The superhero film genre is not kind to its directors and stars. I’m still a fan of The Shadow (1994) and The Phantom (1996), but there are days when I feel like an audience of 1 for both films.
The DC Extended Universe has been a huge disappointment to me. And I include every Christopher Nolan film in that long list of failures. Sorry, I’m just not a Dark Knight fan. And he didn’t help the Zack Snyder Justice League movies, either. In fact, Snyder did a far better job directing Watchmen than any of his Superman/Justice League movies (in my humblest opinion). Neither Nolan nor Snyder has been a good match for the DCEU, and I write that knowing that Christopher Nolan also helped produce Wonder Woman. I think the movie succeeded in spite of his help, not because of it.
On the other hand, there are good superhero movies in the sense that – if you rank them all together – you’ll find a strong mid-range list that includes the above movies. Much as I loved Superman (1978), the sequels to that movie didn’t take the genre seriously. Even Superman II, widely regarded as the best of the 4 films from the 1970s/80s, talked down to the audience. At least Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder treat their audiences like adults.
Rather than pick yet another list of “top” or “best” superhero movies, I wanted to talk about which directors I felt accomplished the most for the genre, and why. And so I present them in alphabetical order, not in some arbitrary best to least best fashion. Even Richard Lester left his mark on the field. They have all contributed something to the genre’s growth and maturity.
Jon Favreau
Honestly, I think one should watch Chef in order to appreciate Jon Favreau’s talents as both an actor and director. Although his career began years before Deep Impact, I remember him as being the forgettable guy who was blasted into space by the outgassing of the asteroid they tried to destroy. Okay, I didn’t actually remember that. When I first saw Iron Man I kept thinking, This guy looks familiar. Where have I seen him before?
Well, he played Foggy Nelson in 2003’s Daredevil (which I thought was pretty good, but I seem to be only 1 of 17 people who felt that way). But did you know that Jon Favreau had a role in 1995’s Batman Forever? Yeah, things just weren’t the same for DC after Michael Keaton left the franchise. I don’t have a list of actors who have appeared in both the DC and Marvel cinematic universes, but Favreau should be on any such lists. And I think they would be rather short.
Favreau’s contributions as a director to superhero film work came in Iron Man and Iron Man 2. Now, he’s obviously credited for reinvigorating the Marvel franchise – which had sunk pretty low with 2 wimpy Hulk movies and the Fantastic Four (although I really enjoyed the 2005 Fantastic Four).
Favreau did 2 things that stood out with Iron Man. First, he completely dropped the campy style that had plagued superhero films for decades. That nonsense probably began with the 1960s Batman movie. It was a lot of fun at the time but studios really didn’t appreciate comic book literature for what it was. Imagine what Saving Private Ryan would have been like if Steven Spielberg had directed an over-the-top “you kids don’t need serious story-telling” movie instead of the mature, thoughtful exploration of what the true cost of war is.
Iron Man showed us that superhero stories can be told in a thoughtful, mature way that considers deep issues relevant to society. That is far more true to the nature of the comic books – which have dealt with these themes for decades – than any film that came before it. When directors stop lampooning the literature because they think that’s what the kids in the audience want, they actually make great superhero movies.
The humor, the over-the-top inside jokes, and the Easter eggs don’t spoil the films. Favreau still had fun with Iron Man, but he did it as an adult talking to adults, not as an idiot talking down to the audience.
Jon Favreau revealed how much foreshadowing he did in this 2008 interview with EW. I think that says a lot about what he was able to accomplish while “just making a superhero movie” in a genre that – until that time – hadn’t accomplished much over all (except big box office numbers every decade).
Speaking of Chef, Screen Rant peels away Jon Favreau’s onion-like layers to explain just how autobiographical the movie really is.
James Gunn
James Gunn has had his ups and downs, as have other directors (almost) included in this list. Creating media for public consumption ain’t easy and these people live in the spotlight almost as much as the actors in their movies.
For the longest time I believed (because of stereotypes I grew up with in old TV shows and movies) that movie directors sat behind the camera and said “action!” or whatever. As I took an interest in learning more about the people who make movies, I learned that directors are more like project managers who put all the moving parts together from start to finish.
For any director to take on a franchise is a major commitment. But what about directors who step into a well-established major franchise like the Marvel Cinematic Universe? James Gunn joined a growing list of great directors who play fractional roles in Kevin Feige’s evil scheme. He had to bring something new to the game or his work would be overshadowed. With Guardians of the Galaxy and Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2 the MCU was kind of stacked against him.
All of the action in the MCU had – until this time – taken place on or near Earth. Even the first two Thor movies – starting in Asgard – were closely connected to Earth. With the Guardians of the Galaxy, the MCU for the first time took the audience well beyond Earth’s sphere of adventure. Yes, we begin on Earth in the first movie, but from that point forward everything else takes place in an off-world setting. Gunn had to propel the MCU into regions of the galaxy hitherto unexplored.
He had to introduce film audiences to new worlds and societies and make them believable enough that audiences could A) connect these worlds to the universe of the other MCU movies and B) accept these worlds for whole and complete societies. James Gunn expanded the MCU into the galaxy and he made it fit seamlessly into the framework that had already been established.
In discussing where the Marvel Cosmic Universe would go, James Gunn was quoted in this 2017 /Film article as saying:
“I would hope that in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole, every movie has its own unique feel and tone. And so, if it’s a James Gunn movie, it’s different from a Ryan Coogler movie, which is different from a Taika movie, which is different from a Peyton Reed movie. I think all the movies can be their own genre, they can be their own thing in the same way that if you grew up reading Marvel Comics, all the writers and the artist of the comic books brought very different tones to each of those,”
And the point is that he always saw his work as fitting into a larger whole, even while starting a new branch in the tree.
And there is one more first worth mentioning: James Gunn is the first MCU director to get a holiday special for his part of the MCU franchise.
Patty Jenkins
Much as I loved 2011’s Thor, I wish I could have seen what Patty Jenkins would have done with Thor II: The Dark World. Patty Jenkins outlined what she had in mind after leaving the MCU, and I think that would have been faithful to some of the story lines in the comic books. There were stories where Thor felt that Odin wasn’t being fair to Earth (of course, Odin always had a deeper plan). You only see a little bit of that conflict in the Thor II that was actually produced. In the comic books, Thor is a champion for the human race, not merely one of Earth’s protectors.
Disappointing as the “creative differences” with Marvel turned out to be, Patty went on to direct Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman. And, WOW! What a movie. She not only gave the character depth and multiple dimensions, she oversaw the creation of a cinematic adaptation of Themyscira/Paradise Island that exceeded (my) expectations.
The movie is not without its flaws. But for the most part the nits I can pick are relatively minor. We can quibble over the paring down of Diana’s family story. We can laugh about the way the ending turns the tables on Captain America: The First Avenger. But these are not things that ruin a movie.
The biggest problem with Wonder Woman is that it’s saddled with an awful DC Extended Universe. Patty Jenkin is courageous and confident enough to not feel bound to that universe, as “Patty Jenkins ‘Tossed Out’ Joss Whedon’s ‘Justice League’: It Contradicted ‘Wonder Woman’” on IndieWire (and similar articles on other sites) illustrates. Even better, when the men came out of the woodwork to criticize her work as being too feminine, she stood and defended a perspective that, frankly, has been a glaring omission from superhero film work.
DC and Warner Bros. are incredibly lucky to have a director with Patty Jenkins’ talent in their lineup. She’s laid the groundwork for future generations of women directors who may want to tell big budget stories about women superheroes. She’s not the first female director to take on the challenge. She’s merely the most successful to date.
Anthony and Joe Russo
The Russos’ work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is exemplary for weaving the personal and group stories of the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy together. Of course, they were guided by Marvel’s roadmap and spoke with other directors. But they had to assemble the most complex story lines with Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. They tied all the loose threads together and completed the massive Thanos saga.
But I also think their work with Captain America: The Winter Soldier was significant. They introduced 2 new (to the MCU) superheroes (the Falcon and the Winter Soldier), took down S.H.I.E.L.D., and laid the seeds for future movies. It’s one thing to say that Kevin Feige is coordinating everything, but the directors still have to execute. The Russos had a lot riding on their shoulders.
I also like the Winter Soldier story because it took Cap/Steve Rogers back to a previous relationship from his first movie. The story could have relied on flashbacks to teach the audience about Cap and Bucky, but it instead focused on Steve’s emotions as they unfolded. I think that was the right decision. The audience had a great opportunity to develop empathy with characters who are literally superhuman.
Taika Waititi
Taika Waititi didn’t break new groun with Thor: Ragnarok. He took a successful character and changed its direction. In fact, Waititi admitted that about eighty percent of the movie was ad libbed.
Actors like Jim Carrey and Robert Downey, Jr. are famous for their ad libs, but this is the first big budget superhero movie where everyone seems to have made it up as they went along. They took the kernel of a story and ran with it in whichever direction seemed to work.
Taika Waititi is not the first director to assemble a movie as it unfolds, but usually directors find themselves in that position because they’ve run out of money or time or had to deal with unexpected problems. Usually when a movie starts out with a bad script it doesn’t turn out well. So many things that could have gone wrong – perhaps should have gone wrong, didn’t. And the director, cast, and crew deserve credit for making so much ad hoc work look smooth and easy.
One reason why Thor: Ragnarok could pivot so well is that there wasn’t much need for it in terms of developing the character’s arc within the MCU or in advancing the Thanos story line. We knew who and what Thor was. Thor was confident in who and what he was. He didn’t need to discover anything new about himself.
The real character growth happened for Loki and the Hulk. Waititi took a movie about Thor and turned it into a story about Thor’s influence on people he cares about. And that’s unusual for a superhero movie. It’s a great way to fill in the time when you’ve been handed an action flick in a huge franchise, where you’re not expect to set up much of anything. All they had to do was make sure that Thor, Loki, and Bruce Banner were in the right place at the right time to hand off the story to the Russos for Avengers: Infinity War.
In the future, if superhero franchises need to take a diversion for any reason, Taika Waititi has blazed a trail that others should follow.
James Wan
Though I’ve showered much disappointment and rebuke upon the DCEU over the years, not every movie in the franchise (other than Wonder Woman) completely sucks. James Wan’s Aquaman is better than Man of Steel, the Injustice movies, and any of the dark knight movies.
I can’t say that Aquaman is very faithful to the source material, but it’s faithful enough that I was able to explain a lot of things in the movie to someone who had no idea of who or what Aquaman is supposed to be.
There are few serious problems with Aquaman. As origin stories go it’s unique because not only has Aquaman (Arthur Curry) already appeared in the DCEU (he was introduced in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), the story picks up after Justice League. Arthur Curry knows who he is and where he comes from, but James Wan leads the audience through a journey of discovery that reveals both Arthur’s past and his present dilemma (his conflict with his half-brother, Orm).
Jason Momoa has had his ups and downs. I thoroughly enjoyed his work on Stargate: Atlantis, but in the years since then people have expressed disappointment or dismay at some of his roles. He may have been best appreciated as Khal Drogo on Game of Thrones in the intervening years. He was not much-loved for Conan the Barbarian. And when people heard Jason had been cast as Arthur Curry, well, there were many doubting comments.
I think James Wan gave Jason the right vehicle to prove that he can (and should) own this character. People who were expecting the blond-haired Aquaman from the comic books held Jason Momoa’s appearance against him, but characters have been recast throughout the comic books and movies. In the MCU, Nick Fury was played by Samuel L. Jackson, upon whom the revised Nick Fury was based. The Fury character was originally a gruff white man from World War II. And in the DCEU Lois Lane was recast as a redhead (played by Amy Adams). I like Amy Adams, but I’ve never been able to accept her Lois Lane – not because of her red hair but because she just doesn’t seem like the Lois Lane in the comic books I grew up reading.
Wan had to squeeze a lot of important details into this movie. The story could have unfolded differently and still covered much the same ground, but you can’t judge a movie by what else it could have been. This movie works. As one fan reviewer said, everything works. It’s not a great movie, but Aquaman breaks the DCEU curse along with Wonder Woman. The latter is the better movie, in my opinion, but Aquaman manages to tell a backstory about a character that audiences already know about without dragging out too many details.
Origin stories tend to become mired in setup. Everything must be set up for future movies. For some reason, the powers that be decided Aquaman’s origin story could wait. And James Wan and his writing team seized the opportunity to create a story that fills in the details without pretending to be a prequel.
That’s what makes this movie unique. And because it works, future directors who need to do something like this will have a good role model to follow.
What about the X-Men Movies?
Many people feel Bryan Singer did a lot for superhero movies with 2000’s X-Men. Why don’t I list him as one of the top directors in the field?
First, although I have enjoyed all his X-Men movies, these are not the X-Men I grew up with. I don’t feel a connection to these characters. I can’t put my finger on it because the later movies mentioned above all follow much more recent comic book reboots and sagas.
It might be best to say that Singer’s contributions don’t lead anywhere. They’re not tied into anything and therefore his hands were tied. And I don’t mean to detract anything from the fun movies that Twentieth Century Fox put together with its Daredevil, X-Men, and Fantastic Four franchises, but look at the squandered opportunity there. They could have created a cinematic universe and didn’t even try.
It fell to Bryan Singer to create an X-Men Cinematic Universe, and he did that, but it’s a small universe compared to the DC and Marvel Cinematic Universes. His directorial efforts did not contribute to any maturity in the field, in my opinion, with one exception.
He did put Hugh Jackman into the role of Wolverine. I mean, there are great actors in all the roles – Ian McKellen as Magneto, Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier – but Singer’s X-Men universe wouldn’t have gone very far without Jackman. And yet, it didn’t go far enough.
Twentieth Century Fox so loved Singer’s franchise it rebooted the whole thing with X-Men: First Class. Yes, Singer fell into controversy, but no one is building on his work. The Wolverine movies kind of walked away from the Singerverse. Whatever goodness for the superhero genre Singer achieved was left to wither and die in the vaults of DvD sales and holiday TV rebroadcasts.
So, sorry, Bryan Singer doesn’t make the list – and maybe that’s unfair to the work he did before all the controversy erupted, but this list is about who is moving the genre forward.
Conclusion
It’s tough to say what you want to say in a few words about good or great directors and their good or great movies. And I’m long-winded to begin with.
I’ve grown up with superhero movies. In fact, they’ve been around longer than I have. The first non-serialized full cinematic superhero movie was Superman and the Mole men. As a kid I loved watching George Reeves as Clark Kent/Superman. His was the only superhero television show that eschewed the camp (and if you’ve studied the history of that TV show, you know there were plenty of people involved with the production who wanted it to be an awful condescending kiddie show). The next big superhero show after that was Batman, which we love for its campiness but it clearly didn’t treat the genre (or the characters) with the respect they deserve.
I never understood why comic book movies had to be treated so badly by the film and television industry. The shows had short runs. The movies usually did poorly at the box office. Why did it take so many years for people to figure out that if you really want to make money in this genre, you need to treat your audience like adults?
And yet – too many modern superhero movies still fail for that same reason. Just because you’re telling a story about characters with ridiculously impossible powers doesn’t mean you can’t tell those stories about people with real personalities in a realistic world.
If you like my blathering, here are some of the movie reviews I’ve written through the years. And if you don’t then don’t click on the links.
Review of Wonder Woman on A1 Movie Reviews.
Review of Thor: Ragnarok on A1 Movie Reviews.
Review of Avengers: Endgame on SF-Fandom.
Review of Avengers: Infinity War, Part 1 on SF-Fandom.
Review of Captain America: Civil War on SF-Fandom.
Review of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 on SF-Fandom.