25 Misfires From Otherwise Great Film Directors

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – April 22, 2018

Last week, we looked at 30 filmmakers who made only one well-reviewed movie over their entire careers. Today, we examine the opposite group: directors who have nearly flawless careers, with only a single misfire (with a Metascore of 60 or lower) standing in the way of a perfect record of all-green scores.

Note that we only looked at directors who have made at least five films since 1980.

10 of 26 photo by Walt Disney Pictures

Ava DuVernay

The one misfire:
53 A Wrinkle in Time (2018)

A rising star thanks to her massively acclaimed, Oscar-nominated films Selma and 13th, DuVernay finally got a chance to direct her first big-budget film, Disney's adaptation of the beloved Madeleine L'Engle YA sci-fi novel. (In fact, it's the first time a woman of color has directed a film with a budget exceeding $100 million.)

Unfortunately, the recently released film has been a disappointment at the box office and with critics, who found the film "wobbly" and "tentative." But DuVernay will get another crack at a big-budget feature with an upcoming superhero film based on DC Comics' "New Gods" characters.

Everything else:
71 I Will Follow (2011)
75 Middle of Nowhere (2012)
89 Selma (2014)
90 13th (2016)

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