Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

I was thinking about this earlier today, what the longest hot streak for a director ever was. I settled on 3 because I feel that very few directors have managed even this feat. Here's a couple that I came up with off the top of my head.

Stanley Kubrick (4):
Dr. Strangelove -> 2001 -> A Clockwork Orange -> Barry Lyndon

Francis Ford Coppola (4):
The Godfather -> Part II -> The Conversation -> Apocalypse Now

Alfred Hitchcock (3):
Vertigo -> North by Northwest -> Psycho

Andrei Tarkovsky (3):
Andrei Rublev -> Solaris -> The Mirror

Charlie Chaplin (3):
City Lights -> Modern Times -> The Great Dictator

David Lean (3):
The Bridge on the River Kwai -> Lawrence of Arabia -> Doctor Zhivago


Obviously this is going to be very opinion oriented, but what do you got?

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Terrence Malick - Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World, Tree of Life

Peckinpah - The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Straw Dogs

Bergman - Smiles of the Summer Nights, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Kurosawa has at least 5 in a row. I haven’t seen some of the others in between other masterpieces, so it’s possibly an even longer chain (for me).

The Hidden Fortress
The Bad Sleep Well
Yojimbo
Sanjuro
High and Low

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Leone (Man with No Name Trilogy, OUaTitW, Fistful of Dynamite), Scorsese (Gangs of NY, The Departed, Shutter Island, Hugo, Wolf of Wall Street), Tarantino (Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained, Hateful 8, OUaTiH) have never done wrong by me.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Of all the strings of Scorsese movies you could have listed you choose one with Gangs of New York and Shutter Island in it. Yeesh.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Haha, agreed.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

I love many of the directors mentioned so far, but would hesitant to call all of the films listed masterpieces. But hey, that's what makes discussion fun. :)

Steven Spielberg nearly rattled off 4 classics in a row but ruined it with 1941:
Jaws -> Close Encounters -> 1941 -> Raiders of the Lost Ark -> E.T.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Raging Bull, King of Comedy, After Hours / Goodfellas, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, Casino

Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Scorsese seemed to like mixing up his classics with good-to-mediocre films.

Mean Streets (classic) -> Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (very good) -> Taxi Driver (classic) -> New York, New York (average) -> The Last Waltz (classic) -> Raging Bull (classic)

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

PTA - Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, The Master

Billy Wilder - Sunset Blvd, Ace in the Hole, Stalag 17

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

yeah, those were really his solid string In a row. Others came in between some classics...

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

I would argue that Edgar Wright is 5 for 5.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

only CF real success.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Hal Ashby - Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home, Being There

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Success doesn’t equal masterpiece. And King of Comedy most certainly is.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

You’re including The Worlds End and Scott Pilgrim? Hell didn’t even think Hot Fuzz was all that great. Totally disagree.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

I wouldn’t call any of them masterpieces.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

KoC was a dismal failure. And too dark to even be considered dark comedy which this is going for and sociopath which it nails.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

And yet Scorsese says it’s DeNiro’s best performance.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Altman had an extremely strong run in the 70s. I haven’t seen them all but I’m sure there is a string there.

Woody Allen’s early efforts as well.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Quentin Tarantino - Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Jean Pierre Melville- Le Deuxieme Souffle, Le Samourai, Army of Shadows, Le Cercle Rouge

Jules Dassin- Brute Force, The Naked City, Thieves Highway, Night and the City, Rififi

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

If you don't count short films Federico Fellini had: Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, 8 1/2

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Going back to the OP, I wouldn’t stop at Barry Lyndon for Kubrick. I would go all the way until EWS.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

On a seperate note, if you were to ask what director had the most masterpieces, with NONE falling consecutively, John Huston has 10+ without ever making 2 in a row.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

and he has no bias towards De Niro. A lot thought otherwise...

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Dude you called Shutter Island a masterpiece, lets be real here.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

And they were wrong. And you can look at Rotten Tomatoes and see how many rate it highly now and say it was before it’s time.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Well, it’s really a matter of opinion, so right or wrong couldn’t be used in this context.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

I wouldn't personally call The Shining or Full Metal Jacket masterpieces, but I also wouldn't argue with anyone who wanted to make the case (for The Shining at least).

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

John Ford comes to mind also

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

George Lucas - Star War Episodes 1-3... :nopanic:

Seriously though, George Lucas's first three films were THX 1138, American Graffiti, and Star Wars. To go from those three to his next and final three is a huge fall.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Some other pretty good 3-Streaks:

Fellini: Nights of Cabiria, La Dolce Vita, 8½

John Huston: The Asphalt Jungle, The Red Badge of Courage, The African Queen

Romero: Martin, Dawn of the Dead, Knightriders (Three classics in my book)

Antonioni: Blow-Up, Zabriskie Point, The Passenger

Hawks: Only Angels Have Wings, His Girl Friday, Sgt. York

Liu Chia-Ling: Challenge of the Masters, 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Executioners of Shaolin (3 martial arts classics)

Godard: Breathless, A Woman is a Woman, Vivre Sa Vie

Cronenberg: The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch

Lumet: The Pawnbroker, Fail Safe, The Hill

De Palma: Dressed To Kill, Blowout, Scarface

Robert Aldrich: Hush..Hush, Sweet Charlotte, The Flight of the Phoenix, The Dirty Dozen

Michael Powell: I Know Where I'm Going, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus (RED SHOES followed next, but I was never crazy about that one)

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Kazan too. Though not as big an output as those two.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

I disagree with Only Angels Have Wings being a masterpiece, but if you're going to include it, then you GOTTA include the prior Bringing Up Baby which is indeed a masterpiece.

I'm also gonna add that The Red Shoes is a masterpiece. ;)


On the Waterfront / East of Eden?

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Yea. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Streetcar, A Face in the Crowd, Splendor in the Grass too.

And yes, I agree, The Red Shoes most definitely is.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Ridley Scott
The Duellists, Alien, Blade Runner

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

For Powell and Pressburger you might as well tack on Colonel Blimp and A Canterbury Tale to the front of that list. Although I admit I don't care for A Canterbury Tale as much as many others seem to. What an incredible run though. Heck, The Small Back Room is great too, even if it doesn't quite live up to those others.

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

John Carpenter

Halloween
The Fog
Escape From NY
the Thing
Christine

Re: Directors with three or more consecutive masterpieces
 

Ishiro Honda: BATTLE IN OUTER SPACE, THE HUMAN VAPOR, MOTHRA (1959-61); FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD, GODZILLA VS. MONSTER ZERO, WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS (1965-66).

Chang Cheh: FIVE VENOMS, INVINCIBLE SHAOLIN, CRIPPLED AVENGERS (all 1978).

Kinji Fukasaku: YAGYU CLAN CONSPIRACY, MESSAGE FROM SPACE, THE FALL OF AKO CASTLE (all 1978).

Yasujiro Ozu: Six in a row: EARLY SUMMER, THE FLAVOR OF GREEN TEA OVER RICE, TOKYO STORY, EARLY SPRING, TOKYO TWILIGHT, EQUINOX FLOWER (1951-58).

Mikio Naruse: SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN, LATE CHRYSANTHEMUMS, FLOATING CLOUDS (1954-55).

Kenji Mizoguchi: UGETSU, A GEISHA, SANSHO THE BAILIFF (1953-54); PRINCESS YANG KWEI FEI, TAIRA CLAN SAGA, STREET OF SHAME (1955-56).

Hiroshi Inagaki: SAMURAI I, SAMURAI II, SAMURAI III (1954-56).