6. John Carpenter
John Carpenter is one of the most influential cult directors of all time. Very few of his films were ever massive commercial successes at the time of their contemporary release, but he received an ardent following and his films have only grown in popularity as time's gone by. Carpenter's early work and collaborations with Kurt Russell are his most acclaimed and in Halloween, he made one of the most iconic horror films of all time. Carpenter's career took a downward spiral in the late 80's and he's never recovered. The vastly underrated They Live was his last good film and his last genuinely great work was Big Trouble in Little China and they were released in 1988 and 86 respectively, meaning it's been a very long time since Carpenter created anything of substance. A series of commercial and critical flops followed including the abysmal Ghosts of Mars which sent the once great director into semi-retirement. Carpenter attempted a comeback with 2010's The Ward which was a crushing disappointment and sadly the final nail in his coffin. During the 70's and early 80's, Carpenter created some of the finest pieces of independent cinema in American film history, but few fell off quite as dramatically as he did.