10 Directors Who Slammed Their Own Movies

7. Steven Spielberg (Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom)

Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom Harrison Ford Kate Capshaw
Paramount Pictures

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom often comes in third place when people rank the original Indy trilogy, with the film's darker tone proving more of an acquired taste compared to the first and third instalments.

Back in 1984, it proved so edgy that it led to the creation of the PG-13 rating, which allowed kids under the age of 13 to see it, just as long as their parents knew that it might be a bit too much for them.

Director Steven Spielberg is another person who thinks Temple of Doom is the worst of the original three, citing its "dark" and "horrific" tone as the main reason why:

"I wasn't happy with Temple of Doom at all. It was too dark, too subterranean, and much too horrific. I thought it out-poltered Poltergeist. There's not an ounce of my own personal feeling in Temple of Doom."

Bearing in mind that Poltergeist (which Spielberg wrote and produced) is an actual horror movie that definitely isn't suitable for kids, that's quite a bold statement.

These days, you'd think that the widely-panned Kingdom of the Crystal Skull would be Spielberg's least favourite Indy movie, but considering that he once came to its defence, we're not so sure about that.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!