# Director winning streaks
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 11, 2011, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919 "2011-09-11T05:28:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/1 "2011-09-11T05:28:04Z")
What are some examples of movie directors creating 3+ consecutive classics?
Such as:
Stanley Kubrick - Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange
Rob Reiner - Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery (arguably classics, I know)
Peter Jackson - Cheating, but the 3 LOTR movies.
If not for 1941 in the middle, Spielberg would have consecutively directed Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T.
Others?
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### Author:  [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/2 "2011-09-11T05:44:00Z")
Alfred Hitchcock - **Vertigo** (1958), **North by Northwest** (1959),\*\* Psycho \*\*(1960), and **The Birds** (1963)
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### Author:  [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/3 "2011-09-11T08:07:37Z")
David Lean - Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr. Zhivago (1965).
And if you don’t count his war documentaries, Frank Capra had from 7 to 12 in a row, depending on how tough your standards are.
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/4 "2011-09-11T08:23:40Z")
Billy Wilder directed and wrote all of these. The bolded ones are in IMDBs top 250 movies as well as other Wilder movies.
\*\*1950 Sunset Blvd.
\*\*
1951 Ace in the Hole
\*\*1953 Stalag 17 \*\*
1954 Sabrina
1955 The Seven Year Itch
1957 The Spirit of St. Louis
\*\*1957 Witness for the Prosecution \*\*
1957 Love in the Afternoon
**1959 Some Like It Hot**
\*\*1960 The Apartment \*\*
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### Author:  [@brocks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brocks)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/5 "2011-09-11T08:26:37Z")
I counted wrong in my other post, but here’s nine in a row from Capra:
1934 It Happened One Night
1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
1937 Lost Horizon
1938 You Can’t Take It with You
1939 Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
1941 Meet John Doe
1944 Arsenic and Old Lace
1946 It’s a Wonderful Life
1948 State of the Union
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/6 "2011-09-11T09:19:56Z")
Francis Ford Coppola:
**The Godfather
The Conversation
The Godfather, Part 2
Apocalypse Now**
Three of those are in the IMDB top 50; two of them are in the top 5.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/7 "2011-09-11T09:47:22Z")
John Ford:
**Stagecoach** (1939)
**Young Mr. Lincoln** (1939)
**Drums Along the Mohawk** (1939)
**The Grapes of Wrath** (1940)
**The Long Voyage Home** (1940)
**Tobacco Road** (1941)
**How Green Was My Valley** (1941)
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/8 "2011-09-11T15:26:23Z")
Charlie Chaplin: \*\*The Gold Rush, The Circus, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, Monsieur Verdoux \*\*, and **Limelight**
Howard Hawks: **Bringing Up Baby, Only Angels Have Wings** , and **His Girl Friday**. A couple of lesser films, then **To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep** and **Red River**
George Stevens: **A Place in the Sun, Shane** and **Giant**
Preston Sturges: **Christmas in July, The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle at Morgan’s Creek** , and **Hail the Conquering Hero.**
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### Author:  [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/9 "2011-09-11T15:28:49Z")
I can’t remember his name, and these movies are by no means “classics”, but isn’t there a director who has only directed three movies in his life…and all three have been Oscar noms? He had a movie up in the last year or three
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/10 "2011-09-11T15:32:01Z")
George Lucas: The Phantom M . . . . _pfft_
Sorry, I couldn’t keep a straight face.
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/11 "2011-09-11T15:35:57Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#):
>
> I can’t remember his name, and these movies are by no means “classics”, but isn’t there a director who has only directed three movies in his life…and all three have been Oscar noms? He had a movie up in the last year or three
[Terrence Malick?](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000517/)
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/12 "2011-09-11T15:40:18Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#):
>
> George Lucas: The Phantom M . . . . _pfft_
> Sorry, I couldn’t keep a straight face.
But I think you could count early George Lucas as an example. His first three movies as director were _THX 1138_, _American Graffiti_, and _Star Wars_. If he had just stopped there, he’d have been fine.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/13 "2011-09-11T15:43:35Z")
The Coen brothers qualify (I know Joel is listed as the director but people say they actually work as co-directors). Their first three movies were _Blood Simple_, _Raising Arizona_, and _Miller’s Crossing_, which I feel were all classics.
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/14 "2011-09-11T15:46:25Z")
Sir T-Cups, perhaps you’re thinking of Terrence Malick:
> **[Terrence Malick | Producer, Writer, Director](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000517/)**
>
> Known for: Days of Heaven, Badlands, A Hidden Life
> **[Terrence Malick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_Malick)**
>
> Terrence Frederick Malick (born November 30, 1943) is an American filmmaker. His films include Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998), for which he received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, The New World (2005) and The Tree of Life (2011), the latter of which garnered him another Best Director Oscar nomination and the Palme d'Or at the 64th Cannes Film Festival.
> Malick began his career as part of the New Hollywood generation of ...
Although he’s 67 years old, the only films that he has directed are the following:
Lanton Mills (1969)
Badlands (1973)
Days of Heaven (1978)
The Thin Red Line (1998)
The New World (2005)
Tree of Life (2011)
(He’s written or co-written other films.)
Arguably, for only six films in 42 years (and the first one was just a short), he has a pretty good reputation for consistently good films.
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### Author:  [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2011, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/15 "2011-09-11T17:17:59Z")
I haven’t seen all of [Akira Kurosawa’s](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000041/) movies, but the ones I have seen have all been great, whether an epic war film, or a police procedural, or a samurai film, or a modern family drama. In 15 years he made:
Rashomon (1950)
The Idiot (1951) (haven’t seen this one)
Ikiru (1952)
Seven Samurai (1954)
I Live in Fear (1955)
Throne of Blood (1957)
The Lower Depths (1957) (haven’t seen this one)
The Hidden Fortress (1958)
The Bad Sleep Well (1960)
Yojimbo (1961)
Sanjuro (1962)
High and Low (1963)
Red Beard (1965)
He started taking 5 years between movie, then came back with these gems:
Dodes’ka-den (1970)
Dersu Uzala (1975) (my all-time favorite Kurosawa)
Kagemusha (1980)
Ran (1985)
> [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](#):
>
> If not for 1941 in the middle, Spielberg would have consecutively directed Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T.
I’d keep 1941 in there. I love that movie. I think it’s very underrated, but even if not, I always have a great time watching the goofy thing. True, maybe it’s not a “classic” like those others, but I like it just as much.
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### Author:  [@hazynlazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazynlazy)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2011, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/16 "2011-09-12T01:53:16Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#):
>
> I can’t remember his name, and these movies are by no means “classics”, but isn’t there a director who has only directed three movies in his life…and all three have been Oscar noms? He had a movie up in the last year or three
You’re thinking of Stephen Daldry. His first three films, Billy Elliot, The Hours, and The Reader all earned him best director nominations. He is the first director to accomplish such a feat.
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### Author:  [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/17 "2011-09-12T02:16:42Z")
> [@hazynlazy](#):
>
> You’re thinking of Stephen Daldry. His first three films, Billy Elliot, The Hours, and The Reader all earned him best director nominations. He is the first director to accomplish such a feat.
Boom!
That’s it…thank you.
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### Author:  [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2011, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/18 "2011-09-12T02:37:03Z")
Spielberg does qualify with five in a row: Raiders, E.T., Temple of Doom, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sum, Last Crusade
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2011, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/19 "2011-09-12T08:44:41Z")
Justin\_Bailey, you’ve skipped _Always_. You’ve also skipped _Twilight Zone: The Movie_, although it’s possible to argue that it’s not a Spielberg film, since he was just one of four directors of it:
> **[Steven Spielberg filmography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Spielberg_filmography)**
>
> Steven Spielberg is an American director, writer, and producer. He is considered one of the founding pioneers of the New Hollywood era, as well as one of the most popular directors and producers in film history. He is also one of the co-founders of Amblin Entertainment, DreamWorks Pictures, and DreamWorks Animation.
> In a career spanning more than five decades, Spielberg's films have spanned many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of m...
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2011, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/director-winning-streaks/595919/20 "2011-09-12T10:50:23Z")
How 'bout **John Landis** :
_Animal House_ (1978)
_The Blues Brothers_ (1980)
_An American Werewolf in London_ (1981)
_Trading Places_ (1983)
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