7. Don Quixote
You knew Orson Welles was going to appear on this list more than once, given the massive slate of incomplete or stalled projects he racked up prior to his death. His love affair with adapting Don Quixote into a film began in the mid-1950s, equipped with the notion that he would transpose the centuries-old landscape of the novel onto modern times, seeking to contrast Quixote's knightly demeanour with the incongruous social norms of contemporary (at the time) society in modern Spain. Welles' shooting schedule was remarkably relaxed, filming as and when possible, but the constraints of scheduling - and specifically, of the studio's purse - eventually derailed this one, leaving behind a mass of ripe footage, but no complete film. In 1992, director Jess Franco created an "assembly cut" of sorts, released as Don Quixote de Orson Welles, an at once fiercely engrossing and infuriating film, demonstrating Welles' clear skill, if reminding us of the promise dashed by studio hand-wringing.