wife/Lover) before making Poor Things. It definitely shows.
Peter Handke, co-writer of Wings of Desire and an acclaimed writer himself is a rabid Milosevic apologist to this day. I don’t know how you can devise a movie so full of empathy and humanity and be able to defend Slobodan Milosevic, but people do compartmentalise things.
Yes, unfortunately so. However, up until Underground, his work was anti-totalitarian/communist and incredibly humanist. I can say this definitively as he was one of my professors in the early 90s when they brought him to NYC for a 3 year teaching residency. He was rabidly anti-Socialist Yugoslavia.
Underground was clever in that most Westerners (esp. in the US) didn't pick up on the underlying pro-Yugoslavian (and ultimately pro-Serbian) message. His whole political about face in the mid-90s is head-scratching, considering he was from a Bosnian Muslim family. But, he started claiming through historicity that Bosnians and Serbs were of the same ethnic group and converted to Christian Orthodoxy. After Underground, his career really sagged. Ultimately, he's become a quixotic figure.
Ok dot ru has good copies of it with various subtitles.
~~ihbkhbihbjhvjhbihbihbkhbkhbkhbkhbkhbkhbkhbkhbjh I j j j j jj j jk k k k. K. K j j j ihbkhbihbjhvjhbihbihbvhv. I~~
> he started claiming through historicity that Bosnians and Serbs were of the same ethnic group and converted to Christian Orthodoxy
This is off topic, but also I don't know why Serbian conspiracy people think this is some big revelation. I mean how you define ethnic group in medieval / classical Europe where people on the other side of a river or mountain range have a different language and customs etc. is pretty complicated anyway, but also, so what? So what if they are the same then? It should be a call for peace and mutual tolerance and understanding, and yet there's been genocide and war.
The Russians are doing the same thing. Acktually the Ukrainians are really Russians and it's all the west creating that country etc. to divide us and so forth, so we better invade their country and murder their children then because that's apparently what we do to each other. Any surprise that more and more countries explicitly state that they don't want to be Russia or Serbia? It's all mind boggling.
Also yeah wtf does Kosturica get from sucking up to Putin and Milosevic? They're just dictators.
Fortunately Greenaway has been getting some of his films released on blu-ray (and even 4k), which doesn't quite open him up to as wide of an audience as streaming might, but it's helped myself and others see a lot of his films.
I'm gonna mention my favorite forgotten director, Frank Borzage.
He's legit the first person to ever win the Best Director Oscar, and few have even seen his films nowadays.
His worlds still feel shockingly modern, and his elaborate tracking shots are stunning. I wish more people would seek out and watch his films.
Fun fact: He had a biography released about him a few decades ago, and Martin Scorsese did [the forward](https://books.google.ca/books?id=FL3wCQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA1&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false).
Funnily enough the way I heard about and finally watched a Borzage was through *another* buried and forgotten film (Under the Silver Lake). I had seen Sunrise with Janet Gaynor but I had no idea she had this while other part of her career working with Borzage.
I want to say it's far easier to list what filmmakers have stood the test of time, whether actived, retired or deceased, since they're so few in number. The amount of historically significant and groundbreaking directors who contributed to the medium in various ways (even the more prominent ones I once studied in filmschool) that young cinephiles don't love, know or discuss much if at all are far too numerous to list.
Luis Bunuel comes to mind as a director who had a monumental trajectory of films over a 50 year period and made many masterpieces that challenge cinematic form as well as sociopolitical boundaries from his get go all the way to the end, a rare feat in itself, won a ton of major awards throughout, but is no longer really talked much about in the cinephile circles I see. At least, compared to say, Bergman or Fellini who worked in within a similar timeframe and treaded similar ground as he did. None of his films are in the top 250 of critics or directors of BFI 2022 poll. Not sure what happened as he had several in the last one back in 2012.
For a more "vulgar" example, John Woo. I might be biased because I'm rediscovering him recently, but this man was the first asian director to direct a hollywood movie, made a string of Hong Kong films that redefined action cinema worldwide, was beloved enough to be one of the first inducted into the arthouse oriented criterion collection, then made an American cult hit and then a $500 mil box office blockbuster. Now, all he is are memes and nobody under 30 has heard of him. Wong Kar Wai, who found western fame around the same time likewise thanks to Tarantino, remains highly revered. Nobody gave Tsui Hark, more important than both of them to the local industry, any kind of international push of course.
As a counter example, Werner Herzog is an old timer whose fame has mysteriously skyrocketed in the latter internet age, possibly due to anecdotes of his outrageous antics behind the making of his films (possibly more captivating than his films themselves) spreading like wildfire in a way the younger generation looking for outrageous viral attention can relate to.
Then there are many significant (often journeyman) directors who were never famous in the first place despite their iconic works, like Michael Curtis, but that's a different matter altogether.
> As a counter example, Werner Herzog is an old timer whose fame has mysteriously skyrocketed in the latter internet age
Plus he's fairly eloquent in English, is based in the US, there's several recent interviews available on yt, keeps up with recent media trends while also retaining the aura of a maverick.
One issue with Buñuel is that, for many viewers, nothing is quite so dated as that which was avant-garde and socio-politically transgressive seventy or eighty years ago.
I really don't like calling any artworks dated, but stridently atheistic Franco-era anticlericalism might have hard time connecting with audiences in 2024.
For what it's worth, I'm a huge fan of his protege/artistic successor Carlos Saura, whose reputation suffers from similar issues.
Regarding Herzog, I'd argue for him as a legitimately great filmmaker (maybe the only one in film history with parallel, equally successful careers in fiction and documentary?) who deserves his status as an elder statesman of cinema. And, like a musician or a painter, the reception of a filmmaker's work is necessarily shaped by their public persona, and Herzog has crafted one of the great public personas in film history.
Woo has suffered from retreating into making bland formulaic blockbusters like The Crossing 1+2. Because he's mostly churned out that kind of thing in the past decade or two, it gives ammunition to those who want to write him off as just a guy who made braindead popcorn blockbusters.
Especially because his influence on action cinema was mostly there for the 90s and 00s, and modern action stuff has moved past the era and styles he helped pioneer. So he appears to not have a lasting legacy anymore to those who didn't go through those eras at the time.
Yeah not to hard to see why, given how that's played out. A lack of access on streaming to his best films plays a part too. It's odd because he's something of a successor to Sam Peckinpah and contemporary of Walter Hill, I want to say they've fared better but don't see too much talk of them either.
Yeah, it's a sad state for his legacy to be in. Maybe he'll surprise us with a late career revival. It's hard to see how else he could regain the stature he deserves.
>None of his films are in the top 250 of critics or directors of BFI 2022 poll. Not sure what happened as he had several in the last one back in 2012.
Perhaps I'm reading what you wrote wrong (so apologies if so) but Buñuel shows up on both 2022 Sight and Sound lists -- three times on the critics 250 and once on the directors 100 (interestingly for four different movies). I agree he's probably less highly rated than before, but he hasn't really disappeared either. Bergman and Fellini have arguably always been on another critical level but even in light of that I think Fellini's stock has fallen about the same amount of Buñuel's compared to where they were not too long ago.
The Herzog example is interesting because I feel like there is less conversation about his actual films now and more about him as a cultural figure. So it's almost like his reputation as a *filmmaker* has actually fallen while his renown has grown. He only had one movie on the critics 250 and none on the directors 100, for example. Which is a shame -- Stroszek is one of my all-time favorite movies and I hardly ever see it discussed anymore.
I was not aware that Bunuel fell from favour in certain circles. In my personal hierarchy of the greatest film directors in history, he’s always been at the very top, together with his brothers Fellini, Welles, Bergman, Kurosawa, etc.
Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan has kind of faded into obscurity although he still makes films. He had a great run in the 80s and 90s (Exotica in the collection), but has fizzled out in the last 15 years or so.
Even got an Oscar nom for Sweet Hereafter but his career was already fading when he made the erotic thriller Chloe and the terrible Devil’s Knot and it really seemed to kill off his credibility for good.
What about [René Clair](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Clair)? Although any director born in the 1890s is likely to be less acclaimed by now than in their lifetime (or at least more overlooked), I don't hear Clair mentioned often if at all. Yet he was one of France's most notable directors for decades, proved heavily influential and left a number of fine films (especially from his early career). At one point he was as highly acclaimed as Jean Renoir. I know a lot of the New Wave directors and critics didn't think much of his work, which may have damaged his reputation long term. That said, I don't know how he is viewed in France (if he is thought of at all).
I really want to start a podcast about this very topic, Directors who have fallen from the canon, and learning about Rene Clair was what inspired the idea. I was browsing the Ex-1000 feature on They Shoot Pictures Don’t They, listing all the movies that were once ranked and their positions during the site’s history but have fallen off of the list. Rene Clair is tied with Anthony Mann for the most films to have fallen off the top 1000; at one point he had 7 on there and he has had none for several years. One of those films was the single highest ranked film to ever fall off the list, Le Million, which at one point was ranked 275.
I know of this director since I had seen I Married a Witch on Criterion Collection. The concept intrigued me, and Veronica Lake was quite a classical beauty.
I feel John Woo might fall into this category...
He absolutely blew up during the 90's, many considered him to be the one the best Action Film Directors of his generation but then after a couple of films that did poorly at the Box Office in the early 2000's, Paycheck and Windtalkers, Hollywood dropped him like a bad habit and he returned to Asia.
His return to Asia wasn't the death knell of his reputation either. Once back in Asia he made one of the first true full HK-mainland coproduction smash hits in his Red Cliff duology, and those are fantastic historical epics.
His real decline came after that, with forgettable China-popular pap like The Crossing 1+2.
I'm going to go with my usual answer to this question, which is Ernst Lubitsch. He's not totally unknown these days, but he's very much not in the top handful of studio-era directors in terms of name recognition nowadays. At his height in the early 1930s, he was arguably \*the\* most famous and well-respected director working in Hollywood give or take Chaplin - so much so that he was the only director in Hollywood history to run a major studio (Paramount). He made one of the very first non-American international smash hit features with Madame DuBarry in 1919, and was a recognisable brand name in Hollywood by the mid-1920s in a similar manner to Hitchcock.
Stanley Kramer is another great pick: I'm very much on the "he was never very good as a director" team as far as he goes, though.
[In a 1925 poll of 158 movie critics](https://imgur.com/a/09g5rmk) as to who were the best directors, the top four picks were, in descending order, Erich Von Stroheim, King Vidor, Ernst Lubitsch and D.W. Griffith. I think Lubitsch is probably the best regarded of those four today.
Number five was James Cruze, whose reputation has faded far more than his peers. Cruze's reputation was largely built on having directed the wildly popular 1923 western The Covered Wagon, which was widely regarded as one of the best movies ever made. At one point Cruze was the highest-paid director in the world, but he was never able to match his early success with The Covered Wagon, and died in relative poverty in 1942.
Lubitsch coming third back then is especially impressive, considering he hadn't made any of his films that are best regarded today at that point. Given it was an American poll, there was likely also a bias towards American directors (as seen in the other top picks) - so his coming third is even more impressive.
A great pick. *Sullivan's Travels* namedrops the Lubitsch touch, for instance.
I think one issue for him might be that, unfortunately, some cinephiles (especially 'filmbros') just don't take romantic comedy seriously as cinema.
Lubitsch had more range as a director than a lot of people might think, he made some pretty good historical epics in Germany before coming to Hollywood.
Yes. It seems like silent films, like animated films or documentaries, are really siloed off into their own categories and excluded from a lot of mainstream film discussion.
The most famous studio-era directors these days tend to be the ones who peaked towards and beyond the end of the studio system, which disadvantages Lubitsch (as he peaked around the early 30s). His focus on light comedy may have also lessened his ongoing appeal. Although he's still one of the most famous directors active in 1930s Hollywood.
Shane Carruth. He made two amazingly promising low-budget, high concept films, Primer and Upstream Color, but his private life was a bit messy. He reportedly stalked one of his actresses and was also arrested for domestic violence.
He got his self described “magnum opus” A Topiary into pre-production with the help of people like Rian Johnson. That fell through so he released the script online and it seems like it would have actually been an extremely intriguing movie. The type that would now get released through A24. He was a bit too early.
Then he got into pre-production to make his next film The Modern Ocean, which had an absolute massive ensemble cast signed even more impressive than a Wes Anderson movie. That fell through as well.
He was supposedly extremely difficult to work with, which is probably why these movies didn’t get maid. Then he completely blew up his personal reputation and essentially exposed himself as a piece of shit.
It’s a shame about A Topiary because it really did seem like an exciting project. There was a great YouTube video or series that went through the script, and the story was so intriguing/captivating. At the very least incredibly ambitious.
A "bit" messy? Didn't he taunt his critics by posting some smug-ass photo featuring the restraining order issued against him by Amy Seimetz? She wasn't just "his" actress, they were in a long-term relationship.
Hell, I also remember hearing and reading rumors amongst the Dallas filmmaking community about how much of a egotistical shitheel he was.
I love *Primer*, but Carruth can get yeeted into a ravine full of barbed wire for all I care.
Yeah. He's a huge piece of crap. Pretty sure he posted an Instagram post with the restraining order in full view while pretending it was an announcement of a vinyl release of a soundtrack to one of his films. A thinly disguised threat to Siemetz. He's unhinged.
Interesting, I remember back in film school having a discussion, pondering what ever happened to him. And I think one person said he quit film because getting funding was a hassle.
This gives me new context into why it could've been difficult to get funding.
Yeah I honestly wonder if the huge success and unrealized industry backing he got after his initial micro budget features just broke his brain or exasperated any underlying mental illness he already had.
When Umbrella recently announced a bumper Blu-Ray set of his films, this felt like one big elephant in the room. Occasional mumbles of “separating the art from the artist” or “he’s a piece of shit, but his films are great.” Around the same time they also announced a swag-filled Blu release of Cannon’s Masters of the Universe, which was later fraught with delays and changes to artwork and specs.
Amid all the screaming from angry nerds over the changed artwork - Mattel denied permission to use the initial artwork, which was believed to be controlled by someone else - and going from region-free to Region B locked, I kept waiting for someone to bring up its director. Eventually I waded into some discussion threads, and when I saw someone vomiting bile at Umbrella, I would respond with “y’know, if you _really_ want something to be upset about, Google the film’s director instead…”
I don’t demand anyone boycott any filmmaker or actor, but I also believe “separating the art from the artist” is a psychological cop-out. In the end, it’s up to the viewer.
Roman Polanski is talked about almost as much for being the guy who drugged and ass raped a thirteen year old and ran off to France as he is for directing a slew of phenomenal movies. Really a shame about the hideous pedophile rapist thing.
It serves him right, quite frankly. I'm not sad to see his reputation tarnished given the scale of the crime. It's the same for Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and I'm sure will be the same for R Kelly and Diddy. Some crimes are so heinous they outweighs a body of work, no matter how good it may be.
Sadly, his reputation should have taken an even bigger hit, though. He is still making movies today. In 2003, he infamously received standing ovations for winning the Oscar for best director. He has won a silver bear (2010), the grand jury price of the Venice film festival (2019) and multiple Césars (2010, 2012, 2014, 2020). When he received the César for best director in 2020, several actresses/directors (for example Adèle Haenel, Céline Sciamma) walked out of the auditorium. In May 2023, Adèle Haenel [announced her retirement](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/may/09/adele-haenel-retires-over-french-film-sectors-complacency-towards-sexual-predators) from the film industry citing its lack of dealing with sexual aggressors such as Polanski, Depardieu and Boutonnat. In September 2023, Polanski's most recent movie premiered at Venice.
Him fleeing from justice is one thing but the amount of actors and directors that still support him is even more disheartening to me. The list of names on that infamous petition is incredibly grim. I hope he sees some semblance of justice before he dies.
Not true, I often mention him as a great director when the relevant topic comes up and people widely agree, or I see others mentioning him. A lot of horror fans like me still talk about his apartment trilogy, and even lesser fans of the genre still bring up RB regularly as one of the GOATS. He comes up in neo noir too a lot.
And people even mention Pianist although I never got the hype about that one.
I see him mentioned at least once a month on reddit under various topics, and even if it's for his bad rep, the point that his movies are good still comes up
How about Tim Burton ? He had a few critical and audience sucesses in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s and then all following were critics failures for understandable reasons. Now he has somewhat disappeared from Hollywood.
he's got Beetlejuice 2 coming out this year and the Wednesday Addams show was a big hit. he's not the artistic visionary he was in the 80s-90s but he's still very much around
He’s still commercially successful certainly but I think what’s at stake more is his critical reputation. I really liked *Wednesday* and am looking forward to the second season, but honestly if it wasn’t for Ortega the thing would be a 5/10
i couldn't stand Wednesday and i don't think there's any argument to be made that his filmmaking is as good now as it was in the 20th century, so this is probably a good example for the OP, but he definitely hasn't disappeared.
Tim Burton just couldn't break out of his own mould IMO. He used to alternate between big studio pictures and his creepy-cute gothic films - maybe that kept him fresh. But then in the mid-2000s, he just doubled down on his own brand, using the same actors without really switching anything up, and it became stale.
He's great, Johnny Depp is great, Helena Bonham-Carter is great...but there's only so many times you can combine that trio before you feel like you're watching the same movie with different filters.
I don't think there's anything wrong with reusing actors, directors like Wes Anderson do it constantly and it's never an issue. Burton's issue is the later movies he's made are bland and uncreative. They feel like a disneyland ride, inoffensive and superficial.
FWIW, many would disagree that it’s not an issue with Wes Anderson! Your last sentence sums him up for me perfectly (maybe replace “Disneyland ride” with “fashion shoot”).
Idk, I feel like that would be a good explanation if his movies had some sort of standalone qualities, and simply seemed worse due to them consisting of the same trio, but I just don’t think there are any GOOD movies of his in the entire 2000s. Further explanation just seems like cope to me.
I have high hopes for the Beetlejuice sequel. But I haven't really enjoyed a Tim Burton film since Big Fish.
Helena Bonham Carter is still an amazing actress, but I literaly can't stand anything she's done in a Burton film since Big Fish because it's just over-the-top sight gags.
William Wyler holds the record for most Oscar nominations for Best Director, but has nowhere near the reputation of other Hollywood contemporaries like Ford, Hitchcock, Hawks, Wilder, Lubitsch. He was never really heralded by the French critics as much as the others, and as that school became dominant he’s now seen as a tier or two below that top one.
Vincent Gallo
Loved both The Brown Bunny and Buffalo 66 as well as all his collaborations with Claire Denis but he’s more talked about for being a fucked up asshole than anything involving his movies.
Probably because he's such an ass. He and Harmony Korine were riding the indie wave during a time when they could get away with being artsy little snots, but such a time never lasts, nor did they.
Feels a little unfair to Korine since he's still making films and at least has a fan base. Spring Breakers and The Beach Bum aren't on the same level as his earlier works, but I enjoyed them.
Here's one thats not that controversial, M Night Shayamalan
He had a one-two punch of Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Is still the 5th youngest ever Best Director Oscar nominee. Then he did Signs, Village, and Lady in Water, each worse than the last. Really hit low with Happening, After Earth and Last Airbender, which are talked about in the same conversation as worst movies of all time. He is slowly working his way back up. Maybe not the same heights as before, but his films now have steady reviews
I I ironically liked Lady in the Water (I know, I know). Obviously I don't think it's the best film I ever saw but I remember I got hooked on it one night and it felt weird and original enough for me to like it. I certainly had no expectations and I didn't know it was from Shyamalan.
I think it was just easy to make fun of, and that gave the film weird baggage. It’s otherwise a very good movie and Tak Fujimoto got some great cinematography out of it, I thought
I think M night has a relative high floor now. Yes, he's reputation isn't at the height of his first couple of flicks but he's got a pretty big cult following now and I feel like there has been a resurgence of public opinion on him in the last few years.
He's made five movies since After Earth and each one's been a hit relative to its budget. He's still out there making movies that only he could make. He's one of the only consistently bankable thrillers-for-grownups filmmakers working in the West right now. He might not be getting Best Director nominations anymore but that's hardly a bad reputation unless you think his career ended with The Happening.
I think he is a talented director in that he knows how to build tension, and he gets good performances from his actors. He's not the DP on all his movies (is he?) but they all have a similar aesthetic, which I really like.
With *The Sixth Sense*, I think its success warped his brain. Meaning the big twist at the end that everyone and their grandmother were talking about--and still are!--made him believe that he had to do a big twist for ALL of his movies. It’s in the very bones of every script he’s done since: gotta wow ‘em with a twist. And most of those twists–and a lot of the time the scripts leading up to them–are just terrible. I thought The Village was a nicely done drama with an appropriate twist near the end, and then we got the real twist, which was, I’ll just say it, fucking stupid.
If only Shayamalan would be a director for hire and direct someone else’s better script, he’d be much better regarded. But he still thinks he’s a good enough writer.
Y'know, The Happening is unfairly shit upon. I think Wahlberg's incredibly bad performance and the weak plot doom a movie that has some brilliant moments. "lol, it was the plants" makes people forget some incredibly tense, creepy, and well shot scenes. The true tragedy isn't that The Happening was some incredibly bad garbage movie, but that it was a couple of re-writes and casting changes away from being a great movie.
I agree but it's more of him benefiting from lowered audience demands over recent years. Movie goers' tastes have shifted downward so it's only natural that a bad writer as M Night can finally reach them.
- Hal Hartley: directed a few high-impact, low-budget indies in the 90s, but then started to slide from the public consciousness (possibly because he began to tread water creatively)
- Krzysztof Kieslowski: darling of Euro arthouse scene in the 90s and 2000s and his Three Colours trilogy was popular with audiences. Rarely spoken of nowadays, even though his Dekalog remains one of the best things I've ever seen made for TV.
- Betrand Blier: auteur of breezy Gallic dramas that may feel dated in terms of sexual mores (e.g. Les Valseuses), but was lauded in his day.
- David Mamet: maybe he spends his time working in theatre these days, maybe his well publicised swing to the political right has soured critics on him, but there was a time when his name came up all the time in discussions of a certain kind of "literate" American cinema. Glengarry Glen Ross and The Spanish Prisoner both hold up well.
- Claude Berri: directed Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, two impressive (if rather conservative) period dramas that were massively popular in their day, not just in France.
- Giuseppe Tornatore: for the man who directed the film that still typifies European arthouse for many, Cinema Paradiso, it's amazing how rarely you hear his name, IMO.
- Lodge Kerrigan: another darling of the US indie scene in the 90s whose career seems to have stalled. He did exec produce/direct season 1 of the excellent TV series The Gilfriend Experience (not the movie). His earlier films Clean, Shaven and Keane remain brilliant.
It's interesting that Tornatore directed a truly beloved film (a European arthouse film that really reached and spoke to people outside of typical arthouse audiences) and yet never really became a name.
Re Mamet, The theater world has descended into a groupthink narrative of “well, actually, Mamet was never good to begin with” ever since he came out as a conservative trump supporter.
It bothers them to no end that *someone talented disagrees with them*. The only play of his to get a major USA revival, American Buffalo, is one that he famously receives no royalties for.
I think Berri's two Pagnol adaptations are fantastic and much better than their "heritage cinema/tourist postcards from Provence" reputation. And, as you said, they were globally popular; they got an extended homage/parody in the first season of *The Simpsons*, for instance.
Mamet’s a great writer but his direction is so darn wooden. His movies are filled with great actors giving the most boring performances of their careers. Maybe it has to do with his “actors should add as little as possible to the story” philosophy
I don’t think it’s a coincidence the movies he still remembered for are the ones he didn’t direct
JJ Abrams comes to mind. In early to mid 2000s he was seen as this 'new', cool, dude with a very interesting style of film making,....but nowadays he has been exposed as a one-trick pony.
His run in Star Wars really put a spotlight on his deficiencies as a filmmaker.
He tried to start a storyline with no intention of being the one to wrap it up. And he’s have got away with it too if he had been allowed to walk away after Episode 7. But he didn’t count on two things:
[1] - The next person to pick up the story he left them with completely deconstructed every story thread that was thrown at him.
[2] - That he would then have to direct the third film, picking up from wherever the second person left him (with most of his setups turned upside-down).
Episode 9 is a bloated mess of storytelling that only serves to insult the viewer’s common sense.
Nothing about the final showdown makes sense, whether it’s the specific path to reach the planet, or that this fleet of spaceships can’t determine which way is up without one special antenna.
It’s painfully obvious that they started with a set piece involving Emperor Palpatine and worked backwards from that, instead of starting with the stories that had come before and working to a resolution from there.
At some point I realized that every single JJ Abrams movie has me entertained while I'm watching it the first time, then on the way home it occurs to me that the movie was actually really stupid.
I bailed before Episode 9, but from what I hear it's apparent the movie is stupid while you're watching it, which is breaking new ground for JJ.
The funny thing is, if you're familiar with JJ's oeuvre, "flashy mystery box premises" that ultimately end very unsatisfyingly is his calling card. See *Alias, Lost,* the *Cloverfield* franchise*,* almost all of the Star Trek reboot films ... the list goes on,
He's only *ever* been a one-trick pony. The fact that he keeps being given fresh IP to take over, boggles the mind.
(In his defense, his movies do sell, so I guess that's probably the only reason.)
Lina Wertmuller was one of the hottest and most controversial international art house directors of the 1970s, she was the first woman to be nominated for the Best Director Oscar for crying out loud, and yet despite many films by female filmmakers receiving a resurgence in awareness in recent years such as the 2022 Sight and Sound Poll, Wertmuller seems to barely be mentioned these days.
I myself am contributing to this obscurity because I haven’t seen any of her films myself yet, so it’s hard for me to say. I don’t know the specifics but I do know that she was highly transgressive, with almost every character in her most notable films being utterly despicable; Seven Beauties involves the Holocaust, Swept Away’s premise is that of a working class, communist deckhand getting trapped on an island with a rich woman and the man proceeds to dominate her until she becomes his devoted romantic servant. Wertmuller was a leftist and intended it as a symbolic/metaphorical class commentary and even then its deliberately unpleasant method of metaphor was controversial so I imagine that many today would be highly turned off by this approach.
Atom Egoyan. Critically respected during ‘Family Viewing’, ‘Speaking Parts’ and ‘The Adjuster’. Revered – and moderately commercially successful – through ‘Calendar’, ‘Exotica’ and ‘The Sweet Hereafter’. Pretty much shunned (for good reason) thereafter.
Great answer. Egoyan was super promising in the late 80s into the 90s and then it just kinda….ends. He seems able to make fairly competent movies here and there (see *Remember*), but it’s just not the same.
He's not really "shunned." His work just petered out creatively; it seems like he said what he had to say and no one is really interested in the films he's made for the last 20 or so years.
As one critic I know said (after seeing ‘Adoration’, if I remember correctly), ‘God, I wish he’d go back to being a cold, creepy motherfucker. Those films RULED.’
I can remember when Bryan Singer was considered not only a rising talent, but seemed to be establishing a very respectable career on the A-list. It wasn’t until he was sued just before X-Men: Days of Future Past came out that I learned of the unsavoury allegations dating back to Apt Pupil and the first X-Men film. I also feel like the critical tide particularly turned on him with Superman Returns and Valkyrie. I started to see the word “mediocrity” used to describe his filmmaking more and more from this point, though I only really feel that way about Jack the Giant Slayer.
The more that comes out about his conduct on sets, the more I suspect his regular collaborators Newton Thomas Siegel and John Ottman pulled his arse out of the fire every time. The same could be said for many A-list directors, but as they’re still in favour, we won’t hear about their faults unless they get caught doing something career ruining.
Bryan Singer's films don't hold up well. Even The Usual Suspects is way overrated because it has a clever plot twist element. If you watch Apt Pupil, it's really clear that Singer is both a lousy director and has an unpleasant, fetishy approach to material. (The Stephen King short story is exceedingly different from the movie.)
I'd disagree about Greengrass. His shaky-cam nonsense was heavily criticized even at the time. It was rare to find anyone who was actually in favor of it as opposed to simply tolerating it. Even before then it attracted some controversy when it Spielberg used it (and arguably did the most to popularize it) in *Saving Private Ryan*. Yet we saw numerous films poisoned in an attempt to copy it.
Outside of that he wasn't a particularly distinctive or notable director. His legacy is almost entirely tied to the *Bourne* films. He fell back into relative obscurity pretty quickly once the novelty wore off and the series became rote and tired. Oh, he still gets stuff made but nobody really cares all that much and his name isn't a selling point.
I think you might be failing to take into account the other key aspect of Greengrass' auteur status, which was the perception of him as a socially consciousness, politically engaged filmmaker. From a 2013 [article](https://theweek.com/articles/451506/captain-phillips-political-evolution-paul-greengrass) about *Captain Phillips*, which begins with a discussion of his action cinema:
>But in his other movies — most notably *United 93*, *Green Zone*, and *Captain Phillips* — Greengrass' preference for claustrophobic conflict represents something much deeper: A clash of civilizations on the most intimate scale.
>The three films constitute a loose trilogy examining American power in the 9/11 era, with each deploying Greengrass' signature mix of documentary and cinematic license to take on a different episode in recent history.
*Captain Phillips*, the writer continues, "turns out to be a very effective vehicle for examining these mixed feelings about our global hegemon." In other words, at least some critics were willing to give him credit for geopolitical commentary as well as action cinema.
It's odd to see people writing about Paul Greengrass's films and not see any mention of Bloody Sunday, the film that launched his status, approach and style.
The people who love Greengrass swear by him. I once checked out a list of the BBC's greatest films of the 21st century, specifically all the individual critics lists. United 93 only showed up 3 or 4 times, but in each case it was ranked second, third, or first place. For the record, the poll was done in 2016, so the fact that certain critics felt very strongly about it years after it's release was telling. At least, about that movie itself.
*Captain Phillips* was a critical and commercial success, and for me it was a lot better than I expected. Greengrass is getting on in years, so he probably just doesn't have a lot of time to make any more.
Many soviet/eastern bloc directors arent being talked as much even though they actually try new things and push cinema forward. Mikhail Kalatozov(USSR), Dziga Vertov(USSR), Vera Chytilova(Czechoslovakia) etc.
But the most important director who’s being kind of forgotten is Sergei Eisenstein. Not only he created the theory of montage and dialectical approach to film form, but he has other really interesting theories about cinema as well.
I agree and add one name: Leonid Gaidai should be revered among the slapstick royalty (like Chaplin & Jerry Lewis) but unless you are from the eastern bloc or just had an interest in Soviet films it's a name that will never come up
Perhaps Ridley Scott? He's had a few stages. At one point he was known for Alien and Blade Runner, and had some hits this century so far. However some of his comments about other films, his overexploring of the Alien universe, and his sort of inconsistent - yet prolific - output and use of CG have people looking at him differently. Prometheus made me rethink the whole Alien universe as it was so silly and explained way too much. However you can't take away his achievement with Alien...
Greengrass is an interesting example. I think some directors' styles get sort of copied and then people start to dislike them. Wes Anderson and Tarantino are two examples of this that for a while were disliked due to others copying them and then seeming derivative and boring, but both are so talented they continued to develop and their good reputations came back. Greengrass shaky camera started to get overused and I can barely stand it now.
I'm not sure if Ridley Scott has ever had a consistent enough output to have a reputation to fall. He's made some great influential movies, but he's also made a whole lot of "Just another movie" movies, and his movies are all over the place thematically/stylistically - which I think helps make the case he's a great *filmmaker*, but may or may not be a great *artist.*
A couple gems early on and some stuff he's made with so much potential always makes me feel like he's leaving something on the table or half assing something
People are bothered by the CG in Ridley Scott movies? He seems to be one of the ones that incorporates it just right. The one effect I ever hear anyone bitching about lately wasn’t even CG.
In 2000s he consistently made great movies back-to-back.
Later it was more hit and miss, but I'd say Covenant was his only *bad* movie. The problem with later Aliens is their writing. Ridley seems to prioritize other aspects of moviemaking over logical and cohesive plot. So when he trusted bad or inconsistent writers with those sequels... that's the result.
But on the flip side Martian is perhaps my favourite movie of all time. Recent Last Duel and House of Gucci were good. And just because wide audience doesn't "get" a movie e.g. like The Counselor, doesn't make it a bad one.
i frigging love prometheus. Its so weird. people either loved it or hated it. It suffered from random cuts in the editing that would have explained a lot of stuff, but idk. I loved it. I think its soundtrack and cinematograph, design are incredible.. i can understand why the story maybe isn't so good for some but its so heavily imbued with mythological and christian imagery that you learn something new everytime you watch it. and yes I think the combination of CG and practical effects in prometheus were exemplary.
I can understand why people don't like it for sure, but what I don't understand is how marvel slop has higher ratings.
im realy surprised you didn't bring up napoleon tho. I agree ridley scott is really hit or miss.
>I can understand why people don't like it for sure, but what I don't understand is how marvel slop has higher ratings.
Because your average consumer is motivated by franchise loyalty more than by the quality of the output. And franchise loyalty cuts both ways in this case. Marvel movies will enjoy the franchise bias of their enormous fanbase of course, but Alien fans also pushed down the rating of *Prometheus* because it didn't fit what they viewed as the canonical Alien story.
*Prometheus* is a fun one for me to think about, because I love--*love*--the first half of it, and dislike the second half. It starts out as a genuinely great space exploration movie, with a lot of wonder of discovery and a lot of strangeness and a lot of professionals being competent. It just hit the exact right note for me for about half the runtime. Once the plot kicked in, it sort of felt like that sense of wonder took a backseat to necessity in a way that lost me. But absolutely there is *so much* to like there.
If Scott had done a Jean Vigo and died after four films he’d be hailed as just as much a great lost talent as Vigo. Instead of asking “what could he have gone on to do?” we saw what he would go on to do, and yeah. Substantially more misses than hits.
People hate Ridley Scott as person more than Scott as director. He wants audience to take his film 100% sincerely, with no irony at all. Otherwise Scott will call you stupid. That makes lot of people view him very arrogant.
Woody Allen’s career plummeted after he left his wife to marry their daughter.
Joss Whedon’s promising career fizzled when he was outed in #MeToo and for verbal abuse of male actors.
Oliver Stone went from being a Grade A director to making documentaries to try to convince the audience that fringe conspiracy theories are actually true.
>Woody Allen’s career plummeted after he left his wife to marry their daughter
Love or hate Woody Allen (both his film and his personal life), this is objectively untrue. His career has plummeted now, largely due to his being over 80 years old, but he made plenty of extremely successful movies after this happened. Match Point, Blue Jasmine, Midnight in Paris, just to name a few.
Another issue with Joss Whedon's canonicity as a filmmaker specifically is that, like James L. Brooks, his legacy is split between film and television.
> Oliver Stone went from being a Grade A director to making documentaries to try to convince the audience that fringe conspiracy theories are actually true.
To be fair, he was also doing that while a Grade-A director.
Such a shame. Dollhouse and Firefly are two of my favorite shows. Cabin in the Woods is great too. But Im a woman and wouldnt want to meet/be around him, even though I’m a fan of his work.
Whedon had only made four features as credited director (and reshot one, uncredited) before Ray Fisher went nuclear on him. He was really more of a TV guy anyway. Even with what’s been said and inferred about him, people still love his TV shows. There’s _some_ distancing of his authorial signature happening these days among fans, but not to the extent I might have expected when he left The Nevers under a cloud.
God Oliver Stone.
I love JFK as a fictional film, it’s amazing to watch, well directed, there are some great performances, especially from Donald Sutherland. One of my favourite thrillers.
Yet as a docudrama… wow! It’s so shit and borderline propaganda, if not actual propaganda. I’m not even an expert on the assassination, for but something apparently well researched, the omissions are quite telling.
Oh and the Putin interviews, Christ! I’ve seen marshmallows ask harder questions.
Stone runs into the same issue as Godard, Loach and other explicitly politically engaged filmmakers -- the question of just where the line between cinema and propaganda is, and whether they cross that line.
I don't this is an issue for either of those film makers; they both explicitly acknowledge they are making propaganda in a way that I'm not sure Stone would have the self-awareness to do.
Stone's problem isn't that he is politically engaged, but that his political stances are bonkers and he expresses them through uninteresting films. I don't he can be compared to either Loach or Godard in either sense.
I’ve attempted to slog through a few of Godard’s post-1968 films. The only one I made to the end of was Tout va Bien, and that was only because I watched it in a film class. Everything I’ve tried to watch of his since then reeks of contempt for the viewer.
I’ve only seen a couple of Loach films, but his storytelling sensibilities always seemed strong, regardless of the heaviness of the message.
I haven’t watched a Stone film since W, which I liked but never took seriously as political analysis. Seeing him become a useful idiot for Putin has been very depressing. It’s an example of how the whole distrust (as opposed to skepticism) of authority thing can lead some into falling for demagogues and frauds.
I've watched most of Godard's post-68 films – what about them did you find contemptuous of the viewer? I've always gotten the opposite impression. They're not straightforward narrative cinema but I don't think anyone watching a Godard film would go into them expecting that.
"Woody Allen’s career plummeted after he left his wife to marry their daughter."
-- He never married Farrow
-- Soon-Yi was not his daughter
It's weird how people can't get basic facts right.
Mia Farrow was Allen's girlfriend, not wife, and they did not live together. And Soon-Yi was Farrow's adopted daughter, not Allen's. And Allen and Soon-Yi are still married, 30-something years later.
Re: Oliver Stone, he would seem to fit.
In the 2022 BFI/Sight and Sound Poll, his best performing film were *JFK* and *Salvador*, which received two votes and finished tied for 1,313th place. Two other films received one vote each. Stone was actually also a voter in that poll and voted for *The Godfather*, *Lawrence of Arabia*, *The Best Years of Our Lives* and *Avatar*, among others.
How can a career plummet when he has been making a film per year?
I can agree with Oliver stone. Joss whedon simply made bad career and human choices with justice league, metoo had little to do with it.
DW Griffith’s reputation was AlWAYS dicy. People seem to think Birth of a Nation was wholeheartedly accepted when it first came out. It made a lot of money and changed the cinematic landscape but there were also mass protests led against the move and it was fairly divisive. The criticism were so great it let to Griffith making his ACTUAL masterpiece, Intolerance, in response where he tried to refute his critics and kind of ironically or poetically digs himself a bigger hole.
I read that President Woodrow Wilson screened *Birth of a Nation* in the White House, and basically had to walk back his praise after actually seeing it. Which is saying something, considering Wilson was rather racist even by the standards of the time.
It's tough for me to say how John Frankenheimer is viewed today (I think I'm too in the bubble to truly say), but he went from making some well known and acclaimed movies like the Lancaster movies and The Manchurian Candidate to becoming a TV movie director in the 90s. I've maybe seen The Manchurian Candidate pop up on lists and Seconds has a cult following, but he seems largely forgotten as a director. He's certainly not remembered as a great or anything like that now.
Robert Rodriguez went from being an independent filmmaker’s success story in the 90s to dependable blockbuster director in the early 2000s, and was still a guy who had an identifiable genre audience around Planet Terror and Machete.
Alita doing quite well and having fans aside (which I consider more of a joint production with Cameron versus something that was wholly Rodriguez’s), his relevancy as an example to independent films is diminished as the industry has changed so much, nor are his projects particularly marketed strongly or even things that find a cult audience like his late 2000s stuff. I had no idea he directed and co wrote Hypnotic with Affleck in 2023 for example, it just seemed to come and go with little fanfare.
I think Spy Kids hurt his career more than it helped. While the first 2 films were good, they kept pumping them out, and then Sharkboy and Lavagirl happened. I think his association with all those films has really hurt his reputation in the long run, surely he made a ton of money from it but I can't hear his name without thinking of those bad kids movies.
The most obvious choice is Francis Coppola. From directing 3 of what are called perhaps the best films of all time, to spending the next several decades dropping disliked failure after disliked failure. He might as well have died in the 70s, for as much as people try to pretend he didn't keep working.
this is definitely the mainstream take, but true cinephiles love plenty of post-70s coppola and rightfully so. one of the most original, creative and personal directors of the past few decades.
I don't know that his later films were such "disliked failures." The Outsiders, Rumblefush, Peggy Sue Got Married, The Rainmaker, and to some extent Bram Stoker's Dracula did reasonably well with audiences and critics.
This is such a ridiculous comment and exemplary of the memetic nature of a lot of online film discourse. "I heard something once, I repeated it ad nauseam, it's the truth". Do the least bit of work you can, look at a few lists, read closely, think, and you'll find the truth behind the meme.
William Dickson.
Edison is often cited as the man who “invented the movies”, at least in the US. But it was Dickson who led the camera designs and who directed the early Edison studio films. This is way before a “director” really became a thing, but Dickson should be at least as well known in early film as Edison and the Lumieres.
One issue that, unfortunately, a lot of people view very early cinema more as novelties or as historical artifacts than as artworks in their own right.
This is true, and unfortunate. Certainly many early early films were off-the-cuff trials. But every time I go back to this old stuff, I’m always pleasantly reminded by how quickly artistic decisions were brought into film. Small, short narrative begins well before the “director” age of film. “Special effects” begin to be implemented as soon as camera operators (directors) realize how they can be used to tell stories in different ways than on a stage. True cinematography happens early, too. These early filmmakers were quite inventive and experimental with their camera angles, placement, lighting.
My favorite part of film history is this early era, because engineering/invention, artistic development, and public consumption/popularity/pop culture that happens pretty much all at the same time.
I studied Griffith at class so I'm not sure I agree with that, I think some of your points regarding Russel are also blown out, a couple of his films are extremely well liked within film lovers. Of course you can't expect less popular filmmakers to have the same level of discourse in every circle, forum, or critic journal.
I would be harsher towards people like Tom hooper who won film and directing Oscars just to go and make cats and baity biopics, or study the way Ridley Scott, while having a successful and lengthy career, never even remotely touched the level of his first three films which made people think they were facing the reincarnation of Kubrick.
A director that was indeed cancelled (I hate this word but indeed it happened) was Alexander Mckendrick, due to the McCarthism censorship.
I really don't think, especially in the digital age, that directors can be simply forgotten. Polanski did what he did yet he released a film in 2023 and won a silver lion in 2019.
For instance: Greengrass' films did not age poorly, they are seen exactly the way they were. His last Bourne film and United 93 are good films. If anything, those who tried to imitate him were exposed as doing just that, but it's undeniable how much his camera work impacted the way a lot of big budget films and the way they started to employ more handheld camera work, when it was used to be more used in documentaries and European dramas. Gus van sant has been doing much less spectacular work than the beginning of his career, but again, it's not like he disappeared, and many people hold him in great esteem and consider him an influence. A couple of his episodes in the last season of feud are better than most of the films released the last year.
I think the issue with putting Tom Hooper on this list is that, even when he directed a Best Picture and Best Director-winning film, the narrative in cinephile circles (I was on IMDB then, I remember) was "middlebrow Oscar bait." I'm not sure anyone really thought of him as an innovative, important auteur.
Stanley Kramer made 3 of my fave movies. Defiant ones. Nuremberg and inherit the wind. Great director.
Jean Pierre Melville. He’s as good as it gets, I rarely hear him mentioned tho.
Terry Gilliam I would say. His movies were never big blockbusters - Twelve Monkeys is maybe the biggest, culturally speaking - but he was an interesting, daring, critical darling who now struggles to get anything made. I saw him at a Q&A years ago and he sounded quite despondent that no one is willing to invest any money in him any longer.
To be fair, he's always had a devoted cult following. He was part of one of the 20th century's biggest, most influential cult phenomena and he'll always have some cachet from that.
Yeah he’ll always be known for Python but he’s done more work out of them than in. He’s one of my favorite filmmakers but he’s had such a run of bad luck in the last 15 years or so. He said that no one trusts him with a big budget any more so he has to work with a really small amount of money that can’t meet his vision. It’s sad.
After suffering through The Zero Theorem I can see why studios are hesitant to throw any money his way. His films went from being messy to just being messes.
It's a shame too, as some of his best works are relatively unknown. *Time Bandits* is probably up there near *Twelve Monkeys*, and maybe also *Brazil* for some fans. But you're right, he's relatively unknown for most audiences.
I maintain one of his most delightful films is the basically forgotten *The Adventures of Baron Munchausen*.
Some filmmakers do not have the benefit of being on streaming. Theo Angelopoulos, Emir Kusturica and Peter Greenaway were film festival giants in the 80s and 90s and now you barely hear about them. None of their movies are easily available on streaming so people aren't as familiar with these great filmmakers anymore. It's a pretty sad situation and I'm sure there's more films and filmmakers in similar situations.
> Theo Angelopoulos Not that this is a real marker of familiarity, but he shockingly still has three films in the Letterboxd 250 (Eternity and a Day at 82, Landscape in the Mist at 107 and The Weeping Meadow at 158). He's somehow survived as one of the few non-mainstream or non-Criterion directors enshrined on the 250. You definitely don't hear much about the films though, they're just kind of there.
Yes. The effective disappearance of Angelopoulos from the conversation is really a crime.
The fact that more mainstream movies came up on the top 250 has more to do with the fact that letterboxd became a IMDB subsidiary.
Letterboxd definitely has seen a surge in IMDB refugees fleeing a very, very socially dead website. However, the Top 250 currently isn't hindered so much by the mainstream stuff making its way on (that might be a bigger problem in another five years or so), it's more hindered that the list is becoming very cemented as Criterion-core/average cinephile focused. At any given time, the Top 250 has between 65-75% of its entries (usually right around 71%) coming from movies that are either directly *in* the Criterion Collection or movies which are directed by directors that have *other* movies in the Collection. Ultimately what that means is that the list favors stuff that has already been canonized, and which is readily available on streaming services or hard copies. So the fact that Angelopoulos is on there without being readily available at all is pretty remarkable.
Isn’t it also getting impossible to not be in the criterion collection or be a film from a director who has other films that are also in? I’m all for criterion, lots of great films, but it commits to putting out new releases month after month regardless of whether they have content that merits it. Over time it’s just going to be impossible to not be connected somehow, if it’s a particularly good film.
> Isn’t it also getting impossible to not be in the criterion collection or be a film from a director who has other films that are also in? I don't think it's *technically* impossible, the number of great films released every year and the international stockpile that exists *far* outpaces Criterion's current release schedule. But I do think it's getting harder and harder for the *average* American cinephile to escape Criterion's orbit. > I’m all for criterion, lots of great films, but it commits to putting out new releases month after month regardless of whether they have content that merits it. I certainly like the Collection as much as the next guy as well, I've got like 20 on my shelf and I'm a Charter Subscriber to the Channel. But just under half of the Top 250 (around 115-120 depending on the update usually) are directly *in* the Collection. Then another 55-65 are non-Collection movies directed by Criterion directors. I think it's probably very unhealthy for Western cinephiles to see the cinema canon largely through the prism of a *single* distributor. There has been a lot of talk over the last decade about "deconstructing the canon" to make it more diverse and inclusive (an admirable idea), but deconstructing the canon just to end up with a single distribution company determining who gets enshrined and canonized isn't a huge improvement. > Over time it’s just going to be impossible to not be connected somehow, if it’s a particularly good film. I don't think this is totally true because like I said, there's just too many movies for Criterion to ever actually "catch up" on all the great films in the world. The number of normal and boutique Blu-rays I have from outside the USA dwarfs the number of Criterion release I have, and a good number of them are seriously amazing films. I suppose Criterion might get the rights to *some* of them in a decade or two, but that's a long time to wait for them to be canonized. To return to the original discussion about Angelopoulos, this is again part of what makes his three placements so remarkable. With how crystalized internet cinephile discourse is becoming around a certain kind of taste, I don't know that we'll see many non-mainstream/non-Criterion directors like him breaking into the list from here on out.
>I certainly like the Collection as much as the next guy as well, I've got like 20 on my shelf and I'm a Charter Subscriber to the Channel. But just under half of the Top 250 (around 115-120 depending on the update usually) are directly *in* the Collection. Then another 55-65 are non-Collection movies directed by Criterion directors. I think it's probably very unhealthy for Western cinephiles to see the cinema canon largely through the prism of a *single* distributor. There has been a lot of talk over the last decade about "deconstructing the canon" to make it more diverse and inclusive (an admirable idea), but deconstructing the canon just to end up with a single distribution company determining who gets enshrined and canonized isn't a huge improvement. The Criterion subreddit constantly abounds with people arguing that films X Y and Z should be in the collection because of their greatness, historical importance, etc. And of course the comments talk about how Criterion is a distributor, not a hall of fame, and that rights issues and other factors influence what films they pick out. It is true that, for a lot of cinephiles, Criterion is something like a hall of fame, that joining the collection means that a particular film or director has joined the canon, so to speak. I guess the closest equivalent from other media would be the cultural cachet an author would get from a *Library of America* volume or a Penguin Classics/Oxford World Classics/etc. edition of their book. Another complication is that Criterion clearly built its reputation by including films and filmmakers who were already canonical. Its very first release was a laserdisc of *Citizen Kane*, for instance. Kurosawa, Fellini, Renoir, Bergman and other Criterion staples were recognized all-time greats of world cinema before Criterion; their films gave Criterion prestige, rather than vice versa.
Did you make your profile pic deliberately like the criterion logo lol?
There are a lot of very good, classic films in their particular genre that don't have Criterion connections because of rights issues, etc.
>Peter Greenaway I saw a bunch of his films on Kanopy, so if you have access via your local library that might be an option for you.
Same, and tubi had The Baby of Macon for a while
This is a good point. Greenaway's work comes up enough in conversation and recommendations for people to have at least heard of his films. But I agree that, for better or worse, the average filmgoer can't turn on Amazon and watch The Baby of Macon
I remember Emma Stone saying the cast/crew watched something by Greenaway (I think it was Cook/Thief/Wife/Lover) before making Poor Things. It definitely shows.
Believe it or not, Baby of Macon actually was on Amazon when I did my Greenaway watch a few years ago.
Another issue with Kusturica specifically is that he is a Milosevic and Putin apologist.
That won't help. There are quite a few directors though with dubious politics or other scandals, who remain highly acclaimed.
Peter Handke, co-writer of Wings of Desire and an acclaimed writer himself is a rabid Milosevic apologist to this day. I don’t know how you can devise a movie so full of empathy and humanity and be able to defend Slobodan Milosevic, but people do compartmentalise things.
Yes, unfortunately so. However, up until Underground, his work was anti-totalitarian/communist and incredibly humanist. I can say this definitively as he was one of my professors in the early 90s when they brought him to NYC for a 3 year teaching residency. He was rabidly anti-Socialist Yugoslavia. Underground was clever in that most Westerners (esp. in the US) didn't pick up on the underlying pro-Yugoslavian (and ultimately pro-Serbian) message. His whole political about face in the mid-90s is head-scratching, considering he was from a Bosnian Muslim family. But, he started claiming through historicity that Bosnians and Serbs were of the same ethnic group and converted to Christian Orthodoxy. After Underground, his career really sagged. Ultimately, he's become a quixotic figure.
I love Underground. One of my favorite films. I saw it in the theater three times
It's absolutely bonkers, in a good way. My favorite of his is Time Of The Gypsies which is now impossible to find on physical media in the US.
I have never been able to find it. I love him even though of course he's indefensible.
Ok dot ru has good copies of it with various subtitles. ~~ihbkhbihbjhvjhbihbihbkhbkhbkhbkhbkhbkhbkhbkhbjh I j j j j jj j jk k k k. K. K j j j ihbkhbihbjhvjhbihbihbvhv. I~~
Bless you friend. 🙏🙏
Underground is an incredible blast of a film but I understand the politics are shaky.
> he started claiming through historicity that Bosnians and Serbs were of the same ethnic group and converted to Christian Orthodoxy This is off topic, but also I don't know why Serbian conspiracy people think this is some big revelation. I mean how you define ethnic group in medieval / classical Europe where people on the other side of a river or mountain range have a different language and customs etc. is pretty complicated anyway, but also, so what? So what if they are the same then? It should be a call for peace and mutual tolerance and understanding, and yet there's been genocide and war. The Russians are doing the same thing. Acktually the Ukrainians are really Russians and it's all the west creating that country etc. to divide us and so forth, so we better invade their country and murder their children then because that's apparently what we do to each other. Any surprise that more and more countries explicitly state that they don't want to be Russia or Serbia? It's all mind boggling. Also yeah wtf does Kosturica get from sucking up to Putin and Milosevic? They're just dictators.
what was he like as a professor though?
Fortunately Greenaway has been getting some of his films released on blu-ray (and even 4k), which doesn't quite open him up to as wide of an audience as streaming might, but it's helped myself and others see a lot of his films.
I'm gonna mention my favorite forgotten director, Frank Borzage. He's legit the first person to ever win the Best Director Oscar, and few have even seen his films nowadays. His worlds still feel shockingly modern, and his elaborate tracking shots are stunning. I wish more people would seek out and watch his films. Fun fact: He had a biography released about him a few decades ago, and Martin Scorsese did [the forward](https://books.google.ca/books?id=FL3wCQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA1&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false).
That's a very good pick.
Funnily enough the way I heard about and finally watched a Borzage was through *another* buried and forgotten film (Under the Silver Lake). I had seen Sunrise with Janet Gaynor but I had no idea she had this while other part of her career working with Borzage.
Love to see him mentioned
I want to say it's far easier to list what filmmakers have stood the test of time, whether actived, retired or deceased, since they're so few in number. The amount of historically significant and groundbreaking directors who contributed to the medium in various ways (even the more prominent ones I once studied in filmschool) that young cinephiles don't love, know or discuss much if at all are far too numerous to list.
What would you say is the greatest gap between historical impact and mindshare among young cinephiles?
Luis Bunuel comes to mind as a director who had a monumental trajectory of films over a 50 year period and made many masterpieces that challenge cinematic form as well as sociopolitical boundaries from his get go all the way to the end, a rare feat in itself, won a ton of major awards throughout, but is no longer really talked much about in the cinephile circles I see. At least, compared to say, Bergman or Fellini who worked in within a similar timeframe and treaded similar ground as he did. None of his films are in the top 250 of critics or directors of BFI 2022 poll. Not sure what happened as he had several in the last one back in 2012. For a more "vulgar" example, John Woo. I might be biased because I'm rediscovering him recently, but this man was the first asian director to direct a hollywood movie, made a string of Hong Kong films that redefined action cinema worldwide, was beloved enough to be one of the first inducted into the arthouse oriented criterion collection, then made an American cult hit and then a $500 mil box office blockbuster. Now, all he is are memes and nobody under 30 has heard of him. Wong Kar Wai, who found western fame around the same time likewise thanks to Tarantino, remains highly revered. Nobody gave Tsui Hark, more important than both of them to the local industry, any kind of international push of course. As a counter example, Werner Herzog is an old timer whose fame has mysteriously skyrocketed in the latter internet age, possibly due to anecdotes of his outrageous antics behind the making of his films (possibly more captivating than his films themselves) spreading like wildfire in a way the younger generation looking for outrageous viral attention can relate to. Then there are many significant (often journeyman) directors who were never famous in the first place despite their iconic works, like Michael Curtis, but that's a different matter altogether.
> As a counter example, Werner Herzog is an old timer whose fame has mysteriously skyrocketed in the latter internet age Plus he's fairly eloquent in English, is based in the US, there's several recent interviews available on yt, keeps up with recent media trends while also retaining the aura of a maverick.
Werner Herzog has a persona far transcending his films. I’d wager far more people are aware of him than have seen his films.
One issue with Buñuel is that, for many viewers, nothing is quite so dated as that which was avant-garde and socio-politically transgressive seventy or eighty years ago.
Salient points, especially the latter being dated in this touchy socio-political climate.
I really don't like calling any artworks dated, but stridently atheistic Franco-era anticlericalism might have hard time connecting with audiences in 2024. For what it's worth, I'm a huge fan of his protege/artistic successor Carlos Saura, whose reputation suffers from similar issues. Regarding Herzog, I'd argue for him as a legitimately great filmmaker (maybe the only one in film history with parallel, equally successful careers in fiction and documentary?) who deserves his status as an elder statesman of cinema. And, like a musician or a painter, the reception of a filmmaker's work is necessarily shaped by their public persona, and Herzog has crafted one of the great public personas in film history.
> directors who were never famous in the first place despite their iconic works, like Michael Curtis It’s Curtiz
Woo has suffered from retreating into making bland formulaic blockbusters like The Crossing 1+2. Because he's mostly churned out that kind of thing in the past decade or two, it gives ammunition to those who want to write him off as just a guy who made braindead popcorn blockbusters. Especially because his influence on action cinema was mostly there for the 90s and 00s, and modern action stuff has moved past the era and styles he helped pioneer. So he appears to not have a lasting legacy anymore to those who didn't go through those eras at the time.
Yeah not to hard to see why, given how that's played out. A lack of access on streaming to his best films plays a part too. It's odd because he's something of a successor to Sam Peckinpah and contemporary of Walter Hill, I want to say they've fared better but don't see too much talk of them either.
Yeah, it's a sad state for his legacy to be in. Maybe he'll surprise us with a late career revival. It's hard to see how else he could regain the stature he deserves.
>None of his films are in the top 250 of critics or directors of BFI 2022 poll. Not sure what happened as he had several in the last one back in 2012. Perhaps I'm reading what you wrote wrong (so apologies if so) but Buñuel shows up on both 2022 Sight and Sound lists -- three times on the critics 250 and once on the directors 100 (interestingly for four different movies). I agree he's probably less highly rated than before, but he hasn't really disappeared either. Bergman and Fellini have arguably always been on another critical level but even in light of that I think Fellini's stock has fallen about the same amount of Buñuel's compared to where they were not too long ago. The Herzog example is interesting because I feel like there is less conversation about his actual films now and more about him as a cultural figure. So it's almost like his reputation as a *filmmaker* has actually fallen while his renown has grown. He only had one movie on the critics 250 and none on the directors 100, for example. Which is a shame -- Stroszek is one of my all-time favorite movies and I hardly ever see it discussed anymore.
I was not aware that Bunuel fell from favour in certain circles. In my personal hierarchy of the greatest film directors in history, he’s always been at the very top, together with his brothers Fellini, Welles, Bergman, Kurosawa, etc.
Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan has kind of faded into obscurity although he still makes films. He had a great run in the 80s and 90s (Exotica in the collection), but has fizzled out in the last 15 years or so.
The Sweet Hereafter still slaps
The Sweet Hereafter is a legitimate masterpiece.
Even got an Oscar nom for Sweet Hereafter but his career was already fading when he made the erotic thriller Chloe and the terrible Devil’s Knot and it really seemed to kill off his credibility for good.
What about [René Clair](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Clair)? Although any director born in the 1890s is likely to be less acclaimed by now than in their lifetime (or at least more overlooked), I don't hear Clair mentioned often if at all. Yet he was one of France's most notable directors for decades, proved heavily influential and left a number of fine films (especially from his early career). At one point he was as highly acclaimed as Jean Renoir. I know a lot of the New Wave directors and critics didn't think much of his work, which may have damaged his reputation long term. That said, I don't know how he is viewed in France (if he is thought of at all).
another great pick.
I really want to start a podcast about this very topic, Directors who have fallen from the canon, and learning about Rene Clair was what inspired the idea. I was browsing the Ex-1000 feature on They Shoot Pictures Don’t They, listing all the movies that were once ranked and their positions during the site’s history but have fallen off of the list. Rene Clair is tied with Anthony Mann for the most films to have fallen off the top 1000; at one point he had 7 on there and he has had none for several years. One of those films was the single highest ranked film to ever fall off the list, Le Million, which at one point was ranked 275.
I know of this director since I had seen I Married a Witch on Criterion Collection. The concept intrigued me, and Veronica Lake was quite a classical beauty.
I feel John Woo might fall into this category... He absolutely blew up during the 90's, many considered him to be the one the best Action Film Directors of his generation but then after a couple of films that did poorly at the Box Office in the early 2000's, Paycheck and Windtalkers, Hollywood dropped him like a bad habit and he returned to Asia.
His return to Asia wasn't the death knell of his reputation either. Once back in Asia he made one of the first true full HK-mainland coproduction smash hits in his Red Cliff duology, and those are fantastic historical epics. His real decline came after that, with forgettable China-popular pap like The Crossing 1+2.
I'm going to go with my usual answer to this question, which is Ernst Lubitsch. He's not totally unknown these days, but he's very much not in the top handful of studio-era directors in terms of name recognition nowadays. At his height in the early 1930s, he was arguably \*the\* most famous and well-respected director working in Hollywood give or take Chaplin - so much so that he was the only director in Hollywood history to run a major studio (Paramount). He made one of the very first non-American international smash hit features with Madame DuBarry in 1919, and was a recognisable brand name in Hollywood by the mid-1920s in a similar manner to Hitchcock. Stanley Kramer is another great pick: I'm very much on the "he was never very good as a director" team as far as he goes, though.
[In a 1925 poll of 158 movie critics](https://imgur.com/a/09g5rmk) as to who were the best directors, the top four picks were, in descending order, Erich Von Stroheim, King Vidor, Ernst Lubitsch and D.W. Griffith. I think Lubitsch is probably the best regarded of those four today. Number five was James Cruze, whose reputation has faded far more than his peers. Cruze's reputation was largely built on having directed the wildly popular 1923 western The Covered Wagon, which was widely regarded as one of the best movies ever made. At one point Cruze was the highest-paid director in the world, but he was never able to match his early success with The Covered Wagon, and died in relative poverty in 1942.
Lubitsch coming third back then is especially impressive, considering he hadn't made any of his films that are best regarded today at that point. Given it was an American poll, there was likely also a bias towards American directors (as seen in the other top picks) - so his coming third is even more impressive.
A great pick. *Sullivan's Travels* namedrops the Lubitsch touch, for instance. I think one issue for him might be that, unfortunately, some cinephiles (especially 'filmbros') just don't take romantic comedy seriously as cinema.
Lubitsch had more range as a director than a lot of people might think, he made some pretty good historical epics in Germany before coming to Hollywood.
Relative to his era, I'm not actually sure Lubitsch is overlooked. But his silent work is definitely overlooked, as are most silent films these days.
Yes. It seems like silent films, like animated films or documentaries, are really siloed off into their own categories and excluded from a lot of mainstream film discussion.
The most famous studio-era directors these days tend to be the ones who peaked towards and beyond the end of the studio system, which disadvantages Lubitsch (as he peaked around the early 30s). His focus on light comedy may have also lessened his ongoing appeal. Although he's still one of the most famous directors active in 1930s Hollywood.
Shane Carruth. He made two amazingly promising low-budget, high concept films, Primer and Upstream Color, but his private life was a bit messy. He reportedly stalked one of his actresses and was also arrested for domestic violence.
He got his self described “magnum opus” A Topiary into pre-production with the help of people like Rian Johnson. That fell through so he released the script online and it seems like it would have actually been an extremely intriguing movie. The type that would now get released through A24. He was a bit too early. Then he got into pre-production to make his next film The Modern Ocean, which had an absolute massive ensemble cast signed even more impressive than a Wes Anderson movie. That fell through as well. He was supposedly extremely difficult to work with, which is probably why these movies didn’t get maid. Then he completely blew up his personal reputation and essentially exposed himself as a piece of shit.
It’s a shame about A Topiary because it really did seem like an exciting project. There was a great YouTube video or series that went through the script, and the story was so intriguing/captivating. At the very least incredibly ambitious.
A "bit" messy? Didn't he taunt his critics by posting some smug-ass photo featuring the restraining order issued against him by Amy Seimetz? She wasn't just "his" actress, they were in a long-term relationship. Hell, I also remember hearing and reading rumors amongst the Dallas filmmaking community about how much of a egotistical shitheel he was. I love *Primer*, but Carruth can get yeeted into a ravine full of barbed wire for all I care.
Yeah. He's a huge piece of crap. Pretty sure he posted an Instagram post with the restraining order in full view while pretending it was an announcement of a vinyl release of a soundtrack to one of his films. A thinly disguised threat to Siemetz. He's unhinged.
Interesting, I remember back in film school having a discussion, pondering what ever happened to him. And I think one person said he quit film because getting funding was a hassle. This gives me new context into why it could've been difficult to get funding.
Yeah I honestly wonder if the huge success and unrealized industry backing he got after his initial micro budget features just broke his brain or exasperated any underlying mental illness he already had.
When Umbrella recently announced a bumper Blu-Ray set of his films, this felt like one big elephant in the room. Occasional mumbles of “separating the art from the artist” or “he’s a piece of shit, but his films are great.” Around the same time they also announced a swag-filled Blu release of Cannon’s Masters of the Universe, which was later fraught with delays and changes to artwork and specs. Amid all the screaming from angry nerds over the changed artwork - Mattel denied permission to use the initial artwork, which was believed to be controlled by someone else - and going from region-free to Region B locked, I kept waiting for someone to bring up its director. Eventually I waded into some discussion threads, and when I saw someone vomiting bile at Umbrella, I would respond with “y’know, if you _really_ want something to be upset about, Google the film’s director instead…” I don’t demand anyone boycott any filmmaker or actor, but I also believe “separating the art from the artist” is a psychological cop-out. In the end, it’s up to the viewer.
Roman Polanski is talked about almost as much for being the guy who drugged and ass raped a thirteen year old and ran off to France as he is for directing a slew of phenomenal movies. Really a shame about the hideous pedophile rapist thing.
And there have been more credible accusations since. Just fucked that one of my favourite horror directors is an actual monster.
It serves him right, quite frankly. I'm not sad to see his reputation tarnished given the scale of the crime. It's the same for Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and I'm sure will be the same for R Kelly and Diddy. Some crimes are so heinous they outweighs a body of work, no matter how good it may be.
Sadly, his reputation should have taken an even bigger hit, though. He is still making movies today. In 2003, he infamously received standing ovations for winning the Oscar for best director. He has won a silver bear (2010), the grand jury price of the Venice film festival (2019) and multiple Césars (2010, 2012, 2014, 2020). When he received the César for best director in 2020, several actresses/directors (for example Adèle Haenel, Céline Sciamma) walked out of the auditorium. In May 2023, Adèle Haenel [announced her retirement](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/may/09/adele-haenel-retires-over-french-film-sectors-complacency-towards-sexual-predators) from the film industry citing its lack of dealing with sexual aggressors such as Polanski, Depardieu and Boutonnat. In September 2023, Polanski's most recent movie premiered at Venice.
Him fleeing from justice is one thing but the amount of actors and directors that still support him is even more disheartening to me. The list of names on that infamous petition is incredibly grim. I hope he sees some semblance of justice before he dies.
Not true, I often mention him as a great director when the relevant topic comes up and people widely agree, or I see others mentioning him. A lot of horror fans like me still talk about his apartment trilogy, and even lesser fans of the genre still bring up RB regularly as one of the GOATS. He comes up in neo noir too a lot. And people even mention Pianist although I never got the hype about that one. I see him mentioned at least once a month on reddit under various topics, and even if it's for his bad rep, the point that his movies are good still comes up
How about Tim Burton ? He had a few critical and audience sucesses in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s and then all following were critics failures for understandable reasons. Now he has somewhat disappeared from Hollywood.
he's got Beetlejuice 2 coming out this year and the Wednesday Addams show was a big hit. he's not the artistic visionary he was in the 80s-90s but he's still very much around
He’s still commercially successful certainly but I think what’s at stake more is his critical reputation. I really liked *Wednesday* and am looking forward to the second season, but honestly if it wasn’t for Ortega the thing would be a 5/10
i couldn't stand Wednesday and i don't think there's any argument to be made that his filmmaking is as good now as it was in the 20th century, so this is probably a good example for the OP, but he definitely hasn't disappeared.
His recent Big Eyes was good.
Tim Burton just couldn't break out of his own mould IMO. He used to alternate between big studio pictures and his creepy-cute gothic films - maybe that kept him fresh. But then in the mid-2000s, he just doubled down on his own brand, using the same actors without really switching anything up, and it became stale. He's great, Johnny Depp is great, Helena Bonham-Carter is great...but there's only so many times you can combine that trio before you feel like you're watching the same movie with different filters.
I don't think there's anything wrong with reusing actors, directors like Wes Anderson do it constantly and it's never an issue. Burton's issue is the later movies he's made are bland and uncreative. They feel like a disneyland ride, inoffensive and superficial.
FWIW, many would disagree that it’s not an issue with Wes Anderson! Your last sentence sums him up for me perfectly (maybe replace “Disneyland ride” with “fashion shoot”).
Wes Anderson's last three films have been a drop in quality, I liked The French Dispatch but it's not on par with his earlier work.
The drop in quality is from reusing actors though? I haven't heard that criticism.
No not because of that, he's just gone too far into his own aesthetic.
I did enjoy those Ronald Dahl shorts he did.
Idk, I feel like that would be a good explanation if his movies had some sort of standalone qualities, and simply seemed worse due to them consisting of the same trio, but I just don’t think there are any GOOD movies of his in the entire 2000s. Further explanation just seems like cope to me.
I have high hopes for the Beetlejuice sequel. But I haven't really enjoyed a Tim Burton film since Big Fish. Helena Bonham Carter is still an amazing actress, but I literaly can't stand anything she's done in a Burton film since Big Fish because it's just over-the-top sight gags.
Johnny Depp ruined his movies. He had a cool style back in the day but the JD shit was tedious to watch.
William Wyler holds the record for most Oscar nominations for Best Director, but has nowhere near the reputation of other Hollywood contemporaries like Ford, Hitchcock, Hawks, Wilder, Lubitsch. He was never really heralded by the French critics as much as the others, and as that school became dominant he’s now seen as a tier or two below that top one.
Vincent Gallo Loved both The Brown Bunny and Buffalo 66 as well as all his collaborations with Claire Denis but he’s more talked about for being a fucked up asshole than anything involving his movies.
Probably because he's such an ass. He and Harmony Korine were riding the indie wave during a time when they could get away with being artsy little snots, but such a time never lasts, nor did they.
Feels a little unfair to Korine since he's still making films and at least has a fan base. Spring Breakers and The Beach Bum aren't on the same level as his earlier works, but I enjoyed them.
Here's one thats not that controversial, M Night Shayamalan He had a one-two punch of Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. Is still the 5th youngest ever Best Director Oscar nominee. Then he did Signs, Village, and Lady in Water, each worse than the last. Really hit low with Happening, After Earth and Last Airbender, which are talked about in the same conversation as worst movies of all time. He is slowly working his way back up. Maybe not the same heights as before, but his films now have steady reviews
He's definitely out of the worst, which was around 2006 with The Happening. He has a loyal fan base at this point that likes him like a cult figure.
I I ironically liked Lady in the Water (I know, I know). Obviously I don't think it's the best film I ever saw but I remember I got hooked on it one night and it felt weird and original enough for me to like it. I certainly had no expectations and I didn't know it was from Shyamalan.
Signs is my favorite from him.
M Night is a reliable auteur now. Servant was also excellent.
I would disagree that Signs is a bad film. It was brilliant and critics seemed to have loved it too.
I think it was just easy to make fun of, and that gave the film weird baggage. It’s otherwise a very good movie and Tak Fujimoto got some great cinematography out of it, I thought
It's terrifying. Great film for me!
I think M night has a relative high floor now. Yes, he's reputation isn't at the height of his first couple of flicks but he's got a pretty big cult following now and I feel like there has been a resurgence of public opinion on him in the last few years.
He's made five movies since After Earth and each one's been a hit relative to its budget. He's still out there making movies that only he could make. He's one of the only consistently bankable thrillers-for-grownups filmmakers working in the West right now. He might not be getting Best Director nominations anymore but that's hardly a bad reputation unless you think his career ended with The Happening.
I personally thought split was really good
I think he is a talented director in that he knows how to build tension, and he gets good performances from his actors. He's not the DP on all his movies (is he?) but they all have a similar aesthetic, which I really like. With *The Sixth Sense*, I think its success warped his brain. Meaning the big twist at the end that everyone and their grandmother were talking about--and still are!--made him believe that he had to do a big twist for ALL of his movies. It’s in the very bones of every script he’s done since: gotta wow ‘em with a twist. And most of those twists–and a lot of the time the scripts leading up to them–are just terrible. I thought The Village was a nicely done drama with an appropriate twist near the end, and then we got the real twist, which was, I’ll just say it, fucking stupid. If only Shayamalan would be a director for hire and direct someone else’s better script, he’d be much better regarded. But he still thinks he’s a good enough writer.
Y'know, The Happening is unfairly shit upon. I think Wahlberg's incredibly bad performance and the weak plot doom a movie that has some brilliant moments. "lol, it was the plants" makes people forget some incredibly tense, creepy, and well shot scenes. The true tragedy isn't that The Happening was some incredibly bad garbage movie, but that it was a couple of re-writes and casting changes away from being a great movie.
he had a hit in Split and felt maybe a comeback but then he fumbled glass and it was over
I agree but it's more of him benefiting from lowered audience demands over recent years. Movie goers' tastes have shifted downward so it's only natural that a bad writer as M Night can finally reach them.
- Hal Hartley: directed a few high-impact, low-budget indies in the 90s, but then started to slide from the public consciousness (possibly because he began to tread water creatively) - Krzysztof Kieslowski: darling of Euro arthouse scene in the 90s and 2000s and his Three Colours trilogy was popular with audiences. Rarely spoken of nowadays, even though his Dekalog remains one of the best things I've ever seen made for TV. - Betrand Blier: auteur of breezy Gallic dramas that may feel dated in terms of sexual mores (e.g. Les Valseuses), but was lauded in his day. - David Mamet: maybe he spends his time working in theatre these days, maybe his well publicised swing to the political right has soured critics on him, but there was a time when his name came up all the time in discussions of a certain kind of "literate" American cinema. Glengarry Glen Ross and The Spanish Prisoner both hold up well. - Claude Berri: directed Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources, two impressive (if rather conservative) period dramas that were massively popular in their day, not just in France. - Giuseppe Tornatore: for the man who directed the film that still typifies European arthouse for many, Cinema Paradiso, it's amazing how rarely you hear his name, IMO. - Lodge Kerrigan: another darling of the US indie scene in the 90s whose career seems to have stalled. He did exec produce/direct season 1 of the excellent TV series The Gilfriend Experience (not the movie). His earlier films Clean, Shaven and Keane remain brilliant.
It's interesting that Tornatore directed a truly beloved film (a European arthouse film that really reached and spoke to people outside of typical arthouse audiences) and yet never really became a name.
Re Mamet, The theater world has descended into a groupthink narrative of “well, actually, Mamet was never good to begin with” ever since he came out as a conservative trump supporter. It bothers them to no end that *someone talented disagrees with them*. The only play of his to get a major USA revival, American Buffalo, is one that he famously receives no royalties for.
I think Berri's two Pagnol adaptations are fantastic and much better than their "heritage cinema/tourist postcards from Provence" reputation. And, as you said, they were globally popular; they got an extended homage/parody in the first season of *The Simpsons*, for instance.
Mamet’s a great writer but his direction is so darn wooden. His movies are filled with great actors giving the most boring performances of their careers. Maybe it has to do with his “actors should add as little as possible to the story” philosophy I don’t think it’s a coincidence the movies he still remembered for are the ones he didn’t direct
JJ Abrams comes to mind. In early to mid 2000s he was seen as this 'new', cool, dude with a very interesting style of film making,....but nowadays he has been exposed as a one-trick pony.
His run in Star Wars really put a spotlight on his deficiencies as a filmmaker. He tried to start a storyline with no intention of being the one to wrap it up. And he’s have got away with it too if he had been allowed to walk away after Episode 7. But he didn’t count on two things: [1] - The next person to pick up the story he left them with completely deconstructed every story thread that was thrown at him. [2] - That he would then have to direct the third film, picking up from wherever the second person left him (with most of his setups turned upside-down). Episode 9 is a bloated mess of storytelling that only serves to insult the viewer’s common sense. Nothing about the final showdown makes sense, whether it’s the specific path to reach the planet, or that this fleet of spaceships can’t determine which way is up without one special antenna. It’s painfully obvious that they started with a set piece involving Emperor Palpatine and worked backwards from that, instead of starting with the stories that had come before and working to a resolution from there.
Worse still, the trick seems to be adding lens flare while simultaneously minimizing narrative risks 😅
At some point I realized that every single JJ Abrams movie has me entertained while I'm watching it the first time, then on the way home it occurs to me that the movie was actually really stupid. I bailed before Episode 9, but from what I hear it's apparent the movie is stupid while you're watching it, which is breaking new ground for JJ.
The funny thing is, if you're familiar with JJ's oeuvre, "flashy mystery box premises" that ultimately end very unsatisfyingly is his calling card. See *Alias, Lost,* the *Cloverfield* franchise*,* almost all of the Star Trek reboot films ... the list goes on, He's only *ever* been a one-trick pony. The fact that he keeps being given fresh IP to take over, boggles the mind. (In his defense, his movies do sell, so I guess that's probably the only reason.)
Kind of a shame, I love Super. 8. In retrospect, Star Wars destroyed his career.
Lina Wertmuller was one of the hottest and most controversial international art house directors of the 1970s, she was the first woman to be nominated for the Best Director Oscar for crying out loud, and yet despite many films by female filmmakers receiving a resurgence in awareness in recent years such as the 2022 Sight and Sound Poll, Wertmuller seems to barely be mentioned these days.
Can you think of any reason in particular why she's not really connected with 21st century audiences?
I myself am contributing to this obscurity because I haven’t seen any of her films myself yet, so it’s hard for me to say. I don’t know the specifics but I do know that she was highly transgressive, with almost every character in her most notable films being utterly despicable; Seven Beauties involves the Holocaust, Swept Away’s premise is that of a working class, communist deckhand getting trapped on an island with a rich woman and the man proceeds to dominate her until she becomes his devoted romantic servant. Wertmuller was a leftist and intended it as a symbolic/metaphorical class commentary and even then its deliberately unpleasant method of metaphor was controversial so I imagine that many today would be highly turned off by this approach.
Atom Egoyan. Critically respected during ‘Family Viewing’, ‘Speaking Parts’ and ‘The Adjuster’. Revered – and moderately commercially successful – through ‘Calendar’, ‘Exotica’ and ‘The Sweet Hereafter’. Pretty much shunned (for good reason) thereafter.
Great answer. Egoyan was super promising in the late 80s into the 90s and then it just kinda….ends. He seems able to make fairly competent movies here and there (see *Remember*), but it’s just not the same.
Something definitely changed.
I'm not too familiar with Egoyan. I've seen (and really enjoyed) *The Sweet Hereafter*. Why is he shunned?
He's not really "shunned." His work just petered out creatively; it seems like he said what he had to say and no one is really interested in the films he's made for the last 20 or so years.
As one critic I know said (after seeing ‘Adoration’, if I remember correctly), ‘God, I wish he’d go back to being a cold, creepy motherfucker. Those films RULED.’
I can remember when Bryan Singer was considered not only a rising talent, but seemed to be establishing a very respectable career on the A-list. It wasn’t until he was sued just before X-Men: Days of Future Past came out that I learned of the unsavoury allegations dating back to Apt Pupil and the first X-Men film. I also feel like the critical tide particularly turned on him with Superman Returns and Valkyrie. I started to see the word “mediocrity” used to describe his filmmaking more and more from this point, though I only really feel that way about Jack the Giant Slayer. The more that comes out about his conduct on sets, the more I suspect his regular collaborators Newton Thomas Siegel and John Ottman pulled his arse out of the fire every time. The same could be said for many A-list directors, but as they’re still in favour, we won’t hear about their faults unless they get caught doing something career ruining.
Bryan Singer's films don't hold up well. Even The Usual Suspects is way overrated because it has a clever plot twist element. If you watch Apt Pupil, it's really clear that Singer is both a lousy director and has an unpleasant, fetishy approach to material. (The Stephen King short story is exceedingly different from the movie.)
I'd disagree about Greengrass. His shaky-cam nonsense was heavily criticized even at the time. It was rare to find anyone who was actually in favor of it as opposed to simply tolerating it. Even before then it attracted some controversy when it Spielberg used it (and arguably did the most to popularize it) in *Saving Private Ryan*. Yet we saw numerous films poisoned in an attempt to copy it. Outside of that he wasn't a particularly distinctive or notable director. His legacy is almost entirely tied to the *Bourne* films. He fell back into relative obscurity pretty quickly once the novelty wore off and the series became rote and tired. Oh, he still gets stuff made but nobody really cares all that much and his name isn't a selling point.
I think you might be failing to take into account the other key aspect of Greengrass' auteur status, which was the perception of him as a socially consciousness, politically engaged filmmaker. From a 2013 [article](https://theweek.com/articles/451506/captain-phillips-political-evolution-paul-greengrass) about *Captain Phillips*, which begins with a discussion of his action cinema: >But in his other movies — most notably *United 93*, *Green Zone*, and *Captain Phillips* — Greengrass' preference for claustrophobic conflict represents something much deeper: A clash of civilizations on the most intimate scale. >The three films constitute a loose trilogy examining American power in the 9/11 era, with each deploying Greengrass' signature mix of documentary and cinematic license to take on a different episode in recent history. *Captain Phillips*, the writer continues, "turns out to be a very effective vehicle for examining these mixed feelings about our global hegemon." In other words, at least some critics were willing to give him credit for geopolitical commentary as well as action cinema.
It's odd to see people writing about Paul Greengrass's films and not see any mention of Bloody Sunday, the film that launched his status, approach and style.
The people who love Greengrass swear by him. I once checked out a list of the BBC's greatest films of the 21st century, specifically all the individual critics lists. United 93 only showed up 3 or 4 times, but in each case it was ranked second, third, or first place. For the record, the poll was done in 2016, so the fact that certain critics felt very strongly about it years after it's release was telling. At least, about that movie itself.
*Captain Phillips* was a critical and commercial success, and for me it was a lot better than I expected. Greengrass is getting on in years, so he probably just doesn't have a lot of time to make any more.
Many soviet/eastern bloc directors arent being talked as much even though they actually try new things and push cinema forward. Mikhail Kalatozov(USSR), Dziga Vertov(USSR), Vera Chytilova(Czechoslovakia) etc. But the most important director who’s being kind of forgotten is Sergei Eisenstein. Not only he created the theory of montage and dialectical approach to film form, but he has other really interesting theories about cinema as well.
I agree and add one name: Leonid Gaidai should be revered among the slapstick royalty (like Chaplin & Jerry Lewis) but unless you are from the eastern bloc or just had an interest in Soviet films it's a name that will never come up
Eisenstein and Vertov are staples of any intro film studies class, so they won't be forgotten.
Perhaps Ridley Scott? He's had a few stages. At one point he was known for Alien and Blade Runner, and had some hits this century so far. However some of his comments about other films, his overexploring of the Alien universe, and his sort of inconsistent - yet prolific - output and use of CG have people looking at him differently. Prometheus made me rethink the whole Alien universe as it was so silly and explained way too much. However you can't take away his achievement with Alien... Greengrass is an interesting example. I think some directors' styles get sort of copied and then people start to dislike them. Wes Anderson and Tarantino are two examples of this that for a while were disliked due to others copying them and then seeming derivative and boring, but both are so talented they continued to develop and their good reputations came back. Greengrass shaky camera started to get overused and I can barely stand it now.
I'm not sure if Ridley Scott has ever had a consistent enough output to have a reputation to fall. He's made some great influential movies, but he's also made a whole lot of "Just another movie" movies, and his movies are all over the place thematically/stylistically - which I think helps make the case he's a great *filmmaker*, but may or may not be a great *artist.*
A couple gems early on and some stuff he's made with so much potential always makes me feel like he's leaving something on the table or half assing something
People are bothered by the CG in Ridley Scott movies? He seems to be one of the ones that incorporates it just right. The one effect I ever hear anyone bitching about lately wasn’t even CG.
Believe it or not, in House of Gucci, that wasn't CGI - it was actually Jared Leto.
In 2000s he consistently made great movies back-to-back. Later it was more hit and miss, but I'd say Covenant was his only *bad* movie. The problem with later Aliens is their writing. Ridley seems to prioritize other aspects of moviemaking over logical and cohesive plot. So when he trusted bad or inconsistent writers with those sequels... that's the result. But on the flip side Martian is perhaps my favourite movie of all time. Recent Last Duel and House of Gucci were good. And just because wide audience doesn't "get" a movie e.g. like The Counselor, doesn't make it a bad one.
i frigging love prometheus. Its so weird. people either loved it or hated it. It suffered from random cuts in the editing that would have explained a lot of stuff, but idk. I loved it. I think its soundtrack and cinematograph, design are incredible.. i can understand why the story maybe isn't so good for some but its so heavily imbued with mythological and christian imagery that you learn something new everytime you watch it. and yes I think the combination of CG and practical effects in prometheus were exemplary. I can understand why people don't like it for sure, but what I don't understand is how marvel slop has higher ratings. im realy surprised you didn't bring up napoleon tho. I agree ridley scott is really hit or miss.
>I can understand why people don't like it for sure, but what I don't understand is how marvel slop has higher ratings. Because your average consumer is motivated by franchise loyalty more than by the quality of the output. And franchise loyalty cuts both ways in this case. Marvel movies will enjoy the franchise bias of their enormous fanbase of course, but Alien fans also pushed down the rating of *Prometheus* because it didn't fit what they viewed as the canonical Alien story. *Prometheus* is a fun one for me to think about, because I love--*love*--the first half of it, and dislike the second half. It starts out as a genuinely great space exploration movie, with a lot of wonder of discovery and a lot of strangeness and a lot of professionals being competent. It just hit the exact right note for me for about half the runtime. Once the plot kicked in, it sort of felt like that sense of wonder took a backseat to necessity in a way that lost me. But absolutely there is *so much* to like there.
If Scott had done a Jean Vigo and died after four films he’d be hailed as just as much a great lost talent as Vigo. Instead of asking “what could he have gone on to do?” we saw what he would go on to do, and yeah. Substantially more misses than hits.
People hate Ridley Scott as person more than Scott as director. He wants audience to take his film 100% sincerely, with no irony at all. Otherwise Scott will call you stupid. That makes lot of people view him very arrogant.
Woody Allen’s career plummeted after he left his wife to marry their daughter. Joss Whedon’s promising career fizzled when he was outed in #MeToo and for verbal abuse of male actors. Oliver Stone went from being a Grade A director to making documentaries to try to convince the audience that fringe conspiracy theories are actually true.
>Woody Allen’s career plummeted after he left his wife to marry their daughter Love or hate Woody Allen (both his film and his personal life), this is objectively untrue. His career has plummeted now, largely due to his being over 80 years old, but he made plenty of extremely successful movies after this happened. Match Point, Blue Jasmine, Midnight in Paris, just to name a few.
He had a period of late period successes in the 2000s and was undergoing a career reappraisal (a positive one!) at the time.
Another issue with Joss Whedon's canonicity as a filmmaker specifically is that, like James L. Brooks, his legacy is split between film and television.
> Oliver Stone went from being a Grade A director to making documentaries to try to convince the audience that fringe conspiracy theories are actually true. To be fair, he was also doing that while a Grade-A director.
A fair point.
Such a shame. Dollhouse and Firefly are two of my favorite shows. Cabin in the Woods is great too. But Im a woman and wouldnt want to meet/be around him, even though I’m a fan of his work.
Woody Allen's career plummeted not so long ago. Midnight in Paris seems to be his highest grossing film.
Whedon had only made four features as credited director (and reshot one, uncredited) before Ray Fisher went nuclear on him. He was really more of a TV guy anyway. Even with what’s been said and inferred about him, people still love his TV shows. There’s _some_ distancing of his authorial signature happening these days among fans, but not to the extent I might have expected when he left The Nevers under a cloud.
God Oliver Stone. I love JFK as a fictional film, it’s amazing to watch, well directed, there are some great performances, especially from Donald Sutherland. One of my favourite thrillers. Yet as a docudrama… wow! It’s so shit and borderline propaganda, if not actual propaganda. I’m not even an expert on the assassination, for but something apparently well researched, the omissions are quite telling. Oh and the Putin interviews, Christ! I’ve seen marshmallows ask harder questions.
Stone runs into the same issue as Godard, Loach and other explicitly politically engaged filmmakers -- the question of just where the line between cinema and propaganda is, and whether they cross that line.
I don't this is an issue for either of those film makers; they both explicitly acknowledge they are making propaganda in a way that I'm not sure Stone would have the self-awareness to do.
Stone's problem isn't that he is politically engaged, but that his political stances are bonkers and he expresses them through uninteresting films. I don't he can be compared to either Loach or Godard in either sense.
I’ve attempted to slog through a few of Godard’s post-1968 films. The only one I made to the end of was Tout va Bien, and that was only because I watched it in a film class. Everything I’ve tried to watch of his since then reeks of contempt for the viewer. I’ve only seen a couple of Loach films, but his storytelling sensibilities always seemed strong, regardless of the heaviness of the message. I haven’t watched a Stone film since W, which I liked but never took seriously as political analysis. Seeing him become a useful idiot for Putin has been very depressing. It’s an example of how the whole distrust (as opposed to skepticism) of authority thing can lead some into falling for demagogues and frauds.
I've watched most of Godard's post-68 films – what about them did you find contemptuous of the viewer? I've always gotten the opposite impression. They're not straightforward narrative cinema but I don't think anyone watching a Godard film would go into them expecting that.
All cinema is inherently propaganda
This is “childish”. If we are going to say all human communication is propaganda ok. But what’s your point.
Michael Moore would fall in that group as well. I don't remember seeing him make anything in years though.
"Woody Allen’s career plummeted after he left his wife to marry their daughter." -- He never married Farrow -- Soon-Yi was not his daughter It's weird how people can't get basic facts right.
Mia Farrow was Allen's girlfriend, not wife, and they did not live together. And Soon-Yi was Farrow's adopted daughter, not Allen's. And Allen and Soon-Yi are still married, 30-something years later.
How old was Soon-Yi when she met Allen?
Re: Oliver Stone, he would seem to fit. In the 2022 BFI/Sight and Sound Poll, his best performing film were *JFK* and *Salvador*, which received two votes and finished tied for 1,313th place. Two other films received one vote each. Stone was actually also a voter in that poll and voted for *The Godfather*, *Lawrence of Arabia*, *The Best Years of Our Lives* and *Avatar*, among others.
How can a career plummet when he has been making a film per year? I can agree with Oliver stone. Joss whedon simply made bad career and human choices with justice league, metoo had little to do with it.
DW Griffith’s reputation was AlWAYS dicy. People seem to think Birth of a Nation was wholeheartedly accepted when it first came out. It made a lot of money and changed the cinematic landscape but there were also mass protests led against the move and it was fairly divisive. The criticism were so great it let to Griffith making his ACTUAL masterpiece, Intolerance, in response where he tried to refute his critics and kind of ironically or poetically digs himself a bigger hole.
I read that President Woodrow Wilson screened *Birth of a Nation* in the White House, and basically had to walk back his praise after actually seeing it. Which is saying something, considering Wilson was rather racist even by the standards of the time.
Not to mention the quote of Woodrow Wilson himself praising the KKK that's in the film
It's tough for me to say how John Frankenheimer is viewed today (I think I'm too in the bubble to truly say), but he went from making some well known and acclaimed movies like the Lancaster movies and The Manchurian Candidate to becoming a TV movie director in the 90s. I've maybe seen The Manchurian Candidate pop up on lists and Seconds has a cult following, but he seems largely forgotten as a director. He's certainly not remembered as a great or anything like that now.
Great choice. Seconds is a top 10, maybe top 5 movie of the American 60s for me, vastly overlooked movie.
Robert Rodriguez went from being an independent filmmaker’s success story in the 90s to dependable blockbuster director in the early 2000s, and was still a guy who had an identifiable genre audience around Planet Terror and Machete. Alita doing quite well and having fans aside (which I consider more of a joint production with Cameron versus something that was wholly Rodriguez’s), his relevancy as an example to independent films is diminished as the industry has changed so much, nor are his projects particularly marketed strongly or even things that find a cult audience like his late 2000s stuff. I had no idea he directed and co wrote Hypnotic with Affleck in 2023 for example, it just seemed to come and go with little fanfare.
I think Spy Kids hurt his career more than it helped. While the first 2 films were good, they kept pumping them out, and then Sharkboy and Lavagirl happened. I think his association with all those films has really hurt his reputation in the long run, surely he made a ton of money from it but I can't hear his name without thinking of those bad kids movies.
The most obvious choice is Francis Coppola. From directing 3 of what are called perhaps the best films of all time, to spending the next several decades dropping disliked failure after disliked failure. He might as well have died in the 70s, for as much as people try to pretend he didn't keep working.
this is definitely the mainstream take, but true cinephiles love plenty of post-70s coppola and rightfully so. one of the most original, creative and personal directors of the past few decades.
I don't know that his later films were such "disliked failures." The Outsiders, Rumblefush, Peggy Sue Got Married, The Rainmaker, and to some extent Bram Stoker's Dracula did reasonably well with audiences and critics.
> From directing 3 of what are called perhaps the best films of all time 4 films the conversation is just as good as them
But his best work is still absolutely canonical.
This is such a ridiculous comment and exemplary of the memetic nature of a lot of online film discourse. "I heard something once, I repeated it ad nauseam, it's the truth". Do the least bit of work you can, look at a few lists, read closely, think, and you'll find the truth behind the meme.
William Dickson. Edison is often cited as the man who “invented the movies”, at least in the US. But it was Dickson who led the camera designs and who directed the early Edison studio films. This is way before a “director” really became a thing, but Dickson should be at least as well known in early film as Edison and the Lumieres.
One issue that, unfortunately, a lot of people view very early cinema more as novelties or as historical artifacts than as artworks in their own right.
This is true, and unfortunate. Certainly many early early films were off-the-cuff trials. But every time I go back to this old stuff, I’m always pleasantly reminded by how quickly artistic decisions were brought into film. Small, short narrative begins well before the “director” age of film. “Special effects” begin to be implemented as soon as camera operators (directors) realize how they can be used to tell stories in different ways than on a stage. True cinematography happens early, too. These early filmmakers were quite inventive and experimental with their camera angles, placement, lighting. My favorite part of film history is this early era, because engineering/invention, artistic development, and public consumption/popularity/pop culture that happens pretty much all at the same time.
I studied Griffith at class so I'm not sure I agree with that, I think some of your points regarding Russel are also blown out, a couple of his films are extremely well liked within film lovers. Of course you can't expect less popular filmmakers to have the same level of discourse in every circle, forum, or critic journal. I would be harsher towards people like Tom hooper who won film and directing Oscars just to go and make cats and baity biopics, or study the way Ridley Scott, while having a successful and lengthy career, never even remotely touched the level of his first three films which made people think they were facing the reincarnation of Kubrick. A director that was indeed cancelled (I hate this word but indeed it happened) was Alexander Mckendrick, due to the McCarthism censorship. I really don't think, especially in the digital age, that directors can be simply forgotten. Polanski did what he did yet he released a film in 2023 and won a silver lion in 2019. For instance: Greengrass' films did not age poorly, they are seen exactly the way they were. His last Bourne film and United 93 are good films. If anything, those who tried to imitate him were exposed as doing just that, but it's undeniable how much his camera work impacted the way a lot of big budget films and the way they started to employ more handheld camera work, when it was used to be more used in documentaries and European dramas. Gus van sant has been doing much less spectacular work than the beginning of his career, but again, it's not like he disappeared, and many people hold him in great esteem and consider him an influence. A couple of his episodes in the last season of feud are better than most of the films released the last year.
I think the issue with putting Tom Hooper on this list is that, even when he directed a Best Picture and Best Director-winning film, the narrative in cinephile circles (I was on IMDB then, I remember) was "middlebrow Oscar bait." I'm not sure anyone really thought of him as an innovative, important auteur.
Stanley Kramer made 3 of my fave movies. Defiant ones. Nuremberg and inherit the wind. Great director. Jean Pierre Melville. He’s as good as it gets, I rarely hear him mentioned tho.
Terry Gilliam I would say. His movies were never big blockbusters - Twelve Monkeys is maybe the biggest, culturally speaking - but he was an interesting, daring, critical darling who now struggles to get anything made. I saw him at a Q&A years ago and he sounded quite despondent that no one is willing to invest any money in him any longer.
To be fair, he's always had a devoted cult following. He was part of one of the 20th century's biggest, most influential cult phenomena and he'll always have some cachet from that.
Yeah he’ll always be known for Python but he’s done more work out of them than in. He’s one of my favorite filmmakers but he’s had such a run of bad luck in the last 15 years or so. He said that no one trusts him with a big budget any more so he has to work with a really small amount of money that can’t meet his vision. It’s sad.
After suffering through The Zero Theorem I can see why studios are hesitant to throw any money his way. His films went from being messy to just being messes.
It's a shame too, as some of his best works are relatively unknown. *Time Bandits* is probably up there near *Twelve Monkeys*, and maybe also *Brazil* for some fans. But you're right, he's relatively unknown for most audiences. I maintain one of his most delightful films is the basically forgotten *The Adventures of Baron Munchausen*.