Three Successive Movies

nych 1

nych 1

250+ Posts
I think it is much harder to come up with three consecutive great movies by a director. Not sure if I should include documentaries or shorts. I'll start with:

Francis Ford Coppola: (depends if you prefer Apoc. Now over The Godfather)
-The Godfather (1972)
-The Conversation (1974)- Great, underrated movie. Although written before Watergate, released after break-in. The film touches on the theme of intrusion on civil liberties through the use of wire-tapping
-The Godfather II (1974)
-Apocalypse Now (1979)

Martin Scorcese:
-Mean Streets (1973)
-Italianamerican (documentary) (1974)- I omitted because it has not been widely seen, as opposed to The Last Waltz
-Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)- Underrated movie with Ellen Burstyn taking home the Oscar for best female actor
-Taxi Driver (1976)

Peter Jackson
Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Howard Hawks
-To Have and Have Not (1944)- First time Bogart and Bacall work together
-The Big Sleep (1946)- great film noir with Bogart and Bacall
-Red River (1948)- considered one of the best westerns of all-time

Jean Pierre Melville
-Le Samourai (1967)- see influence in John Woo's The Killer and Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
-Army of Shadows (1969)- initially ignored due to French critics believe that it was a glorification of De Gaulle; recently rediscovered thanks to re-release and Criterion.
-Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle) (1970)

Paul Thomas Anderson- pick your own three consecutive movies
-Hard Eight (1996)
-Boogie Nights (1997)
-Magnolia (1999)
-Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
-There Will Be Blood (2007)
 
Arggggh! I was going to get Soderbergh with Out of Sight, The Limey, and Traffic, but goddam Erin Brokovich got in the way!!!! Although I thought it was an OK movie, it definitely breaks up the greatness of the other 3.
 
I'll take the biggest layup out there, too, IMHO, in the Coen brothers...

Blood Simple
Raising Arizona
Miller's Crossing

and a ridiculous run later of:

Fargo
The Big Lebowski
Oh Brother, Where art Thou?
The Man Who Wasn't There
 
Sergio Leone, of course:

A Fistfull of Dollars
A Few Dollars More
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Actually, the best of them all may be Once Upon a Time in the West, so you could lop off the first film.
 
Lifetime AChievment for consistent quality with no stinkers interrupting the chain:
Stanley Kubrick, from his first to next-to-last:
The Killing
Paths of Glory
Lolita
Dr. Strangelove
2001
A Clockwork Orange
Barry Lyndon
The Shining
Full Metal Jacket

His last movie was "Eyes Wide SHut," which I didn't really like that much. Maybe it was just because of Tom Cruise.
 
Spielberg is a condrum as well.
Sugarland Express (1974)
Jaws (1975)
Close Encounters (1977)
**1941 (1979)** clunker alert
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
ET (1982)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Color Purple (1985)

Kind of hard to include a series of 3 with Spielberg without having arguably his 2 best movies. (Jaws & Close Encounters) at your disposal because of the mess that is 1941. And adding Sugarland Express to get those two in, just doesn't feel right. Sugarland Express, while a fine movie doesn't even come close to Jaw or Close Encounters.

Trying to find 3 together in Spielberg's movies after 1941 is tough too, as there are a bunch of great films and good stories, the direction is not a tour de force.

Much tougher to come up with 3 when you look at his entire body of work.
 
Hal Ashby

Harold and Maude (1971)
Last Detail (1973)
Shampoo (1975)


Alfred Hitchcock

Vertigo (1958)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
 
Wow, many greats mentioned. I'm a huge Nolan and Scorcese fan...will see their movies no matter what. So they are high on my list as is Coppola for the Godfather stint. However for a true succession of 3 movies I just don't think I can top Peter Jackson for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I think he was brilliant in these movies and I can't recall ever being as excited to see as any other movie. The way he released them every Dec. timeframe was brilliant as well...one year after the other.
 
The Big Sleep was actually made before To Have and Have Not, but sat on the shelf. When Bacall/Bogart made a hit with Have Not, they shot some new scenes and released Sleep.
 
John Ford:

The Long Gray Line
Mister Roberts
The Searchers

Hell, he had so many good ones (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Rio Grande, Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, etc.), it's hard not to find at least two in a row with him.
 
I would think Billy Wilder, but I couldn't find three in a row. the list below does not include a tv remake of ninotchka in 1960.

1960 The Apartment
1959 Some Like It Hot
1957 Witness for the Prosecution
 
I'm shocked no one has listed Roger Corman, who directed these classics in succession:
Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)
The Undead (1957)
The Wasp Woman (1959)

or perhaps Victor Fleming:

The Wizard of Oz (took over midway, got co-director credit)
Gone With the Wind
Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Tortilla Flat
 
Eyes Wide Shut was not cruise's fault.

Kubrick died without final editing and it was a bad idea to start with-----the piece it was based on was excellent but about as easy to adapt as one of Faulkner's novels.

I watched Paths of Glory for the first time in ten years the other night and was surprised at how good the battle scenes were. I was always more impressed with the tragic circumstances of the three soldiers and their defender before and just never paid that much attention Can't say WW I trench warfare was ever done better.

Great film.

2001 and Barry Lyndon both hold up beautifully as well
 
One director that may equal the Kubrick and the Coen brothers run of excellence is Akira Kurosawa:
-Rashomon (1950)
-The Idiot (1951)
-Ikiru (1952)
-Seven Samurai (1954)
and
-The Hidden Fortress (1958)
-The Bad Sleep Well (1960)
-Yojimbo (1961)
-Sanjuro (1962)
-High and Low (1963)
-Red Beard (1965)
--only did two films in the 70s (one was an Oscar winner Dersu Uzala)
--the twilight years
-Kagemusha (1980)
-Ran (1985)
-Dreams (1990)

Another good run is by Michael Mann
-Manhunter (1986)
-omitting t.v. show Crime Story (very good) and a t.v. movie
-Last of the Mohicans (1992)
-Heat (1995)
-The Insider (1999)

Not sure if I should include Terrence Malick due to inactivity
-Badlands (1973)
-Days of Heaven (1978)
-The Thin Red Line (1998)

Federico Fellini
-Night of Cabiria (1957)
-La Dolce Vita (1960)
-8 1/2 (1963)
 
For nomination:
Mel Brooks

The Producers
The Twelve Chairs
Blazing Saddles
Young Frankenstein

But wait, there's more:

John Landis

Kentucky Fried Movie
National Lampoon's Animal House
The Blues Brothers
 
The Rock
Armageddon
Pearl Harbor







Just kidding
smile.gif
 
James Cameron had a pretty good five movie streak

Terminator
Aliens
The Abyss
Terminator 2
True Lies
 
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