Some directors are made to be hated: their careers are provocatively geared towards annoying the majority of those who call themselves film lovers. In some cases they started out well, with a break-out debut that suggested a lot more than anything that would follow, and in others - as with Ed Wood - everything was terrible from day one. At least you know what you're getting with terrible directors, or those whose talent has very publicly deserted them - the real issue comes when they get ideas above their station and make something brilliant against the odds. Where you were once happy with your expectations of those directors, you're forced to re-evaluate every bad word so definitively uttered about them. Are they some kind of reverse film-making cuckoo? An undiscovered diamond in the rough who just needed a little more polish? Or could it be that they merely over-achieved and tricked you into thinking they were pulling off their own Matthew McConaughey renaissance? Either way, in every case the following directors released great (or at least comparatively impressive) movies that made you seriously re-evaluate your hatred for them...
