Twas The Night Before The OSCARS...and who's your vote for most OVERRATED Director ever...?

Spielberg. How soppy, pretenttious and emotionally manipulative can his boring drek get?

John Ford

Frank Capra

Billy Wilder

Thornton Wilder

Van Wilder

Lina Wertmuller

Leni Riefenstahl

Tim Culpepper

William Wyler

Howard Hawks

Nicholas Ray

Michael Curtiz

Ingmar Bergmann

Clint Eastwood

Sergio Leone

Alan Webb

George Lucas

Francis Ford Coppola

Leonel Manzano

Kathryn Bigelow

James Cameron

John Carpenter

Alfred Hitchcock

John Schlesinger

David Lean

Quentin Tarantino

Taran Quentintino

Whitey Ford

All of them. Everyone and everything in Hollywood is overrated and overhyped.

Drunk, or merely feeling churlish and "toolish"?

The question was vote for "most overrated DIRECTOR" -- that's singular dude.

While it is nice that you can remember a lot of directors names, and evidently some runners, many on that list do not belong included on a list of "most overrated."

Uneven over a career? Petered out? Sure.

John Ford, not overrated no way, no how. He may have been a macho dude, but the dude knew his mind around a screenplay and how to improve a story. Ditto Howard Hawks.

Riefenstahl, controversial, but not overrated, and was genius level talented in several fields.

Curtiz, overrated, a traffic cop.

Nicholas Ray, NOT overrated.

Bergman, the director most all directors point to as the greatest of all time...overrated? Nope. Uneven, yes. He had a long career, longer than most realize, and he was multi-talented, as a theater director, and as a film director could also direct romantic comedy and comedy.

Magic Flute, Fanny and Alexander. Scenes from a Marriage. Genius (Scenes is one uncomfortable watch, but genius).

Eastwood, overrated as an actor (can emote from A to B), but the dude can direct.

Lucas and Coppala are now overrated, but not in their early years.

Leone? Are you kidding me? Once Upon a Time in America. Epic genius (credit to the author of the novel it is based on).

I am just glad you could not remember the names of Orson Welles or Jerry Lewis... Or Gerry Lindgren for that matter.

Scorsese now, but he earned his dues. Since then not so much? ........... raging bull?

ever directed a film? ever been on camera when somone yelled action? Make your judgements after you've done that...you act like people who say, "Oh..its just running" when we all know it isn't that easy. To the OP the most underated diredtor this year is John Hilcoat and viggo mortensen for their stunning depiction of "the road" It will be studied in many circles for years to come.

All of them. Everyone and everything in Hollywood is overrated and overhyped.

Rather than call them "overrated," I'd prefer to say that some directors seem to be more higher regarded among critics and audiences than they are by me.

Scorsese is, for me, a mixed bag. I thought that "Taxi Driver" was excellent. I've appreciated "Mean Streets" more with age, and the kinetic arc (I just made up that term) of "Goodfellas" has really grown on me. I still don't understand why "Raging Bull" is so highly regarded; I just don't like it, and the characters don't interest me. I found "The Last Waltz" to be tedious. "The Color of Money" is my guilty pleasure of Scorsese's movies -- good pool scenes, and one of my favorite performances of all time by Forest Whitaker as a small-time hustler.

Spielberg is the one whose movies really disappoint me. His first feature-length film, a little made-for-televison movie called "Duel," remains my favorite. Aside from an occasional scene (like a couple of scenes in "Saving Private Ryan"), his films seem sanitized, safe, and resolutely mainstream, with all of the edges polished off.

Although I seem to be one of the few film fans who don't like (much less worship) "The Godfather" series, there's too much to admire about F.F. Coppola's films for me to call him "overrated." "Apocalypse Now" and "Apocalypse Now Redux" are flawed, but brilliant. I just wish he had made a version of the film that was less rushed at the end than the original, but more tightly edited than the director's cut. And despite my lack of enthusiasm for Godfather I and II, I really appreciate that he took time away from his big-budget films to make "The Conversation," which is, to me, his unqualified gem.

Rather than talk about overrated directors, how about mentioning some terrific ones. For me, Werner Herzog and Paul Thomas Anderson (among the current directors) are the ones whose films are most likely to grab me. I'm still waiting for Tarantino to fulfill the promise of "Resevoir Dogs" and, especially, "Pulp Fiction" (which I regard as a truly great film), but I'm running out of patience with his homages to goofy martial arts films and B-movies.

Marion Davies wrote:

ever directed a film? ever been on camera when somone yelled action? Make your judgements after you've done that...you act like people who say, "Oh..its just running" when we all know it isn't that easy. To the OP the most underated diredtor this year is John Hilcoat and viggo mortensen for their stunning depiction of "the road" It will be studied in many circles for years to come.

All of them. Everyone and everything in Hollywood is overrated and overhyped.

I love the "you havent done it so you cant critique it" argument. As one theater critic once responded to a remark like that "My dear boy, I can't make a table either, but I sure as hell can tell you if one is poorly made by looking at it."

Scorsese, agreed. He goes for cheap tricks, over acting and low brains.

But Goodfellas was brilliant - one of the best movies of the 80s.

I disagree about Spielberg - he conjures up imagee you will never forget. Jaws, Raiders, ET, AI, Close Encounters. You see these movies once and you will imprint on your brain. And they are always moving. Noone can sit through ET and not cry. Or Raiders and not cheer. Or Jurassic Park and not get wide eyed and feel like a kid.

Woody Allen is way overrated - Even his big movies like Manhattan really aren't that great. He has a fascinating persona, but once he dies he will fade quickly. His movies are just talkfests without enough drama. I rarely care about anyone in an Allen movie. Except "Everyone Says I Love You."

Charming, funny and smart that one.

Spielberg is the Disney World of directors. I agree with someone's previous comment that all his movies are sanitized and overpolished. He ruined AI, if any of you saw that.

Tarrantino. FAR too violent.

I was pretty sure that guy "Picayune" was kidding. I thought it was rather obvious. It may have in part been a mock commentary on the silly trashing of excellent directors that had preceded his comment.

5er wrote:

Noone can sit through ET and not cry.

Bullshit. I sat through ET and only felt manipulated at the end. Gee, let's do close ups of the family choking back tears and sniffling. Oh, I get it, I'm supposed to cry now.

As I recall the best thing about ET was the inclusion of Jim Carroll's 'People Who Died.'

Woody Allen is way overrated - Even his big movies like Manhattan really aren't that great. He has a fascinating persona, but once he dies he will fade quickly. His movies are just talkfests without enough drama. I rarely care about anyone in an Allen movie. Except "Everyone Says I Love You."

Charming, funny and smart that one. (quote)

Hannah and Her Sisters are a ‘talkfest’ as you describe it - but what talk and what a cast.

Allan as the hypochondriac is unforgettable.

One of those films I’ll watch over again when they appear on late night television.

Only about half of Woody Allen's movies are good, and maybe lately it's more like one-third (Match Point" was great). If you haven't seen "Radio Days," do. It's probably his most perfect script,and it's extremely well-acted. It's really a gem.

5er wrote:

I disagree about Spielberg - he conjures up imagee you will never forget. Jaws, Raiders, ET, AI, Close Encounters. You see these movies once and you will imprint on your brain. And they are always moving. Noone can sit through ET and not cry. Or Raiders and not cheer. Or Jurassic Park and not get wide eyed and feel like a kid.

Woody Allen is way overrated - Even his big movies like Manhattan really aren't that great. He has a fascinating persona, but once he dies he will fade quickly. His movies are just talkfests without enough drama. I rarely care about anyone in an Allen movie. Except "Everyone Says I Love You."

Charming, funny and smart that one.

I didn't like "Jaws" or "Raiders," and avoided the other Spielberg films you mentioned, since I'm not a professional critic who is obligated to review his films, which generally seem to me as if they've been edited by a committee that removes anything deemed too subtle, offensive, ambiguous, or disturbing for mainstream movie-goers.

I think that Woody Allen has been a remarkably inventive comedic director from his earliest days in "Take the Money and Run." In particular, I thought that "Annie Hall" was technically brilliant in the various ways in which it "broke the fourth wall," even though I didn't really care much about the characters. Think about the Marshall McLuhan scene, the sidewalk interviews with passersby about their personal relationships, the wicked-queen animation, Allen's closing narrative, the return to his childhood schoolroom where the kids stand up and say what has happened to them since childhood and where they are today . . . .

Allen's tendency to play variations on the same character has often been criticized, but even if one views that as a directorial criticism, the same could be said of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton.

One problem Woody Allen is going to have with younger viewers who catch some of his films now is that he's been so endlessly imitated. It's very hard to see "Annie Hall" for how fresh and exhilarating it was. So much other films have latched onto its techniques, though in inferior fashion.

Martin Scorcese has made a number of mediocre mainstream films, but when you look at great films like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, Goodfellas, and Casino, you know that there are few better directors.

Woody Allen is a great comic director but on the level of Scorcese or Welles or Kurosawa, obviously. He has made a lot of very good films, and he really recovered some of his creativity by filming new territory in London.

All of these were good or great.

What's Up, Tiger Lily?, Casino Royale, Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Play It Again, Sam, Everything You Always Wanted

to Know About Sex*(*But Were Afraid to Ask), Sleeper, Love and Death, The Front, Annie Hall, Interiors, Manhattan, Stardust Memories, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, Zelig, Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Husbands and Wives, Bullets Over Broadway, Deconstructing Harry, Match Point

Ron Howard easily the most overated ever!