10 Directors Who Didn't Understand Their Own Movies

3. Peter Farrelly - Green Book

Peter Farrelly's Green Book may have enjoyed stonking box office success and gone on to win the Best Picture Oscar, but there's a vocal portion of viewers who feel that the film categorically missed the mark with its examination of race relations.

Criticism was levelled in numerous ways - picking apart Farrelly's decision to depict a black man's experience through the lens of a white man, its facile and simplified depiction of racism, and a general vibe of "can't we all just get along?" that many deemed regressive in a time where the White House is fronted by an actual racist.

The family of black pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) even condemned the film, prompting Ali to apologise for offending them, while Farrelly defended against claims that he had made a "white saviour" movie.

But Green Book's Best Picture win over far more nuanced "race movies" such as BlacKkKlansman and If Beale Street Could Talk ultimately felt like the definitive confirmation of just how aggressively it panders to middle-of-the-road tastes.

It talks about race, but does so in a soulless, inoffensive way sure not to upset middle-aged white people. Farrelly clearly feels that he made a profound movie, but it's likely to go down in history as a Best Picture embarrassment on the level of Crash.

That a film like Green Book can win the big one just two years after Moonlight did shows how little progress we've really made as a society.