30 Film Directors Who Have Never Made a Bad Movie

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – June 9, 2018

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.

9 of 30

Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Turkey's most notable working director won the Palme d'Or in Cannes for his 2014 Chekhov adaptation Winter Sleep, arguably his career-best work. But his follow-up may be just as good. The Wild Pear Tree is still awaiting a U.S. release date, but it just debuted at Cannes as one of the best-reviewed films of this year's festival.

The full filmography (as director):
89 The Town (1997)
75 Clouds of May (1999)
84 Distant (2002)
72 Climates (2006)
73 Three Monkeys (2008)
82 Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)
88 Winter Sleep (2014)

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