Film's One-Hit Wonders: 30 Directors With Only One Good Movie

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – April 15, 2018

Even the worst directors have one good film in them. Well, at least some of them do. In the gallery above, we've identified 30 filmmakers from the past four decades who have directed at least five features but have managed to receive positive reviews for just a single one of their films.

26 of 31

Tim Story

Story must be well liked by producers, since he is often invited back to direct the sequels to many of his films. (It doesn't hurt that many of his features are profitable.) But only his classic 2002 comedy Barbershop scored with critics in addition to audiences. Many of his films, like his 2004 Jimmy Fallon comedy Taxi and his twin attempts at bringing the Fantastic Four comics to the big screen, have been forgettable (or worse), and his career Metascore average is 43.

Note that we don't have scores for Story's first two features (1997's One of Us Tripped and 1999's The Firing Squad) as well as 2010's Hurricane Season. All three bypassed theaters and thus were not reviewed.

The one good film:
66 Barbershop (2002)

Everything else:
27 Taxi (2004)
40 Fantastic Four (2005)
45 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
51 Think Like a Man (2012)
41 Ride Along (2014)
38 Think Like a Man Too (2014)
32 Ride Along 2 (2016)

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