6. Woody Allen - Stardust Memories (1980)
It's no secret that Woody Allen's work has been heavily influenced by some of the greatest European directors, especially those of Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini. After the success of his romantic comedy masterpiece
Annie Hall, Allen created with is quite obviously a homage to the works of Bergman (it received mixed reviews, with most critics complaining that Allen had just tried to make a Bergman film), and once he was done with his other masterpiece,
Manhattan, he set out to do the same thing with Fellini: thus,
Stardust Memories was born. Essentially,
Stardust Memories was Woody Allen's
8 1/2, a dramatic comedy about a filmmaker whose fans only want him to make movies in the vein of his "earlier, funnier ones." As a result, this wasn't Allen's most accessible movie, nor was it one that his fans wanted in the wake of
Manhattan - they'd already put up with
Interiors, after all. So of course
Stardust Memories flopped at the box office, barely making back its $10 million budget. Though the film isn't bad, it - like
Interiors - feels like Allen pushing his luck, needlessly remaking the films of his idols.