9 Directors Who Only Made One Good Movie

It's incredibly difficult to summarise Donnie Darko or what made it so momentous. In short, it's a movie about a troubled teenager who begins seeing a man in a rabbit costume named Frank. Frank tells Donnie that the world is going to end in a month and subsequently manipulates him into committing a series of crimes. Renowned for its inky tone and mind-boggling plot, the movie was also jet-black funny and constantly built up an air of unease.

Three years later, Richard Kelly would release a Director's Cut for Donnie Darko, which was met with a divisive response. While the critics seemed to love it, audiences found that Kelly's twenty additional minutes seemed to miss what made the original so loved and instead removed a lot of the movie's mystery.

These fears weren't unfounded, as Kelly would go on to direct Southland Tales and The Box. Both of these movies were derided for their self-indulgence and incoherence, two things that Kelly seemed to just about find the balance in with his first movie.