This is not as easy as it sounds, but it is fun. Think of your favorite movie directors: How many of them would you say have helmed not one, not two or three…but five great films in a row?
Sure, Steven Spielberg was on a roll with Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind…but in between Raiders of the Lost Ark and E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial came a little–well, not so little–bomb called 1941. (Though that movie does have a champion here at MovieFanFare!) As a preproduction exercise, I (as Movie Irv’s producer) went through the list of some of my own favorite auteurs, and finding five in a row even from those directors I admire most proved tough going! As far as I’m concerned, Marty can do no wrong, but I have trouble voting The Color of Money (much as I enjoy the work of Tom Cruise) into the same stratosphere as Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, After Hours, and The Last Temptation of Christ (his sequel to The Hustler comes in at #4 in that sequence).
If I had a vote to be squeezed in at the end of the credits, I’d champion the great Werner Herzog (again), whose Aguirre the Wrath of God, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Heart of Glass, Stroszek, and Nosferatu the Vampyre all rank as bona-fide greats. Now, check out what Irv and Mark have to offer before you have your own say:
Think that was easy? Name your own favorite director’s five-greats-in-a-row. They all have to be great (and all in a row, one right after the other), so no cheating!