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10 Movies You Definitely Never Realized Were Made By Famous Directors
There are certain directors in Hollywood that everybody just seems to know, whether it's from putting out a string of amazing movies, or maybe because they can't seem to put out a single good one. In the case of these 10 huge names though, they each seem to have released at least one that everyone forgets about.
James Cameron - Piranha II: The Spawning
Everybody has to start their career somewhere, and before he was king of the world thanks to movies like Terminator, Aliens, Titanic and Avatar, Cameron got his start directing this schlocky sequel to a B-grade monster movie.
George Lucas - THX 1138
Lucas flexed his sci-fi muscles a full six years before Star Wars changed cinema forever, with this bizarre and unsettling (but beautifully shot) bit of dystopia. It never made it past being a cult hit, but the "THX" name endured as the name of LucasFilm's premium sound technology.
Steven Spielberg - Duel
Before Jaws greated the concept of a summer blockbuster, Spielberg made this TV movie of a driver being attacked by a mysterious truck driver who attempts to run him off the road. It's tense, adrenaline-fueled, and a lot of fun to watch.
John Carpenter - Starman
Best-known for classic horror movies like Halloween and The Thing, as well as excellent bits of 80s cheese like Escape From New York and Big Trouble In Little China, Carpenter really stepped out of his comfort zone with this sci-fi romance starring Jeff Bridges as an alien who falls in love on Earth.
These next few movies have some pretty surprising directors...
Francis Ford Coppola - Jack
Yes, that's right, the director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now directed a movie about Robin Williams playing a fifth-grader who looks like he's 40.
Martin Scorsese - The Last Waltz
Among a string of classic period pieces like Raging Bull and unbeatable gangster movies like Goodfellas, Scorsese also found time to direct a documentary on the last show by legendary rock group The Band. Bit of a weird matchup, don't you think?
Tim Burton - Ed Wood
Tim Burton movies are all about lovable misfits, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more lovable misfit in Hollywood than Edward D. Wood Jr., often considered the worst director of all time. This biopic barely feels like a Tim Burton movie, but thanks to superstar performances by Johnny Depp and Martin Landau (who won an Oscar for playing screen legend Bela Lugosi), it ends up as one of the director's best.
Robert Zemeckis - Romancing The Stone
Known mainly for directing the Back to the Future franchise, as well as a string of eerily uncanny CG kids movies like The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol, Zemeckis got his start with this ode to classic adventure films of early Hollywood, and it still holds up great today.
Clint Eastwood - The Bridges of Madison County
Between his modern takes on classic westerns like Pale Rider and Unforgiven, as well as his more intense, modern affairs like Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, Eastwood directed this romance movie that a professor of mine once described as "old people making out for two hours."
George Miller - Babe: Pig In The City
George Miller sometimes seems just as crazy as the movies he directs. The Australian director has a relatively short filmography, but he gave us one of the most influential dystopian sci-fi series ever when he directed the Mad Max movies (including 2015's massive hit Mad Max: Fury Road). So what does he follow this up with? A talking pig's misadventures in the big city. Weird.