Directors That Have Never Directed A Rotten Movie

Plenty of directors have a large number of great movies under their belts. But it's a rare breed of filmmaker who has directed five or more movies without there being a stinker in the bunch. Even those who are known for consistent excellence — Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, et al — more often than not have a couple of duds in the mix, either one from early in their career when they were still learning the trade, or a later-career misstep where a project got away from them a bit. There are a select few, however, that have yet to direct a single objectively poor film.

Now, there is no accounting for personal taste, and plenty of articles exist that proclaim to list directors who have yet to make a bad movie — but that distinction typically comes down to at least a certain degree of opinion on the part of the writer(s). So we thought it would be interesting to take a more consensus-based angle on this topic, and view the work of acclaimed directors in terms of how critics have perceived their output. As a result, we have come up with a list of directors who have directed a minimum of five films, and have yet to helm a single feature that has earned a "rotten" score on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Everyone has a different point at which they first took notice of South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho. The more indie-minded were there from the beginning, already appreciating his work on the 2000 dark comedy "Barking Dogs Never Bite." Foreign horror film lovers more likely got their first exposure to Bong with his acclaimed 2006 monster movie "The Host." And those who don't do subtitles probably didn't see his name in the credits of a movie until they saw it at the front of 2013's "Snowpiercer."

It's gone on like that for Bong, who jumps across genres and directs one excellent movie after another, sooner or later bound to make something that'll appeal to any kind of movie fan. By virtue of being on Netflix, his animal rights adventure movie "Okja" further expanded his global reach, and that mission was certainly cemented by the time "Parasite" won Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay Oscars in 2020.

"You Hurt My Feelings," the latest movie from filmmaker Nicole Holofcener, is already earning raves — just the most recent in a celebrated career full of intimate stories about relationships and the human experience. Holofcener did dabble in epics when she helped Matt Damon and Ben Affleck write the screenplay for the acclaimed "The Last Duel," something that is worth mentioning as proof of how varied her talents are.

On the whole, though, Holofcener's filmmaking career has been one of ensemble dramadies that often don't have a particular "hook" but are instead just kind of about characters having careers, relationships, and lives in general. Her 1996 debut, "Walking and Talking," set this precedent immediately, as well as beginning a fruitful collaboration with actress Catherine Keener that would carry on for Holofcener's next four consecutive films. Holofcener also directed James Gandolfini's touching performance in "Enough Said," dedicating the film to him as he passed away before its release.

After getting his start directing some of the most inventive music videos of the 1990s — including "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys, often considered one of the best videos of all time — Spike Jonze couldn't have picked a better feature directorial debut than the surreal dark comedy "Being John Malkovich." After earning a Best Director Oscar nomination his first time out, Jonze smartly decided that the second movie he directed should also be a Charlie Kaufman-penned work, resulting in the critically acclaimed "Adaptation."

After spending a few years messing around with the "Jackass" crew — one of the stranger aspects of his career, to be sure — Jonze wrote and directed the well-received live-action adaptation of the beloved children's book "Where the Wild Things Are." Other than several highly-rated documentaries, Jonze has since only directed one more feature film — the 2013 sci-fi romance "Her," which once again earned raves and nabbed Jonze a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. 

For a director whose debut film — "Hard Eight" — came out in 1996, it might surprise people when they realize that Paul Thomas Anderson has only made nine feature films in his entire career so far. But the results speak for themselves, as all but one of his films hold the "certified fresh" distinction, with the other falling just short of doing so. 

Anderson's second film, "Boogie Nights," is the one that really launched him into the critical acclaim stratosphere and earned him his first of many Oscar nominations. In fact, "Punch-Drunk Love" is the only movie of his to not get at least two Oscar noms. However, it was with that movie that the world first noticed that Adam Sandler had genuine acting chops, and it wouldn't be the only time Anderson directed a career-best performance — Burt Reynolds got his first and only Oscar nomination for "Boogie Nights," ditto for Lesley Manville in "The Phantom Thread."

If you're an impatient movie watcher who needs things to "get going" as quickly as possible, then the filmography of writer-director Kelly Reichardt isn't for you. However, if you love to just sit back and let a movie slowly unfold before you, taking its time and having long stretches where no big things happen — but ultimately being deeply rewarded when everything finally comes together — there are few who do that better than Reichardt. 

After working with mostly little-known indie actors for her first two films, Reichardt cast Michelle Williams as the lead in her 2008 drama "Wendy and Lucy" and that helped a lot more people to find her work. Reichardt described her films to The Guardian as "just glimpses of people passing through," which perfectly describes her work — fairly brief, sometimes completely arbitrary moments in characters' lives where we just sort of visit them for a couple of hours and move on. 

It's not easy to make a warts-and-all biopic about a figure as beloved as Princess Diana, but director Pablo Larraín was up to the task with his 2021 film "Spencer." The movie earned raves, particularly for Kristen Stewart's performance as the title character at a particularly challenging period in Diana's life. Of course, existing fans of Larraín's work were probably not surprised that he pulled it off, given his history at both delivering inventive biopics and also making movies about remarkable women. 

In fact, he previously did both when he directed Natalie Portman's celebrated performance in "Jackie." In his 2016 film "Neruda," Larraín played with the biopic format in refreshingly original ways to tell a story about poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda. In 2021, the same year he did "Spencer," he stepped outside his comfort zone and directed all eight episodes of the AppleTV+ adaptation of Stephen King's "Lisey's Story," which earned Larraín his first and only "rotten" score — although his films all remain on the "fresh" side of the ledger.

Most of the directors on this survey managed to stay off the "rotten" list while also being relatively reserved with their directorial output. Akira Kurosawa, on the other hand, left behind a body of work in which he directed nearly 30 movies without a single one of them being considered bad. In fact, a strong case can be made that Kurosawa is responsible for more films that are universally recognized as masterpieces than any other single director in history.

It's hard to know where to even start when explaining Kurosawa's greatness. Several other all-time classic films are essentially remakes of — if not heavily inspired by — Kurosawa's own incredible movies. "The Magnificent Seven"? That's Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" as a Western. The original "Star Wars" movie? Heavily inspired by Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress." "A Fistful of Dollars"? Basically Kurosawa's "Yojimbo." On it goes, with almost every director that came after him owing more than a little to being a Kurosawa fan and trying to emulate one of his films or his overall approach to filmmaking.

If Denis Villeneuve had done nothing else in his career other than successfully redeem the "Dune" franchise and create a decades-later sequel to "Blade Runner" that might actually be better than the original, he still would have gone down as a legend. But remarkably, there is so much more to Villeneuve's talents than just "Blade Runner 2049" and "Dune" in 2021.

After a decade of making acclaimed French-Canadian dramas, Villeneuve made a stunning American debut with the underrated "Prisoners" in 2013. Between that and "Blade Runner," he had a remarkable run with "Enemy," "Sicario," and "Arrival," the last of which earned him his first Best Director Oscar nomination. While the box office underperformance of "Blade Runner 2049" was unfortunate, it certainly wasn't a result of the movie's quality — and Villeneuve would finally achieve both box office and critical success with "Dune." Who would have ever thought, in 2023, we'd all be looking forward to a "Dune" sequel? Thank Villeneuve for that.