7 notable movie director comebacks

I'm a sucker for a great Hollywood comeback story. Here's my list of celebrated film directors that have recovered from minor career blemishes or megaflops to see critical and commercial resurgences.
Let me know your thoughts about this list, or other good director comeback stories, by posting a message in the comments section.

In no particular order:

1. Steven Spielberg

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After the phenomenal success of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, it seemed as if Hollywood's new wunderkind could do no wrong. Spielberg was convinced he should try his hand at comedy with his next project, the all-star hellzapoppin $35 million World War 2 farce 1941.

Unfortunately, the movie remains the answer to the "which one doesn't belong" question in Spielberg's career. While not a complete failure, 1941 suffered more than anything from bombastic overload and mistook mass destruction and anarchy for high comedy. Even Spielberg's customary fluid sense of pacing and camerawork couldn't save the enterprise. (To his credit, Spielberg has been a good sport about the film over the years, acknowledging its shortcomings).

The sour critical taste from 1941 would be all but forgotten two years later when Spielberg teamed with George Lucas on Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the following year later he released E.T. , for many years the highest grossing film in history. Oh, and he's since made a few more movies and amassed a few billion dollars or so.

2. Roman Polanski

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Few major filmmakers of the past 40 years have had as fascinating a career as Roman Polanski. After garnering major critical acclaim for the classic 1968 chiller Rosemary's Baby, he arguably hit his commercial and creative peak with 1974's Oscar-winning Chinatown. Polanski's departure from the U.S. after being beset by well publicized charges of child rape perhaps resulted in poor creative choices throughout the 80s and 90s, including the expensive 1986 dud Pirates (with Walter Matthau in full pirate mode) the flat, uninvolving thriller Frantic, and 1994's underwhelming Death and the Maiden.

Then in 2002, Polanski, having nothing to lose profesionally, sought inspiration from his own background as a holocaust survivor for his 2002 masterpiece The Pianist, the gripping true WW2 survival tale of world renowned classical pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody). More remarkable was Polanski's well-deserved but shocking and highly controversial Oscar win as best director. Polanski has since seen a resurgence of sorts, and at 72 is hitting his stride once again.

3. Ridley Scott

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Ridley Scott first scored big with with Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982), both highly influential and visionary sci-fi works that remain classics of the genre.
 
But a series of miscalculated efforts (including 1985's Legend, the 1992 historical flop 1492: Conquest of Paradise and 1997's G.I. Jane) all carried traits of Scott's visual flair but failed to catch on with the critics and public. 1991's Thelma and Louise garnered Scott his first Oscar nomination, but it wasn't until the Oscar-winning Gladiator (2000) that he hit true critical and financial blockbuster status. He followed up with the 2001 double whammy of Hannibal and Blackhawk Down and continues to make top drawer projects. 

4. Clint Eastwood

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By 1990, with a directorial career spanning nearly 20 years and 15 films, you'd think that Clint Eastwood would have known better than to make the B-level cop/buddy movie The Rookie, co-starring Charlie Sheen. Although not outright terrible, the movie showed a tired Eastwood rehashing age-old cop film cliches.

Eastwood regrouped and chose as his next project the violent revisionist 1992 western Unforgiven, which garnered him the best critical lauds of his career and won him his first best director Oscar. Eastwood has since gone on to further Oscar accolades with 2004's Million Dollar Baby and at 80 is considered one of America's premier filmmakers.

5. David Lynch

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After bursting on the scene with the 1977 classic surrealist midnight movie Eraserhead, David Lynch followed up with The Elephant Man (1980). While at first Lynch may have seemed an odd choice for such sensitive material, he demonstrated a real talent for melding art house sensibilities with commercial appeal. The film received critical praise and several Oscar nods, including Lynch for best director.

In the early 80's, superproducer Dino De Laurentis was gearing up to make the long-gestating adaptation of Frank Herbert's 1965 classic sci-fi novel Dune. Lynch agreed to helm the ultimately chaotic and doomed $40 million production. The film was released to brutal reviews and lackluster box office, with Lynch (perhaps unfairly) taking the bulk of the blame. Lynch has since disavowed himself from Dune and over time it has become to him what the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special is to George Lucas.

It's no surprise that Dune represented Lynch's first and last foray in big budget commercial filmmaking. So in 1986 he went back to his art house roots and created a brilliantly creepy masterpiece with Blue Velvet, receiving great critical acclaim and his second Oscar nomination. He hasn't looked back.

6. Paul Verhoeven

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In the late 1980s, Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven made a splash in Hollywood with the darkly funny and exciting sci-fi outings Robocop (1987) and Total Recall (1990). Along with the 1992 Sharon Stone/Michael Douglas thriller Basic Instinct, Verhoeven cemented his reputation as Hollywood's top big budget B-movie king.

Verhoeven's next project was the 1995 SuperStinker Showgirls. The film, about the rise of an ambitious Vegas cabaret dancer, opened to a critical drubbing unlike Verhoeven had seen in his entire career. A return to the sci-fi genre in 1997 with Starship Troopers (one of my personal guilty pleasures) and Hollow Man (2000), failed to ignite significant sparks for audiences or critics.

Despite various offers (including directing The Fast and the Furious sequels), Verhoeven packed his bags and returned to the Netherlands. In 2006 he released Black Book, his first Dutch film in over 20 years. A tense, edgy and skilfully told WW2 espionage tale with just the right touch of Verhoeven-esque vulgarity and violence, it proved a huge hit in its native country and made several North American critics' list for the 10 best films of 2006. Verhoeven remains in Holland, and based on Black Book, I look forward to his next project with anticipation.

7. Kevin Costner

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Kevin Costner's acting star rose exponentially in the 1980s and within a few short years was able to convince Orion Pictures to let him direct the $20 million adaptation of Michael Blake's epic western novel Dances with Wolves, about a Union soldier who befriends a tribe of native Americans in the 19th century western frontier.

Defying all expectations (many critics jokingly referring to it in pre-release as Kevin's Gate), it ended up winning 7 Oscars (including Costner as best director) and grossing almost $425 million worldwide.

Costner would wait another 7 years to choose his next project behind the camera with The Postman, a 3-hour, self-indulgent sci-fi post apocalyptic tale of extinct mailmen that earned scathing reviews and earned less than $20 million against an estimated $80 million budget. 

In 2003 Costner returned to the Western for his next directorial effort Open Range, about a cattle rancher threatened by corrupt lawmen. Working with a much smaller budget ($25 million), Costner proved that Dances with Wolves was no fluke and made a solid, carefully crafted work that won critics over and made a respectable $70 million. Costner is that rare modern filmmaker who has a real feel for the Western, and I'd look forward to see him further exploring the genre in the future.