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.

21 of 26 photo by Luna Filmverleih

Julian Schnabel

The one misfire:
45 Miral (2010)

The painter turned filmmaker has generally excelled on the big screen, where his protagonists are often drawn from the creative arts. His most recent film and one dud, however, detours into political drama, focusing on a Palestinian girl who eventually becomes a teacher at a refugee camp. Critics noted a mismatch between the director's style and the subject matter, and found the film confused and boring.

Schnabel will return to more comfortable territory with his next film, At Eternity's Gate, which stars Willem Dafoe as painter Vincent van Gogh and Oscar Isaac as Paul Gauguin. It could arrive this fall.

Everything else:
65 Basquiat (1996)
85 Before Night Falls (2000)
92 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
72 Berlin (2007)

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