Directors' Best, Worst Movies

[J.R.]

Oliver Stone - Best - JFK - Worst - U-Turn

Steven Spielberg - Best - Raiders Of The Lost Ark - Worst - The Lost World

Sam Raimi - Best - Evil Dead 2 - Worst - For Love Of The Game

Francis Ford Coppola - Best - Apocalypse Now - Worst - Jack

Stanley Kubrick - Best - Full Metal Jacket - Worst - Eyes Wide Shut

Peter Jackson - Best - LOTR - Worst - Eh, The Frighteners (not a bad movie, but the least of his films)

[peter johnson]

Oliver Stone:  Best:  The Hand (Crawling hand film with Michael Caine)
Francis Ford Coppola:  Best:  Demetia 13 (Haunted manor film with cool beheading & more nudity than was expected for the time -- early '60's)
Speilberg:  Duel
Kubrick:  Paths of Glory
peter johnson

[Will]

These are all just personal faves, so they may not fit strict definitions of Best/Worst....but here goes.....

John Carpenter
Best: Big Trouble in Little China
Worst: Village of the Damned

Brian Yuzna
Best: Tie between Society and Return of the Living Dead III
Worst: Progeny (though I still like it)

Stuart Gordon
Best: Tie for me between Re-Animator and The Pit & The Pendulum
Worst: Robot Jox

Wes Craven
Best: The Hills Have Eyes
Worst: Vampire in Brooklyn

George Romero
Best: The Crazies and Dawn of the Dead
Worst: Season of the Witch, I guess, but I still like it a lot.

Dario Argento
Best: Opera
Worst: The Phantom of the Opera

Lucio Fulci
Best: The Beyond
Worst: Manhatten Baby

David Cronenberg:
Best: Videodrome
Worst: None, they all are fantastic.

Joe Dante
Best: The 'Burbs. Sorry to Piranha and The Howling, but The 'Burbs is awesome.
Worst: Explorers

Brian DePalma
Best: Carrie
Worst: The Bonfire of the Vanities

Abel Ferrara
Best: The Addiction and Ms. 45
Worst: Can't think of the worst off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are plenty.

Frank Hennenlotter
Best: Frankenhooker
Worst: Basket Case III

Tobe Hooper
Best: Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Worst: I'm Dangerous Tonight

John Landis
Best: An American Werewolf in London
Worst: The Stupids

Herschell Gordon Lewis
Best: A Taste of Blood
Worst: That's a tough one. Probably most of his nudie cuties

William Lustig
Best: Maniac
Worst: Uncle Sam

Andy Milligan
Best: ummmm....The Ghastly Ones? Maybe Bloodthirsty Butchers....
Worst: Everything else

Al Adamson
Best: Dracula vs. Frankenstein
Worst: Angels' Wild Women

Martin Scorsese
Best: The King of Comedy (bold choice, I know, but I think it's amazing)
Worst: After Hours

Jim Wynorski
Best: Deathstalker II and Chopping Mall
Worst: The Bare Wench Project

Ted Nicolau
Best: Subspecies
Worst: Anything he did for Moonbeam, his segment in The Dungeonmaster

Don Coscarelli
Best: Phantasm
Worst: I haven't seen him do a bad movie yet

[Neville]

John Carpenter: The fog (best), Ghosts of Mars (worst).

John Woo: Bullet in the head (best), Mission Impossible II (worst)

Albert Pyun: Post Mortem (best, surprisingly), All the rest (worst, unsurprisingly).

Rachel Talalay: Tank Girl (best), Freddy's death, the final nightmare (worst).

Paul Verhoeven: Robocop (best), The hollow man (worst).

Brian DePalma: Carlito's way (best), Snake eyes (worst, despite the great start).

Stuart Gordon: Dagon (best), Space truckers (worst).

[Cullen]

Now this sounds like a fun topic:

John Carpenter _____________________________________________________________

Best - I like most everything Carpenter does, but I think his best remains The Thing .  Lot’s of fun, with an excellent script and neat acting.   Big Trouble in Little China , Halloween , and Prince of Darkness running close behind

Worst - I have no use for Vampires or Ghosts of Mars .  Both are ill-conceived and poorly plotted.  Especially Ghosts â€" God is that a wasted opportunity!

I almost put In the Mouth of Madness here, but I think I'm going to be reevaluating that one.

Wes Craven _____________________________________________________________

Best - Bear in mind I have yet to see some of his earlier work, but I think his best film was People Under the Stairs  .  I really identified with the kid hero, although we’re nothing alike.  Plus, the villains of the piece were something else.

I also think A Nightmare on Elm Street and A New Nightmare   have a lot of value.

Worst - Two words: Deadly Friend .  The ending might not be his fault but it insures it that I HATE THIS DAMN MOVIE FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER!  And I hope it dies, too.

George Romero ____________________________________________

Best - Dawn of the Dead is without question his best.  His scariest, no.  (That's Night which, I'm embarrassed to say, I haven't finished yet.)  But the whole story holds together so well.  Even the tacked on ending.

Worst - I haven't watched everything his done.  (Season of the Witch and Knightriders being among the list), but my person least favorite of his works is Martin .  I found it dull and depressing

Dario Argento ____________________________________________

Best - Suspira and Tenebre so far.  Both are interesting stylistically over substance.  If pressed, I’d say Tenebre .  It, at least, is coherent.

I will also admit to some fondness for Inferno , but that one isn't so great.

Worst - I have no use for Opera .  Haven't seen much more of Argento than I've already listed.   Creepers (AKA Phenomena  ) goes here, too, but then again, I've only seen the edited version...

David Cronenberg ____________________________________________

Best -  Cronenberg is sort of the exception to the rule.  I like most everything he's done that I've seen.  If forced, I might say either Videodrome or The Dead Zone or even The Fly .  So don't ask; it'll take all day.  Good stories, good acting.

Worst - eXistenZ is the only film of his I don't like.  It plays too many games.
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That's about it for now.  If this thread continues, I'll bore y'all with more of my thoughts on the matter.
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[jmc]

George Romero
Best:  NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
Worst: probably DAY OF THE DEAD, but I haven't seen BRUISER.

Cronenberg:
Best: THE BROOD
Worst: Probably a tie between CRASH and NAKED LUNCH.  I disliked CRASH more.  I haven't seen M. BUTTERFLY.

Argento:
Best: DEEP RED, SUSPIRIA
Worst: PHANTOM OF THE OPERA.

Carpenter:
Best: HALLOWEEN
Worst: Most of his recent films....

[Chadzilla]

Lemme see, this might be repeating stuff, but....

George A. Romero
Best - Day of the Dead
Worst - Season of the Witch (it's dreary, unpleasent, and unfocused - but could make a very good movie, no wonder he wants to remake it)

John Carpenter - this is a hard one, he's my favorite director.
Best - The Thing or Escape from New York (although The Fog is a personal favorite)
Worst - Village of the Damned (needless and rather bland)

Wes Craven
Best - The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street and The People Under the Stairs are my favorites.
Worst - Deadly Friend, Shocker

David Cronenberg
Best - The Brood
Worst - M Butterfly

Clint Eastwood
Best - White Hunter, Black Heart; Bird; High Plains Drifter; Play Misty for Me; Unforgiven; The Bridges of Madison County
Worst - Sudden Impact (although it's a three slime bad movie)

Tobe Hooper
Best - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Worst - Spontaneous Combustion

Larry Cohen
Best - God Told Me Too (aka Demon), It's Alive
Worst - A Return to Salem's Lot

Don Siegel
Best - Invasion of the Body Snatcher (1956), Dirty Harry
Worst - Telefon, Jinxed

Dario Argento
Best - Deep Red, Suspiria, Inferno, Tenebre
Worst - Trauma, The Phantom of the Opera (SKULL!!!), The Stendahl Syndrome

[mark chopper]

i'd agree with you on all those, but have you seen any of oliver stone's horror movies. i hear they're pretty awful.  

 Martin Scorsese: best-Mean Streets, Worst-After Hours    
 David Cronenberg: best-anything besides Rabid

[Cullen]

More as promised!  (Threatened, whatever...)
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Tobe Hooper ______________________________________________
Best - Hooper is, out of all the directors listed on this thread, the easiest.  his best movie was, is, and probably always will be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre .  The film's intense and scary, and a cut above A TON of modern horror pictures.  A masterpiece.

I prefer, however, Lifeforce.  Can't help it. Mathilda May is...I mean the movie is fine.

Worst - Most every other picture he's had a hand in.  Cold, ain't it?  But true.  However, Spontaneous Combustion is the worst of the bunch.  Incoherent much?  Or...whatever.  Does anyone know of a review site that praises this picture.  Or at least can explain it?

Larry Cohen ______________________________________________

Best - Q is, in my opinion, his best.  It is also one of the last great giant monster movie.  "EAT 'EM!  EAT 'EM!  CRUNCH CRUNCH!"  Funny as hell.

Worst - - When he is good, Cohen's the best, but when he isn't... stuff like Return to Salem's Lot happens.  Or The Stuff .  Large sections of both movies make no sense to me.  no sense at all.

Still, even at his worse, Cohen is watchable.

[b ]Francis Ford Coppola [/b] ________________________________________

Best - Apocalypse Now is something else.  An intense journey into the darkness of the soul.  It’s a miracle this film was made.

Worst - Some would site Jack , but for me, it's his Dracula .  Male domination over women (as well as blatant date rape) celebrated as a great "romance.”  Bleagh

Steven Spielberg ____________________________________________

Best - This is a toss up between Jaws and Duel  Both are killer supense movies about people stalked by an unreasoning monster.  I think Duel might edge out Jaws , but that's only because it was written by Richard Matheson.  Matheson is the bomb.

I also like A.I , but I think it's poorly thought out ending holds it back.

Worst - It's tempting to just go Lost World and forget it, but there are other, worse movies by Speilberg.  I'm thinking about Hook here.  Here was a great opertunity to do something interesting with Peter Pan and they let it slip away.  Workaholic father learns to apprectate kids (and life).  Gag.

Hears a thought, let's see what y'all think.  What if Robin William's character wasn't Pan at all?  What if there had been some great mistake?  Wouldn't that be better?  What if, instead of the obvious Relearning-to-enjoy-life bits, we had him searching Neverland desperately for the missing Pan?  I know it's not mindnumbingly original, but it's better than what we got shafted with.
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Cullen, who is not having thoughts about creating a time machine and "seeing" a 1985 Mathilda May.

Or a 1963 Hazel Court, or Barbra Steele, or...

(No andriods, either.  He isn't thinking about building androids.  Nope, nope, nope.)

[peter johnson]

Oliver Stone's "The Hand" is a terrific picture, much much more popular in its day in its native Canada than in the USA.
The Second City troupe did amazing parodies of it on their TV show:  "Are you looking at me because of my bloody hand!?!?".
Really, check this out & try not to bring too many preconceptions to it because it's Oliver Stone.  Just a fine, fun, low-budget psycho-horror-slasher flick.   And, despite it being a Stone film, free of pretense.
Enjoy.
peter johnson

[Vermin Boy]

I liked After Hours. Maybe not as good as much of Scorsese's stuff, but I thought it was a cool little black comedy (though terribly frustrating if you're not in the right mood, I'll admit). Griffin Dunne is great in it. My favorite line, when Dunne is hiding from the lynch mob after him, and sees a man get shot in the apartment across the street: "I'll probably get blamed for that, too!"

Herschell Gordon Lewis' worst has got to be Monster A Go-Go. True, HGL only stepped in to shoot some finishing scenes, but he's responsible for editing in the single worst ending for any movie, ever.

A few of my own:

David Lynch
Best: Twin Peaks as a whole
Worst: Dune

Roger Corman:
Best: A Bucket of Blood
Worst: Gunslinger

Then there are those, like good old Ed Wood, for whom "best" and "worst" simply don't apply...

[J.R.]

I like The Hand. The scene where Cain's character loses his appendage is actually quite tense.

[Haze]

Jon carpenter
best- The Thing is eaily the best he has ever done. I still think that Halloween is one of his  mst lack luster films. The next would be Escape  From New York.

Worst- Ghost of Mars is bad but it's not his worst. Directorial wise I never liked his village of the damned much.

Wes Craven
best- tie between new Nightmare and a nightmare on Elm street, Serpent and the rainbow goes  third.

worst- not sure, Chiller was completely wasted and the values of  the production sucked.

Peter Jackson
best- the Gross out trilogy comes hand in hand here as the great B-horror that Jackson used to be.
worst-Lord of the rings was good but compared to most of his other stuff it was boring.

[mark chopper]

I think Coppola wanted to show more of the Fruedian anaylsis of the sexual nature of men Stoker did a lot in his novel, the werewolf, a lot of historians believe, is sort of a metaphor of this sexuallly, out of control beast that exist within all men. Other than that, i don't see the scene in the film as having any real social driven message, be it positive or negative.

[Cullen]

I don't think they intended the actual results at all.  The problem was, they took what was in essence a demonic figure, made him into a hero, and didn't move him far enough from his demonic roots.  Thus creating a film celibrating domination and date rape.

You have to be careful when making any work of art in making your position clear.  Not just for the Elite, or your little circle, but for everyone who might view the work.

Stoker was.  Which is part of the reason his work's a classic.