6. Quentin Tarantino
Tarantino is an easy target because he's a break-through filmmaker who is held in high regard by both film buffs and casual cinemagoers alike; a Tarantino film is always a huge event, and his films are always tremendous successes. What makes Tarantino overrated, like Lynch, isn't the quality of the films but the content; casual filmgoers likely sit through a Tarantino film and are ignorant of the countless references and name-drops throughout, which tip the filmmaker's hat to those who have inspired him. This is fair enough, though there are instances in the filmmaker's oeuvre where he takes homage to the fringes of outright plagiarism; his debut feature Reservoir Dogs, for instance, dubiously "lifts" several scenes right out of Ringo Lam's earlier crime film City on Fire, and given that this is one of Tarantino's best-loved films, it seems that his reputation got blown way out of hand from the outset. Of course, he's also extremely talented in his own right, but it's worth tempering that with a little knowledge of his sneaky sleights of hand.