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.

23 of 26 photo by Laurie Sparham/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Joe Wright

The one misfire:
36 Pan (2015)

Period pieces? Literary adaptations? Even a fast-paced action thriller? The English director has handled them all with aplomb, even when experimenting with form—except for one striking misfire in 2015. A prequel to J. M. Barrie's classic Peter Pan story, Pan was a sizable financial failure in addition to being an uncharacteristically lousy movie. Critics deemed the overwrought film "ill-conceived," "joyless," and "unpleasant."

Wright rebounded, however, with his follow-up film, Darkest Hour, scoring a best picture Oscar nomination among other honors. His next feature could be an adaptation of the novel Stoner by John Williams starring Casey Affleck.

Everything else:
82 Pride & Prejudice (2005)
85 Atonement (2007)
61 The Soloist (2009)
65 Hanna (2011)
63 Anna Karenina (2012)
75 Darkest Hour (2017)

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