With a career that goes back seven decades, Robert De Niro has made an impact on just about every genre, but he’ll always be viewed as a legend from gangster films. From The Godfather Part II to Once Upon A Time In America to The Untouchables to Goodfellas and more, he is a star who has an outsized impact on the history of organized impact in cinema, and it’s an unignorable aspect of his oeuvre.

If this reflection feels familiar, it’s because it’s one movie-lovers analyzed a great deal relatively recently around the release of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. In 2019, the film ended up being worthy of the legacy talk, as it’s an epic on a tier with De Niro’s best – but six years later, Barry Levinson’s The Alto Knights feels like a drop of poison in the well. You don’t want to think about the actor’s history in the genre in concert with it because it has no positive contributions.

On top of Robert De Niro starring in a new gangster movie, the gimmick here is that the star plays dual roles, but the fact that this ends up being a very badly executed gimmick is only part of the film’s problems. Constantly dumping out exposition and the story dragging at a snail’s pace, the narrative lacks even the most remote concept of energy and never delivers a single satisfying sequence (despite coming from two filmmaking greats in Levinson and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi). Practically every scene drags out two minutes longer than necessary, the dialogue so stilted and empty that it feels like bad improv, and while it occasionally tricks you into thinking something interesting is coming around the corner, nothing of the sort ever materializes.

Robert De Niro plays both Frank Costello and Vito Genovese – major New York City crime figures through the middle decades of the 20^th century. While the two men grew up together and long see each other as best friends, their dynamic changes when Vito flees the country to avoid criminal charges and leaves his criminal enterprise in Frank’s hands to control.

Everything in the underworld is running smoothly thanks to Frank’s leadership, but when Vito returns to the United States, the edgy, quick-tempered gangster not only wants his power back, but he wants to introduce hard drugs into the business. Amenable, Frank cedes some power, but their conflict continues to escalate – heat added by government investigations into organized crime – until the point where Vito puts out a hit on his childhood pal that ends up being botched.

In a year full of dual performances, Robert De Niro seriously underwhelms.

Between Robert De Niro in The Alto Knights, Theo James in The Monkey, Robert Pattinson in Mickey 17, and Michael B. Jordan in the upcoming Sinners, audiences are seeing a lot of dual performances on the big screen in the first half of 2025. De Niro’s turn will not be remembered as a highlight of the trend.

Part of the problem is the general approach; unlike all of the other movies mentioned above, Frank Costello and Vito Genovese are not brothers or twins or clones, and as independent people, there is not enough distinguishing them to make the dual performance interesting. Vito is a hothead and wears dark glasses everywhere, and Frank is more relaxed and has a bit more hair. That’s pretty much the full extent of it. Mostly, you’re just actively aware of De Niro trying to pull off a dual performance and the job not getting done.

The forced scenes where the two characters interact one-on-one are wholly unreal – and not just because of the clear efforts to otherwise make the sequences as simple as possible (the two men generally sitting on opposite sides of restaurant tables and left undisturbed ). With editing sharing some of the blame, it’s never convincing that they having a natural conversation; the attempted dual performance is constantly transparent, and it never lets you engage with the content of the interaction.

The story in The Alto Knights is terribly uninteresting, and the dialogue is maddening.

To be fair, the distraction of De Niro’s double work is somewhat welcome in the sense that it’s something to actively contemplate as scene after scene of dull conversations unfurl. There are what feel like a dozen scenes that play out with this rhythm:

“He doesn’t trust you.”
“He doesn’t trust me?"
“He doesn’t trust you.”
“What do you mean he doesn’t trust me?
“He doesn’t trust you because of that thing you did.”
“How could he not trust me because of that thing I did? How dare he!”
“What can I say? He doesn’t trust you.”

If I’m being generous, I’d say that it’s a swing at natural, off-the-cuff dialogue, but they drag on excessively and are of so little substance that you find yourself mentally begging for the film to move on.

Adding insult to injury is the laziness of the storytelling. It’s bad enough that the movie takes the shortcut of an in medias res opening by starting the first act with the failed assassination of Frank Costello (easily the most interesting thing that happens in the two-hour runtime), but the story is also spoon fed to the audience with Frank providing constant voiceover narration explaining what is happening (the film also frequently cuts to shots of him telling his story directly into the camera that are ultimately given zero context). Like Robert De Niro, Nicholas Pileggi is a legend in the gangster genre – his credits including Goodfellas and Casino – but The Alto Knights is a title to be forgotten from his filmography.

While I don’t like to give away spoilers in reviews, this is a film where the big third act climax is a bunch of crime bosses fleeing a gathering when they spot police officers writing down license plate numbers; meanwhile, the protagonist is killing time going to roadside fruit stand on his way to the meeting. The Alto Knights looks like it had the potential to be a genre classic on paper, but the execution leaves one wanting in just about every respect, and I’m willing to bet that anyone who sees it on the big screen will be challenged to remember details from it in a year’s time.

The directors on this list are among the greatest in the history of cinema, with films that are considered the best of all time; films that will never be forgotten. What about those movies they brought all their tremendous talents to, but which aren’t remembered as well? Here is our list of great movies, by great directors, that don’t get talked about enough these days. 

The Frighteners - Peter Jackson

The Frighteners is such a great movie, and it’s criminally underrated. No, it's not as sprawling or overwhelming as Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, but it has all the heart and more. Michael J. Fox leads as a con man/exorcist who can see and interact with ghosts. The Frightners is really funny, well-paced, and delightful. 

The King Of Comedy - Martin Scorsese 

When you think of Martin Scorsese, “comedy” is not usually the first word that pops into your head, but The King Of Comedy is really a pretty great movie, and while it’s technically a comedy, it’s really dark. Goodfellas has some comedy in it, like Joe Pesci acting like a clown… but a true (dark) comedy? This Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis-led film stands alone in Scorsese’s canon. 

Peggy Sue Got Married - Francis Ford Coppola

Peggy Sue Got Married is a deceptively simple film. Unlike Francis Ford Coppola’s more-talked-about epics like The Godfather films and Apocalypse Now, this film, starring Nicolas Cage and Kathleen Turner, is smaller, but that doesn’t mean it’s lesser. It’s a weird time-travel tale, but at its heart, it’s really a love story, and while it's not Coppola’s best work, it’s well worth a watch and should be talked about more often. 

Jackie Brown - Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Taratino has famously said that his next movie, his 10th, could be his last. Whether that holds true or not remains to be seen, but it’s a safe bet Jackie Brown will still be his least talked about.

Strange Days - Kathryn Bigelow

Kathryn Bigelow’s won Oscars (for The Hurt Locker) and she’s directed cult classics (Point Break). Strange Days is certainly closer to the latter. In it, Bigelow dabbles in science fiction, a rarity for her, but it’s unsurprising, as Strange Days was written by her then-husband James Cameron. It doesn’t have the iconic quotes that Point Break has, nor is it as white-knuckle as The Hurt Locker, but it is a great time capsule to filmmaking in the mid-90s and well worth remembering. 

Amistad - Steven Spielberg

Wedged between The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Saving Private Ryan in Steven Spielberg’s filmography, is Amistad. It’s easy to understand why this powerful historical drama revolving around a landmark court case regarding the slave trade is overlooked, but it shouldn’t be. It’s a moving story, told expertly as only Spielberg can, with a monster cast including Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman, and Djimon Hounsou, among many others. 

Clockers - Spike Lee

Let’s be clear here, Clockers is not Spike Lee’s finest work. It doesn’t reach the heights of movies like Do The Right Thing or Malcolm X, but it's still a really good movie. It gets lost in Lee’s stellar filmography, which is understandable. It’s also a testament to just how good Lee’s career has been. 

Talk Radio - Oliver Stone

Talk Radio has everything you expect from an Oliver Stone movie. Its pacing and storytelling are perfect, it’s a fascinating and terrifying story that pulls from the real-world events of a murdered radio show host. It also has a healthy dose of conspiracy, as any great Stone film does. 

The Bling Ring - Sofia Coppola

Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring is a meta-tastic heist film that is not only a ton of fun to watch with celebrity cameos and great acting performances, but it also touches on some of the emerging trends that exploded in the years after the movie came out, notably influencer culture. It’s too often overlooked in Coppola’s stellar filmography. 

The Game - David Fincher

David Fincher is a master, and his filmography is full of great movies, like Se7en and Fight Club. The movie he made between those two classic is The Game with Sean Penn and Michael Douglas. Understandably, it’s overshadowed, but it’s an amazing film that is every bit as good as those two more talked-about movies. Even when people watch Fincher’s whole body of work, The Game gets overlooked and it shouldn’t. 

Casualties Of War - Brian De Palma

Casualties of War was released in 1989, which was the tail end of a slew of excellent Vietnam War movies released in the late ‘80s, like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Hamburger Hill. Despite earning well-deserved praise from critics, the Brian De Palma film bombed, and as such, it's unfortunately one of the director’s least talked about movies when it should be one of the most. 

Matchstick Men - Ridley Scott

Usually, when movie fans talk about Ridley Scott, it’s his sprawling historical epics like Gladiator or Napoleon that dominate the conversation, along with sci-fi classics like Alien and Blade Runner. Matchstick Men is a smaller movie, a dark comedy about a con man with a myriad of personal problems played by Nicolas Cage. It’s a wonderful performance by Cage, and despite not performing well at the box office, it’s been well-reviewed over the years.

Inherent Vice - Paul Thomas Anderson

Inherent Vice from Paul Thomas Anderson is a complicated movie, based on a complicated book by Thomas Pinchon. It’s easy to understand why it’s not as talked about as some of Anderson’s other movies, like There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights, but it’s every bit as good as those, featuring great acting performances and wonderful cinematography. 

Out Of Sight - Steven Soderbergh

Steven Soderberg is known for stylish filming techniques with snappy dialog and interesting plot twists. It’s all right there in Out Of Sight, but the movie still gets overlooked. It was Soderbergh’s first big-budget film, and maybe that’s why it doesn’t get talked about enough. It was also his first collaboration with George Clooney, which makes it even more confounding that it’s not more popular. 

Barry Lyndon - Stanley Kubrick

It’s hard to really argue that any of Stanley Kubrick’s films are not talked about enough, but Barry Lyndon comes the closest here. It’s most revered for its cinematography, but it’s also a wonderful story. While it doesn’t have the panache of A Clockwork Orange or the scope of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s still a Kubrick film and it’s one of the best ever made. 

Stardust - Matthew Vaughn

Matthew Vaughn has quietly put together one of the finest resumes in Hollywood. The Kingsman movies are a hot franchise, he’s dabbled in Marvel, and may have inspired the choice of Daniel Craig as James Bond after directing him in Layer Cake. Stardust seems to get lost in the shuffle, but it’s maybe, low key, his best film. 

Ryan's Daughter - David Lean

David Lean is rightfully most remembered for three films, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago. Lost in the discussion of those films is Ryan’s Daughter, a retelling of Madame Bovary set at the end of World War I. It was the last film Lean directed for 14 years and we can only wonder what he might have done had he not semi-retired. 

Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson has developed one of the most distinct styles in film history, which translates brilliantly to animation, as well. Anderson’s first foray into the genre was Fantastic Mr. Fox, starring George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Bill Murray, among others. While it may never outshine his live-action classics, it should be discussed more as one of his best works. 

Bound - The Wachowskis

The DNA of the Wachowskis is very evident in Bound, their first movie. It was made on a shoestring budget, so it doesn’t have the over-the-top effects of The Matrix series, but you can see where they were headed in their filmmaking. 

Intolerable Cruelty - Coen Brothers

When you have a filmography like the Coen Brothers, inevitably, some of the movies won’t get talked about as much as others. Intolerable Cruelty is one of those that gets lost in the mix, behind movies like The Big Lebowski and others that are among the best movies of the ‘90s and beyond. 

Insomnia - Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan is among the most beloved directors of the 21st century, creating what feels like independent films, but with monster budgets. That DNA was on display early in his career with Insomnia, which has everything you’d expect from a Nolan movie, but with less than half the budget of Oppenheimer. 

The Fan - Tony Scott

There are few better action directors in Hollywood history than Tony Scott. Most remembered today for classics like Top Gun, and Days of Thunder, The Fan should be talked about more. It’s not a perfect movie, but De Niro’s performance is terrifying (in a great way) as a baseball fan obsessed with Wesley Snipes' character. It’s action horror, and it’s great. 

Vincent And Theo - Robert Altman

Robert Altman had one of the most up-and-down careers in Hollywood history. After a string of successes in the ‘80s, his career was almost sunk by Popeye. It took years for him to rebound, but he did with Vincent & Theo. That led to a career revival, but it’s hardly remembered anymore, overshadowed by his early and later films. 

She's Having A Baby - John Hughes

One of the biggest reasons John Hughes is so loved by people who came of age in the ‘80s and ‘90s was his ability to write and direct genuine teenage characters. That extended to a young married couple starting their lives together in She’s Having A Baby. It’s not as quotable as some of Hughes’ other movies, but it’s still sharply written and a fun watch. 

Only The Lonely - Chris Columbus

Chris Columbus has some directed some huge films in his career, most notably Home Alone and Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone. He's also got movies like Mrs. Doubtfire and Adventures in Babysitting on his resume. One film that is not talked about enough is Only The Lonely starring John Candy as a man looking for a wife, but dealing with a controlling mother. 

Beowulf - Robert Zemeckis

Generations of high schoolers have been confounded and frustrated by Beowulf. Some love the old English classic, but many hate it. It takes a bold director to take it on as a movie. Robert Zemeckis makes it work, and work well. Still, given the material, it’s not a surprise it’s not talked about as much as Zemeckis’ more popular movies like Back to the Future. 

Great Expectations - Alfonso Cuaron

Director Alfonso Cuaron has made some of the best movies of the last 20 years, including Roma, Gravity, and Y tu mamá también. One of his films that doesn’t get talked about much anymore is 1998’s Great Expectations starring Gwenyth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke. It’s a bold modernization of the classic Dickens novel that can be polarizing, but still worth talking about more.

Ed Wood - Tim Burton

Of all the movies Tim Burton has made, it’s unsurprising that Ed Wood is one of his least discussed. It’s a love letter to legendary B-Movie director Ed Wood, and despite being filled to the brim with great performances, it's not as popular as many of Burton’s other works. 

Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil - Clint Eastwood

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is not exactly the kind of film you might expect from Clint Eastwood, but you should. Some of his best work is when he strays away from the tough guy movies he’s so well known for and this is a great one, starring John Cusack and Kevin Spacey. 

Away We Go - Sam Mendes

Sam Mendes is best known for movies that cover heavy topics, movies like American Beauty, 1917, and Road to Perdition. That's probably the reason 2009's Away We Go with John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph isn't talked about as much, but it's a sweet movie about a couple dealing with major changes in their life and how to handle them. 

Sleepers - Barry Levinson

Sleepers is a dark, dark film. It's also really, really good. With an all-star cast that includes Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Kevin Bacon, and many more, it's surprising it doesn't get talked about as much as some of director Barry Levinson's other work, but given the subject matter, it can be a very hard watch.  

High Anxiety - Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks is a living legend and his filmography is filled with some of the most quotable movies of all time. One that doesn't get quoted much, or even talked about much, is High Anxiety. It was, believe it or not, the first time Mel Brooks also played the lead in one of his movies, so that alone should garner more attention. 

Great directors usually have long filmographies, so it's only natural that some of their finest work would be talked about less than their most groundbreaking or biggest films. That said, many movies should be talked about as much as those classics, but aren't. Here's to that changing now! 

Hollywood is loaded with iconic directors who have given audiences some of the best entertainment for decades. For that reason, they're often given more work, which always opens them up to giving audiences more to love... or something they may really, really hate. Most of these icons hit far more often than they miss, though even the greatest have that movie where they struck out.

To be completely upfront, there will be some hot takes on this list. Every item on this list is the lowest-rated movie from the mentioned iconic director on Rotten Tomatoes, so blame the critics of the time, not me. With that out of the way, let's run down the list of terrible movies from iconic directors that may or may not deserve a spotlight.

Guillermo Del Toro - Blade 2

Ironically, what many would consider the best Blade movie is also the worst movie made by Guillermo del Toro. Not that Del Toro is ever really given a ton of blame for that; his job was to direct, and he did his best with the script he was given. Unfortunately, even the most foreboding and dark areas fall flat when the movie uses fight scenes with dialogue only to move Blade along to the next fight scene. Thankfully, del Toro would win critics over in the superhero genre with his two Hellboy movies down the road.

David Lynch - Dune

David Lynch had a tremendous task cut out for him in Dune, and by most metrics to this day, he failed. The man who perfectly captured the life of The Elephant Man somehow couldn't find a proper way to adapt Frank Herbert's classic in a way that could be easily understood by its audience. The movie is widely considered a miss for Lynch, and while he's come close with a couple of features, it's the only movie of his considered "rotten" by critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

George Lucas- Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

George Lucas' track record is somewhat skewed considering 2/3rds of his directing work is for Star Wars projects, but he did create the franchise after all. Unfortunately, he also gifted the world the most critically panned entry in the franchise, The Phantom Menace. I thought it was fine in my younger years, but a recent re-watch made me question why plans for the trilogy weren't heavily reconsidered after that entry alone. Was the world just so desperate for more Star Wars that they looked past it? Obviously, there were people who knew right out the gate, as many critics were not shy to say this wasn't nearly on the same level as A New Hope.

Martin Scorsese- Boxcar Bertha

When it comes to violent movies that revolve around a world of crime, typically Martin Scorsese is the guy to call. That said, that wasn't known back when he made Boxcar Bertha, which was only his second directorial feature at the time. Hilariously enough, most of the complaints were due to the violence, which was often a criticism Scorsese has gotten for successive films that are now considered masterpieces. Unfortunately, Boxcar Bertha has not been nearly as acclaimed as the rest.

Tim Burton- Dark Shadows

Tim Burton has a knack for putting his own spin on classic stories, even with works that may not initially seem like they could work with his dark charm. Weirdly enough, Dark Shadows seemed like a perfect and relatively sensible fit for Burton, and he had Johnny Depp on board. It should've been a hit, but critics found the premise played out. The jokes fell flat and Burton was criticized for struggling to find a tone throughout the movie. Sometimes the "sure things" in Hollywood just don't work out in execution, and this movie is proof positive of that.

Peter Jackson - The Lovely Bones

Peter Jackson is known for a lot of things, but paranormal thrillers aren't really his bag. Sure, Frodo did turn invisible a handful of times in The Lord Of The Rings, but even in the context of all he'd done before this movie, The Lovely Bones was a pretty out-there film for Jackson. Of course, that was part of the point, as Jackson went on the record saying he enjoyed doing something that wasn't a large-scale epic for once. Three years later he was doing The Hobbit, though it's worth noting he wasn't the first choice.

Steven Spielberg - Hook

Hook is a beloved classic by many, but that was not how it was received by critics. This movie got a thorough thrashing for being an ill-begotten story of Peter Pan and was hated by critics so much that its aggregate Rotten Tomatoes score is a measly 28%. The movie was called unimaginative, the effects were not well integrated, and the overall story was garbled down by too many Hollywood ideals. Perhaps the biggest criticism was that it had such a great premise, but did so little to further adapt or bring in elements from the original story.

Ridley Scott - A Good Year

Similar to what I touched on earlier with Peter Jackson, there are things iconic directors are known for, and things they aren't. When you think of Ridley Scott, I highly doubt you think of romantic comedies. Scott has a wide range of movies he can make a hit, and with Russell Crowe as the lead in A Good Year, it stood to reason he could do it again. This time it just didn't happen, as the end result was seen as a soulless romantic comedy that went on a little too long. It's not necessarily bad, but certainly not one anyone needs to make time for.

David Fincher - Alien 3

The final entry is the most perhaps fitting, because not even David Fincher will defend Alien 3. The third installment in the Alien franchise already had a lot to live up to with the first two movies, which was directed by two other directing icons, Ridley Scott and James Cameron. Unfortunately, Fincher's film wasn't considered nearly as exciting or bold as the prior two films, though it has gathered its share of fans over the years. Still, when even Fincher himself disowns it, it's hard not to side with the crowd who thinks this sequel just wasn't up to par.

Spike Lee - She Hate Me

She Hate Me has all the ingredients for a great film. It's a challenging script from Spike Lee and Michael Genet, it has a dynamite cast that includes Anthony Mackie, in one of his earliest roles, and Kerry Washington in the lead roles, and, of course, is directed by Lee, one of the most acclaimed directors of the last 30+ years. The movie misses though, weighted down by the heavy message it tries to make while also trying to be a comedy. 

Barry Levinson - Sphere

After the huge success of Jurassic Park in 1993, Hollywood was clamoring to adapt other Michael Crichton novels. The mid and late '90s were chock full of adaptions like The 13th Warrior, Congo, Rising Sun, and Disclosure. Right in that mix was Barry Levinson's adaptation of Sphere and while the book was fantastic, the movie just falls flat, perhaps because people staring at mysterious orb for most of a movie isn't all that exciting. 

Sam Raimi - For Love Of The Game

Director Sam Raimi has a remarkable hit record, with only a couple movies rating below 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest being the Kevin Costner baseball movie For Love Of The Game. If you love Costner and baseball, it's actually a decent movie, but it isn't Raimi's best, that's for sure. 

Francis Ford Coppola - Jack

Francis Ford Coppola had a run in the 1970s that is almost unprecedented in Hollywood with The Godfather movies, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now. He found success in the 1980s too, with movies like The Outsiders and Tucker: A Man and His Dream. Then there is 1996's Jack. All you can ask is, "What were Coppola and Robin Williams thinking?"

Penny Marshall - Renaissance Man

The late Penny Marshall is a Hollywood icon for many reasons. Renaissance Man is not one of them. If you've never seen it (which wouldn't be surprising) think of it like Dead Poet's Society crossed with Pauly Shore's In The Army Now, and just as unfunny as the latter. Danny DeVito plays a guy who loves quoting Shakespeare and finds himself teaching army recruits how to read. That's all you need to know, really, there is no reason to ever watch it. 

Oliver Stone - Alexander

Oliver Stone knows how to tell a war story. His Vietnam films Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July rank among the best war movies of all time. His telling of the ancient battle of Alexander the Great in Alexander is as good. The original release was a hot mess and while he has improved it with a couple of subsequent director's cuts, it still doesn't hold a candle to his other films. 

Ivan Reitman - Father's Day

The late Ivan Reitman has always been hit-or-miss with critics. Even some of his most popular movies, like Twins, were poorly reviewed. His worst movie though, based on both audience and critics' scores. is Father's Day starring Billy Crystal and Robin Williams as two men trying to find their former lovers' son to determine which man is the father. It's... not funny, nor is it heartfelt. It's just a miss. 

Amy Heckerling - Night At The Roxbury

Clueless and Fast Times At Ridgemont High are two of the most beloved teen comedies of all time, both define two generations. For director Amy Heckerling they are high water marks in her career. On the other side of those is Night At The Roxbury. Though it’s her lowest-ranked movie on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s not the worst movie based on SNL characters, so it could be worse. 

Kathryn Bigelow - The Weight of Water

Oscar-winner Katheryn Bigelow is pretty picky about the movies she chooses to direct, and most of the time, she nails it, like The Hurt Locker, Point Break, and Zero Dark Thirty. Occasionally she misses, like The Weight Of Water. Though it’s nowhere near the worst movie on this list, it’s still the worst of her movies according to the critics on Rotten Tomatoes. 

The Coen Brothers - The Ladykillers

When your worst-reviewed movie on Rotten Tomatoes is still 54%, you’re doing pretty well. For the Coen Brothers, The Ladykillers is a very rare example of a miss, as they have 13 movies north of 80%. I’m a fan of The Ladykillers and I think it’s vastly underrated, but sticking with the rules, it’s the one of this list. I’d have Hail! Caesar at the bottom, however. 

Danny Boyle - The Beach

Before Alex Garland became an acclaimed director of movies like 2024’s Civil War, he was a novelist. He wrote The Beach in the ‘90s and captivated a generation of would-be adventure travelers. Combine that with the talents of the great director Danny Boyle and star Leonardo DiCaprio and you’d think there was no way the movie would be bad. The Beach isn’t terrible, but it’s not Boyle’s best work by far. It just misses the sense of adventure the novel has. 

Alfonso Cuarón - Great Expectations

Alfonso Cuarón takes his time when making a movie, and while Great Expectations is no exception, it falls short of the lofty expectations we have of the director. Sure, it’s based on a classic novel (though a modern retelling of the Dickens book) and it has a great cast, but it just misses. It’s certainly not up to his usual standards. 

Alex & Emma - Rob Reiner

Some of the best rom-coms of all time have been directed by Rob Reiner. Alex & Emma, starring Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson is not one of them. It’s a rare miss from the This is Spinal Tap director, with a brutal 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 

M. Night Shyamalan - The Last Airbender

M. Night Shyamalan has never really been a critical darling, but his fans always stick up for him, with one exception: The Last Airbender. The movie, based on the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise, is despised by critics and fans alike, especially fans of the source material. 

Eagle Vs. Shark - Taika Waititi

As debut movies go, Taika Waititi’s Eagle Vs. Shark isn’t that bad. The director’s now-legendary humor is very evident, but it’s clearly a low-budget first outing for Waititi. It’s excusable, given what would come later. What is less excusable is the miss he had with Thor: Love & Thunder, but it’s still better ranked than this one, for some reason. If given the choice between the two, pick Eagle Vs. Shark.

James Cameron - Piranha II: The Spawning

Okay, so this one really isn’t fair. The worst movie that the great James Cameron directed is a B-movie called Piranha II: The Spawning. From the title alone, you know it’s going to be bad. There isn’t much redeemable about it, except that it got Cameron’s foot in the door in Hollywood and his next movie, The Terminator has a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, so you can ignore the 5% this one got. 

Ron Howard - Inferno

Did you know that Ron Howard and Tom Hanks teamed up for three movies based on the books of Dan Brown? You probably remember The Da Vinci Code and you might have even seen Angels & Demons but there is a third, terrible installment in the franchise called Inferno. CinemaBlend called Howard’s direction “slow, ponderous and dull,” which is not what you explicit from the Hollywood legend. 

Robert Altman - Beyond Therapy

Throughout his career, director Robert Altman had some serious highs, like The Player and MASH, but he also had some pretty low lows, and none were lower than Beyond Therapy in 1987. It came at a low point overall in the legendary director’s career, a time that also included similarly poorly reviewed movies like Popeye and O.C. and Stiggs.

Ivan Reitman - Beverly Hills Cop III

This one is a little unfair, because Ivan Reitman and Eddie Murphy have both made worse movies, but it likely suffers from coming on the heals of two previous Beverly Hills Cop movies that are, without a doubt, superior to this sequel. 

Elia Kazan - The Arrangement

There is no doubt of Elia Kazan’s place in Hollywood history. Considered one of the most influential directors of all time, fans of his can also boast that his movies launched the careers of actors like Marlon Brando and James Dean. However, not every movie he made was a classic and while The Arrangement has been somewhat re-evaluated in recent years, it still holds a dismal 15% ranking on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Brian De Palma - The Bonfire Of The Vanities

Tom Wolfe has only had a couple of books adapted into movies. The first, The Right Stuff is one of the best movies about The Cold War. The second, The Bonfire of the Vanities, directed by Brian De Palma, is… not very good. In fact, it’s pretty brutal. It tries hard to hit all the cultural critiques that Wolfe laid out in his novel, but it just doesn’t get the point across nearly as well. It’s a clunky mess. 

Richard Linklater - Bad News Bears

When he sticks with his own original stories and writes his own screenplays, Richard Linklater is a master. Movies like Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, and Boyhood are iconic. The Bad News Bears is also iconic, just not the remake Linklater directed in 2005. The original is far, far better. 

Gus Van Sant - Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

For Gen X, the combination of Gus Van Sant and novelist Tom Robbins was an enticing prospect. Sadly, the movie adaptation of Robbins’ classic Even Cowgirls Get The Blues is simply a disappointment, a very rare miss for Van Sant, especially at that point in his career coming off the back-to-back masterpieces Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho. 

The last time Michael Keaton had a semi-regular TV role was for the TNT miniseries The Company back in 2007, which was headed up by current NCIS: Los Angeles star Chris O'Donnell. Since then, he's made some appearances on SNL, 30 Rock, Documentary Now! and a few other shows, but now Keaton has signed on for his first major leading TV role since 1982's short-lived Report to Murphy. What's more, he's heading to Hulu for it.

Michael Keaton has signed on to star in the new limited series Dopesick, which is set for a 2021 premiere. The project received a straight-to-series order from Hulu, without the need for a prolonged development cycle. Keaton definitely isn't the only big name involved, either, as the opioid-centered Dopesick will be directed by Rain Man and Wag the Dog director Barry Levinson, who has made a name for himself in recent years helming hard-hitting TV movie biopics such as Paterno and The Wizard of Lies.

Based on the Beth Macy bestelling book of the same name, Dopesick is an all-encompassing look at the opioid crisis that has taken over the U.S. in recent decades. The book offers a deep dive into the drug-related struggle, taking its story into the inner workings of the DEA, the pharmaceutical companies in New York City, a Virginia mining town and more. With tales that are as undeniably human as they are unsettling, Dopesick peels back the curtain on one of America's lesser-discussed plagues, while still keeping the faith that this is only a limited-time blight on the face of the country.

Within Dopesick, Michael Keaton will play "an old-school doctor" (per the press release) named Samuel Finnix. His signature style is to handle patients with kindness and sympathy, but he soon gets wrapped up in the controversies tied to Big Pharma and the proliferation of opioid prescriptions making up the worst drug epidemic that the U.S. has ever faced. Keaton will also be an executive producer on the project.

Dopesick is being written by the Emmy-winning Danny Strong, who most notably co-created Fox's Empire. Strong is clearly no stranger to gripping TV, and he won his Emmys for the 2012 TV movie Game Change, and was nominated for penning the election-based 2009 TV movie Recount, both from HBO. This project definitely seems like it would have been right up HBO's alley, so it's almost surprising that Hulu ended up with it.

Craig Erwich, the Senior Vice President of Originals at Hulu, had these excited words to say about landing this gripping project.

Hulu has had a decent year so far in 2020, having released critic-friendly dramas such as The Great, Little Fires Everywhere and Normal People, with noteworthy future releases that include Kate McKinnon's The Dropout and Nicole Kidman's Nine Perfect Strangers, with the latter bringing former Mike and Molly star Melissa McCarthy back to TV. Viewers are no doubt also hoping to hear about a second season of The Act, as well as the fourth season of arguably Hulu's biggest hit, The Handmaid's Tale.

Michael Keaton has quite a few big projects on the way, with his next feature being Aaron Sorkin's star-studded crime drama The Trial of the Chicago 7. He'll also be in the upcoming Spider-Man spinoff Morbius, with Jared Leto playing the titular vampire, though it's not yet clear if Keaton will be reprising his Vulture role or not. Keaton, who was reportedly asked to star in The Witcher, also has the crime drama The Asset coming, for which he starred opposite fellow Marvel star Samuel L. Jackson.

While waiting to hear when Dopesick will make it to Hulu subscribers, be sure to check out our Summer 2020 TV premiere schedule to see all the new and returning shows that are popping up soon.

Bill Murray has a reputation for being extremely picky when it comes to choosing scripts and projects that he wants to be a part of, so there must be something pretty special about the new Barry Levinson-directed comedy Rock The Kasbah. According to Deadline, the new film has gotten Murray sign on to star and will be looking to find international distribution at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Based on a script by Mitch Glazer, who previously worked with Murray on the absolutely awful film Passion Play, the new movie tells the story of a "burned-out music manager" who flies off to the Middle East when his last remaining client signs up for the USO tour. After a series of events, the protagonist finds himself alone, broke and stranded in Afghanistan without a passport - but his fortunes change when he meets a young girl with a beautiful voice. She has dreams of starring on the Afghanistan’s equivalent of American Idol, and the main character helps her get to Kabul so that she can compete.

Said Glazer in a statement about the new director and star being attached to the project, "Bill Murray and Barry Levinson are the perfect team to capture the lunacy, heartbreak and hope of this story. I’m ecstatic."

Murray may be picky when it comes to scripts, but don't confuse that for thinking that he only stars in great projects. As great as Murray's collaborations with Wes Anderson have been, the last few years of his career are peppered with some critically panned titles like Hyde Park on Hudson and A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III. Passion Play, however, was its own special kind of awful, and it's honestly surprising that Murray would be so quick to work from a Glazer script again. Remember, this was the film that Mickey Rourke trashed even before it was released:

That said, Murray does have some extremely promising stuff on the horizon. He'll next be seen as part of the all-star ensemble that George Clooney has brought together for his World War II dramedy The Monuments Men, and he's already completed his work on Anderson's next film, the Europe-set period piece Grand Budapest Hotel. He is currently in production on the Black List comedy St. Vincent de Van Nuys, which co-stars Chris O'Dowd, Naomi Watts and Megan McCarthy. You can get a brief look at Murray in Monuments Men in the trailer below:

After going toe-to-toe with Leonardo DiCaprio is Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby, which just hit theaters this past weekend, Joel Edgerton is now getting set to team up with Johnny Depp.

Deadline says that the Australian actor is now attached to co-star with the Pirates of the Caribbean A-lister in Black Mass, the upcoming gangster biopic from director Barry Levinson. The site says that Edgerton will be playing the role of John Connolly, an FBI agent who also happened to be a childhood friend of Bulger's. It's suggested that it was because of Connolly's help that Bulger, a crime lord in Boston, Massachusetts, was able to evade capture and disappear off the grid.

Depp will star as the kingpin and has the project scheduled to start production once he has completed work on Academy Award winner Wally Pfister's sci-fi directorial debut Transcendence. Mark Mallouk wrote the screenplay for the film, which is based on the Dick Lehr/Gerald O’Neill-written bestseller "Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob."

Edgerton, who is slowly becoming one of the more popular actors in Hollywood, is currently in production on Jane Got A Gun, the Gavin O'Connor-directed western that has seen more than its fair-share of behind-the-scenes drama. He has also completed work on Felony, a new Australian-produced thriller that he wrote and is starring in. In the movie he plays a decorated cop who finds his life thrown into turmoil in an instant when he has a few too many drinks and accidentally hits a bicyclist with this car. Neither film currently has a domestic release date.

When you’ve lived a life of crime as thrilling and tawdry as James “Whitey” Bulger, you can imagine why Hollywood would circle your story like vultures eyeballing a roadside carcass. And so we’re now getting reports of a second Bulger biopic in the works, with a major A-list talent interested in playing the lead.

Johnny Depp is now attached to play the infamous Boston gangster in Black Mass, which will be directed by Barry Levinson (Diner, Avalon). Bulger was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson’s character in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. The Mafioso, who spent years on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list before his capture in 2011, protected the criminals of Boston’s chief neighborhoods, but largely went unbothered because he reportedly worked as an informant to the FBI in exchange for certain freedoms. He eventually was arrested in Santa Monica, California, when the 81-year-old was picked up with his girlfriend and extradited to Massachusetts. He remains in custody in Plymouth, Mass.

“I could not be more thrilled to have the biggest star in the world and Academy-Award winning director Barry Levinson to finally bring this incredible story to the big screen,” Cross Creek Pictures president Brian Oliver said in a statement. Though they might have to hurry. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have been circling a Bulger movie for some time now. No word yet if Depp attaching his name to Levinson’s picture will force them to back off.

Depp, meanwhile, signed on for a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, so it’s unclear which project he’ll attack first. The actor does tend to show favor to true-crime dramas, from Public Enemies to the spectacular Donnie Brasco. Of course, he also has The Lone Ranger arriving in theaters this summer, but Bulger appears to be on his horizon. Are you excited to see him in the role?

Hot off its festival run that included a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and American premiere at the New York Film Festival, the eco-horror thriller The Bay made its mark at New York Comic Con, where director Barry Levinson sat down for a panel hosted by the Nerdist's Chris Hardwick. The film is only the second horror feature Levinson has ever helmed, and like his first, Sphere, terror comes from the ocean, or more specifically the Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Maryland. Here a batch of gruesome parasites called isopods is eating the local fish from the inside out, a gruesome fate that soon spreads to the human population.

Levinson appeared on the panel alone, which made for a slightly strange chemistry as Hardwick hovered above him at the podium while they had a pretty casual though strange conversation. But Levinson was game for Comic Con crowds, and the event began by screening the film's first trailer.

When the lights came up, the audience was abuzz over the flick's freaky outbreak plotline. But then Levinson threw us all into a stunned silence when he revealed 85% of the premise is factual. As a Baltimore, Maryland, native, Levinson said he was approached by neighbors who encouraged him to make a doc about the shocking fact that 40% of the bay's wild-life was dead. Levinson decided adding a dash of horror fiction to disturbing facts would be more impactful, and so we have The Bay.

What's real? Well, for starters: isopods, the gross wiggling parasites in the trailer. According to Levinson these ghastly little "sea lice" swim into fish's gills, then eat it from the inside out. One will even eat the fish's tongue, then take the tongue's place as an "eating mechanism" until the fish dies. While these parasites start out quite small, they can grow to be as long as 2.5 feet, Levinson told the revolted crowd. "I love horror films and I love sci-fi films…but it started with the Bay being 40% dead," he shared.

Hardwick shivered, then introduced the first of two exclusive clips. In one, two scientists on a boat cut open a fish crawling with isopods, which the male scientist says are, "one of the world's oldest creatures." When the lights come back up Levinson is quick to share that those were real isopods wriggling in the actor's tweezers. Next up is a clip of a teen girl video-chatting with a friend, showing her weird blisters—big bulbous, yellow pustules—that have cropped up all over her body. The audience in the theatre is audibly disgusted.

As you may have noticed from the trailer, The Bay is shot in the found footage style, a device that proved a challenge to Levinson, but one that he was exhilarated by. He explained to the crowd how the last scene was shot by the teen actress using a camera phone. She was left in the set room by herself for a few minutes, where she improvised the scene, then came out to pass off the camera to Levinson who'd watch her take, as there was no monitor attached to her device.

Levinson's team experimented with over 100 different cameras during screen tests, and ultimately 21 different digital recording platforms were chosen for the production, including an iPhone. Intrigued by the way social networking and the ease of posting video to the Internet has shaped our culture, Levinson brought these elements into telling the 8-9 different character arcs to make his found footage flick feel like an archaeological dig, with various artifacts uncovered from all over the town's web output.

While there's a clear attempt at an environmental message within The Bay, the crowd who had gathered for a string of horror movie panels, mostly wanted to hear about the monsters. When one audience member asked if the isopods turn people into zombies—as the trailer implies—Levinson firmly denied that. He said that the infected are still people. They may look like monsters, but in the instance of the ghoulish woman who seems to attack the lady in the car at the trailer's end, Levinson explains she was just reaching out for help. Still, Levinson urged the audience to Google image search isopods, to which a visibly freaked out Hardwick quipped, "I'm not going to do that!"

The Bay opens November 2nd in theaters and On Demand.

It's the Fourth of July in a small town on the Eastern Coast of America, which means sun, fun and plenty of people flocking to the water. But something dangerous lurks beneath the playful waves and swimming tourists. This is how my favorite horror film Jaws begins, and in its wake many more frightening tales found their inspirations in the murky depths of oceans, lakes and even rivers. But now the latest feature from Barry Levinson (Sphere, Wag the Dog) takes terror to a dark new depth with The Bay.

Centered in a charming Maryland town on the Chesapeake Bay, this freaky feature blends elements of horror and sci-fi to create a cinematic concoction that's terrifying and nauseating. What lurks in the bay that's killing all the fish? It's a new breed of parasite that slides into water-frolicking humans and eats its way out. That's right, this threat is literally coming from within. Get a look at this gruesome fall thriller with the trailer below, or check it out in hi-res at Apple:

With a premise that also includes a mayor who ignores experts' warnings of danger in the water—in this case an ecological disaster—the ties to Jaws are obvious, but with their slithering organ-eaters Levinson and screenwriter Michael Wallach also bring in elements of outbreak horror, zombie horror and body horror subgenres to craft a ghastly blend of stomach-churning terror. But count on Levinson to lay some allegory into his creepy feature. While it seems like an ideal summer release, The Bay will be hitting theaters and iTunes on November 2nd, following its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next week, which could mean there's much more to chew on than you might typically expect from a creature feature.

I'm starting to think that the production of Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father is totally and utterly cursed. It began when Nick Cassavetes, who had been hired to direct, decided to bail on the project. Then there was a great deal of drama with Lindsay Lohan, as we all tried to figure out if she was actually in or out of the picture. Then, after Barry Levinson was brought on to replace Cassavetes, Joe Pesci decided to sue the production after he gained 30 pounds for a role, was told he would be switching parts, and had his pay reduced from $3 million to $1 million. But everything outside of that is fine, right? It turns out the answer to that particular question is "no."

Showbiz 411 is reporting that all forward motion on Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father has been brought to a halt. Marc Fiore, who runs Fiore Films - the company behind the movie - has apparently run out of money as he was unable to secure the fundraising he needed to put the project into production. Various unnamed sources have said that the producer was trying to get money from overseas investors, but that hasn't panned out. Production was scheduled to begin in January, but it now looks like they won't be able to make that date.

Considering that the cast includes the likes of Ben Foster, John Travolta, Al Pacino, Chazz Paminteri and Kelly Preston, Gotti had a chance of being successful, but we may never find out. So many things have been going wrong with the movie that this news is hardly unexpected. Then again, who knows: maybe some mysterious billionaire will rise up fully fund the production themselves.

To say that Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson's previous television team-ups were memorable would be a bit of an understatement. Back in the early '90s, the pair were exec producers on Homicide: Life on the Street -- to this day still one of the best cop shows ever aired. A few years later they jumped to the other side of the legal system for HBO's brutal, unforgettable Oz, which followed prison life and gave J.K. Simmons one of the great screen villain roles as Vern Schillinger. Now Fontana and Levinson are joining forces again, this time to put together a cop drama for...the CW?

Yes, Deadline is reporting that the CW has purchased the pair's project Musketeers 3.0, which Fontana will write and which both he and Levinson will exec produce. Hopefully they'll replace the frankly horrible title before the thing sees air. Although now that we're on the subject, the description of the series itself doesn't exactly thrill me. Supposedly it will tell the story of three "out-of-control New York detectives" who suddenly have a sexy new rookie assigned to their team. I guess that's the whole Musketeer thing. 'cause there are three of them, see, and then a fourth one who for some reason doesn't count.

And there's not a single part of that that doesn't sound horribly bland and generic. Hopefully the talents of Fontana and Levinson will shape it into something memorable, because right now I couldn't be less interested. Out-of-control cops? Wow, I've never seen anything like that on TV! But wait -- then they team up with a sexy, young newbie? That's TV gold, baby!

Maybe for their follow-up project they'll do a show about sexy young doctors or quirky lawyers. Really venture out into the undiscovered country.

Another “made” man has added his name to the suddenly impressive ensemble gathered together for Barry Levinson’s Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father as Fiore Films has officially announced Chazz Palminteri’s involvement in the developing biopic.

"I have seen this film come together from the very start, and am pleased to be able to work alongside such great talent to bring this story to the big screen," said Palminteri, who will be playing Mafia boss Paul Castellano when the picture begins shooting in New York in January. "I have been a longtime admirer of Barry Levinson and am looking forward to working with him."

He’s not exaggerating. While Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father got off to a slow start with casting (some would say “miscasting”) John Travolta as the Dapper Don, Levinson has gone above and beyond to right the ship. Palminteri, whose tough-guy credits include A Bronx Tale, Analyze This and The Usual Suspects, joins Al Pacino (as Aniello Dellacroce), Ben Foster (as John Gotti, Jr.) and Kelly Preston (as Victoria Gotti) in the film. Outside of hiring Martin Scorsese or casting Robert De Niro, there's no stronger move a Mafia flick can make than bringing an actor of Palminteri's ilk aboard. All of a sudden, I'm very excited to see this.

For those who aren’t well-versed in modern Mob history, Palminteri’s character, “Big Paul” Castellano, was head of the Gambino crime family for years. Following his much-publicized murder during a shoot out in front of Sparks Steak House in Manhattan – a hit ordered by John Gotti – the Dapper Don rose to the head of the family. Not only is it a role tailor made for Palminteri, it will be the second time he has played the character as he starred as Castellano in the 2001 TV movie Boss of Bosses. Let’s hope the screenwriters remembered to pen a few crisp, intimidating monologues in his most recent rewrite for this stellar talent.

You'd think John Travolta was uncomfortable playing a mobster in Gotti: Three Generations, given how many actors from other famous Mafia films he's surrounding himself with. He's already brought in Joe Pesci, playing right-hand man Angelo Ruggiero to Travolta's crime boss John Gotti Sr., and now Variety reports that Pacino has signed on to play another Gotti associate, Neil Dellacroce.

Pacino, of course, is the central figure of the most important Mafia movies ever made, The Godfather trilogy, while Pesci had central roles in mobster-centric films Goodfellas and Casino. Pesci has been on board the Gotti project nearly since the beginning, but Pacino signing on comes about a week after Barry Levinson signed on to replace original director Nick Cassavetes. With Lindsay Lohan filling in a supporting role and John Gotti Jr. cooperating on the production it's hard to know exactly what to expect from the project, but you can't argue with the bona fides of the cast-- even Pacino, usually content to shout his way through his most recent performances, turned in a great one for Levinson himself in You Don't Know Jack. It might be a little weird to watch a John Gotti movie with Michael Corleone hovering in the corners, but if he balances out the Lohan factor, it seems worth a shot.

Hot off an Emmy nomination for directing the TV movie You Don't Know Jack, Barry Levinson is making his way back to the big screen, and sticking with the name that's already brought him success. Sony has announced today in a press release that Levinson will be directing Brother Jack, a drama about human rights activist Jack Healey and his journey from the priesthood to a life on the streets to a career as an activist. Healey is currently the head of the Human Rights Action Network, where the organization "Uses the arts and new technologies to develop new strategies to stop human rights abuses."

Healey sounds like a more unambiguously heroic character than Jack Kevorkian, whom Levinson depicted (with Al Pacino in the lead) as a crusader so convinced he was doing the right thing by offering assisted suicide that he couldn't imagine anyone disagreeing with him. Levinson has had an up-and-down directing career, as anyone would after being in the business so long, and though his last true hit as a director was probably 1997's Wag the Dog, You Don't Know Jack may well mark a turnaround. Check out the full press release about Brother Jack and decide if you'll join me in being tentatively optimistic.