10 Directors Who Have Never Made A Bad Movie

When you hear the words “great filmmaker," chances are that a few names come to mind without hesitation: Joel and Ethan Coen, David Fincher, and Steven Spielberg, amongst others. But aside from having directed several motion picture classics each, those guys also share the not-so-positive characteristic of having also made some stinkers.

For the Coen brothers, there's the ho-hum Tom Hanks comedy The Ladykillers. And how about Fincher? Though it’s by no means awful, Alien3 is certainly a negative mark on his record. As for Spielberg, he has Hook, 1941, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park all tainting his legacy. Yes, even inarguable greatness doesn’t mean the occasional slip-up is out of the question. But for those rare cases of spotless excellence, the respective filmmakers’ steadfastness is quite remarkable.

Take Christopher Nolan, for example; already seven victories deep (including, most recently, The Dark Knight and Inception), the English-American blockbuster king is back this weekend with The Dark Knight Rises, a legitimate knockout that, despite some narrative clunkiness (more on that in our full review Friday), achieves an astounding cinematic scope and several moments of crushing emotion. Batman fans need not worry—the Caped Crusader’s Nolan-delivered swan song is superb.

With The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan easily solidifies a spot on our list of 10 Directors Who’ve Never Made A Bad Movie. A few of the other nine names may surprise you.

Written by Matt Barone (@MBarone)

Follow @ComplexPopCult

Winning streak: Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill: Vol.1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Grindhouse: Death Proof (2007), Inglourious Basterds (2009)

The common criticism against Quentin Tarantino's movies is that they're all pastiches, not wholly unique visions. And the self-proclaimed fanatic of all fringe cinema (exploitation, obscure horror, spaghetti westerns) is the first to admit that his films incorporate multiple influences at a time, right down to audio scores lifted directly out of scenes from his favorite flicks. Our question is, what's the problem with that?

For our money, as well as the bucks of Tarantino's millions of loyal, cinema-savvy fans, the prolific writer-director's penchant for melding together various genres into his own singular kind of moviegoing experience is always a breath of fresh air amidst the safer, cut-and-dry work coming from most of his peers. To make those claims is also to shortchange the multilayered characters and dizzyingly snappy and robust dialogue tucked into each of his projects.

From Reservoir Dogs' Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) to Pulp Fiction's Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Inglourious Basterds' Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), Tarantino's colorful, unpredictable, and combustible characters are scene-stealers that only he could write. Behind the camera, he's just as wildly in command. Scenes like The Bride's black-and-white, one-against-88 throwdown at the end of Kill Bill: Vol. 1, or the four-POV, gruesome car crash in Grindhouse: Death Proof, are exactly why any new Quentin Tarantino production is cause for both celebration and feverish anticipation. And as his perfect track record indicates, he has yet to disappoint.

Now, can somebody whip up a magic calendar (preferably not a Mayan one) so we can skip ahead to Christmas, grab some overpriced popcorn, and watch the hell out of his next one, Django Unchained? Let's make that happen.

Winning streak: Sanshiro Sugata (1943), The Most Beautiful (1944), Sanshiro Sugata Part II (1945), The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail (1945), No Regrets for Our Youth (1946), One Wonderful Sunday (1947), Drunken Angel (1948), The Quiet Duel (1949), Stray Dog (1949), Scandal (1950), Rashomon (1950), The Idiot (1951), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954), I Live in Fear (1955), Throne of Blood (1957), The Lower Depths (1957), The Hidden Fortress (1958), The Bad Sleep Well (1960), Yojimbo (1961), Sanjuro (1962), High and Low (1963), Red Beard (1965), Dodesukaden (1970), Dersu Uzala (1975), The Shadow Warrior (1980), Ran (1985), Dreams (1990), Rhapsody in August (1991), Not Yet (1993)

Depending on who you ask, Akira Kurosawa is either the greatest, most under-appreciated, or most influential filmmaker of all time, or all three at once. And, frankly, each of those responses is acceptable.

Hailing from Tokyo, Japan, the late Kurosawa endured through one of the longest, unwaveringly solid careers in movie history, with his output ranging from samurai action-adventure epics (Seven Samurai being the best of the lot) to ambitious thrillers that pushed the boundaries of the medium (i.e., Rashomon, which cleverly shows various interpretations of one criminal act). And the audiences for his movies, upon their initial releases, were comprised of some of Hollywood's soon-to-be elite.

Martin Scorsese, for instance, once called Kurosawa his "master," while Steven Spielberg readily admitted that the Japanese director's pics taught him more about filmmaking than "almost any other filmmaker on the face of the earth." Furthermore, George Lucas' Star Wars franchise wouldn't exist if it weren't for the influence of Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress.

Most directors would kill a kitten to have at least one masterpiece to their credit; Kurosawa, bless his soul, cooked up, arguably, a dime's worth of faultless movies. The fact that his lesser efforts were still worthy of high praise is what makes him an undisputed icon.

Winning streak: Who’s That Knocking at My Door (1968), Boxcar Bertha (1972), Mean Streets (1973), Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), After Hours (1985), The Color of Money (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino (1995), Kundun (1997), Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010), Hugo (2011)

We can hear the haters already: "Martin Scorsese has made a bunch of underwhelming movies—what are you thinking?" In the case of Scorsese more than any other filmmaker included in this countdown, it's a matter of opinion, and, if you ask us, the NYC native's weakest movies are not only better than most other directors' best ones, they're also good in their own right as long as they're not constantly measured against his undeniable classics.

Let's focus on the man's potential missteps here. Of course Boxcar Bertha, Scorsese's Roger Corman-produced train robbery flick from 1972, looks inferior when placed alongside movies like Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, but on its own, free from any unfair comparisons, Boxcar Bertha is an exhibition of the attention to detail and stirring violence that exemplify his later, improved work. The same combination saves 2002's uneven, messy, yet powerfully staggering Gangs of New York from itself, leaving its impact more on the "awe-inspiring" side, nowhere near "awful."

And heavy respect is also due to Scorsese's slept-on gems, the ones die-hard fans appreciate while others either ignore or underestimate, pictures like The King of Comedy and After Hours. And, since too many people frustratingly attack its big twist without recognizing the skillful ways in which he and screenwriter Laeta Kaligridis unspool its mysteries and fill in all holes, 2010's $125 million-earning hit Shutter Island.

Nope, we can't find a deal-breaking weak spot anywhere in his catalog.

Winning streak: The Colossus of Rhodes (1961), A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Duck, You Sucker! (1971), Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

His filmography isn't as long as most others on this list, but Sergio Leone didn't need a double-digit number of movies to cement his legacy. Along with his trusted collaborator, and frequent leading man, Clint Eastwood, the Italian auteur popularized an entire sub-genre, the "Spaghetti Western," with a series of hard-body gunslinger pics that, to this day, rank amongst the best of all guy-friendly cinema.

With Eastwood as "The Man with No Name" and composer Ennio Morricone's unforgettable scores, Leone's trifecta of low-budget but high-quality and seductively psychological cowboy pistols-and-spurs flicks (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) represent the best of the Old West, a truth that modern-day directors like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez would attest to with vigor.

Before he teamed up with Clint, however, Leone's first movie was in a whole other realm of fiction: the sword-and-sandal category. The Colossus of Rhodes, Leone's first turn as a director, about Greek warriors fighting to protect a statue of the god Apollo, doesn't get much love, but give it a look and you'll realize that it's ripe with promise and host to a few rousing action set-pieces.

Five years before he passed away in 1989, Leone unveiled what has become a criminally overlooked example of first-class Mafia cinema, Once Upon a Time in America. Maybe the film's challenging 269-minute running time is to blame, but the massive accomplishment, starring James Woods and Mob flick regulars Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, rarely pops up in conversations with The Godfather, Scarface, and Goodfellas, but it certainly should.

Winning streak: Following (1998), Memento (2000), Insomnia (2002), Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Pay attention to any recent news report about the latest superhero franchise-starter or costumed avenger reboot and you'll see an iteration of the following statement: They're going for "the Christopher Nolan approach." Which indicates that, basically, the respective filmmaker and producers intend to focus more on brains and dark storytelling than CGI and overblown spectacle. We pure cinema lovers of the world owe Nolan for such a shift in Hollywood priorities.

Back when the England-born writer-director first took on the Caped Crusader brand with 2005's Batman Begins, he wasn't the most obvious choice; before then, Nolan's credits included a black-and-white noir flick (Following), a crime thriller told backwards (the spellbinding Memento), and a cerebral cat-and-mouse potboiler starring two elder statesmen, Al Pacino and Robin Williams (Insomnia). So, yeah, he wasn't on the top of anyone's mind when it came to summertime popcorn fare.

Fortunately, though, the brass at Warner Bros. realized that great films, like the ones Nolan had already made, are all the criteria that's needed. And today, thanks to Christopher, his brother Jonathan Nolan, and their collaborator David Goyer, the Dark Knight trilogy has legitimized superhero movies for those uptight folks who'd typically frown upon Comic-Con products.

But we're not shedding any tears over Nolan's decision to step away from Gotham City after The Dark Knight Rises. As he proved with the incredibly brain-scrambling dueling magicians sleeper The Prestige and the James Bond by way of Sigmund Freud smash Inception, Nolan brings the same level of intelligence and showmanship to any and all projects.

Winning streak: Mauvaise Graine (1934), The Major and the Minor (1942), Five Graves to Cairo (1943), Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend (1945), Death Mills (1945), The Emperor Waltz (1948), A Foreign Affair (1948), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Ace in the Hole (1951), Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954), The Seven Year Itch (1955), The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), Love in the Afternoon (1957), Witness for the Protection (1957), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), One, Two, Three (1961), Irma la Douce (1963), Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), The Fortune Cookie (1966), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), Avanti! (1972), The Front Page (1972), Fedora (1978), Buddy Buddy (1981)

Back during Hollywood's "golden age," from the 1940s through '50s, Billy Wilder was unstoppable. Starting with the excitable reception of his seedy 1944 noir Double Indemnity, the Austro-Hungarian filmmaker went on a 37-year tear that resulted in eight Academy Award nominations for Best Director (two of which he won) and five Golden Globe victories.

Widely regarded for his heartfelt comedies, which dominated the later part of his career, Wilder began his Hollywood reign with rather heavy, psychologically devastating fare, like The Lost Weekend (about a man's life-ruining battle against booze) and Sunset Boulevard (the classic dissection of fading vanity as seen through has-been movie star Norma Desmond, played with tragic empathy by Gloria Swanson).

Still, Wilder's lighter romps, namely Sabrina and the Marilyn Monroe vehicle Some Like It Hot, paved the way for intelligent comedies dedicated to balancing belly laughs with top-notch acting, warmth, and accessibility.

Winning streak: Killer’s Kiss (1955), The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Spartacus (1960), Lolita (1962), Dr. Strangelove (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

It's damn near blasphemy-status not to say it—whenever a modern-day filmmaker is asked about his or her influences, the name Stanley Kubrick is practically required to be spoken. Of course, most people who claim to take cues from the late cinematic great couldn't have cleaned his camera's lens, but that's beside the point.

Kubrick, a New York City native, blessed the film world with inarguable all-time best movies in each of its biggest fanboy genres. For horror, he drained all optimism out of Stephen King's novel The Shining to concoct one of the creepiest, darkest explorations of supernatural insanity ever put to celluloid; sci-fi heads, for their part, have both the mind-numbingly hypnotic 2001: A Space Odyssey and the dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange by which to swear. Even dark comedy aficionadoes were given a slice of greatness courtesy of Kubrick, in the form of the sharp, scathing Cold War skewer-fest Dr. Strangelove.

A big reason why Kubrick's movies maintained such high levels of aptitude is that he notoriously shunned the Hollywood system; it was either his way or, as they say, the highway, and Kubrick made his pictures outside of the corporate system and with total creative control. When your finished products resemble the aforementioned classics, Tinsel Town execs would be foolish to ever interfere.

Winning streak: Hard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), There Will Be Blood (2007)

The timing couldn't be any more perfect for Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film, The Master (scheduled for October). In light of the recent Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes divorce bringing questions to the Church of Scientology, The Master's none-too-subtle allusions to L. Ron Hubbard's methods is set to become a real zeitgeist affair. Thus, PTA's name just might finally become a household one, rather than a name that's adored by cinema buffs but mostly foreign to everyone else. Though, come to think of it, Anderson probably would prefer to remain in the shadows.

He's from the same breed of reclusive, let-the-work-speak-for-itself filmmakers as the Coen brothers and Terrence Malick; Anderson will give one or two interviews per movie, but it's a privilege, not a requirement. It's that kind of resistance toward the spotlight that allows him to spend upwards of four to five years in between films, fine-tuning his latest drama until it's absolutely airtight, like 2007's monumental There Will Be Blood, which came out five years after its predecessor, Punch-Drunk Love.

Anderson doesn't spoon-feed audiences stories, either. Partial to sprawling narratives, the meticulous writer-director delivers epics on a character-powered, human scale; Boogie Nights, for example, which many believe to be Anderson's crowning achievement (it's a dogfight between that and There Will Be Blood, in our opinion), surrounds up-and-coming porn star Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg) with a plethora of fascinating, well-drawn characters, all of whom establish their own identities and motivations and contribute to a staggeringly rich tale of darkness set against the glow of high-class smut.

Based on its early, hauntingly oblique teasers, The Master shouldn't be any less abstract in its dissection of man's dangerous willingness to follow the leader, even if said leader creates his own religion with the imagination of Dr. Seuss.

Winning streak: The Moon Is… The Sun’s Dream (1992), Trio (1997), Joint Security Area (2000), Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), Oldboy (2003), Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005), I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (2006), Thirst (2009)

Even if you've never seen Park Chan-wook's cult favorite Oldboy, there's a strong chance that you've at least heard of the film. And if you are part of that inexperienced bunch, do yourself a favor and consult Netflix immediately.

In addition to having one of the best movie twists of all time, Oldboy fires on all cylinders as a visceral, emotional, and punishing examination of redemption gone wrong; for every poignant moment of catharsis for its protagonist, a man freed from a wrongful imprisonment and on a war path to hurt those who set him up, Chan-wook lets actor Choi Min-sik have it, via a brilliant one-take hallway fight sequence and a grisly marriage of scissors and a tongue.

As Oldboy makes clear in every frame, Chan-wook is a fearless director, and it's that same lack of self-limitation that effectively pervades the perennially underrated South Korean filmmaker's oeuvre. It's there in Oldboy's "Vengeance Trilogy" counterparts, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, and it's also present in his stabs into other genres, like 2006's bizarre rom-com I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK and the nifty vampire comedy/love story Thirst.

Admit it, you weren't expecting to see Park Chan-wook on this list. It's cool, his time under the mainstream's spotlight has yet to come, though it may very well be on the horizon. Chan-wook's next film will be his English-language debut, Stoker, starring Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode (Watchmen), and Dermot Mulroney (American Horror Story). Expect tons of critical adoration and well-deserved Hollywood exposure for its shotcaller.

Winning streak: Ivan’s Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), Stalker (1979), Nostalghia (1983), The Sacrifice (1986)

Did you see Prometheus last month, expect to watch wall-to-wall action, and leave dumbfounded by the film's far-reaching ideas? If so, you better steer clear of the late Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky's cult classic science fiction films, because, simple put, the intelligence on display in Tarkovsky's works makes the clunky concepts in Ridley Scott's enjoyable yet flawed Alien prequel seem amateur hour.

Known for injecting metaphysics into his altogether contemplative and delicately slow-paced character studies, Tarkovsky made cinema for patient viewers who don thinking-caps. Particularly when he delved into sci-fi, which he did for the disorienting, beautiful head-trips Solaris and Stalker. However, his oddest flick, The Mirror, doesn't belong to any specific genre, abandoning all convention to formulate a mental examination of its central character through a montage of loosely related scenes, newsreel footage, and narration.

Sixteen years after his death, Tarkovsky still hasn't received the full-blown respect and widespread acclaim he deserves, and, frankly, his reputation may never expand beyond film school lectures. It'd be delusional to think that a major studio big-wig ever telling one of his pay-for-hire directors, "Give us a sci-fi picture like one of that Russian guy's.... You know, the one who made Solaris." There's not a chance in hell that they'd know his name if they did actually say that.