Top 20 Movies That RUINED Their Director's Reputation

Richard Kelly’s overnight cult following wanted him to top the thought-provoking surrealism of the 2001 masterpiece “Donnie Darko”. Five years later, “Southland Tales” managed to bewilder the Cannes Film Festival. Several genres and a star-studded ensemble coverage in a dystopian society on the brink of collapse. That much is accessible in the convoluted, abstract plot and gimmicky set pieces across two-and-a-half hours. It would be a year-and-a-half before “Southland Tales” got a catastrophic theatrical release, with reviews divided between fascination and contempt. Most agree that Kelly took his bizarre vision too far. He has not directed a movie since 2009’s “The Box”, but has talked about reviving “Southland Tales”. Despite its own cult following, investing in Kelly's craft may no longer be worth the risk.

Joe Dante made a name for himself directing absurd horror/comedy mashups that felt like homages to ‘B’ movies of the 1950s, such as “The ‘burbs,” “Innerspace,” and the cult classic “Gremlins.” Considering his films already had the slapstick antics of a Looney Tunes cartoon, it seemed like a match made in heaven when he was placed in charge of “Back in Action.” Unfortunately, the film was released amidst tough competition from other family films and its middling critical reception didn’t help either. While Joe Dante is still managing to find work today, it’s mostly restricted to TV gigs and his films make nowhere near the same impact they once did.

While Renny Harlin was never a critical darling like the other filmmakers we have covered so far, he had his fair share of hits. “Cliffhanger” and “Die Hard 2” have earned their place as iconic pieces of film history. Conversely, “Cutthroat Island” marked his downward spiral, as its dismal $10 million box office gross against a $98 million budget put an entire film studio out of business and the movie itself was extremely forgettable to boot. Renny Harlin never recovered after this film’s failure, directing numerous flops such as “Driven” and ‘The Legend of Hercules,” along with being nominated for the worst director Razzie multiple times. Ouch.

The award-sweeping “The King’s Speech” established Tom Hooper’s knack for lushly produced prestige. He took it to operatic heights with a brilliant adaptation of the musical “Les Misérables”. It seemed there was finally a filmmaker capable of bringing the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic “Cats” to the screen. Unfortunately, not even Hooper could save this clunky, incoherent rendition of a corny fantasy. If the blockbuster musical was mostly about the spectacle, the movie’s disturbing human-cat effects even ruined that. Almost 40 years of anticipation came down to a box office bomb with historically bad reviews. Despite the esteem before this catastrophe, if you will, Hooper’s notorious creative control has made it hard for him to land on his feet.

Mr. Campbell directed the hit “The Mask of Zorro” and successfully rebooted the James Bond franchise not once, but twice with “GoldenEye” and “Casino Royale.” Campbell proved he was a capable filmmaker and seemed like the perfect choice to bring the Green Lantern to life. Alas, this $200 million behemoth bombed hard at the box office and was ripped to shreds by critics for its messy screenplay and spotty visual effects. The film had a troubled production behind the scenes so it wasn’t all Martin Campbell’s fault, but sadly his name was attached to this train wreck, severely damaging his reputation in the long run.

While McTiernan is the man responsible for bringing us classic action flicks like “Predator” and the original “Die Hard,” audiences and critics alike felt that he lost his edge after seeing his remake of the 1975 film “Rollerball.” In an interesting twist, it isn’t the film itself that ruined McTiernan’s career, but actually what happened behind the scenes. McTiernan was charged in federal court for lying to the FBI about how he hired a private investigator to follow the film’s producer due to disagreements they were having about “Rollerball.” This entire lawsuit spanned nearly a decade, with McTiernan eventually spending a year in prison and finishing his sentence under house arrest in 2014.

Kevin Costner went from movie star to Oscar-winning filmmaker with “Dances with Wolves”. He then became synonymous with ‘90s Hollywood epics, some of which critically and commercially disappointed. His and Kevin Reynolds’s creative conflicts behind the infamous flop “Waterworld” is subject to debate. But “The Postman” was all on Costner. The three-hour-long post-apocalyptic folly is as cheesy as it is tedious. It bombed at the box office, but “won big” at the Golden Raspberries. The well-received “Open Range” aside, Costner lost a lot of clout as an epic headliner on both sides of the camera. With his directorial comeback “Horizon: An American Saga” bombing on the first of four planned installments, Costner clearly hasn't learned his lesson about overambition.

Ron Underwood’s claim to fame arrived with the 1990 sci-fi cult classic “Tremors,” which he followed up with the hit comedy “City Slickers.” While his subsequent efforts were mostly met with mixed results, nothing threw a wrench into his movie-making ambition quite like “The Adventures of Pluto Nash.” The movie itself has been unanimously reviled as an abomination for its terrible acting, writing, and special effects, with some even going as far as calling it one of the worst films of that decade. It didn’t help that “Pluto Nash” only raked in a measly $7 million against its massive $100 million production budget. That’s going to leave a mark.

Crime comedies were never the same after “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch”. Guy Ritchie then showed his range with a remake of the Italian romance “Swept Away”. His then-wife, pop megastar Madonna, plays a spoiled socialite who gets marooned on an island with a deckhand. Somehow, all the passion and politics of the original film went overboard. All that’s left is an insipid farce that drowns Madonna's charm and cheapens Ritchie’s signature style. The movie sank at the box office, then swept the Razzies. Madonna effectively quit acting. Ritchie remains prolific, but his work has gotten strangely hit-or-miss with critics. Despite his undeniable influence on genre filmmakers everywhere, not even he's never completely gotten over “Swept Away”.

There were high hopes for 20th Century Fox’s reboot of “Fantastic Four”, at least with its director. Josh Trank won critical and cult renown for the gritty superhero flick “Chronicle”. Unfortunately, more money didn't make for a better product. 2015’s “Fantastic Four” was as corny as the previous film incarnations, and a lot more boring. If that didn't kill Trank’s Hollywood career alongside franchise prospects, his own review did the trick. A disparaging social media post before the film’s release led to Trank essentially being blacklisted in the industry. When he returned with an experimental drama about the last days of Al Capone, the mixed reception offered no redemption. Whether he's labeled a one-hit wonder or a whistleblower, Trank is unfortunately grounded.

Martin Brest unleashed a string of successful films upon the movie-going scene, with “Beverly Hills Cop” in particular being one of the biggest hits of the 1980s. Good things don’t last forever it seems, as “Gigli” single-handedly killed Brest’s reputation going forward. The movie won multiple Razzies, including Worst Screenplay, Director, and Picture. “Gigli” is additionally recognized as one of the most expensive financial failures in film history on top of being considered one of the worst movies ever made. To say “Gigli” dampened Brest’s film career would be an understatement, as he hasn’t directed, produced, or written any film or TV projects since its release…!

Cameron Crowe delivered memorable masterpieces like “Jerry Maguire” and “Almost Famous”. He also split audiences with “Vanilla Sky”, “Elizabethtown” and “We Bought a Zoo”. But everyone seems to agree that “Aloha” took his quirks too far. The movie was already controversial for casting Emma Stone as the love interest of Chinese-Hawaiian parentage. Ultimately, critics panned the plodding, incoherent story of a military contractor juggling personal drama with some shady satellite project. The overambitious rom-com sure didn't draw much of a crowd. After almost a decade of development, “Aloha”’s failure meant goodbye to Crowe’s filmmaking career. And after a disastrous comeback to music in Showtime’s short-lived series “Roadies”, it's best to stick to nostalgia for his early work.

Though Roland Emmerich never had a towering reputation with critics, audiences didn't care. Groundbreaking blockbusters like “Stargate” and “Independence Day” made him a big enough name to bring a Japanese icon to Hollywood. 1998’s “Godzilla” had the right director for disaster thrills, but the script was the real disaster. Not even casual moviegoers had much patience for the nonsensical material surrounding oversized spectacle. The movie made money, but not enough to be anything more than a staple of bad Hollywood remakes. Emmerich has since become synonymous with bottom-of-the-barrel action and disaster flicks that are mostly hyped as camp. His fluff still draws a crowd, but from “Godzilla” to dramatic turns like “Stonewall”, there's no more pretending that Emmerich has vision.

Oliver Stone’s iconoclastic triumphs kept getting bigger and more stylish. With “Alexander”, the scale reached a breaking point. The three-hour-long epic plays fast and loose with the life of Ancient Greek conqueror Alexander the Great. Stone attributed its box office disappointment largely to backlash against speculations on the subject’s sexuality. The truth is that the dull, bloated and dubious history lecture was far from great. Critics and historians have since debated the merits of “Alexander”, especially with its various director’s cuts. But Stone could no longer be trusted with projects that massive, his subsequent work seeing inconsistent critical and commercial feedback. The dwindling output since his historic defeat in 2004 suggests that his lack of compromise is now just a liability.

Lana and Lilly Wachowski revolutionized sci-fi epics with the “Matrix Trilogy”. …Well, at least most critics say that about the first installment. The sisters’ high-concept blockbusters were always debated in theme and quality, until “Jupiter Ascending” came crashing down. The big-budget spectacle was convoluted by nearly every space opera cliché one can imagine. Despite the dazzling special effects, it was too cheesy and blandly written to be memorable. And yet, the critical and commercial flop still haunts audiences. Even after the Wachowskis pursued their own projects, the Showtime series “Work in Progress” and even “Matrix Resurrections” weren't exactly hits. Although Netflix’s “Sense8” wound up a favorite among fans, “Jupiter Ascending” got them to start questioning these visionary filmmakers' vision.

Italian comedic actor Roberto Benigni achieved international acclaim as a filmmaker. He was particularly praised for finding wholesome dramedy in the Holocaust with “Life Is Beautiful”. This earned him Italy’s biggest movie budget ever to write and direct his own “Pinocchio”. The 49-year-old Benigni’s first error was casting himself as the puppet who becomes a real child. The comedy only gets more absurd and awkward in its attempts to faithfully adapt Carlo Collodi’s morbid fantasy. Begnini’s “Pinocchio” became a legendary critical and box office disaster, effectively ending the star’s global status. He even faded into obscurity in Italy. Though Begnini found some redemption playing Geppetto in a hit 2019 adaptation of “Pinocchio”, there may be no cobbling his filmmaking brand.

From romantic dramas to sleek thrillers, Joel Schumacher attracted a cult following across many genres in the ‘80s and ‘90s. His dark yet lively flair was certainly suited to the fun “Batman Forever”. But “Batman & Robin” was camp overkill. The silly production, atrocious dialogue and nonsensical story practically destroyed the prestige in superhero movies that this franchise helped establish. It would be years before Warner Bros. attempted another theatrical “Batman” film, with Schumacher’s planned trilogy going cold. He was rarely given big productions after that, and frequently bombed with critics and audiences. The late Schumacher is now as respected as ever for his influence and diverse classics. Still, he never lived down making one of the worst superhero movies ever.

Sadly, even the great director who brought us “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now,” and “The Outsiders” has stumbled. “Jack” felt like a complete waste of the talent, with Coppola in particular completely missing the mark in terms of storytelling and compelling direction. The film has a vicious 17% Rotten Tomatoes score and performed modestly at the box office, a complete reversal of the reception Coppola’s prior films received. Since then, Coppola has continued to make movies such as “Tetro” and “Twixt,” which we’re sure many of you have never even heard of, indicating that this once renowned director’s time to shine seems to have long since passed.

Two short years after winning the Best Director Oscar for his work on “The Deer Hunter,” Michael Cimino received the Worst Director Razzie for “Heaven’s Gate.” For one to go from the highest high to the lowest low in such a short span of time is shocking, especially with accusations of animal abuse on set. The film’s pitiful $3.5 million box office gross sent United Artists on a panicked crash course, with the consensus being that “Heaven’s Gate” marked the death knell for the beloved independent studio. Cimino would never direct a production that ambitious again. With director’s cut restorations and long-term reappraisal, “Heaven’s Gate” is now widely considered a classic. At the time, though, “Hell’s Gate” seemed like a more appropriate title.

After the revelations “The Sixth Sense” and “Unbreakable”, M. Night Shyamalan began dividing critics. They certainly agreed that, despite Shyamalan’s fight for creative control, “Lady in the Water” was a flop. And “The Happening” was even worse. At least Shyamalan seemed to still have creativity, until “The Last Airbender”. Besides the controversy over its whitewashed cast, this adaptation of a beloved Nickelodeon series was a humorless, poorly made slog. So much for the planned trilogy. Shyamalan has since admitted that he was the wrong director for this project. But his return to thrillers has been hit-or-miss at best. There have been enough hits for Shyamalan’s name to no longer automatically emit groans. Still, the one-time “Next Spielberg” reminds us to always temper hype with filmmakers.