Top 10 Most Underrated Film Directors

Edgar Wright

Needs way more praise than he gets.

Rob Reiner

Robert Norman Reiner (March 6, 1947 – December 14, 2025) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and political activist. He first gained national prominence as an actor portraying Michael "Mike" Stivic on the CBS sitcom All in the Family (1971 to 1979), a role that earned him two... read more

Walter Hill

David Gordon Green

Martin McDonagh

Lynne Ramsay

She understands trauma and visualizing social darkness better than any director today, maybe with the exception of Fincher. If DC ever makes a Cassandra Cain/Batgirl movie, Ramsay is the only one capable of pulling it off. Period.

M. Night Shyamalan

Manoj Nelliyattu "M. Night" Shyamalan is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots and twist endings. His breakthrough film was The Sixth Sense (1999), followed by other notable works like Unbreakable and Signs. Shyamalan... read more

Okay, he had The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village, The Visit, and Split. Even Lady in the Water wasn't bad.

Made mistakes, but not an awful director.

Andrew Dominik

David Ayer

Duncan Jones

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Jon Favreau

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Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese film director and screenwriter who directed 30 feature films during a career spanning six decades. He is regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. His most acclaimed works include Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and Ikiru, which... read more

Rian Johnson

Michael Haneke

Michael Haneke (born 23 March 1942) is an Austrian film director and screenwriter. His work often examines social issues and portrays the feelings of alienation experienced by individuals in modern society. Haneke has made films in French, German, and English, and he has also worked extensively in television... read more

Douglas Sirk

Douglas Sirk made several masterful movies during the '50s and earlier, most of which were successful in their initial release but forgotten over time.
He explored social issues like racism, sexism in Hollywood, the two-class society, promiscuity, alcohol addiction, war, prejudices, and other then-controversial topics in heartbreaking dramas like "Imitation of Life", "All That Heaven Allows", "Written on the Wind", or "A Time to Love and a Time to Die", among many others. He also made more mainstream movies like film noirs, westerns, or historical films in between, but his main filmography consists of sociocritical melodramas.
Please, even if you never heard of him or his movies, if you love the art of classic filmmaking, watch the 4 films I listed above. You will adore them. Else, you'll miss some of the best works in cinema history.

Michael Bay

Michael Benjamin Bay is an American filmmaker known for directing and producing big-budget action films characterized by fast cutting, stylized visuals, and extensive use of special effects, including frequent depictions of explosions. His notable works include the Transformers film series, Bad Boys... read more

A director who is far better than he gets credit for. Michael Bay is a director with unique ideas and a creative style.

Michael Moore

Michael Francis Moore is an American documentary filmmaker, political activist, and author. His film Bowling for Columbine explored the Columbine High School massacre and the broader gun culture in the United States. Moore is also known for Fahrenheit 9/11, which critiques the George W. Bush administration... read more

Paul W. S. Anderson

Uwe Boll

Uwe Boll is a German-born Canadian filmmaker and restaurateur. He is known for directing films that are often adaptations of video games, including House of the Dead and BloodRayne. He later transitioned into the restaurant industry and has been involved in culinary ventures in Vancouver.

Uwe Boll has made the mistake of directing video game adaptations to finance his more ambitious movies with the money he makes from them. Boll is not a fan of video games, and his adaptations were made without putting his heart and soul into them, pissing off the games' fan bases. But check out his original movies: "Assault on Wall Street", the "Rampage" movies, "Darfur".
And if you don't see "Postal" as an adaptation of the game, it is really funny in a Trey Parker and Matt Stone kind of way. Boll didn't create "Postal" as a game adaptation. It was actually planned as an original movie, but if he didn't use that name for the film, studios didn't want to produce it due to its risky humor.
Boll is a passionate filmmaker when it comes to his own projects, but his subjects are often so touchy that no big film studio would finance them. So Boll directs mediocre mainstream movies to make a quick buck and independently finance his movies. Don't judge Boll by movies like "Alone in the Dark" or "Far Cry" (which are mediocre, I think, not as terrible as people make them), but by the ones he really put his heart into. You'll be surprised.

George Lucas

George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker and philanthropist. He created the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founded Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light and Magic, and THX. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012... read more

Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro Gómez is a Mexican filmmaker, author, actor, and former special effects makeup artist. He is best known for directing films such as Pan's Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, and Crimson Peak. Del Toro won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for The Shape of Water in 2018... read more

Takeshi Kitano

Uli Edel

Isao Takahata

Tony Scott

How can directors such as Michael Bay, M. Night Shyamalan, and ESPECIALLY Uwe Boll be considered underrated when compared to Tony Scott, who made incredible movies such as Top Gun, True Romance, The Last Boy Scout, Enemy of the State, Spy Game, etc.? It's a shame that there's barely any talk about Tony's movies, considering so many people were harshly criticizing them, not to mention how he sets the tone for the movies he's directed, the superb casting choices, and the overall buildup of suspense.

Matthew Vaughn

Robert Rodriguez

Robert Anthony Rodriguez is an American filmmaker known for his versatility. He works as a director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and composer. Rodriguez first gained attention with his debut film, El Mariachi, which led to successful projects such as the Spy Kids series, Sin City... read more