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.

12 of 26 photo by Twentieth Century Fox

Mel Gibson

The one misfire:
47 The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Say what you will about the one-time box office superstar, but Gibson has actually put together a decent directorial career, earning positive reviews for all of his films save for his 2004 passion project, one of three films (along with Apocalypto and Get the Gringo, though the latter did not get a theatrical release) for which he is also a credited screenwriter. Starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus Christ, Passion was denounced by some critics as pornographically violent and anti-Semitic, though a few reviewers found it powerful.

Everything else:
62 The Man Without a Face (1993)
68 Braveheart (1995)
68 Apocalypto (2006)
71 Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

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