As a film fan, it's frustrating when a filmmaker has their virtues extolled well past what is reasonable or sensible. Yes, every director you're about to see appear on this list is talented - and in most cases,
extremely talented - yet each has had their own hype-train go wildly off the rails and out of control, to the point where viewers might be tempted to temper their appreciation for the filmmaker in that instance. It's just human nature that when we hear so much praise for something - all the more so if we're not too familiar with it at the time - we are likely to express disappointment with the final product, and such is the case with these 10 movie directors. Whether a result of film buffs giving their favourite filmmaker a free pass because of nostalgia, or because casual audiences are unable to realise when a director is simply ripping off his forebears, here are 10 overrated filmmakers who get way too much credit...
10. Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg is the the most famous and best-loved filmmaker in movie history, and so it follows that he's going to have had his esteem blown a little out of proportion over the years. Of course, his earlier career saw a number of indisputably excellent films, including Jaws, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones trilogy, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List and so on, though recent years has seen his output become maddeningly inconsistent at times, with the likes of A.I., War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and War Horse gaining lukewarm notices (though his recent Lincoln was unexpectedly sublime). The problem with Spielberg is that he's an old-fashioned filmmaker stuck in the wrong time; a cynical, contemporary audience is fed up with the feeling of magic wonderment that defined his earlier works, and as increasingly as we are being reared on grit and gravitas, Spielberg risks rendering himself obsolete if he does not change his style up. British filmmaker Alex Cox once said of Spielberg, " isn't a filmmaker, he's a confectioner", and the constantly happy endings associated with the director's films further stymie his reputation; sometimes this ending is earned, and sometimes it's just treacle for treacle's sake.