You forgot this beautiful gem he did uncredited work for in-between...

Almost 10,000 posts, no disrespect but...wow.

Finian's Rainbow, The Cotton Club, The Rainmaker and the previously noted Jack. Tucker and Gardens of Stone seem to have garnered generally positive reviews, but I've never seen either.

Peckinpah. From The Wild Bunch to Convoy and The Osterman Weekend.

Plus this:

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both...

There are so many directors from the 70's who simply lost it by the time the 80's rolled around....a major reason being that Hollywood changed completely. Instead of an era when the director was given a lot of free reign and when thought provoking, intelligent films geared for adults was the norm...films became "pitch me an idea in one sentence"/simplistic eye candy for teens and young adults. Many of these directors either got lost in the new Hollywood, or simply succumbed to the mediocrity. Things didn't start to change in Hollywood (or I should say, to borrow a phrase from the theatre world, "Off Hollywood") until the late 80's when the Independent film boom started.

Some of these directors did bounce back here and there, but they never reached the heights of their pre 80's output:

Michael Ritchie
William Friedkin
Peter Bogdanovich
Frank Perry
Francis Ford Coppola
Sam Peckinpah
Nicolas Roeg
Robert Altman (just the 80's, but his zenith was still the 70's)
Hal Ashby
Sidney Lumet
Peter Yates
George Romero
Michael Winner
Roman Polanski
Arthur Penn
Alan J Pakula
John Schlesinger
Bob Rafelson
John Waters

Philip Kaufman

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
The Right Stuff (1983)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)
....Twisted (2004)

Which one are you talking about? Because IMDB lists four directors for Super Mario Bros.

I would think John has always been a B movie director, he just has gained a following and found success doing it.

Would you guys consider Paul Verhoeven as a good director that's fallen into b-moviedom? I thought Robocop and Total Recall are classics, but from Showgirls on he's been awful.

would Bob Clark count? From GOOD b movies to movies considered classic now (Christmas Story) to utterly horrible b movies.

His Dutch films before those are his best.

The 4th Man
Spetters
Soldier of Orange
Cathy Tippel
Turkish Delight

I would consider Robocop and Total Recall as classic B-grade films.

I thought The Back Book (2006) was excellent.

Black Book was a masterpiece...I really hope he does another good one next, and not Starship Troopers 4.

Name the B-movies that Nicolas Roeg and Brian De Palma have made. Both of them initiate their own projects as far as I know.

Coppola has made many films that people don't like (including his latest self financed personal project), but 99% of the time he only makes movies that he wants to make. It's not like he's become some studio hack pumping out junk like a whore. He has enough money that he doesn't have to work, if he makes a film it's because he wants to.

Let's go with the great Sam Peckinpah....he wrapped up his career with Convoy and The Osterman Weekend.

I still don't know the story about Osterman Weekend, but it's been widely reported that Sam was hardly ever sober while making Convoy.

Well that explains it (sort of). I'm going to surmise that Kristofferson was also in the bag during that production.

I freaking love The Osterman's Weekend so I sure as hell don't consider it shit; confusing and obviously directed while inebriated, sure.

Coppola did have to do several films like The Cotton Club and Godfather Part III out of the need to pay debts, not from his own volition.

Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman

I completely understand how directors can go from greatness to crap, and don't believe that book authors are immune to this, and don't consider Roeg, De Palma, or Coppola to be crap directors. I also think Walter Hill has made some remarkable films and that Peterson and Verhoeven's "old ways" were quite grungy and low-budget before they moved to Hollywood.

So what I'm saying is I disagree with absolutely everything in your post.

Except....

Irvin Kershner
Sam Peckinpah
George Lucas
Alfred Hitchcock
Stanley Kubrick
Alan Pakula

--all made crap before they died.

(Yes, I know Lucas is still alive.)

I would totally agree with this but for the fact that Kaufman made Quills before Twisted, and that was awesome.

Plus he's almost 80 years old.

Fritz Lang went from directing prestige pictures like Metropolis to cops-and-robbers sequel pictures like The 1000 Eyes of Dr Mabuse. His B-movies had true greatness, but that was because of Lang's genius.

Robert Mitchum said about film noir: "We called them B pictures," he said. "We didn't have the money, we didn't have the sets, we didn't have the lights, we didn't have the time. What we did have were some pretty good stories."