# Directors who've spanned the full range of good/bad movies. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 8, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959 "2005-05-08T21:29:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/1 "2005-05-08T21:29:20Z")
In other words. Directors who have made particularly good movies, and also particularly bad movies. Joel Schumacker. Good: Falling Down, Lost Boys, 8mm. Bad: Batman & Robin, Batman Forever. Does anyone know why a proven director made such utter tosh as those batman movies? ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2005, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/2 "2005-05-08T21:49:28Z")
[John Frankenheimer](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001239/) made many brilliant films (the original _Manchurian Candidate_, _Seconds_), but he also made _Reindeer Games_. ---
**Author:** ![jimpatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9e5f3/32.png) [@jimpatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimpatro)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/3 "2005-05-08T21:53:20Z")
Can’t speak for Schumacher, didn’t catch either of his Batman films. I’d have to nominate Sergio Leone. And I think his range is displayed in one film. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Such magnificent casting and characterization. A well laid out story, cleverly constructed scenes, beautiful cinematography,haunting music. One of my favs, bordering on brilliance but… The overdubbing of the Italian actors brings it all down a few notches. Why couldn’t he use American extras for speaking parts? Cheeseball and magnificence from one man. ---
**Author:** ![want2know](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@want2know](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/want2know)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2005, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/4 "2005-05-08T21:59:33Z")
> [@jackelope](#): > > [John Frankenheimer](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001239/) made many brilliant films (the original _Manchurian Candidate_, _Seconds_), but he also made _Reindeer Games_. Not to mention _Prophecy_ .Stanley Kubrick–how do you go from “Dr. Strangelove” and “A Clockwork Orange” to “Eyes Wide Shit” (and that’s not a typo!) ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2005, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/5 "2005-05-08T22:04:01Z")
Ridley Scott. Good: _Alien_, _Bladerunner_, _Black Hawk Down_, and many others. Bad: _G. I. Jane_, _Hannibal_. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/6 "2005-05-09T00:04:13Z")
**J. Lee Thompson** – The man directed **Taras Bulba** , **Kings of the Sun** , and — **The Guns of Navarone** But he also directed \*\*The White Buffalo King Solomon’s Mines\*\* (The awful Richard Chamberlain/Sharon Stone version) **Firewalker** (the movie that proved that Chuck Norris shouldn’t attempt comedy. Nor should Lou Gossettt, Jr. Or J. Lee Thompson, for that matter) To be fair, he made awful movies at the same time he was making good ones ( **John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!**. And one of his early films was **an Alligator named Daisy**. I’ve never seen it, but I can’t believe it was good. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Krebbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5fc32e/32.png) [@Mr.Krebbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Krebbs)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/7 "2005-05-09T00:14:42Z")
Oliver Stone. He directed **Platoon** , one of my favorite films. Yet Stone also churned out **Any Given Sunday** and, even worse, last year’s **Alexander**. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/8 "2005-05-09T00:17:36Z")
Roman Polanski followed up **What?** with **Chinatown** , going from botton-of-the-barrel to film classic without anything inbetween. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/9 "2005-05-09T01:03:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Oliver Stone. He directed Platoon, one of my favorite films. Yet Stone also churned out Any Given Sunday and, even worse, last year’s Alexander. He also directed Michae Caine in **The Hand** Yecccch! ---
**Author:** ![ZeroGyro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47774/32.png) [@ZeroGyro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZeroGyro)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/10 "2005-05-09T01:09:41Z")
Brian De Palma is another one. “The Untouchables,” “Carlito’s Way,” and “Hi Mom” are all good-to-great films. De Palma’s made a bunch of incredible clunkers, my favorite example of this being “Body Double,” one of the most irritating pictures I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/11 "2005-05-09T01:33:06Z")
At the risk of stating the obvious: Spielberg: Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Color Purple, Schindler’s List, Jaws; on the other hand, AI, Minority Report, The Terminal, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/12 "2005-05-09T02:06:16Z")
> [@Tracy Lord](#): > > At the risk of stating the obvious: > > Spielberg: Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Color Purple, Schindler’s List, Jaws; on the other hand, AI, Minority Report, The Terminal, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 😛 Don’t forget “1941”! ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/13 "2005-05-09T02:09:49Z")
Hang on a sec… Can we name a director whose every film was great or even good? (Except for Hitchcock, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/14 "2005-05-09T02:16:54Z")
I can’t think of a Steven Soderbergh movie I’ve seen and disliked. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/15 "2005-05-09T02:39:22Z")
> [@Tracy Lord](#): > > I can’t think of a Steven Soderbergh movie I’ve seen and disliked. I can. ---
**Author:** ![bclouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@bclouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bclouse)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/16 "2005-05-09T03:00:44Z")
I think Francis Ford Coppola is the poster boy for this thread. His 70’s work is _so_ great then it went downhill from **Apocalypse Now**. I won’t even include **One From the Heart** and **Bram Stoker’s Dracula** in his list of crap films, at least he was trying to do something interesting. But it’s disheartening to see **Jack** , **The Rainmaker** and especially **Godfather III** on his resume. ---
**Author:** ![ElectricZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58f4c7/32.png) [@ElectricZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElectricZ)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/17 "2005-05-09T03:31:52Z")
John McTiernan: Good - Predator, Die Hard, Thomas Crown Affair. Bad - Basic, Rollerball, Medicine Man EZ ---
**Author:** ![Ooner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/c67d28/32.png) [@Ooner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ooner)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/18 "2005-05-09T04:04:50Z")
I think Soderbergh hasn’t really made anything HORRIBLE, but he might be worth listing just for Ocean’s Twelve. 11 was a fun crime caper and 12 was just 90 minutes of celebrity masturbation. Also, I only saw Kafka once years ago, but I remember it being really boring. Not ENTIRELY terrible though. Oh, and Solaris? Didn’t see it, but I suspect it might be pretty high up on the crappy movie scale. I guarantee Soderbergh will belong on this list for sure within a few years at this rate. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/19 "2005-05-09T04:14:31Z")
> [@Lobsang](#): > > Does anyone know why a proven director made such utter tosh as those batman movies? I think he watched the Tim Burton versions, and then the campy 60s TV series, and in his mind combined them, so when he came to working out the style sensibility he wanted to emulate he got all mixed up and took the worst elements from each, instead of the best. Batman Forever actually wasn’t that awful, though it is very much flawed, and again he misread what deemed it popular, and amped up all the worst aspects of it about ten more notches for Batman and Robin. Basically, his sensibilities were way off base and nobody reigned him in. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2005, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959/20 "2005-05-09T05:33:40Z")
How about [Robert Altman](http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0000265/)? At his best he’s capable of **Nashville** , **3 Women** , and **Mash** and then, 30 years later, **Gosford Park** and **Cookie’s Fortune**. Conversely, this is the same guy who gave us **Quintet** and **Popeye** - utter dreck! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/directors-whove-spanned-the-full-range-of-good-bad-movies/302959.md?page=2)