it was inevitable if down was done...

Quentin Tarantino...i have always loved him and i think his movies get more brilliant each one. don't get me wrong, they were ground breaking back then. Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction. (1994), especially loved his written works True Romance (1993), Natural Born Killers (1994), i believe. but now, ever since Inglourious Basterds (2009), i just think his words, his screenplays, the way he uses his actors and certainly story: Django Unchained (2012), Hateful Eight (2015) and then Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood (2019) just become more brilliant as he goes along. it's incredible to learn and expand, rather than just pigeon hole or go down.

more to come...

Denis Villeneuve

Spike Lee

My opinion is he's stayed the same. Some would say he's gone down, judging by comments in the Hateful Eight thread.

Quentin Tarantino started on a high level and stayed up there. All of his movies are between very good and excellent. Death Proof is the only one I'd consider a bit boring, but even that one I liked.

Christopher McQuarrie had done better with every movie he did. The Way of the Gun is an okay crime thriller. Jack Reacher is an above average action thriller and his Mission: Impossible movies are both fantastic.

Christopher McQuarrie
Mike Flanagan

QT has mostly maintained the same high quality level throughout his career. Although, I will say I think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is his best film. It's my favorite anyhow.

It's sort of a hard question to answer though as most directors don't follow a straight line of continuing to improve or continuing to decline from the beginning of their careers to the end. Directors like Sidney Lumet or John Huston could direct a masterpiece one year and a heaping pile of shit the next.There are so many weird moving parts and extenuating circumstances.

In fact the only director I can really think of that peaked at the end of their career is Krzysztof Kieslowski. In the last 5 years of his 35 year career he made The Dekalog, The Double Life of Veronique and the Three Colors trilogy, which was his very best work. (Although he did die rather young at 54, so who knows what the rest of his career would have been like.)

QT peaked early. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction were utter genius and Jackie Brown is still his most unique and mature work to date. All the movies that came after were overblown, self-indulgent, cartoony and masturbatory.

That is a definite no. I am not sure why you think that. He has been up and down, but in no way has the quality of his movies gone up. Do the Right Thing is his best film and that was over 30 years ago.

The last two Spike Lee Joints are definitely better than every movie he did 10 years prior, but he always had gems and stinker.

It’s a very small sample size but I noticed a marked improvement from Aaron Sorkin in directing Molly’s Game to The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Granted only two films so far but improvement is improvement.

Luis Bunuel hit his peak around 30 years after his 1st film.

I'll need to see more, but I might put Rob Zombie on this list. I absolutely abhorred House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, didn't even bother with the Halloween remakes, but really liked The Lords of Salem.

I just need to see if this is a director who's gone up in quality, or if it's just someone who finally made a movie I liked.

Buñuel’s output starting with Viridiana in 1961 and ending with his final film That Obscure Object of Desire in 1977 is amazing.