Who is the most overrated director of all time?

Have you seen "Memento", OP?

Robert Altman. Too much overlapping dialogue. Sounds like the old queens on DL.

Spike Lee- Thread Closed

Elia Kazan -- I know many of those post-war dramas are revered but I find them impossible to slog through. Being the earnest young man can be tiring.

Except for "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," which is an absolutely lovely film.

Nolan's film are cold and humorless. But without the wit or dark satire of Kubrick. To me, he's overrated. And any decent director who sold their soul for comic book Movieland is lame.

Spike Lee? Well yes, the thread is closed. Please don’t come back.

I co-sign on Spike Lee. He just doesn’t know to direct a movie.

I don’t get the love for Spielberg and Scorsese. Spielberg hasn’t made a good film in twenty years and Scorsese just sticks to his niche.

R5 You mention wit or dark satire in Kubrick.

I can appreciate the dark satire in 'Dr Stangelove' and (to a lesser extent) in 'Clockwork Orange' but I can't see any of that in the rest of his stuff.

Paul Haggis received an undeserved Oscar nomination for his execrable film Crash, which was the most embarrassing win for Best Picture in Oscar history.

R8: I thought Catch Me if You Can and Munich were solid Spielberg films of the last 20 years. He directed Jaws, Close Encounters, ET, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I think his reputation in the pantheon is safe. (Also think Empire of the Sun is an underrated gem, but not everyone agrees.)

Scorsese just makes the same movie over and over again.

People who think Scorsese makes nothing but gangster films with Robert De Niro don’t know his filmography very well — watch The Age of innocence, or Kundun, or Silence.

Pasolini.

I love The Gospel According to St Matthew and The Decameron & Canterbury Tales r13

Spielberg is the worst of all the "movie brats" directors. And the most childish. Most of his attempts at serious movies are just heavy-handed message movies. Can he make a movie without shoving a message in your face? Probably not. And I still loathe the "playfulness" of Close Encounters. What a snoozefest.

Nolan and CGI? You're kidding, right? He was criticised for NOT using CGI to fill up the beaches at Dunkirk for the eponymous film, which I thought spectacular.

Another vote for Spielberg here whose bent for going too far and overegging the pudding is unmatched in the field.

That girl in the red coat in Schindler's List is a perfect demonstration of everything wrong with Spielberg's attempts at "adult" movies.

I am not sure he is the “most” overrated, but I never seem to enjoy the films Clint Eastwood directs, even if I admire some aspects of them.

Nolan has this weird tendency of casting starlets with zero sex appeal (with Marion Cotillard being the only outlier).

I'd assume he was gay, but even gay men have a greater appreciation of female beauty and sex appeal. He's more likely an asexual Aspie.

Lars Von Trier !!!

Agree about Nolan. Dunkirk was so mediocre.

Chi Chi LaRue. He couldn’t identify character arc if it jizzed in his eye.

I think Scorsese has directed some classic films but not for a very, very long time. And, he's lousy with female characters and stories.

Tarantino is hugely overrated. And, a creep.

Kubrick was really more a production designer/cinematographer than a great director. Kubrick films are cold and the performances are mostly stilted and fake.

Same thing with Wes Anderson. It's all production design and gimmicks and the same annoying "I need my father's love!" themes.

All of those directors have great films and moments in their films but they're over praised, mostly by male film school nerds and fanboys.

I love Kubrick--he is the opposite of Spielberg. He wont forcefeed you anything. He lives it all out in the open and lets things linger. He is not afraid of silence or slow movement. He makes mature movies.

Wim Wenders

How about Woody Allen. He hasn't made a really good movie at the level of his early films in years. And since for the most part, he's made a film a year, that adds up to a lot of crap.

[quote] He lives it all out in the open

This should read "He leaves it all out in the open".

David Fincher. All his films are so humorless, colorless, and depressing. The best thing he's done was Gone Girl and even that film would have been better with a director who had a more playful style. Someone like Brian DePalma or Paul Verhoven could have really done something masterful with that material and I bet every shot wouldn't look like it was filtered through the green, stagnant water of a pool behind a crack house.

R2 I second Robert Altman.

[quote]watch The Age of innocence

What’d I ever do to YOU?

I don't really get Altman or Allen. I think some of their more oddball films are their best. For Altman, 3 Women is pretty interesting and, for Allen, Blue Jasmine and Another Woman are my favorites.

Spike Lee-- Totally agree

Ingmar Bergman

Wes Anderson

R20, I loathe him

R34 form over substance

Overrated? That should be Woody's second name

Every Lars Von Trier movie in a nutshell: Woman gets humiliated/abused. Women suffers a lot. And a lot. And then becomes a martyr.

These can all be good but they can be very blah or bad also:

Taranino, Lynch, Scott, Bergman, Fellini, Lean, Godard, Lee, Fincher, Malik, del Toro, Lumet, Soderbergh

Also Tim Burton.

You've asked a hard question, OP.

Because I'm in the habit of IGNORING whoever the hoi polloi are rating or over-rating. Bosley Crowther (I think) referred to certain movie directors as 'This Year's Sensation/Next Year's Embarrassment.

So I'll see one or two of a movie director 's stuff and most likely ignore it after that. I have been steadfastingly ignoring Losey, Tarantino, Spieelburg, The French New Wavers, Bergman, Haynes, Scorsese.

[BOLD] Michael Winner [/BOLD]

Not sure he ever made anything watchable?

Tim Burton once started out promising but his recent movies have been repulsive beyond words. Alice in wonderland and the Willy Wonka remake were inexcusable. I also hate David Fincher for making ugly depressingly greyish films the norm. Aaron Sorkin is for the most part a sanctimonious twit. David E. Kelley produced some of the most execrable garbage I have ever seen on TV. I'm glad his heyday is over. Kathryn Bigelow is hugely overrated as well, though we never hear about her anymore.

"1917" proved "Dunkirk" was a piece of soulless shit.

James Cameron

R44 "soulless shit"

You must prefer soulful shit.

Ingmar Bergman is so fucking dull. So stagey. I will take Antonioni any day.

It’s a tie between him and that other pompous Brit, Sam Mendes. They make moveez, but act like their productions are the most important thing ever done by a human being.

Jordan Peele. I win.

I love Antonioni, but Bergman made some masterpieces, and more importantly he was an actor’s director, coaxing fascinating performances from his leading ladies and men. And as brilliant as Antonioni was, his movies aren’t exactly fast-paced thrill rides. L’Avventura is one of the greatest films ever made, but it’s an extremely slow burn.

R48 Sam Mendes and who?

Spike Lee has created some great cinema moments... often set pieces more than than the whole film. But BlackKlansmen was satisfying as a whole. He did better with the 70s decade's ziegeist than Tarantino did with the 60s. And "She's Gotta Have It" was heartbreakingly beautiful in its elegant black and white.

I vote Martin Scorcese. His reputation, in my eyes, is based solely on his films being directed by Martin Scorcese. This seems to be the only factor that makes his films "great."

Tarantino's films are trash.

I thought Dunkirk AND 1917 were soulless pieces of shit.

R53 You've seen Taxi Driver? You've seen Ragging Bull? Two of the greatest American films, no question. If you don't like them, or respect them, there's something quirky about your taste.

[quote] And as brilliant as Antonioni was, his movies aren’t exactly fast-paced thrill rides.

What I love about his movies--and why I can't stand Bergman's--is that he doesn't rely on a heavy amount of dialogue. He stresses visuals over dialgoue. Probably my biggest pet peeve in a movie is too much dialogue. It's probably the biggest reason I think Sunset Boulevard is a superior movie to All About Eve.

Ha... Raging Bull. Ragging Bull sounds like a parody

Ha... Raging Bull. Ragging Bull sounds like a parody

Raging Bull doesn’t hold up.

Quentin Tarantino. His films are loathsome, but critics continue to kiss his ass. Go figure.

Raging Bull is incredibly overrated. I don't understand why it's considered a classic. Taxi Driver is a movie I love, but Raging Bull has little appeal.

R60 I saw it last year, and it was better than I remembered.... but I'm a sucker for black and white.

Ava DuVernay has made nothing of great substance but she’s hailed as some sort of revolutionary.

Overrated should be Greta Gerwig’s middle name. It’s a national disgrace whenever she’s snubbed at any awards show, she ruined Little Women, and she keeps forcing Tim o Tay onto us.

Robert Redford, Nolan, Zack Snyder and M. Night Shyamalan (or he was before people saw through his schtick, except they still give him money for movies) are overrated.

All-time overrated director? George Lucas, less two movies. His sophomoric, puerile, niggling obsessiveness and simplistic thematics - ugh. "How to ruin the potential for a truly great series" is his life story.

People who say Altman and Bergman are overrated have demands for cinema rather aligned with the Fast & Furious with Zombies mode of filmmaking. But many 13-year-old girls do post here.

"People who say Altman and Bergman are overrated have demands for cinema rather aligned with the Fast & Furious with Zombies mode of filmmaking. But many 13-year-old girls do post here."

13-year-old girls don't even know who Altman and Bergman ARE.

[quote] People who say Altman and Bergman are overrated have demands for cinema rather aligned with the Fast & Furious with Zombies mode of filmmaking. But many 13-year-old girls do post here.

It's almost as if even some people with taste don't like Bergman or Altman....

[quote] 13-year-old girls don't even know who Altman and Bergman ARE.

Even 40 year-old girls don't know who they are.

Bergman's films are art... just high art. You may not like Goya or El Greco... not to your taste... but you'd be a fool to say they're overrated. Some of my favorites are some of the lesser known... Winter Light, The Silence... perverse, bleak, elegant, irresistible.

Wes Anderson. I saw his film "Moonrise Kingdom"; it got good reviews and I thought it would be amusing. It wasn't. I hated it. I came out of the theater literally sick; I was nauseous and my head was pounding. I vowed to myself I would never see ANY Wes Anderson movie again. But critics like his schtick. Critics are a strange breed.

Ahh R22, ChiChi Is a national treasure. I was at a Palm Springs resort in 2002 and ChiChi was directing a scene in front of a crowd in the resort lobby. The bottom was getting ready to get fucked and suddenly ChiChi shouted, “Did you douche???” The bottom made a smirk and said no. “You go in the bathroom and douche now!”

Now I ask you, would Spielberg have caught what could have been a disaster?? What about Hitchcock??

Francis Ford Coppola. There. I said it.

Those who can't, CRITICIZE.

I have to disagree about Kubrick. Every frame of A Clockwork Orange and The Shining was art.

But OMG yes that fucking shameless sellout hack Tim Burton. It's like many years ago he simply gave up as an artist and decided to just make movies for the purpose of siphoning money from his loyal established fanbase. Fuck him and the soulless popcorn shit flicks he's been churning out on an assembly line. Does he have no integrity?

Maybe it's just because I don't really care for the "adult fairytale" thing, but Guillermo del Toro.

No one said Guy Ritchie? Talk about making the same film over and over again!!! I just saw The Gentleman and it was such his typical cockney came up wannabe gangster crap.

Clint Eastwood. After watching part of The Ballad of Richard Jewell. Was too bored to watch all of it. He needs to just call it good and do crosswords or checkers.

R78, Rex Reed called "Richard Jewell" a perfect movie.

(R75) yeah, what happened to Tim Burton. He's really cranking out the crap now. And Kevin Smith should never be able to direct a film again. Or write one.

No one cited Barbra Streisand?

(R79) Rex Reed is still around? No, it was not. It also was one of Clint Eastwood's lowest grossing movies of his directing career. Next too Bronco Billy.

R75- Isn't Tim Burton the one who does TERRIBLE remakes of wonderful movies like Willie Wonka And The Chocolate Factory(1971) and Planet Of The Apes (1968)?

R70 The Silence is so good. It's a bit like the times we're living through now: isolation, tension, and dread... minus the social media, of course.

Oh come on, super easy. George Lucas.

Blake Edwards

Gary Marshall

Those who can’t, FEECH!

Oh my god. Kevin Smith as mentioned. How that guy has a career in the movie business is beyond me.

Spielberg makes 3/4 of a good movie and always kills it with sap.

But for me the most overrated is Richard Linklater. His movies seem like after school specials.

R82 . . .

With ‘Richard Jewell,’ Clint Eastwood Shows Us How Great Movies are Made

By Rex Reed • 12/18/19 10:30am

Just when I thought one of the worst movie years in memory was down for the count, Clint Eastwood arrived at the last minute with Richard Jewell, to show us all how great movies are made. Yes, this is a great one, and a magnificent centerpiece performance by an unknown actor named Paul Walter Hauser in the title role is a major reason it is so unforgettable.

I think Rex Reed is one of those critics who hates everyone. He was one of the few critics who hated Aretha's singing. I wonder if he's commented on Ariana or Jennifer Hudson yet? And you don't have to like Aretha to recognize the quote below is bogus hyperbole.

[quote] the uncomprehending Rex Reed, who hates her: "Her delivery overpowers all meaning, all semblance of order and dignity. Her phrasing is sloppy. She is probably the worst ballad singer I've ever heard."

Zach Snyder convinced enough people that a re-cut of Justice League will fix all its problems. If he had any potential we would have seen it by now. It's time to admit Snyder has an ego as wide as an ocean but with the depth of a swimming pool.

Garry Marshall’s filmography is nothing but chick flicks and rainbows and lollipops. Even worse, he’s responsible for Julia fucking Roberts becoming a star. Ugh.

R11, R12 you must have missed the interview where Scorsese acknowledged that he's a billionaire and he decided he would indulge in his toy projects.

He said he would alternate his movies. He would make one within his chosen genre (tiresome Italian-American gangster stuff) and alternate them with homages to others.

He made the Jesus movie in homage to Pasolini. The Edith Wharton one as homage to William Wyler's The Heiress. Another one to Douglas Sirk. I've forgotten the others because I don't think him particularly interesting. He reneged on his plan for a homage to Michael Powell.

Alfredo Stroessner.

Oh, wait -- "director"...

Never mind.

I love David Fincher. The girl with the dragon tattoo is a way better film than the original but people like to pretend the other one is better because its European. It makes them feel elite. Benjamin Button and Gone Girl are also excellent. The pilot of Mindhunter is also intelligent. You see people’s taste on here and it’s all about personal taste I guess. Spike Lee a bad film maker? Black klansman, Inside Man, Do the right thing and The summer of Sam say otherwise.

Oliver Stone has some technical skill but is a crackpot.

Clint Eastwood is a hack.

R91, no studio would waste the money they did to completely reshoot a movie that works.

Case in point: watch the fabled director’s cut of Exorcist III.

I agree with everyone upthread who named Kevin Smith. They all have the mentality of a bitter pervert, which seems to be his primary fanbase. I grew up in the town he shot most of his early movies in, so he’s been regarded as a local legend for years and it’s especially insufferable.

I also co-sign on Wes Anderson. Cutesy, twee garbage.

Kevin Smith. Agree. Agree. Agree. Ugh.. His career baffles me.

At the top of the list: Alejandro Iñárritu

"honorable" mentions: Lars Von Trier & Quentin Tarantino

P.S. with only a couple of notable exceptions, William Wyler is a boring filmmaker

Tarantino = 3 hours of boredom. How hasn’t he been brought up by Black Lives Matter for the amount of “ni**er” yelled throughout his films for kicks.

He moved to Israel with no extradition to America.

R77 I thought the question was who was overrated. I thought Guy Ritchie had a reputation as a really bad director. With that reputation, I watched his last one and was surprised it had a few interesting quirks.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned this English film director called Edgar Wright. I'm being generous by calling him a director or filmmaker. Even worse, I have heard him refer to himself as an 'auteur' ?! He produces absolute garbage (i.e. Scott Pilgim vs the word) and he's not embarrassed to show his face around. The lack of self-awareness....

Tarantino, Scorsese, and Terrence Malick.

Jean-Luc Godard. Only Contempt is bearable.

Has Terrence Malick ever made an interesting movie? Ever?

Contemporaneously, Joe Wright, Sam Mendes and especially Guillermo del Toro.

r77 I guess to be overrated, you have to be 'rated' at some point. I don't rate Guy Ritchie at all. I think his movies are shit.

r108, agreed. I think he got some "genius" hype when he was first starting out but now I think people mostly see him as a hack.

David Fincher seconded. All his movies come across as beautifully filmed snuff movies with no intellectual depth or emotional gravitas. He infuses them with nothing but great visuals which betrays his MTV music video roots. "Gone Girl" was somewhat entertaining but it's, basically, a Lifetime TV movie with a super budget and some big names. At least, as a poster above remarked, De Palma would've seen the dark camp potential of the source material and known how to utilize it to its maximum.

R105 You're high (as was he). Breathless changed movies forever.

Reading all the mentions of Bergman, I remembered my friend’s father, who is from Germany and teaches literature at a university. He describes Bergman as “suffering under chandeliers”.

[quote]Ava DuVernay has made nothing of great substance but she’s hailed as some sort of revolutionary.

It's only because she's a Trans Woman of Color!

Yeah, DuVernay gets press for being a black woman. Otherwise she would be a middling director making B list films. But she’s smart and she should ride it for all it’s worth. It’s not like there aren’t overhyped white directors riding on fading glory or Hollywood connections.

R23, I read what you posted about Martin Scorsese.

Perhaps you haven't you seen the film Martin Scorsese directed where the central NY-born Irish - American / Italian - American character is searching for a father figure and the family acceptance he never had. In that action-packed tense film the main character's search leads him to a world of a high stakes underworld action, gambling, violence, mobsters, a not-fully-realized tough talking female character, guns and lots of physical danger to which he becomes oblivious and indifferent?

It's great film making by an overrated director at its best!

I can't stop dreaming of a DePalma Gone Girl now. He really would have made something exciting out of that source material. People kept praising Rosamund Pike's performance, but I found her so cold from the start that you immediately knew something was off with her. She goes on and on about how she cultivated this "cool girl" personality for her husband, but we never see that. She seems like an ice cold sociopath from the start.

[quote] Bergman as “suffering under chandeliers”.

Yes. This is why I cannot stand his movies. I tried to watch like 8 of them, the only ones I could even finish were The Seventh Seal and Persona. It's funny because Antonioni is considered "boring" but I love his movies, even they take me two or three attempts to finish. They are hard to absorb and sit through on the first attempt but they somehow "click" later on.

I find the stereotype of most French film directors as pretentious to be true. There are exceptions. But I find Italian, Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean and Iranian film so much easier to watch. The Japanese are the only directors who can make films as intellectual as the Europeans/Iranians but as entertaining as the Americans.

Scorsese.

R43 Bigelow has an Eternity Pass for NEAR DARK.

"Yeah, DuVernay gets press for being a black woman."

Yes, she is only acclaimed for being black! That's why so many black directors have won the Best Director Oscar. It's why a disproportionately huge number of directors are black. Oh, wait....

R106 the year 1998 would like a word.

Orson Welles.

r111

I have seen Agree that Breathless changed movies forever and yes he is innovative but that does not make it a particularly good film nor Godard good at what he did. Belmondo and Seberg are luminous as are Karina, Moreau, Frey, and the rest of the great stars he lensed. But is in its entirety Breathless does not hang as a successful cinematic work. Godard has no talent for composition. He was at heart not skilled at the nuts and bolts of filmmaking and got worse. Contempt is his most successful, Weekend a distant second. I have seen over 10 of his features and the number of outright abominations is startling.

“Someone like Jean-Luc Godard is for me intellectual counterfeit money when compared to a good kung fu film, a Fred Astaire picture, or a porno.” – Werner Herzog

[quote]“I’ve never gotten anything out of his movies. They have felt constructed, faux intellectual and completely dead. Cinematographically uninteresting and infinitely boring. Godard is a fucking bore. He’s made his films for the critics. One of the movies, Masculin féminin: 15 faits précis (1966), was shot here in Sweden. It was mind-numbingly boring.” -Ingmar Bergman

Woody Allen too hated Godard, even though Annie Hall which I love is a very Godardian work. And conversely Godard loved the works of Bergman and Allen.

r116 Agree with that. Gone Girl is a very angry book, and very "trashy" in its pulp thriller allusions and Fincher doesn't know how to deal with that. De Palma would have.

I didn't like Pike much either.

Linklater is a bit of a journeyman director, not sure he's rated so highly that he would qualify as being "overrated." I will say that at least he attempts to give us something different, even if his movies are a bit tedious. I love his Before trilogy and conceptually, I liked Boyhood, even though I found it exhausting and dull.

Christopher Nolan barely uses CGI, green screens or special effects. He shoots his movies on film, refuses to go digital, and uses practical effects wherever he can. He blew up a real 747 in Tenet rather than do it via effects. That said, I can understand why his movies would leave someone cold. His fanboys who think he's God are obnoxious.

Fincher is all style but little substance. He doesn't write his own films and it shows. His stuff is designed to be cool and shocking, there is never any feeling behind it.

Can't stand Wes Anderson or Tim Burton.

Robert Altman and Spike Lee are the best.

Spielberg makes great films...whether you like it or not.

[quote] Spielberg makes great films...whether you like it or not.

No. There are plenty of serious critics who say otherwise. He has been called out by several of them by being a mediocre director who is incapable of making a movie without BS sentimentality or forced messages.

R106 Badlands

r106 Days of Heaven features my favourite opening sequence. It started my fascination with the Dust Bowl era.

I like some Godard movies, and technically he's a master, but so many of the characters he seems to find charming and/or interesting are fucking annoying; and I count a couple of his movies from the 80s and 90s among the worst I've seen.

R124 There is a difference in "no knowing how" and "breaking the rules." Stopping narrative and dropping crazy surprises that arrest the attention and challenge assumptions... like the dance scene in Bande À Part... and a thousand other examples... It's like saying Ezra Pound was a lessor poet because he stopped iambic pentameter in its tracks.

We'll just disagree I guess.

R118, so you are French then, no?

R135, no.

"Days of Heaven" starts around 1916 and ends with the United States entering WW I, a year later; the Dust Bowl was in the 1930s.

Billy Wilder. He has a few films I like well enough but most are overwought and campy and have a humor or perspective that just annoys me.

He's worshipped as though a genius and for me he's most bad and sometimes just reasonably good

Lee Daniels.

Horrible storyteller. He needs to NOT read the source material before he reads the script the first time (for a book adaptation). I think his brain fills in holes in the script that he leaves out of the finished product. I watched "The Paperboy" and I couldn't follow the plot. I was totally lost. Characters show up out of nowhere. Utter shit.

We'll have agree to disagree then, r134. As for breaking the rules, others can and have - Lynch, Antonioni, Parajanov - but JLG never mastered them in the first place in spite of his innovations. He made so many almost shockingly bad movies that the rare delight like the dance scene overshadows his work.

I am glad we can be so civil about Godard! Many film fans would not be.

Quentin Tarantino. More about shock value than really good storytelling.

Tarantino is hit or miss for me. There are some of his films I love, but when he's bad, he's bad. The Hateful Eight was just pointless to me.

I shall forever maintain that the only Tarantino film with real heart & authenticity - or really any other redeeming quality you care to name - is TRUE ROMANCE. The auteur QT could have and probably should have stopped making films after that.

I do admit FROM DUSK ‘TIL DAWN is entertaining and a little subversive, but the appeal and the shine quickly wears off it. The rest of the QT filmography is egregious.

R90, Just for the record, Rex Reed loathes Patti LuPone's singing and has attacked her in print at least several times.

R144, not surprised. He hates pretty much everyone. A real curmudgeon.

Another vote for Spielberg.

Tarantino didn’t direct True Romance, though he did write it.

These kinds of threads always remind me of this scene.

^ I may have seen this movie decades ago but I now find these type of characters repulsive.

I say Stanley Kubrick. Of course he's a talented director but he's praised as a genius so therefore he's overrated in my opinion.

Most of his films I just don't like and find boring - a few (2001, Shining, Spartacus) I like but most just give me the eye-rolls

I was going to say Godard, Truffaut, and Fellini.

Then I realized I've never finished a film by any of them. Tried with a few but never finished

So I will watch a film all the way through from all three before I pass judgement. Can anyone recommend the best films from those three directors?

Back to overrated - I pick Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, and Henry Jaglom. God I hate their films.

R150 Spartacus can't be described as 'a Kubrick movie'.

The egomaniac producer sacked the director and replaced his female lead. Kubrick was a young co-religionist and used as a patsy. Ustinov describes some of the chaos behind the scenes—

R152 Wow, didn't know that.

So that means I only like 2 Kubrick films.

It’s clear OP know shit about movies since he thinks Nolan uses CGI.

My favorites:

R151 Truffaut: Shoot the Piano Player

Fellini: La Dolce Vita

Godard: Breathless

I liked Jarmusch's early movies, but his well ran dry pretty fast.

Re. Truffaut - I really like The Soft Skin and Mississippi Mermaid

R155 Yep... Although I'd go with 400 Blows.

I love The 400 Blows too. His first two features were so different, so brilliant.

I forgot about Jarmusch. He’s awful!

So.... a name that needs to be in this thread: Andy Warhol

Nolan's movie are the epitome of pretentious crap!

Even Momento was nothing but an exercise in scene jumbling.

If I didn't see Kevin Smith for the rest of my life. It would be a wonderful dream. That stupid backwards baseball hat. And that jacket three times too big. And that stupid look on his face. Why is he an expert on comic book films? Has he ever directed one? No. Do I care who he wants to be Batman. No. So shut the hell up. Sorry I had to vent.

I’m with you, R162 and thanks for the great (awful) visual!

He has no talent. None. Just a full of himself New Jersey person.

Lasse Hallstrom. Everything I've seen by him was a formulaic, emotionally manipulative pap. The kind of stuff Weinstein would push on unsuspecting masses come Oscar season, in the late 90s/early 00s.

Frank Capra

Hitchcock

On the contrary, The Cider House Rules has its reputation marred by its association with Miramax at its height and the romantic Rachel Portman score. It's a sad, adult film with excellent performances, especially from Delroy Lindo.

Brit Director Peter Greenaway. His films are visually stunning, often incomprehensible yawn fests. How he got financing for his films remains one of the mysteries of the ages.

Lasse Hallstrom directed the wonderful My life as a dog in Sweden which got him all the attention. Great film if you get the chance

Oh and Gone Girl is also a satire. To tout the admittedly talented De Palma for it over Fincher does not fit. Looks like someone didn’t get it at all but shows that you thought of it as a thriller. It’s actually a very dark comedy and satire with thriller elements. Dumb dumbs.

Not element- within the thriller genre I meant* ya dumb dumbs

171 posts to this thread and I'm the first to mention..

BAZ fucking Luhrmann.

Just send him to be the night manager of a Best Buy, where he belongs.

David Lynch -- just for that shitty straight boy's nocturnal wet dream of a film about LA, Mulholland Drive.

[quote] Oh and Gone Girl is also a satire.

De Palma satirizes stuff all the time in his movies. He is way better at it than Fincher is. Exhibit A: Body Double.

Never seen it. Must be too young

Christopher Nolan?

Overrated only by people too young to not know better, I would say. Inception, endless Batman and like sorts of films, at best they have a certain style and mood, but I wouldn't say a particularly well developed style or mood. Memento was interesting, and from that maybe he was assumed to have promise; and by Hollywood standards is a big thing, but the only measure of bigness is big box office, not good films. That distinction means nothing now, I know, but for a tiny audience.

Right, Christopher Nolan is acclaimed by people with the same kind of mindset as people who acclaim directors like Spielberg, Jordan Peele, Paul Haggis, etc.

Peter Jackson

Jordan Peele is absolutely the most overrated director of the moment. I watched Us and while it's apparent he has talent, the movie is half-baked. It never takes off yet somehow, it's such an amazing movie! The horror is stupid and it doesn't even feel complete. My friends who watched Get Out felt the same way. The expected a great movie but what they got was a mediocre message-movie about race relations. What was the last subtle, complex movie made about racism by the way?

Kubrick and Spielberg are two sides of the same coin to me. One is over the top the other too cold.

Tarantino, however, outclasses everyone else in the overrated department. Spielberg, I will say, is a gifted storyteller; it's that he's got too many yes-men around him who won't tell him to stop where he is instead of going OTT. But he does have a gift for narrative, and Kubrick has some gifts in the intellectual/irony department.

But Tarantino has neither. He's the directorial equivalent of a thug.

John Cassavetes

De Palma made some good films in the past but he hasn't been relevant in years. No one was going to hire him for Gone Girl.

I feel like De Palma understands satire more than Fincher who doesn't seem to possess a sense of humor. If anything, Fincher turned it into more of a straight thriller than a satire.

I liked Fincher’s music videos better than his movies.

R184, me too. His music videos are works of art, his movies are a bit cold to me.

The Gone Girl movie had zero satire apart from that of the most obvious, unsubversive kind.

The problem with Fincher is that he is a stylist and has no intellectual thought or human thesis or soul behind his films. They really have little substance.

R186, that's probably the reason his music videos work so well, especially his ones with Madonna. The artists were obviously the ones who gave his videos depth. Like you said, he is mostly about the style.

F.F. Coppola and Orson Welles.

It's tempting to say Kubrick because I find most of his films clinically icy, and because of this silly God-like aura that developed around him that he didn't really deserve. Some of his films are bad - BARRY LYNDON looks great but is dramatically inert, and EYES WIDE SHUT is just plain dumb. But he was definitely smart and talented, and has an excellent eye for composition. His direction of actors was uneven, with actors like Patrick Magee (in CLOCKWORK ORANGE) and Jack Nicholson (in THE SHINING) overacting like crazy.

I'm glad someone mentioned John Cassavetes. His films are maddening to watch as you get some great moments and a lot of scenes that just go on and on. He had no idea how to shape a story. Some of his films - HUSBANDS, THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE - are unwatchable. But so many actors carry on about him because he was so focused on what they consider "real."

Who the hell thought Sidney Lumet was an overrated director?

12 Angry Men

Dog Day Afternoon

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

are all masterpieces.

I personally agree with whoever said Sidney Lumet, maybe with the exception of 12 Angry Men. Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Network and Prince of the City all bored me shitless. His movies seem to drag on and on and on.

Lumet also destroyed THE WIZ.

Wes Anderson.

I like some of Wes Anderson's films, but another Anderson - Paul Thomas - is the ultimate in pretentiousness.

Christopher Nolan is a very good candidate. Tarantino, Polanski, are not as brilliant as they are reported to be nor as they think they are. Paul Thomas Anderson.

Wes Anderson = hipster douche bag.

I've loved some Wes Anderson movies (Rushmore, Grand Budapest Hotel) and actually walked out of others (Steve Zissou--The Life Aqautic or whatever it's called, and I especially loathed Darjeeling Express, lasted about 5 or 10 minutes and went to get my money back). Most people either love him or hate him--obviously I'm somewhere in the middle. He certainly isn't the most overrated of all time. But I can understand hating the smug preciousness of many of his films. But sometimes the eccentricity and uniqueness works, at least for me. There's nobody like him also.

R197, those are two of the WA films I like, plus MOONRISE KINGDOM. FANTASTIC MR. FOX was, IMO, overrated but pleasant. I liked parts of THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS only.

Have no intention of seeing LIFE AQUATIC or DARJEELING, as they both look awful. Can't decide whether ISLE OF DOGS is worth the time.

r197 here: Since our taste seems similar, I did really enjoy Isle of Dogs but I saw it on a big screen. It's visually very stunning, so almost not worth seeing on a small screen IMO. As you undoubtedly know, t's animated. Again, uses his penchant for symmetry to an extreme and whimsical degree.

I absolutely loved The Grand Budapest Hotel!

Story, acting, cinematography were perfect, no surprise that so many acting icons agreed to do bit parts in it.

David "I'm afraid of the Dark" Fincher. He should have stuck with Madonna music videos.

R100 William Wyler doesn't belong the current showbiz axiom that directors have to be attention-seekers.

He was a journeyman who did not want to be typecast as belonging in one genre. He did one musical, one rom-com, one blockbuster, one western, one gangster movie and few Bette Davis vehicles.

I adore one of his movies but find some of his others less uninteresting (because the characters don't interest me) but he always shows discretion and understatement.

You say he's boring. I suspect that's because he never allowed self-conscious camera-tracking, fast edits, odd camera angles or noisy music to intrude over the characters' stories.

PTA

I agree with the criticism of Finchers Gone Girl mentioned upthread. And of Finchers films in general. On that note, I actually think that the lead was slightly miscast. I thought it would have been far more interesting and clever to see an All American actress play Amy than a European ice queen. Ben Affleck on the other hand was spot on. I could easily see the media and public turning on Afflecks character.

Affleck was quite good in the role and one of the only times I've really liked him in a movie. Rosamund Pike felt all wrong for the role. No warmth at all, which makes sense in its own way considering Amy does turn out to be a cold sociopath with no remorse, but if she was always so icy, why was she able to fool everyone around her? No bored housewife in the suburbs would consider being friends with her and no guy would think she was a cool girl. They'd think she was a snob.

Someone like Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts in their prime would be been perfect. Someone who's considered America's most relatable sweetheart. No one Reese Witherspoon bought the rights to the book. She knew this was a perfect role for her and it's a shame she didn't get to do it.

Sidney Lumet is NOT overrrated

12 Angry Men, Stage Struck, That Fugative Kind, Long Day's Journey into Night, The Pawnbroker, The Group, Serpico, Murder on the Orient Express, Dog Day Afternoon, NETWORK, Prince of the City, The Verdict, Daniel, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

And that's not ALL of them

If you don't like Lumet films, so be it, BUT he is not overrated.

Madonna's videos with Fincher are art. His movies? Not so much.

R206 I like some early Lumet and I don't think he's overrated but I can't tell the difference between his stuff and Frankenheimer's.

Jane Campion

January Jones could have been a great Amazing Amy. She has a very warm smile and an inviting face, but can also be moody and cold and pathological. Rosamund Pike was all wrong. (Where has that bitch been since her big break?)

Greta Gerwig. This is a woman who got rejected from every graduate school she applied to.

Quentin Tarantino. He is has always given me the creeps. Women are always treated horribly in his movies. Always felt that he just steals from other movies. One of Harvey's boys.

Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen OWN this thread, although Brian DePalma (1 great film, a couple okay movies and a shitload of SUCK) might be a contender.

I am discerning. I ignore the things that the masses overrate.

The current mania for being "inclusive" tramples on my right to be "exclusive".

Ron Howard. I think he just directs movies for himself. Not ones that anybody would want to watch.

Ava Duvernay owns this thread.

R216: And she's hailed as some sort of groundbreaking director simply because she's a woman of color. I can't sugarcode it.

I thought Selma was a terrific film.

John Hughes owns this thread. Tired and cliched suburbanite crap with no staying power. His only appeal now would be to arrested development adults who are still obsessed with high school.

[quote]sugarcode

Oh. Fucking. Dear.

Agree with R215 about Opie. He's a respected director just because he fished with Andy Griffith and was friends with The Fonz? Never understood the leap he made. And now we're stuck with his daughter.

Richard Donner. The fact he bluffed (sucked?) his way through a toothpaste commercial that jumpstarted his career says a lot.

Quentin Tarantino makes product for Incels to enjoy. I’m really surprised that he hasn’t been canceled en masse because of his N word fetish. His black actors defend him. They want more work.

Some say that Joshua Logan was overrated. Was he? SOUTH PACIFIC was a decent film although I am not a musical fan.

Don't most directors make movies they would want to see? The whole point of making a movie is so you can tell a story you're passionate about. Unless of course you're being paid millions to make whatever the studio hands you.

You can usually tell when a director's heart is in a film or not.