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.

3 of 26 photo by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Brad Bird

The one misfire:
60 Tomorrowland (2015)

The one-time animator spent eight years on The Simpsons before leaving to launch his feature directing career with the 1999 classic The Iron Giant. He then moved to Pixar, where he directed two of that studio's best films. But a switch to live-action filmmaking in recent years has produced mixed results, including this Disney sci-fi dud, though critics faulted Bird's screenplay (co-written with Damon Lindelof) a bit more than his directing.

Bird will return to animation for his next film, a sequel to The Incredibles due out this summer.

Everything else:
85 The Iron Giant (1999)
90 The Incredibles (2004)
96 Ratatouille (2007)
73 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

Where To Buy