10 Great Directors With No Movies In The IMDB Top 250

6. David O. Russell

David o russell silver linings playbook
The Weinstein Company

Highest-Rated Movies: Silver Linings Playbook (7.8) and The Fighter (7.8)

Unfortunately for David O. Russell, he's probably more famous for his well-documented temper than he is for his movies, but based purely on the reception to his directorial efforts and not his on-set nastiness, he's definitely worthy of a place in the Top 250.

Silver Linings Playbook, Joy, American Hustle and The Fighter were all big awards contenders (and even took home a few major prizes) while I Heart Huckabees, Three Kings and Flirting With Disaster were all curious, funny and enjoyable in equal measure.

But it's the former handful of movies that are the director's best, with O. Russell's filmmaking chops having noticeably matured over the last decade or so. He's been able to retain that sense of fun his earlier films carried and meld it with hard-hitting adult themes, brewing the perfect concoction for awards success in the process.

And though none of his movies landed on the Top 250, a handful came dangerously close, and it honestly wouldn't have been a surprise if any of his flicks had made it.

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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!