25 films from great directors that were far from their best efforts

Steven Spielberg is at the pinnacle in terms of commercial success and critical acclaim. This is best exemplified from 1993, when he had both “Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List” in theaters. Some point to the comedy “1941” when discussing missteps from Spielberg, but that was early in his career, and that movie is more hit-or-miss than a snooze. “The Terminal,” though, is a lifeless, meandering movie that fails to deliver anything noteworthy.

Like Spielberg, Ang Lee has won two Best Director Oscars. He’s much more erratic in terms of quality than most, though. “Taking Woodstock” would have been a good choice, but some folks out there try to reclaim “Hulk” as some overlooked masterpiece, but its reputation as a fiasco is more apt, so we are going with that one.

Directors as prolific as Robert Altman can’t knock it out of the park every time. Later in his career, Altman definitely had some clunkers. However, it’s not as interesting to say, “Hey, this director at the end of his career released a bad movie!” Directors often end on down notes — otherwise things wouldn’t end. “Popeye” came in the heart of Altman’s career, though, and it’s a fascinating flop. Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall are definitely going for it, but not in a good way.

Back-to-back Robin Williams movies. Francis Ford Coppola was the king of Hollywood in the 1970s. He had the first two “Godfather” movies, not to mention “The Conversation” and “Apocalypse Now.” You might not realize “Jack” is a Coppola film, though. It does not feel like Coppola. Instead, it feels like the work of some inveterate hack director you can plug into a project you don’t care about.

After making history, Kathryn Bigelow really pushed people’s buttons with controversial bummers in “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Detroit.” “Detroit” seems like it may have put her in the proverbial “director jail,” but that movie isn’t bad as much as it is draining. “K-19: The Widowmaker” is kind of a bummer too, but has nothing really going for it. There is no silver lining to this particular movie.

When together, the Coen Brothers could deliver gripping thrillers and brilliant comedies; they rarely had a misstep in the mix. “The Ladykillers” just didn’t work, though. Maybe it was because it was a remake. The comedy of it just misfires time and time again. Based on the Coens’ solo work after splitting, it feels like it may have been mostly Ethan’s fault, though that’s admittedly speculation.

Clint Eastwood is prolific, and he remained prolific even as he became a “director of a certain age.” Some of his later movies have the feeling of a quick turnaround to get movies into the theater under budget and ahead of schedule, which is Eastwood’s strong suit. However, he had his lackluster movies even before the new millennium. Directing himself as the star of a “techno-thriller” like “Firefox” was not up his alley.

This is one of the instances where we are allowing ourselves to go with the final film of a classic Hollywood director. For Billy Wilder, though, it’s where we go. Part of it is that the old band got back together, with Wilder directing a Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon movie. In the future, that duo would have success again sans Wilder. Alas, “Buddy Buddy” was far from a fitting swan song.

The inverse of avoiding final films is absolutely avoiding first films, especially for directors who came up in the early days of Hollywood. You were effectively assigned programmers and cheap B movies. Stanley Kubrick has a nigh unimpeachable filmography. Even the ones you may not like (“Lölita” is certainly a polarizing offering) feature clear skill from the director. “Killer’s Kiss” is a forgotten Kubrick movie, his second film, but it’s his one real misfire.

These days, it feels unpleasant to praise Woody Allen’s work. However, we have fewer reservations about trashing his bad movies! He ended his career with a few offerings that barely qualify as movies (whatever could have happened?), but there were some bad ones in the mix even before that. “Hollywood Ending” is a deeply inert comedy. When a comedy is a slog, it can feel like it goes on forever.

Mike Nichols’ old comedy partner Elaine May only directed four films (Our hot take is none of them are bad, but none of them are good), but Nichols had a prolific career that began at “wunderkind” status and ended at “steady hand” status. There is a clear standout for his worst movie, though. “What Planet Are You From?” would be a sensible choice as the worst movie you will find on this list. Nichols was directing Garry Shandling in this bizarre comedy, they didn’t get along, and it led to this disaster that feels as hostile to the audience as the director and star were to one another.

John Huston did right by his family, directing both his dad and his daughter to Oscar wins. In the 1960s, he tried his hand at the kind of biblical epic that was popular at the time. The man had skill with film noir, but this was not his bailiwick. The film is somehow both overstuffed and slight, leading to the planned sequels being nixed.

To borrow a phrase from the “Blank Check” podcast, “Critical Care” is a movie that doesn’t exist. Sidney Lumet directed movies for 50 years, and he was behind the camera for iconic offerings like “Network” and “Dog Day Afternoon.” He also directed this satirical comedy starring James Spader and Kyra Sedgwick that made… negative cultural impact?

Park Chan-wook’s original “Oldboy” is considered a masterpiece by many. Spike Lee has some masterpieces to his name as well. Why did he decide to direct a remake of “Oldboy,” though? Also, why does it feel like everybody is going through the motions? The original is gonzo filmmaking. This remake is a shrug.

We were not going to slot any of Steven Soderbergh’s experimental movies on this list. That would be unfair to him, and we admire that he will just do random stuff like “Bubble” or “The Girlfriend Experience.” On the other hand, “The Good German” might as well have been called “Prestige Period Piece,” but it’s a warmed-over version of that. This, from the guy who made “Schizopolis?”

Look, piling on Tim Burton is easy. America’s number-one spooky boy certainly lost the plot. However, eyeball the first seven or eight movies in his filmography and you’ll go, “Oh yeah, he was a great director.” The first misstep, “Planet of the Apes,” could have been the choice here, but that at least had ambition. “Alice in Wonderland” has nothing going for it.

There was definitely a falloff for Alfred Hitchcock after “The Birds,” give-or-take your feelings on “Marnie.” While the general consensus is that he picked it up a bit at the end, you’ll find few stumping for “Torn Curtain.” Even with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews starring, the movie just doesn’t work.

Sofia Coppola doesn’t have a large filmography, but she does have a distinct one. We don’t necessarily like “Somewhere,” but it has such a “one for me” vibe that we’ll let it slide. Every director should get one or two of those. “The Bling Ring” is more of a “one for them” movie, and it’s also her weakest work, the one that doesn’t really pop at all.

Otto Preminger is an esteemed director, and also a vital one. He did as much as anybody for fighting censorship in Hollywood, routinely pushing the envelope. Then, in 1968, he made a movie that tried to satirize hippies. “Skidoo” is one of the fascinating fiascos of American film. The cast is wild, including the last film appearance by Groucho Marx (playing god, of course). “Skidoo” was written by the guy who also wrote “Brewster McCloud,” which somehow tracks. The dude was on one, for better or worse.

After the smash success of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Peter Jackson used his sway to do the remake of “King Kong” he dreamed of. That was largely a success, but why in the world did he then get behind the camera on the adaptation of “The Lovely Bones?” That was a massive book, but it felt like the time for that project had passed. The film doesn’t feel like a fit for Jackson at all, and since then his only feature films have been the three “Hobbit” movies.

OK, so maybe it is a little unfair to include Jonathan Demme directing Wallace Shawn’s adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play. Nobody was expecting to set box office records with this one. And yet… it’s so bad. It’s not even a good version of this concept. If you want to quibble with including “A Master Builder,” we could have gone with “The Truth About Charlie.”

Nora Ephron was an esteemed screenwriter, and she’s a popular director as well. However, you will find few people, if anybody, standing up for “Bewitched.” Why not just make a “Bewitched” movie? Instead, Ephron’s film is about trying to remake “Bewitched,” but also Nicole Kidman is an actual witch cast to play Samantha. And like a third of the film turns out to be a fantasy? At least Ephron followed up with “Julie & Julia,” sadly her final film.

Like Rob Reiner, Barry Levinson has become one of those directors still making films in what effectively seems to be a vacuum. Back in the day, though, he had quite the run. “Good Morning, Vietnam” and “Rain Man” came out in back-to-back years, and he won Best Director for the latter. Levinson would rebound from “Toys” with films like “Wag the Dog,” but Toys did not work. Also, it stars Robin Williams, marking three films for him on this list.

And now, three from Tom Hanks! Robert Zemeckis has been a hitmaker, to be sure, having directed “Back to the Future” and its sequels, plus “Forrest Gump.” While “Forrest Gump” is polarizing, it did win Best Picture and Best Director. Then, he got into motion-capture animation, and Zemeckis was lost in the uncanny valley for good. “The Polar Express” is the first of those films, and it still looks like a nightmare.

John Ford won Best Director four times out of five nominations. Nobody else has won that much, and with no living director having more than two, we’ll predict he is never equaled, and certainly never passed. A problematic figure by modern standards, to be sure, Ford started in the silent era, and so he ended up directing over 140 films in his career. All that, and he spent World War II working for the government and not directing Hollywood fare. In 1949, Ford had his sole foray into live theater when he directed the stageplay “What Price Glory?” for charity. Soon thereafter, he directed a loose movie adaptation that was originally to be a musical, but it wasn’t. A musical from Ford would have likely been a fiasco, but an interesting one. Instead, well, we just got a dud easy to overlook in 50 years of filmmaking. To tie it all up here at the end, the screenwriters of this film were Henry and Phoebe Ephron. They were the parents of Nora Ephron.