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.

3 of 31

Scott Derrickson

A writer and director, Derrickson has helmed five features to date (all of them genre films, mostly horror), for a career average of 50 as a director. The good news is that his most recent work—his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—is his best film to date, so perhaps he is improving. Up next for Derrickson is a TNT series adaptation of the film Snowpiercer.

The one good film:
72 Doctor Strange (2016)

Everything else:
46 The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
40 The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
53 Sinister (2012)
40 Deliver Us From Evil (2014)

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