Top 25 Film Directors

[Co.Down Hibee]

None of mine have been named yet either,

[WhiteRoseKillie]

None of mine have been named yet either,

Seriously? Not one?

Saying that, there's only a couple of mine made an appearance so far. Plenty that were on the "long list", mind.

[Co.Down Hibee]

Seriously? Not one?

Saying that, there's only a couple of mine made an appearance so far. Plenty that were on the "long list", mind.

I don't know if that means I like really good directors or really bad ones, To be fair I probably should have included Boyle in mine,and perhaps Eastwood, big fan of their films.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

I don't know if that means I like really good directors or really bad ones, To be fair I probably should have included Boyle in mine,and perhaps Eastwood, big fan of their films.

Aye, they were both on my long list, and in fairness, mood depending, could easily have replaced a couple of my top ten picks.

[Albino Rover]

13. Ridley Scott

Since the 1970s he has been one of the most prominent worldwide film directors. A masterful visual storyteller, with great pacing and sumptuous style and grace in his photography, throughout his career he’s mastered many genres and has always known how and when to hit the right notes- one of the key elements in his success has been valuing authenticity to the style as much as to the content. One of the most important things in directing a film is to make it look right, no matter how hard or expensive it may be, and everything always looks right under the dependable command of Ridley Scott.

Born in South Shields, Scott grew up in an army family during the second world war. His father and older brother fought in the war and Ridley had intended to be a soldier. He was, however, a keen film fan; he grew up with the age of post-war cinema, and eventually decided to pursue film himself. He went to several art schools, including the Royal College Of Art, where he was one of the founders of the film department. His final piece at the College was the short film Boy And Bicycle, starring his younger brother, Tony Scott.

After graduating, throughout the 1960s and early '70s he worked in production design for the BBC and worked on the filming of many TV advertisements, eventually, alongside Tony, setting up Ridley Scott Associates, which made over a thousand commercials, including the iconic “Bike Round” Hovis ad. Ridley eventually worked as a director for the BBC, starting with an episode of the long-running series Z-Cars.

His first feature film was the Napoleonic war drama The Duellists, which won a lot of praise for its style, realism and attention to detail. It was a big success and got Scott immediate international recognition. On the back of that success, he was able to go in a new direction and followed it up with two futuristic sci-fis, each of which set a new benchmark for the genre.

The first of those was Alien, the space travel horror-thriller which has since become a classic. One of the best things about the film is the style of the horror: rather than packing the film full of jump-scares Scott showed an ability to make the film intensely suspenseful as well as genuinely frightening. Ridley Scott’s films are always notable for their great pacing and Alien is one of the best examples of it: both the action scenes and the suspenseful build-up are shot and cut to great precision. Alien was also one of the first serious action films with a female lead: as well as the action and horror the film offers a genuine empathy with its heroine, her confidence and her fear, vulnerability, and downright hatred of the Alien, (which grew in the sequels,) all of which have made Ripley as much of a women's icon as a movie icon.

Three years later, after some long and painstaking work from Ridley Scott, came an unforgettable psychological and futuristic thriller, Blade Runner, an intense, futuristic neo-noir which, with the introduction of humanoid androids, questioned the future of humanity, and also created an extraordinary neon Los Angeles of the future. Whether it's a warning, a political, social or even religious statement, or just a unique and imaginative piece of sci-fi has been left open to interpretation but, just like Alien, Blade Runner is not only a great film in its own right but was one of the most ambitious films of the era and remains an iconic science fiction film to this day, with some genuinely beautiful cinematography and incredible special effects. Blade Runner wasn’t a massive financial success at the time of release but has come to be known as one of the greatest and most influential sci-fi films of all time.

In 1984 Scott made a brief return to commercial film, making an advert for the Apple Macintosh, which showed the Macintosh saving the world from "Nineteen Eighty-Four" style conformity, and was described as revolutionary in the art of product advertisement. Then, after huge success with his second and third films, Scott got the chance to go somewhere new with his fourth film, Legend, a big-budget adventure set in a fantasy world of sorcery, druids and unicorns. The film was essentially a representation of the battle between angelic good and demonic evil, with a lot of fanfare and big special effects, but was ultimately a critical failure.

Scott came back to mature film-making with a romantic thriller set in New York, Someone To Watch Over Me, and Black Rain, a dark police thriller set against the backdrop of 1980s Osaka, building his momentum back up before opening the '90s with a return to his best form.

Thelma & Louise is a road movie which follows two female friends as they run into more trouble than they bargained for on a weekend trip, but as the film progresses and the characters - appropriately surnamed Dickinson & Sawyer, respectively - and their lifestyles are established it becomes a story of liberty and a search for true happiness, with the two working-class women on the road finding themselves and ultimately losing themselves in the euphoria of empowerment. They seem to enjoy making dust with their tyres and negotiating with cops and, for the first time in their lives, appear to at least believe have complete freedom. The plot is so rich and exciting it's easy to forget, but tying it all together is Ridley Scott, well out of his comfort zone in the heat of the great American mid-west.

Released in the American Year of the Woman, Thelma & Louise is just as much about the importance of the heroine in film as it is about the on-screen chase from the law, keeping away from the traditional American road movie clichés and giving it an early push in the direction of the 21st century.

After the great success of Thelma & Louise, Ridley Scott was able to produce and partially finance his next work, 1492: Conquest Of Paradise, an epic film which told the Christopher Columbus story in a slightly more ambitious fashion than had been done previously. It showed Columbus' disagreements with the European noblemen who didn't want him to go on his voyage, as well as his attempt to civilise the New World. Released 500 years after Columbus' discovery of the Americas, the film was generally disliked but with its captivating beauty and dutiful realism was right up the street of those who did like it. It was Scott's biggest commercial failure and he didn’t work again for 4 years.

By 1995 Tony Scott was also a prominent director, and the brothers joined forces, together setting up Scott Free Productions, whose first production was Ridley’s White Squall, a sentimental and very visually pronounced coming-of-age story about a group of boys' experience on a school sailing trip, which tests them more than they could have expected.

He followed it with another 1990s film about gender equality, G.I. Jane, in which a female senator enlists a female navy lieutenant into a special military training unit, but the heroine isn't interested in making a name for herself, she only wants to prove that women can make equally good Navy SEALs as men. Similar to but more so than Alien and Thelma & Louise, at its heart the film is as much about female empowerment as the action. Directing the film was a bold choice by Ridley Scott; it was possibly his biggest risk, but he took it seriously, using a realistic, almost documentary-like style and exploring all the characters with depth and detail, and in doing so he created an interesting film that, although weak in places, achieves the desired effect and goes a lot further than churning out the plot.

Many great directors have a favourite actor who happens to be on their wavelength. The partnership clicks, and the actor becomes a regular collaborator, with whom they share a friendship and trust over a long period of time. Ridley Scott’s is Russell Crowe.

They first worked together on Scott's first release of the 21st century, his imperial epic, Gladiator. It's a film that has everything movie fans love: a courageous hero, a despicable villain, betrayal, vengeance, poetry, bloodshed, a quotable speech and, unforgettably, one of the finest showcases of its director's range and raw talent for pristine visual beauty, which prevails even during the ugliness of battle. Gladiator uses the true Roman story of Commodus' assassination as a template for a journey into the savagery of the time, and in doing so creates in Maximus a character who had been treated so heartlessly that audiences stood in line in their numbers to see him overthrow the corrupt Empire, and from the ethereal first shot of our hero in the wheat field to the stunning computer-generated Colosseum, it's a visual treat from start to finish.

Ridley Scott recently said “I used to agonize over what to do next, but now I make a movie a year.” This started with Gladiator: it was a huge success, has remained widely loved for 14 years since its release, and gave Scott a new lease of life. He directed Gladiator at the age of 62, and since then he’s been making films at a faster rate with a youthful passion, starting with his direction of the much-awaited Hannibal, sequel to Silence Of The Lambs.

In the same year he directed the African political war thriller Black Hawk Down, which remarkably combines the excitement and action of warfare with a realistic step-by-step account of the action. Scott's main focus was to portray the events as accurately as possible to what really happened in Somalia in 1993, with the camera right alongside the action as much as possible to show the impact of the conflict on the American soldiers, of whom more than half either got injured or lost their lives. Many great actors appear in the film but intentionally there is no star- all the soldiers are in it together, just like it really is in a war situation.

Ridley Scott's biggest successes have come with big budgets but in 2003 he went in a completely new direction with Matchstick Men. This was a much lower-key piece, a comic drama based around the life of a con-man, his neurotic conditions and an inopportune and unexpected arrival which comes just as he happens upon a big heist. Essentially it's a character study, telling three stories- of the man's work, family and personal lives. He came back to the historical film, scaling up again with another epic, Kingdom Of Heaven: a story of war and religion set during the Crusades, but amongst the religious war the film concentrates more on the characters' personal motivations- most of the main characters have their doubts about their religion and about the very war they fight, and what the film hints at is that even today Christian-Muslim relationships could be peaceful and reasonable if not for the religious extremism that has gone on since the Crusades. It was a very brave choice to make the film during the height of the War on Terror, but Ridley Scott was drawn to the film because Bill Monahan's script jumped off the page as having potential for a visual style- everything about the film is big, with lots of landscape photography, epic battle scenes and a colossal ancient Jerusalem which, like Gladiator, was partly built, partly CGI, but difficult to tell.

In 2006 Scott made another low-budget film, A Good Year, a quiet film about a man in a transition period of his life. It was a moment of clarity amongst a busy time for the director, and was the film that he and Russell Crowe wanted to make and enjoyed making, filmed in Scott's own home in Provence. It was a box-office failure but a personal success for the people that made the film and, like Matchstick Men, was an example of Scott showing he's able to take a step back and take it easy on a film, which after thirty years of mostly big-budget action movies (most of which made a lot of money) is refreshing to see.

He entered another genre the following year, with 1960s American gangster film American Gangster. The film tells the success story of Frank Lucas, a black gangster in the 1960s and ‘70s, who brought the business plan to the underworld of organised crime. There isn’t much graphic obscenity in the film, but the first image we see keeps the idea of violence in our minds throughout and immediately sets the tone Scott wanted the film to have. The film’s genius is in telling the crime plot alongside a “good cop” story: Richie is a double-hero; he is simultaneously fighting two worlds of corruption, sacrificing his own personal gain for no reason other than "doing the right thing", and it all leads to an inevitable showdown between good and evil that's more interesting than a standard shoot-out or chase scene. In terms of storytelling, visual accomplishment and setting of mood, it's one of Ridley Scott's masterpieces.

In 2008 he made Body Of Lies, an intelligence thriller about modern warfare, trust and deception, set in post-9/11 Middle East, and two years later he released an interesting and inventive revision of the Robin Hood story, completing the four consecutive films Scott made with Russell Crowe.

In 2012 Scott made a much-anticipated return to science fiction with (what was to be an Alien prequel,) Prometheus. There was a lot of buzz about the film as soon as it was announced but the end product had less to do with the Alien franchise than had been expected, but sharing its mystery, darkness and tension. Even still it was an epic film about uncovering the history of Earth and the creation of life, intertwined with an element of the supernatural. Even the film's cynics couldn't deny its technical achievement and fantastic display of state-of-the-art special effects. It was also Ridley Scott's first venture into 3D. Last year came the thriller The Counsellor, which came from the first screenplay by author Cormac McCarthy. A lot of the focus is on the film's intricate plot and snappy screenplay but Scott's visual style is as dark and engrossing as the script demands.

He's still working at 74- his latest film, Exodus: Gods And Kings, is in the can and set to be released late this year. A new Blade Runner project which has long been in the pipeline has also been announced, to be released in the next few years. He's always been a director with natural flair, and a perfectionist in the creation of visual beauty and setting of mood no matter the content. His films kind of fall under the old adage "when they're good, they're great", but even his more forgettable films look great and are told well.

One thing he always does is values authenticity- he’s made films set in locations all over the globe and times all across history (and the future) and his films are always loyal and respectful to their setting. Apart from a few steps away from the norm, his films have mostly taken place in cities, ranging from 2nd century Rome to the cities of the future in Blade Runner, and that urban setting plays exactly into his hands. He’s a streetwise director who can handle himself in any situation, with a 40-year track record accessible to fans of all tastes across the world, and that alone makes him one of British film's most prolific exports.

[Ludo*1]

Didn't release he was as old as 74, at the current rate he's going, with so many projects, it's a wonder if we'll ever get the second part of the supposed Prometheus trilogy.

[JustOneCornetto]

Great write up again AR, this time on my No.1 pick. Alien is my all time favourite film.

I thought the death of his brother might have curtailed his desire but it's good to see he is still working to make yet more films. He is also involved in some tv work and is currently Executive Producer of The Good Wife.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

Another one from my long list, he missed the cut due to some uninspiring box office fodder like T&L and Kingdom of Heaven. Prometheus was, for me, very disappointing as well.

Having said that, I hadn't even realised (or had forgotten) that he directed American Gangster. That alone would probably have lifted him back up.

In all fairness, I don't think we've seen a bad choice yet, and there's still nearly half the list to go.

[AberdeenBud]

Another one of my top ten, again an amazingly diverse filmography with some of my all time favourites.

Can't say I've ever enjoyed Blade Runner though, have given different versions of it a bash and just found it pretty boring tbh.

[yoda]

Danny Boyle is another I cut late on. A good director with variation is his choice of films. IMO, Sunshine and Trance are his top two films.

Another one from my long list, he missed the cut due to some uninspiring box office fodder like T&L and Kingdom of Heaven.

The director's cut of KOH is excellent. Scott is well placed and when he's on form he's excellent (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator, to name but three) but I don't enjoy the majority of his films. I've turned off a number of them due to boredom.

[Co.Down Hibee]

Black Rain is a very good film, didn't realise he had directed it tbh,

Scott is one of those I'm torn with Aliens ,Gladiator, Thelma and Louise, Black Hawk Down all get a huge thumbs up

on the flipside though we have Prometheus, 1492 , American Gangster, Kingdom of Heaven and one of the great marmite films Bladerunner. none of these films did much for me personally and that's probably why I didn't vote for him. has a habit of making films such as the ones i just mentioned that just end up as a dissapointment.

[Albino Rover]

12. Peter Jackson

In at 12 is the furthest director from home (for most of us), an adventurer, explorer, true visionary and one of the originators of the mainstream cinema of our time.

One of the most important distinctions in Peter Jackson's films is his remarkable attention to detail: he'll often shoot the same action from many different angles and assemble the scene so you almost feel surrounded by the action, at its best overflowing with thrills and intensified by gripping suspense. There have been times when he's spent several days shooting a single scene; even simple conversation scenes often feature dozens of camera angles and shot sizes. He also has a wicked sense of humour and a general playfulness while shooting, which he lets shine through even his darkest films.

He was one of the trendsetters in using combinations of computer enhancement and digital special effects on a huge scale, in fact he's famous for it. He's mastered computer-generated imaging so well that now when you go to see a Peter Jackson film, you don't hope that the visuals are going to be impressive, you know they will be mind-blowing.

He was an originator of his own brand of wacky and absurd cinema, beginning with his first film, Bad Taste. It was a comic horror film, about aliens who come to earth to make humans into food, more accurately, fast food. Jackson had a dual acting role, and in one scene he fights himself on top of a cliff. The cast was mainly made up of Jackson's friends working for nothing, and because everybody had full-time jobs they could only shoot on weekends. He struggled to finish filming because of his limited finances, but the film eventually got completed thanks to a cash boost from the New Zealand Film Commission; it became a cult hit and was released in twelve countries, including at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.

He followed it up with another crazy film, a self-admittedly tasteless puppet musical called Meet The Feebles, featuring animal-headed characters doing drugs and committing adultery, among other wrongdoings. It was originally intended to be a short film but the film's Japanese investors loved it and came up with the funds to make a full-length movie, allowing for more gore, sex and catchy music. It wasn't as successful as Bad Taste but appealed to the same audience, and was another cult hit of the late 1980s.

His third film was the disgustingly over-the-top zombie horror Dead Alive (also released as Braindead), whose graphic horror is so outrageously gruesome that it becomes a morbid comedy, so much so that it's possible it was intended for fans of laughter more than fans of slaughter. It was definitely made exclusively for the strong-stomached, and not for fans of rice pudding.

Yup, that's zombie pus.

Peter Jackson obviously had a lot of fun experimenting in his early career, in a style he called "splat-stick", but with his next film he turned to something more daring, more human and altogether more mature, making a bold decision to adapt a true news story that shocked all of New Zealand in the 1950s, and giving two amazing young starlets (19-year-old Kate Winslet and 16-year-old Melanie Lynskey) their first film roles in his incredible 1994 drama, Heavenly Creatures.

It's a film about friendship as much as anything else. Apart we see the girls are unhappy children, but together they become giddy, almost hysterical playmates, creating an imaginary world of their own and in each other finding true happiness. External factors, including their parents’ suspicious interference, force them out of their fantasy, eventually testing their tolerance and turning those heavenly creatures, those happy little girls into wicked partners in crime. After his earliest films Peter Jackson was a little bit of a joke figure but with Heavenly Creatures he showed profound sensitivity, as well as great courage and an increasing ability to create flawless visuals.

He had a bit of fun with Forgotten Silver, a mockumentary about a forgotten film director, in which he played the man who discovered the lost work of Colin McKenzie, in his shed. Jackson also filmed the fictional footage for use in the film, and you can see in Forgotten Silver that McKenzie's films are done authentically in the style of the directors of early cinema, nothing like Jackson's natural style. That is, until we discover that McKenzie (accidentally) invented the close-up shot, the tracking shot, sound and colour, and inspired the invention of aircraft before the Wright brothers. It was released on TV in New Zealand masquerading as a serious documentary, and so many of its viewers fell for it that Jackson had to publicly explain it was a hoax.

At that time he was making his films at a steady rate of almost one a year, and indulged his comedic side once again with his next work, The Frighteners, in which a man discovers he can talk to the dead, and uses it to his advantage as a con man. Everything happens in The Frighteners- it’s another Peter Jackson horror film, painstakingly made, with a huge amount of work done on make-up, special effects and sound, as well as lots of snappy dialogue and some very ambitious camera work. Those who liked it loved it, but among the critics there was a consensus that the film was a bit too much, that Jackson was better than that, and how right they were.

J.R.R. Tolkein’s “The Lord Of The Rings” had been adapted to film twice previously, into animated features in the late seventies and early ‘80s, but Peter Jackson’s vision of the books was something unprecedented, something completely mind-blowing. A trilogy of epics, full of action, adventure.

Very few filmmakers' works come close to the level of ambition and raw creativity Jackson showed with these films, or their mass popular appeal. The big special effects were used to perfection and on release they very quickly became an international phenomenon. Cinema-goers everywhere were blown away by the use of CGI and other illusions on a massive scale, and of motion-capture (most notably of Gollum,) which was a huge step in the development of live-action animation that we're now seeing improve year on year, giving artificially-created characters an inimitable human body language.

Most mainstream film directors born outside of Hollywood move there to shoot their films, but even with the backing of the American studios Jackson remained in New Zealand for the entire trilogy, and fought to hold the world première of The Return of the King in the Embassy Theatre in his home town of Wellington.

Whatever people say about The Lord Of The Rings films, Peter Jackson was very brave to do them, especially in a much darker and more serious context than the books. They are simply visual masterpieces, and true to the classic novels, together the films have become one of the best loved movie trilogies ever. Peter Jackson was on extremely shaky territory all the way through his journey through Middle Earth, and he hardly put a foot wrong.

Two years later and about 3 and a half stone lighter, Jackson released a modernisation of a classic Hollywood story, and a tribute to the iconic cinematic era of 1930s America, King Kong. The original 1933 film was Jackson's favourite movie as a child, and remaking your favourite film is something almost nobody gets the chance to do. He was meticulously careful and respectful in the planning and shooting of his remake. It was another epic and another blockbuster from a director at the peak of his career, with all the great moments from the original adventure, as well as another all-star cast and special effects even more advanced than those he had flaunted just two years earlier. Jackson's King Kong is possibly the best version of the story; at the very least it does it the most justice. As well as the technological advantage Jackson had over the previous films, his story tries harder to understand Kong, as well as developing his misunderstood relationship with Ann. All the characters in Jackson's King Kong have something the other films never really managed to give them- personality.

After directing four monumental films in the space of five years, Jackson took a long hiatus from directing (during which he made a cameo as the man dressed as Father Christmas who stabbed Sergeant Angel in Hot Fuzz) before beginning work on his next film, The Lovely Bones, a deep drama set partly in the afterlife, with a haunting, chilling quality reminiscent of his horror films, and some big special effects used to create a world beyond death. Jackson was freed by working on a much smaller-scale project and was able to apply more care and attention than previously at all stages in the production, and was able to concentrate on creating a weird and unsettling mood, and stunning work from all of his cast. The reception of the film was possibly Jackson's worst- The Lovely Bones is a controversial film dealing rape and murder with almost a positive spin on the fate of the victim, which didn't sit well with a lot of people, but Jackson's direction is certainly one of its saving graces.

After one of his biggest critical failures he took a bit more time out to concentrate on his next project, and in 2011, nearly ten years after beginning his already legendary trilogy, he returned to Middle Earth to start work on another.

Jackson began his trio of prequels with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a spectacle from start to finish which, just like the films of the earlier trilogy, made an admirable attempt at staying loyal to the book with the same visual imagination and even more superior technology, and the unmistakable Peter Jackson factor throughout the fantastic adventure.

The second part of the trilogy, The Desolation Of Smaug, was released last year, and his next film will be the final part of The Hobbit trilogy, There And Back Again. With his extensive work in the production of the Tin Tin trilogy he's lined up to direct the second instalment, Prisoners Of The Sun.

What's obvious about Peter Jackson is that he's absolutely fearless. He's a taker of huge risks, for whom no cinematic challenge is too big. He's always been an incredibly hard worker and even after tens of takes he's a "one more for luck" director, but there's never anything lucky about the outcome: every shot, movement, every lux of light, every note in the score is orchestrated to precision, but above the hard work and dedication, even in his most serious drama and epic films, what brings them back down to earth is a sense of fun.

He's also a milestone film director for his country. New Zealand has a rich history in filmmaking but, noticably after World War II, became much less influential with a fraction of the number of films being made there than in the silent era. Peter Jackson is undoubtedly the biggest and most influential force in putting New Zealand back on the world stage: all of his films have been at least partly shot in his home country, and that has already been one of his biggest legacies, making him a hero on both sides of the Pacific.

[yoda]

Shame on you, P&B. Shame on you. He shouldn't be this high up. The LOTR trilogy is an excellent piece of filmmaking and Heavenly Creatures is okay (it's really, really average but it is watchable) but everything else has been poor.

The Hobbit trilogy is dull and has too much reliance on needless special effects. King Kong can be filed under "Overrated, Bloated, CGI, w**k". The Lovely Bones was just awful. I've since bits of his other stuff but it was background viewing that failed to hold my attention but then horror isn't really my bag.

One trick pony with the LOTR trilogy and he'll live off it for the rest of his career.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

Shame on you, P&B. Shame on you. He shouldn't be this high up. The LOTR trilogy is an excellent piece of filmmaking and Heavenly Creatures is okay (it's really, really average but it is watchable) but everything else has been poor.

The Hobbit trilogy is dull and has too much reliance on needless special effects. King Kong can be filed under "Overrated, Bloated, CGI, w**k". The Lovely Bones was just awful. I've since bits of his other stuff but it was background viewing that failed to hold my attention but then horror isn't really my bag.

One trick pony with the LOTR trilogy and he'll live off it for the rest of his career.

He was higher in my list, and would have been even higher had it not been for the money-grabbing stretch of the Hobbit into three pretty lengthy films, with plot and character mutilation along the way.

King Kong wasn't something that was ever going to make my list of top films, but given the storyline Jackson made the best possible fist of it, IMHO.

One Trick Pony? Obviously not, with even you listing four completely separate types of movie in your post.

I enjoyed the lo-fi feel of Bad Taste, and now have to go and find Forgotten Silver, which I'll admit to never having heard of, but sounds right up my street.

"One Trick Pony with the LOTR Trilogy". A bit like Hendrix being not that much of a singer, or "That Messi's a pish keeper".

[Ludo*1]

WhiteRoseKillie, on 15 Apr 2014 - 14:45, said:

He was higher in my list, and would have been even higher had it not been for the money-grabbing stretch of the Hobbit into three pretty lengthy films, with plot and character mutilation along the way.

King Kong wasn't something that was ever going to make my list of top films, but given the storyline Jackson made the best possible fist of it, IMHO.

One Trick Pony? Obviously not, with even you listing four completely separate types of movie in your post.

I enjoyed the lo-fi feel of Bad Taste, and now have to go and find Forgotten Silver, which I'll admit to never having heard of, but sounds right up my street.

"One Trick Pony with the LOTR Trilogy". A bit like Hendrix being not that much of a singer, or "That Messi's a pish keeper".

I like Peter Jackson, but can totally understand the point that outwith the LOTR trilogy, has he done anything much of note to state that he's P&B's 12th best director of all time? Granted, the LOTR's is a fantastic franchise, but is that enough?

[yoda]

"One Trick Pony with the LOTR Trilogy". A bit like Hendrix being not that much of a singer, or "That Messi's a pish keeper".

All three films were filmed at exactly the same time and as such they are essentially the same, one, project. So really nothing like your comparisons.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

All three films were filmed at exactly the same time and as such they are essentially the same, one, project. So really nothing like your comparisons.

The analogy I was trying to draw was that, while outside the LOTR film(s) (I agree, btw, that they should be treated as one opus), there is a case to be made for him not having the volume of work of an Eastwood or a Scorsese, the creation of those films alone does, in my opinion, justify him as worthy of inclusion. The source material is obviously important, but the way he brought Tolkien's words to life was simply superb.

Ballpark figure for the LOTR movies - anything between 10 and over 12 hours, depending on cut. That's between 5 and 8 "normal" length features. Not many of the directors listed so far have produced as much top quality output.

I'll accept the term "one-trick pony", if you accept that the trick is a pony unicycling across Victoria falls while playing the guitar break from "Aqualung" and balancing a bowling ball on its nose.

[yoda]

That's a fair enough response. "One trick pony" was perhaps the wrong phrase to use but I feel my general point is that he will continue to gain praise that isn't merited because of LOTR. It will elevate him above other, more accomplished directors, despite the other rubbish he's come out with.

While "LOTR is a better piece of work than many other directors have done" is a fair comment, it's also true to say that he's certainly more inconsistent and has given us significantly weaker films than other directors on this list. For example: Boyle and Anderson are consistently better than Jackson, and Ridley Scott has never made a film as mind-numbingly dull and as messy as Jackson did in The Lovely Bones.

[AberdeenBud]

I loved brain dead and bad taste as a teenager.

"Derek's don't give up "

Think the LOTR series is fantastic as well. Superb version of the "unfilmable" books, imo.

[Co.Down Hibee]

I've never seen the LOTR trilogy so can't say too much about Jackson, I have seen King Kong which I thought was an excellent film and for some reason seems to come in for a lot of criticism.