13 of the Worst Films From Oscar-Winning Directors (and What to Watch Instead)
Reading Time: 8 minutesSometimes a director’s worst movie is more interesting than their middling ones.
This year’s Oscar nominees are due to be announced tomorrow, Feb. 8, which means we’ll soon know which films—and their directors—are vying to be considered among the best of the past year. But what’s in an Oscar nod? The list of directors who have never won an Academy Award for directing is, perhaps, more revealing than the list of those who have. Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Spike Lee, Sofia Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, Pedro Almodóvar, Howard Hawks, Jane Campion (yet)—none were deemed worthy of cinema’s highest honor.
Mel Gibson, on the other hand, has a directing Oscar, as does Kevin Costner. That’s fine, I suppose, but I’m not sure that either of them is in quite the same constellation as a Federico Fellini. The point being: the Oscars aren’t a flawless indicator of genius, nor is one instance of genius a guarantee of reliable quality. Even the medium’s very best directors have made some very bad movies or (an even more pronounced sin) some incredibly dull and tiresome ones. Life’s too short for that kind of nonsense, so here are 13 films from Oscar-winning directors you should probably avoid, and 13 to watch instead.
On one level, Steven Spielberg’s overblown, tonally incoherent World War II-era comedy 1941 is a worse movie. As is his lame ode to product-placement, so is Ready Player One. But those movies at least linger in the viewer’s memory—not so Always, a mostly competent old Hollywood remake that stands out only as Spielberg’s most forgettable film.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): Digital rental
Watch instead: Hook (1991)
It’s almost undoubtedly the most debated entry on Spielberg’s filmography: though contemporary reviews placed Hook very near the rock bottom for the beloved filmmaker, those who love it really, really love it. Coming just a couple of years after Always, it cranks up the gentle fantasy elements of that movie a with the aid of a Robin Williams doing his early ’90s family film schtick at full volume. It feels like a movie that almost got away from its director, but only because it wears its heart on its sleeve like almost none of Spielberg’s other pictures (which is saying something). Whether you defend it or consider it a piece of grade-A schmaltz, Hook isn’t easy to forget.
Where to stream: Netflix, Fubo, Sling TV, USA
Alfonso Cuarón has taken home two Best Director Oscars, one for Gravity (2013) and the other for Roma (2018). In truth, he’s never made a bad movie, but his revisionist take on Great Expectations is his most uneven—a visual marvel with a central romance that is mostly paint-by-numbers.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): Starz, DirecTV
Watch instead: A Little Princess (1995)
If you’re looking for the director’s distinctive take on another classic work of literature, 1995’s A Little Princess is a slightly more straightforward, but nevertheless enchanting, adaptation.
Where to stream: Hoopla, Max Go
Another deservedly lauded director, Ang Lee also has two Best Director Oscars, for Brokeback Mountain (2005) and Life of Pi (2012). Though he brought undeniable style to his proto-Marvel film (and it’s more interesting than the 2008 take), it’s too chatty for a special effects movie, and too full of wonky special effects to be anything deeper, despite the turgid pacing, which has lulled many into declaring it a misunderstood masterpiece.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): Starz, DirecTV
Watch instead: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Lee’s other big action movie, Gemini Man, also falls flat, so go instead for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Ang Lee stylishly and thrillingly updates wuxia tropes (involving larger-than-life martial artists), many of which parallel the conventions of comic book storytelling. There’s a reason it was one of the highest grossing subtitled films in Hollywood history: This thing plays like gangbusters even on mute.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Though doubtless destined to be become a midnight cult classic, it’s not at all clear that the film’s A-list cast (Judi Dench…gurl) signed on for the discourse on feline buttholes that became the film’s overriding pop culture imprint.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): MaxGo
Watch instead: Les Misérables (2012)
Hooper presumably seemed like a good fit for Cats on the basis of his earlier, more successful adaptation of that other mainstay modern musical, Les Misérables. His 2012 adaptation is excellent, even if poor Russell Crowe can’t sing his way out of a paper guillotine.
Where to stream: Netflix
Eastwood won a very well-deserved Oscar for Unforgiven in 1992, as well as a fairly well-deserved one for Million Dollar Baby in 2004—74 at the time, he remains the oldest winner in that category and is, of course, still working. The extremely prolific director has a filmography that includes triumphs as well as tragedies, including this ill-conceived buddy cop movie. It would be a forgivably generic action movie were it not full of Latino stereotypes, mystifying casting, and an ugly, thoughtless rape scene.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): Digital rental
Watch instead: Mystic River (2003)
Unforgiven is obvious, and very reasonably seen as Eastwood’s best, but his haunting Mystic River is a far, far more interesting take on the crime drama than The Rookie. The tones are very different, but this one is more rewarding, provided you can handle the pitch dark subject matter.
Where to stream: HBO Max, The Roku Channel
Hillbilly Elegy received a wildly mixed response upon its release: critical reviews were generally negative, but the film was nominated for a number of awards, as well, including Glenn Close as Best Supporting Actress Oscar…but also a Worst Supporting Actress Razzie (she lost both). It might be just the sheer weight of prestigious names (Close, Howard, Amy Adams) involved here (and Howard’s reputation for sincerity) that lead people to cut this dull, cartoonish drama and its broadly stereotypical characters any slack at all. That the writer of the memoir on which the film is based has since made a career of aping whatever political positions might serve to get him, someday, elected to something, hasn’t helped the film’s standing.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): Netflix
Watch instead: Apollo 13 (1995)
There are a handful of Howard-directed films based on non-fiction books that might fit the bill, including A Beautiful Mind, for which he won his Oscar. That movie’s fine (quite good, even), but Apollo 13 is better, and it’s certainly his most beloved.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Jackson’s post-LoTR career has been spotty for sure, with this novel adaptation representing a particularly disappointing attempt to return to a point in his career when he was a bit less dependent on CGI. Instead, it’s an awkward hybrid, a film whose visual panache can’t overcome its abrupt tonal shifts and an abundance of characters who feel like signifiers more than real people. Stanley Tucci was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for it, but even he seemed embarrassed about that fact.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): Hulu, Paramount+
Watch instead: Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Jackson’s 1994 masterpiece, on the other hand, never gives way to sentimentality, even as the fantasy-laced relationship between the lead characters (played by Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey), based on the real lives of two teenage girls who became obsessed with one another and then murdered one of their mothers when she tried to separate them, remains believable, and even sympathetic.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Mimic is, perhaps, better than a movie about hyper-evolved cockroaches has any right to be—and that’s to del Toro’s credit. But this was the director’s first American film, and only the second feature of his career, so the notoriously controlling Weinsteins stepped in to ensure that what might have been an offbeat masterpiece was, instead, an interesting but fatally compromised film—the only one in the director’s varied filmography that isn’t an unqualified success.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): HBO Max
Watch instead: Blade II (2002)
Given relatively free reign, del Toro showed here what a talented director with a distinctive vision could do with a bit of studio product. It doesn’t have the emotional resonance of something like The Shape of Water (or even Pacific Rim), nor is it meant to: this is a pure action movie with all of the gloopy viscera and splattered blood of a gruesome horror movie. If only more of our modern superhero movies had this much style.
Where to stream: Peacock
It’s easy to understand why audiences stayed away from Coppola’s 1982 romantic drama: coming off of a decade making movies like The Godfather, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now, there simply wasn’t a market for this more subdued ode to classic films. It wouldn’t have mattered if they’d come: though clearly sincere, and featuring some impressive cinematography, you simply can’t have a successful romance when none of the characters ever come to life. (It really is pretty though.)
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): Digital rental
Watch instead: Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
History might regard this as the other mid-’80s time travel comedy—the movies are surprisingly similar on a surface level, with Kathleen Turner’s title character traveling back to the ’50s, entering her 17-year-old body with her forty-something mind. It’s a comedy, but also more poignant, boomer-fied take on what it might be like to re-visit your own past. Nicholas Cage is a bit much here, but Turner received an Academy Award nomination for her performance.
Where to stream: Starz
It would be hard, you might think, to make a boring biopic around the life of Alexander the Great. Whether seen as hero or villain, this was certainly an eventful life, and one that’s had cultural relevance that’s lasted for more than 2,000 years. This film take on his life mistakes ponderousness for intelligence, and only comes to life briefly in some decently rendered action scenes. It also never bothers to reconsider any of the lazy and dull Orientalist tropes that have plagued this sort of history for way, way too long. Full disclosure here, and this is rare for me: I’ve never been able to make it all the way through Alexander, not in any of its three various director’s cuts, and I’ve given up on trying. If the last act pulls the whole thing together into a cohesive bit of genius—well, I suppose I’ll never know.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): Digital rental
Watch instead: JFK (1991)
In the era of QAnon, Stone’s penchant for conspiratorial wheel-spinning seems less charmingly quirky and more like the forerunner of much of the more extreme thinking that’s lately become inescapably mainstream. Still, there’s no question that JFK remains a compelling bit of storytelling—sort of modern American history by way of The X-Files. Given our growing lack of interest in actual history, this’ll doubtless be taught in schools one day.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Perhaps it just isn’t a great fit—Zemeckis has proven himself a master of diverse styles, but this supernatural Hitchcock homage falls flat and, committing the worst sin imaginable for a mystery thriller, ends on a note that’s more silly than shocking. Everyone here is capable, but it’s too much pastiche and not nearly enough originality.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): Showtime, DirecTV
Watch instead: Allied (2016)
While Zemeckis hasn’t attempted anything quite like What Lies Beneath’s explicit horror again, there are hints of Hitchcock’s spy dramas in this World War II-era thriller, with Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard as lovers with competing agendas. It didn’t get a ton of attention upon release back in 2016, but it’s a solid entry in the director’s latter-day filmography.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Cameron’s relatively short directorial filmography is full of critical, fan, and box office triumphs—even Avatar, a movie that has become cool to slag on, remains one of the highest grossing films in history. True Lies, with its racially stereotypical villains and treatment of its female lead, has aged the worst, but still has its charms. It’s in only in his 1982 directorial debut, the flying-fish sequel Piranha II: The Spawning, that he failed—so much so that the film’s various creators have been arguing for decades over who’s most to blame.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): Lucky for you, you can’t! This one isn’t streaming anywhere, though there is a nice Blu-ray if you’re so inclined.
Watch instead: The Abyss (1989)
Following action spectacles The Terminator and Aliens, Cameron moved on to something with a broader scope and more restrained style, as well as with some genuinely groundbreaking special effects. It wouldn’t be the last time he’d return to the sea, but it was a sure demonstration of his ability to blend disparate genres, and to compete with the Spielberg-types for sheer awe.
Where to stream: Starz
Following an impressive run of movies that included Good Morning, Vietnam, Avalon, Bugsy, and Rain Man (for which he won the Oscar), Levinson decided to play around with Toys, a Robin Williams vehicle about a toy factory that gets taken over by the military. Visually interesting and full of ideas, it still winds up being a conceptual jumble that never finds its footing.
Where to stream (though we don’t advise it): History Vault (sure, why not)
Watch instead: The Bay
Though hardly a tonal match, horror movie The Bay finds Levinson in playful form, but with much more success than with Toys. Utilizing found footage tropes (very intentionally nearing the point of parody), Levinson crafted a smart, gory horror movie with an environmental message.
Where to stream: Digital rental