I just finished watching In The Name Of The Father, a very fine movie written, produced and directed by Jim Sheridan. It used to be in the IMDB Top 250 Movies of All Time but has recently dropped out. However In America which he also wrote, produced and directed is still there at #249.
His latest production/direction effort Get Rich or Die Tryin’ is currently ranked the 34th worst movie ever made on IMDB.
Have any other directors made both ends of the scale?
I don’t know if Martin Brest ever made the top 250, but Scent of a Woman can’t be too far down–while as Gigli is indeed at the bottom of the barrel.*
William Friedkin went from The French Connection and The Exorcist to C.A.T. Squad, C.A.T. Squad: Python Wolf and Jade.
Also, more meteoric was Michael Cimino from The Deer Hunter to Heaven’s Gate in two years.
Understood that Heaven’ Gate has been favorably reappraised in recent years
Oops, my bad, was just thinking of extremes, didn’t consult IMDB rankings before posting. Mod delete post if wish. :smack:
The guy who directed “Diehard” and “The Hunt for Red October” also directed “Rollerball”.
Some might be surprised that the guy who directed Robocop and Total Recall is the same guy who directed Starship Troopers and Showgirls. Some.
John Singleton went from wunderkind Oscar nominated director of his first film, BOYZ IN THE HOOD, who launched the careers of Nia Long, Ice Cube and Cuba Gooding, Jr. to the dude who remade “The Sons of Katie Elder,” with the truly mediocre FOUR BROTHERS.
I consider Dan Ackroyd to be the great hit-or-miss auteur of our time. The man who was the vision behind The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters was also the utter banality behind Blues Brothers 2000 and Ghostbusters 2.
Two words: John Carpenter. You never know what you’re going to get. Could be a modern classic (The Thing) or a gargantuan waste of time and talent (Ghosts of Mars).
Until I saw Convoy recently for the first time (Kris Kristofferson and Ali MacGraw and a cast of lackluster actors) I had thought Sam Peckinpah could do no wrong. The Getaway and The Wild Bunch are top dollar flics. Convoy could be cut up and used for ukelele picks and serve humanity better.
I consider both these movies to be in my top 100 of all time.
Well, there’s always George Lucas. From *THX1138, American Graffiti, * and Star Wars to, well, the prequels.
Currently coming in at #152 is **A Christmas Story ** directed by Bob Clark.
He also directed Baby Geniuses 2, currently at #4 of the Bottom 250 and Baby Geniuses, at #37. And for good measure, Rhinestone, which falls in at #81 from the bottom.
Francis Ford Coppola:
From The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now, to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Supernova, and The Godfather Part III.
John Frankenheimer:
Ground-breaking sociopolitical thrillers like The Manchurian Candidate and Seconds, and intelligent actioneers like Ronin and The Train to utter dreck such as The Island of Dr. Moreau and Prophecy. A brilliant, literate, erudite director (just listen to his commentary track on Ronin) but he somehow had a way of alternating between worthwhlie material and hideously unworkable projects. The things drink will do to a man…
Terry Gilliam:
From Brazil (which compares to Citizen Kane in terms of how it revolutionized cinematography, and stands on the personal short-list of desert island movies), 12 Monkeys, and The Crimson Permanent Assurance to Jabberwocky and Tideland.
Scorsese hasn’t exactly dipped to the dregs of the bottle yet, but compared to his better work (at which he has been sufficiently prolific to evade any accusations of one-trickism) he’s chucked out some real dogs; not just the early Cormam-produced “Boxcar Bertha” but some of his more recent arfs, like Bringing Out The Dead and Gangs of New York (We’ll forgive New York, New York as an honest attempt to do something original.) Maybe he should consider opening up a winery…
Welles plugged out a few dogs, but they seem to have largely been due to studio interference. If he’d just had his way with money and editing…he’d probably have ended up like Terry Gilliam. Maybe it’s better that we remember him from his compromised and half-finished projects where his brilliance shines like a diamond hidden in a pile of dung.
Stranger
Steven Spielberg–Sandwiched between “Close Encounters” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” was “1941.”
I’d rather watch a 24-hour *1941 *marathon with weasels strapped to my face than watch 13 seconds of Hook.
Stanley Kubrick – Always hit-or-miss IMHO, but when he missed, he missed BIG! To begin your career with Paths of Glory and Dr. Strangelove , not to mention 2001 and A Clockwork Orange and still manage to make such detritus as Barry Lyndon , The Shining , and to end it with Eyes Wide Shit …errr, Shut --no one has ever hit both ends of the quality spectrum like that.
Just MHO, ya understand. 
I’m still too staggered by the fact that Jim Sheridan was involved in “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” to add any more names.
I didn’t know that. I’m just aghast.
If TV shows count (they wouldn’t be counted on imdb.'s bottom 250, obviously), I’d like to nominate director Roland Joffe. His 1984 works The Killing Fields and The Mission aren’t in the Top 250 but should be. His 1995 jawdropper The Scarlet Letter: Demi Does Dimmesdale and 1993’s Super Mario Brothers isn’t in the bottom 250 but should be. But if TV shows could be counted, I’ve few doubts that MTV’s Undressed, a cheesy nightly sitcom that was basically the production values of soft core porn without the soft core porn, would easily make the list.
But wouldn’t the weasels get in the way?
How about J. Lee Thompson?
As a director, he made The Guns of Navarone, Cape Fear, Taras Bulba, asnd the quirky but good Kings of the Sun. Even then, though, he made the bizarrely awful John Goldfarb, Please Come Home. He went on to Battle for the Planet of the Apes, The White Buffalo and descended into Firewalker and King Solomon’s Mines, two spectaculaly awful and unfunny comedies with big names in them. Of course, he also did Murphy’s Law in there.