30 Film Directors Who Have Never Made a Bad Movie
Recently, we looked at 30 filmmakers who made only one well-reviewed movie over their entire careers, and then 25 great directors who missed out on perfection by just one film. But there is an even more elite group of film directors who have received critical acclaim for every single film they ever directed. In other words, they've never received anything but a green Metascore for one of their features.
How many of those directors can you guess? Check them all out in the gallery above. Note that we only looked at directors who have made at least five films since 1980.
Despite becoming increasingly prolific over the second half of his career, the New Yorker and indie dramedy specialist still has yet to direct a bad film. Even the films that he has written but not directed (including a pair for the aforementioned Wes Anderson) are mostly good, with one odd exception.
Note that Baumbach technically has one other film not listed below: the experimental 1997 comedy Highball, which Baumbach has disowned. (Shot in a few days with much of the cast from Mr. Jealousy after work on that film was completed, Highball is credited to a pseudonym, Ernie Fusco, after an unfinished version was released straight to DVD without Baumbach's permission.) Up next for the director is a still-untitled comedy starring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson that should arrive on Netflix late this year.
The full filmography (as director):
75 Kicking and Screaming (1995)
61 Mr. Jealousy (1997)
82 The Squid and the Whale (2005)
66 Margot at the Wedding (2007)
76 Greenberg (2010)
82 Frances Ha (2012)
77 While We're Young (2014)
83 De Palma (2015) *
75 Mistress America (2015)
79 The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)
* with Jake Paltrow