Directors whose best film is also their most popular

[HaroldBlvd]

Peter Yates / Bullit (1968)

[mostlymeat]

Peter Yates / Bullit (1968)

Bullitt is better than Krull (1983)? I don't think so. Krull's "King Arthur in Space" takes awhile to really take off but when it does it'll blow you away. 

Also "Breaking Away" is way better than Bullitt. The sinewy charisma of Jackie Earle Haley as "Moocher", hello?

Bullitt is actually kind of a dog. Even the famous car chase, while thrilling, is kinda weak cuz the guys who are chasing him look like middle school geometry teachers.

-AG

[masterofsparks]

Peter Yates / Bullit (1968)

Bullitt is better than Krull (1983)? I don't think so. Krull's "King Arthur in Space" takes awhile to really take off but when it does it'll blow you away. 

Also "Breaking Away" is way better than Bullitt. The sinewy charisma of Jackie Earle Haley as "Moocher", hello?

Bullitt is actually kind of a dog. Even the famous car chase, while thrilling, is kinda weak cuz the guys who are chasing him look like middle school geometry teachers.

-AG

Bullitt is terrific, but my favorite Yates is The Friends of Eddie Coyle.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

I love both Godfather movies, but I think it's a pretty commonly-held critical opinion The Conversation and Apocalypse Now are better films.

I find this doubtful. There's probably no better index of serious critical opinion than the once-per-decade BFI Sight & Sound poll of Greatest Films of All Time. In 1992, when they started polling directors and critics separately, both Godfathers wound up in the directors' top ten, though not the critics'.  In 2002, the critics put G&GII, considered as a unit, fourth (after Citizen Kane, Vertigo, and The Rules of the Game.) The directors put them second, after Kane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_%26_Sound

My sense is that the overwhelming critical consensus on Apocalypse Now is that it's a magnificent effort, fatally flawed, and that to call it better than G&GII is indeed pretty contrarian.

Also G&GII won the Oscars for Bext Picture/Writing. And GII also got Best Director. All his other films were nominated without winning.

I agree that

Apocalypse Now is that it's a magnificent effort, fatally flawed,

Wow, I'm getting pilloried for this Godfather heresy. I like the movies. I really do think they're great. But remember, Crash and Forrest Gump also won Best Picture.

I'm probably wrong that I've heard/read people say Apocalypse Now was better than the Godfather movies. But I've definitely heard/read many smart people with good taste say The Conversation was better, or even that they were schlock. I don't agree that they were schlock, but I can't just dismiss it as a crackpot opinion.

[buffcoat]

Amy Heckerling, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.  Or Clueless, I think you could make a case for either one in both categories.



Not that I'm knocking Johnny Dangerously, other than that it kinda sucks.

[Wes]

Fine, I'll do it:

Troy Duffy, The Boondock Saints

[cavorting with nudists]

But I've definitely heard/read many smart people with good taste say The Conversation was better, or even that they were schlock. I don't agree that they were schlock, but I can't just dismiss it as a crackpot opinion.

I need a citation on this.  Admittedly there's no such thing as an artwork so universally loved that someone won't say "Ah, I don't see what's so great about it." but there are only two kinds of people I can imagine calling them schlock: 1) High-minded, fusty movie reviewers when it came out who were put off by the violence and their being based on a schlocky best-seller--the kind of culture guardians Pauline Kael saw herself as at war with; or 2) Armond White.

As for The Conversation, sure it's a great, great movie. But the scope and emotional range of the two Godfathers is so much more vast that to call The Conversation better seems to me at the very least to call for some explanation.

[B_Buster]

My guess is that either Taxi Driver or Goodfellas is Scorcese's most popular.  I can't decide which one is his best though, so whichever is more popular, I'll say the other one is.

Shutter Island is his biggest hit.

Yeah and before that I think it was Cape Fear. Scorsese's hits are shit.

[Kormod]

Is Kurosawa's most popular film Rashomon or Seven Samurai? I'd say Seven Samurai is his best (but I'm sure someone's going to disagree and say Ikiru, Ran, Throne of Blood, or Rashomon is better).

You tried to be so careful - mucho props!  But you missed "Yojimbo," which has to be on your list, and his actual best film, which is "High and Low."

High and Low is excellent (it's probably my fourth favorite Kurosawa, behind the Hidden Fortress, Rashomon, and Seven Samurai). I didn't include it on my list because, for whatever reason, I didn't think it was as highly regarded as the other films I listed.

[Kormod]

I haven't actually seen Kevin Smith's Cop Out, which, according to BoxOfficeMojo, is his biggest hit, but judging by the trailer and clips I've seen, I'd say it's Kevin Smith's worst and probably the worst film ever made. If you conveniently exclude Red State from his oeuvre, he's in the weird position of his most successful film being his worst and his least successful film, Chasing Amy, being his best. Sure, Clerks and Mallrats made a lot less money in theaters than Chasing Amy, but I think the cult followings that were developed for those two films by the hockey-jersey-and-jorts crowd throughout the '90s eventually made them more popular than Chasing Amy.

[cavorting with nudists]

I don't watch a lot of movies I expect to be bad so I haven't really seen all that many turkeys, but I think Chasing Amy may have been the worst movie I've ever seen.

[cavorting with nudists]

So just think, in a better world I wouldn't have seen it and it would have been even less successful.

[nec13]

Arthur Penn-Bonnie and Clyde

Penn made other films that I enjoy more, but Bonnie and Clyde seemed to have the most far-reaching impact.

[cavorting with nudists]

No, actually probably the worst movie I've ever seen was Candy Mountain, directed by Robert Frank with Tom Waits, David Johansen, Leon Redbone and Joe Strummer.  One of those movies that made my life worse not only for the 90 minutes it took to watch it, but for months and years thereafter. Robert Frank, there's a guy--no wait.  I was going to say Pull My Daisy was both his best and most popular, but actually his best is no doubt Cocksucker Blues, which has been seen legally by maybe a few hundred people.

[cavorting with nudists]

I say Bonnie and Clyde counts.  I rewatched it recently and was stunned by how well it's held up.  Really a great movie. What's better?