10 Great Directors With No Movies In The IMDB Top 250

Absent, but not forgotten.

By Danny Meegan /

With each passing year, the ratings, review scores, and other quick-read values assigned to movies are being held to an increasingly higher degree of authority by the film-fan community.

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The ability to say “Ha! My favourite movie has 86 percent, and yours has 65!” is one that’s resulted in issues like fans creating fake accounts just to give certain flicks a bad rating, and this has the unfortunate side effect of making aggregate user scores nearly impossible to take seriously.

The IMDB Top 250 is no different; because people can rate movies a 1 or a 10 based purely on their affinity for the brand, director or lead actor - and not based on the subjective quality of the film - some films are placed oddly high, some are placed oddly low, and some notable talents are missing entirely.

Pulling on that thread, there are several skilled directors who haven’t made the list even once. This isn’t because they haven’t made any well-liked movies - all these filmmakers came very close to cracking the Top 250 - they just haven't quite racked up the necessary amount of high ratings.

10. Jon Favreau

Highest-Rated Movies: Iron Man (7.9) and The Jungle Book (2016) (7.5)

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All things considered, Jon Favreau is one of the most overlooked directors of the 21st century.

This is the guy who kick-started the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Iron Man, helmed Elf - a movie many consider to be quintessential Christmas viewing - and delivered a revolutionary computer-generated movie in 2016's The Jungle Book, and yet, the first thing people usually remember him for is his role as Happy Hogan in the MCU, or his brief stint on Friends.

He's one of the few directors working today who can seamlessly transition between big-budget spectacle and low-fi drama or comedy - for every Iron Man, Cowboys and Aliens and Zathura, he's got an Elf, a Chef, or a Made.

It's a rare skill, and one that shows he's capable of delivering the two things moviegoers generally want: spectacle and heart.

Though Favreau hasn't made it onto the IMDB Top 250 quite yet, both his upcoming projects - a remake of The Lion King and a sequel to his Jungle Book adaptation - have a great shot at landing him somewhere on the list. Stay tuned!

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