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These films shocked us - in a good way!
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00:00Not to mince words, but film directing is a difficult line of work.
00:04Whilst internet ghouls such as ourselves make bread and butter from dunking on disastrous directors,
00:09the fact is that sometimes the talents of even the most dismal Helmer yield great results.
00:14So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, and here are 10 great films from bad directors.
00:20Number 10, The Sixth Sense by M. Night Shyamalan.
00:24Okay, fair enough, this one's a little tenuous.
00:27M. Night Shyamalan can't be considered a truly bad director, hence the high placement on this list.
00:32But measuring up the average quality of his filmography does not yield flattering results.
00:37Responsible for total turkeys like The Last Airbender, Shyamalan's cinematic output has statistically been more negative than positive.
00:45Whilst he has seen a slight return to form in recent years with the excellent split, the okay glass,
00:51and the above average depending on who you ask old,
00:53he is still a far cry from his early genre efforts like Unbreakable and Signs.
00:58With that in mind, we posit that The Sixth Sense still stands head and shoulders above the rest of his work.
01:03It's easy to forget the sheer impact this film had at the time of its release,
01:07netting several coveted award nominations such as the Academy's Best Picture and Best Director categories.
01:13Not only did The Sixth Sense sport an excellent script, brilliant direction and tense atmosphere,
01:18but it also gave us one of the greatest plot twists in cinematic history,
01:23making Shyamalan a household name practically overnight.
01:26There were even some claiming him to be the next Steven Spielberg,
01:30this being long before the director ran his plot twist trope deep into the ground.
01:34Over 20 years later, it's still by far his best movie.
01:37Number 9. Pretty Woman by Gary Marshall
01:40Despite receiving mixed reviews at the time of its release,
01:43Pretty Woman has unquestionably reached classic status over the years.
01:47Telling the tale of charming sex worker Vivian and her corporate client Edward,
01:51the plot follows their descent into mutual love.
01:54Pretty Woman is a joyful tale of good chemistry, good humour and learning to trust those close to you.
01:59As retold in Netflix's brilliant documentary series The Movies That Made Us,
02:043000, as it was originally titled, was meant to have a much darker, more realistic tone.
02:09Had it not been for the inexperience of director Gary Marshall,
02:12as well as his blatant disregard for the script, this is a film we would have gotten.
02:17Marshall opted to record several takes of each scene with wildly different tones in each,
02:21and also let lead actors Richard Gere and Julia Roberts simply improvise many of their scenes.
02:26This risky manoeuvre paid off in dividends,
02:29as letting the lead's natural chemistry speak for itself is arguably what made the film so great.
02:34Its romantic conclusion was all the more satisfying
02:37when the characters themselves were given the breathing room to endear themselves to the audience.
02:42And for that, we have Marshall to thank.
02:44Number 8. Star Wars Episode 5 The Empire Strikes Back by Irving Kirshner
02:50Widely regarded as one of the best Star Wars films ever made,
02:53even the best by some, it's easy to forget that our second foray into a galaxy far, far away
02:59wasn't actually helmed by creator George Lucas.
03:02Following on from the events of A New Hope,
03:04Empire Strikes Back continues the story of the Rebel Alliance
03:07and their attempts to undermine the Galactic Empire.
03:10Along the way, Luke trains with Master Yoda,
03:12discovers the truth about Daddy Vader,
03:14and loses an entire limb in a lightsaber duel with said father.
03:18Praised for its incredible action set pieces and overall darker tone,
03:22the Empire Strikes Back remains a firm favourite among Star Wars aficionados and casual fans to this very day.
03:29Director Irving Kirshner's other work?
03:32Not so much.
03:33The Barbra Streisand starring stinker Up the Sandbox
03:35and the disappointing Robocop 2 both spring to mind when examining Kirshner's very mixed filmography.
03:42Whilst 007's spoof Never Say Never Again could be considered something of a cult classic,
03:47this wasn't due to Kirshner's directing abilities,
03:49and The Empire Strikes Back remains his greatest ever effort behind the camera.
03:547. Event Horizon by Paul W.S. Anderson
03:58Perhaps best known these days for his mixed bag of a Resident Evil franchise,
04:03Paul W.S. Anderson is a bad director who can at least be said to make some really fun movies.
04:08The first Alien vs. Predator is a campy action horror that deserves way more praise than it gets,
04:13and 1994's shopping was surprisingly slick for a directorial debut.
04:18Far and away, the director's best work was 1997's Event Horizon,
04:23a sci-fi horror that went massively underappreciated upon release.
04:27Event Horizon has grown beyond a cult film into a bona fide sci-fi horror classic.
04:32Concerning a rescue crew sent to investigate the reappearance of an experimental warp ship,
04:38the situation aboard the Event Horizon quickly goes south as the crews succumb to terror,
04:42madness, and perhaps the trappings of hell itself.
04:46Also, out of character for Anderson, the film doesn't feature a single scene of Mila Jovovich naked.
04:51Very strange.
04:52A somewhat typical ghost ship story coloured with tinges of cosmic horror,
04:57Event Horizon was rightfully reassessed as a flawed masterpiece in the years since its home video release.
05:03Anderson supports this view, saying he was immensely proud of the work he and the crew put in,
05:07and that the film didn't get a fair shake at its initial debut.
05:116. The Mummy by Stephen Summers
05:14A childhood classic for many and an awakening for bisexuals the world over,
05:191999's The Mummy was a swashbuckling take on the classic universal monster property
05:24that managed to reinvigorate the action-adventure genre at the time.
05:29Following the world's greatest librarian, Evie,
05:31as she enlists the help of tomb-raiding stallion Rick O'Connell to find the lost fortune of Hamanatra,
05:37the group instead awaken a cursed mummy by the name of Imhotep.
05:40Now faced with a world-ending magical threat,
05:42the group teams up with a group of ancient Egyptian warriors to slay the monster and end the curse once and for all.
05:48The Mummy is high on the list of greatest films ever for 90s kids,
05:53and we have director Stephen Summers to thank for that.
05:55Much like Paul W.S. Anderson, Summers makes some really fun movies.
05:59Deep Rising and Van Helsing are low-key cult classics in their own right,
06:04but none of his work has ever reached the heights of this Brendan-literal-angel-Fraser vehicle.
06:10Summers doesn't attempt anything too flashy with The Mummy,
06:12instead letting the fun script and excellent cast do the heavy lifting.
06:16This isn't to say his work was complacent,
06:18as oftentimes it's very difficult for directors to step back and let their films breathe, as Summers did here.
06:24Number 5. Donnie Darko by Richard Kelly
06:27Donnie Darko was a critical and cult hit for the ages,
06:31launching the career of star Jake Gyllenhaal,
06:33and convincing an entire generation of edgy teenage cinema-goers,
06:37they were properly, like, so intellectual, dude.
06:40Following troubled teen Donnie as he witnesses visions of his death,
06:43a cursed rabbit with apocalyptic messages,
06:46and commitment to various crimes while sleepwalking,
06:48the film gives little away,
06:50instead encouraging the viewer to seek out their own answers,
06:53as well as rewarding repeat viewings.
06:55On a first watch, this all seemed like it was guided by the careful hands of a true film auteur.
07:00Richard Kelly's intense and abstract directorial style
07:03appeared to be responsible for the arguable masterpiece we all ended up watching,
07:07but, to our disappointment, this was not the case.
07:11We've discussed this here before,
07:13how it was actually studio interference that crafted the original cut of Donnie Darko
07:18into the excellent film we all loved,
07:20but it was mainly Kelly's follow-up efforts that exposed the director as a bit of a hack.
07:25Southern Tales was a confusing mess that seemed to be trying to one-up Darko as being weird for weirdness' sake,
07:31and The Box was a tedious Twilight Zone adaptation that didn't set any worlds on fire.
07:35At least we'll always have Gary Jules' mad world.
07:394. Speed by Jan de Bont
07:41The most 90s thriller to ever thrill in the 90s,
07:45this Keanu Reeves action vehicle is a much-beloved relic of late-century action cinema.
07:51Speed follows maverick cop Jack Traven as he boards a speeding LA bus
07:55that will explode if it goes below 50 miles per hour.
07:58Featuring excellent performances from everyone involved,
08:01particularly Dennis Hopper as the unhinged terrorist responsible,
08:05Speed blew up at the box office, grossing nearly 10 times its original budget.
08:09It did well critically, too, even netting a couple of Oscar nods for its trouble.
08:13The film's impact has seen it lovingly parodied in everything from Robot Chicken to Father Ted,
08:18which makes you think the director of the work must be a real talent, no?
08:22This was actually helmet Jan de Bont's directorial debut.
08:26No small feat, given the film's runaway success,
08:28and should have charted an excellent career for the young Dutch director.
08:32Alas, de Bont never helmed anything of note ever again,
08:35returning for the much-lampooned Speed 2 Cruise Control,
08:38the limp 1999 remake of The Haunting,
08:41and the disappointing Tomb Raider Cradle of Life sequel.
08:44Sometimes beginner's luck really counts for a lot,
08:47and this appears to be the case here.
08:48De Bont appears to have retired from Hollywood altogether,
08:51with his last credit as a cinematographer being in 2012.
08:55Number 3. Independence Day by Roland Emmerich
08:59During the late 90s, two genres reigned supreme,
09:02the disaster movie and the sci-fi action movie.
09:05In 1996, Roland Emmerich blew the doors off both genres with Independence Day.
09:10Set on present-day Earth, as the world is devastated by a highly advanced and hostile alien race,
09:15we follow humanity banding together to destroy the alien threat.
09:19To say Independence Day was epic would be an understatement.
09:23Never before had audiences ever seen action set pieces of this scale,
09:28with the world monument's destruction scene being both terrifying at the time and utterly iconic.
09:33What's more, we had an excellent cast of human interest characters to keep the simple plot moving forward,
09:38particularly Will Smith, Captain Hiller, Jeff Goldblum's quirky scientist,
09:42and Bill Pullman as the greatest big-screen US president we've ever seen.
09:46The Independence Day speech scene is simply chef's kiss.
09:50What makes this classic bit of action cinema all the more intriguing
09:54is that director Roland Emmerich never got close to repeating his success.
09:58Despite his name becoming a byword for big-budget disaster movies,
10:02most of his filmography is sadly lacking.
10:04His Godzilla remake was universally panned, nobody on Earth saw Anonymous,
10:09and his most recent effort, Moonfall, has been lampooned across the whole internet as an utterly silly affair.
10:15Even 2004's The Day After Tomorrow, which is widely accepted as an okay movie,
10:21failed to create that perfect marriage of character, story, and spectacle he reached with Independence Day.
10:26And the less said about its sequel resurgence, the better.
10:29Number 2. Darfur by Yuva Boll
10:32Do not wash out your ears, do not consult a doctor, you did in fact hear me correctly.
10:37Legendary turkey Yuva Boll actually has a decent film to his name.
10:42The German director is infamous for his long line of terrible video game adaptations.
10:47Not satisfied with ruthlessly butchering games that showed narrative promise,
10:51Boll also had a tumultuous relationship with his critics,
10:55regularly calling them out on Twitter, blog posts, and challenging them to literal boxing matches.
11:00Despite being a far better boxer than he is a filmmaker, Boll has bravely forged on with his chosen career.
11:07Likely through the laws of averages, rather than a sudden burgeoning talent,
11:11Boll managed to create Dafur in 2009.
11:14When a talentless, exploitative filmmaker like Boll decides to helm a biographical piece about real-life conflict,
11:20alarm bells start to ring.
11:22Thankfully, Dafur is a decent movie that handles its sensitive subject matter pretty well.
11:27To say it's a masterpiece would be a huge stretch, but considering the bar is at the Earth's core
11:31when it comes to Yuva Boll movies, this is actually quite impressive.
11:35Both Billy Zane and Edward Furlong are also on point as the movie's leads,
11:39and Amnesty International even reported being impressed by the film's quality and credibility.
11:44Unfortunately, this film was released back in 2009,
11:47an interim in which Boll had managed to helm a whopping 13 stinkers since then,
11:52truly obliterating any good faith this work gave his directorial abilities.
11:57Number 1. The Room by Tommy Wiseau
12:00Could it really have been anyone else?
12:02Tommy Wiseau's unhinged melodrama is commonly cited as the Citizen Kane of bad movies.
12:08So utterly detached from reality is Wiseau's vision,
12:11it regularly feels like a work cobbled together from an AI forced to watch 10,000 hours of hallmark romance films.
12:17Serving as the film's writer, director, producer, and lead actor,
12:21Tommy himself seems to be a singularly gifted filmmaker in the area of bad movies.
12:26Plotlines appear then vanish into thin air, the camera work sometimes looks out of focus,
12:31the script is littered with non-sequiturs,
12:33and everyone's line delivery feels like it was beamed directly out of the actor's mouths by an alien force.
12:38And yet, truly, The Room is a great film.
12:41It's great for all the wrong reasons, but great nonetheless.
12:44Enchanting viewers the world over, and often selling out cinemas re-screening the film.
12:49The Room has captured hearts all over the world,
12:51based purely on its demented execution, plastic spoons, and all.
12:55There is absolutely no doubt that no one but Tommy Wiseau
12:59could have made a film this entertaining, intentionally or unintentionally.
13:04And that concludes our list.
13:05If you can think of any other examples, then do let us know in the comments below.
13:09And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell.
13:12Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there,
13:14and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild.
13:18I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day,
13:21and I'll see you real soon.
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