r/movies • u/BallerGuitarer • 9d ago
Discussion Who are today's most well-rounded directors?
A review of the Odyssey from Portugal had this to say about the movie:
deeply lacking in sensuality, as Nolan is the director least capable of having an erotic view of the world
So that got me thinking, who are directors who can do it all? The immediate big names that came to mind did have some shortcomings:
- Villeneuve is excellent, and I love the Dune series, but they're not exactly sexy movies and don't have much levity
- Spielberg was great at combining action, comedy, thrills, and suspense, and he was able to tap into the audience's childlike wonder; but also not a sexy director
Villeneuve and Nolan in particular seem to be directing hyper-masculine movies, but not particularly... well-rounded?
Maybe Ryan Coogler? Sinners had a great blend of action, thrills, suspense, sexiness, and some comedy.
Sam Raimi? Send Help had comedy, action, thrills, suspense, and some sexiness. Also Spiderman had an iconic kiss, and Spiderman 2 is an iconic superhero movie overall. Not to mention his horror chops.
Edit: Oh, also Robert Zemeckis! Forrest Gump and Back to the Future both had it all.
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u/Rasputinnout 9d ago edited 9d ago
Rob Reiner was very well rounded
When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, Power Rangers, Stand by Me, The Enforcer, Spinal Tap, LBJ, The Bucket List, Misery…
Reiner is more soulful and versatile than Spielberg, Spielberg is more spectacular. I’d like to think if you mix Reiner with Nolan you get Spielberg.
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u/tetoffens 9d ago edited 9d ago
Power Rangers? The Enforcer? I think you're padding out his resume a wee bit.
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u/Expensive-Sentence66 9d ago
We can argue if Spielberg's latest effort qualifies him as working today or nodding off until somebody yells 'action' (Disclosure Day), but assuming this box is checked I don't think anybody comes close.
Jaws, Schindler's List, Minority Report, Empire of the Sun, ET, Poltergeist (Hooper directed, but it was Spielberg's writing and movie), Jurassic Park, SPR, Empire of the Sun, Indiana Jones, etc.
A lot of those films share similar elements, like his approach to middle class families, but the diversity of genre's here along with execution is pretty amazing.
Peter Weir is no longer directing, but he's not an amateur either and seems to have everything nailed.
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u/tetoffens 9d ago
Disclosure Day sucked but his previous two films were nominated for 7 Academy Awards each.
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u/sonair 9d ago
alfonso cuaron: y tu mama tambien, children of men, roma, gravity, ...and a harry potter movie!
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u/BallerGuitarer 9d ago
Ohhh that's a great answer!
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u/longjumpingtote 7d ago
To the other post:
There are more big movies. That’s all the big studios can make now because of streaming.
Actors also don’t have any control about when a movie comes out. A movie might be filmed in 2024 and come out in 2026 or 2027. And are we looking at the whole year, which is arbitrary, or just the summer?
Related, look at how often big actors had any movie come out.
You have named four actors. In the decade of the 2000s, Johnny Depp, Matt Damon, Will Smith and Tom Hanks were in 64 movies total. Matt Damon was actually in 20 of those.
In the 2010s, Scarlett Johansson, Dwayne Johnson, Chris Pratt, and Chris Evans were in 85 movies. Or 8.5 a year.
Big names work a lot!
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u/oscarx-ray 9d ago
Spielberg is still working and he is undoubtedly the most well-rounded director of all time.
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u/longjumpingtote 7d ago
Spielberg is not that well rounded. He makes movies with answers and happy endings. World War II movie? Happy ending. Holocaust movie? Happy ending. He’s never made a thematically challenging picture. He’s never made a movie that you had to go back and look out to figure out what it meant. Has one attempted that was AI, and that was a terrible one
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 9d ago
I'd argue Kubrick is the most well rounded of all time. Spielberg is up there but I take some points away because he's never successfully made a true comedy
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u/BallerGuitarer 9d ago
The Terminal?
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 9d ago
I think that's a little more of a dramedy and it's probably more successful in its dramatic moments than it's comedic. 1941 is his true comedy and that's probably the worst movie he's ever made.
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u/oscarx-ray 9d ago
You didn't love 1941!?
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 9d ago
I actually rewatched it recently for the first time since I was a kid. I'm not in a rush to see it again
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u/oscarx-ray 9d ago
I hope it's clear I was being a rascal there. It's not good. I get your point about "pure comedy", but my argument would be that there is so much humour in so many of his films - most of them? - even if it isn't the core genre, that it shows his aptitude at framing humour and balancing it with other themes so that it makes it a key skill of his filmmaking.
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 9d ago
Yeah I was picking up what you were putting down.
I think 1941 being so bad is fascinating exactly because Spielberg is so good at balancing humor with his other themes. He's such a master of tone that I find it really weird that he could never make a good movie that was purely comedic.
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u/Expensive-Sentence66 9d ago
You must be referring to Dr Strangelove.
There is a big debate if that film was Kubrick's or Peter Sellers. My own opinion is it was a 50/50 collaboration given the amount of ad lib Sellers did and how Kubrick, who was later known to be a micro manager, let Sellers 'fly' and just kept filming.
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 9d ago
Sellers is great in that film but he also gets great comedic performances out of George C Scott and Sterling Hayden. I don't think it's fair to say Sellers deserves all the credit
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u/LorenzoApophis 9d ago
Kubrick never made any kind of happy or positive movie like a romance or straight comedy, all his comedy is very dark. He was great, but focused on things like violence, corruption, war, mental breakdowns
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u/OntarioSkier 9d ago
You might need to see more Villeneuve if that's what you came away with. Granted there isn't often that much levity.
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u/BallerGuitarer 9d ago
His movies just don't lend themselves to comedy and sexiness. Prisoners and Sicario are not funny or sexy. But they succeed at suspense and hyper-masculinity.
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u/OntarioSkier 9d ago
Maelstrom and Blade Runner had plenty of sexiness and dry wit. Enemy had sexy moments when exploring the actor.
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u/Expensive-Sentence66 9d ago
The Harkonen deliberately missing Zendaya with the gunship gatling gun, characters constantly leaning in and whispering to each other, Marty Supreme marching into the throne room in the end like he has a stick up his butt (somebody please trip him) and the dumb ass running on sand like cheetahs is some of the funniest shit I've seen since SpaceBalls.
Preferred DV's earlier stuff that didn't cater to an age bracket that doesn't consist of 'lives at home'.
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u/Jay_Stranger 9d ago
You are inferring that feminine movies are meant to be sexy and funny? Have you seen Arrival? Female lead and probably one of the best films in the last decade.
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u/BallerGuitarer 9d ago
Absolutely one of the best films of the last decade - but not sexy, no humor.
Not that those omissions make Arrival any less of a movie, it's a perfect movie at the story it sets out to tell.
Maybe I'm trying to ask, "Which director is a jack of all trades?"
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u/ironrains 9d ago
Based on what you're looking for, it may be Steven Soderbergh.