Out The Gate: The Ten Best "First-Five Movies" Stretch By American Auteurs
Welcome Back Wudder World,
For a second time in seven days…we promised the wait wouldn’t be nearly as long next time around ;)
Here’s an evergreen update for those calling for more film geekery without the sports punditry.
(don’t fret, your inaugural Flock Of Eagles of the season will be coming relatively soon, sports fans).
Our simple rules: take any American director of the ‘modern’ era (we’ll say 1967 onward).
Look at the first five movies they directed (not wrote, not produced, no ‘toss that one out’ exemptions.
Then see where each of their “first five” ranks on this labor of love Top 10 list.
👀 = least of the lot
🏆 = top of the heap
10) Robert Zemeckis
I Wanna Hold Your Hand👀, Used Cars, Romancing The Stone, Back to the Future🏆, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
His first two are more ‘pretty good’ than ‘outstanding’. I happen to really enjoy Used Cars as an early Kurt Russell comedy starring vehicle just before he meets John Carpenter. But wow does Steven Spielberg’s little buddy crank things up a notch with films #3, #4 and #5. The first two just need not be disasters when you have those comprising 3/5ths. They’re why he made the list. You can watch any one of them absolutely anytime.
9) David Fincher
Alien3👀, Se7en🏆, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room
One of the greatest auteurs to debut in the past 30 years, Fincher has yet to make a dud in his career to this day (tho Mank is a fairly forgettable Netflix film Fincher made from his father’s unmade script…we cut him slack for a good-son familial film favor). His experience on Alien3 had him disavow the movie and consider returning to music-videos full-time due to his hurt over its handling by execs. Mind you, Alien3 was still pretty good (tho nowhere near ‘his best’, a wild opinion spouted by my iconcoclast friend TG). But it was Fincher insisting on what stayed in the box, making a lovable rube of Brad Pitt and building a film around Morgan Freeman that sent his career toward the stratosphere.
8) John Hughes
Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science👀, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Planes Trains and Automobiles🏆
Look, we can quibble about how well some of the eighties teenage angst stuff holds up. Or point out the obvious issues with ethnic stereotypes (Dong anyone?) or just flat-out lack of non-white characters in this run of movies mostly set in Chicago (more accurately suburban Chicago but still). There is also some weird stuff going on between him and Molly Ringwald but hey, it was the eighties and it’s an afterschool special compared to dastardly deeds by seventies filmmaking legends like Woody Allen or Roman Polanski.
In addition to penning and directing these five gems, Hughes also wrote the following additional scripts he didn’t direct between 1980 thru 1989: National Lampoon’s Class Reunion, Mr. Mom, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Pretty In Pink, Some Kind Of Wonderful, Great Outdoors, Home Alone. Did this man sleep in the eighties?!?! Our amateur research doesn’t seem to find a credible link between Hughes and what kept many others up back then.
7) Paul Thomas Anderson
Hard Eight, Boogie Nights🏆, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love👀, There Will Be Blood
I could argue that PTA (pictured here with then-boo-already-legendary-in-her-own-right Fiona Apple) gifted us with the pathway for Young Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Old Phillip Baker Hall’s acting careers. He also resurrects Burt Reynolds, was the first to take Adam Sandler Dramatic Actor out for a spin (it never fully works), gets Tom Cruise’s last performance as a full-time human, then eventually becomes Daniel Day-Lewis’ most trusted collaborator on his way to his second of three Best Actor trophies in arguably his most iconic role.
Full disclosure I saw Punch-Drunk Love in the theater and have no desire to see it again. But Boogie Nights is one of the most rewatchable movies of all-time. And Hard Eight is supremely underrated.
6) Quentin Tarantino
Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction🏆, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Kill Bill II👀
I mean…look at that list. It’s ridiculous. Of course, there’s probably some people, like my little sis, who couldn’t really be it with it due to the very film-bro-y combo of highly referential dialogue, genre kitsch and scenes of imaginatively intense violence. QT is not for everybody. But I will ride for any of these five movies. Even if four and five really shoulda just been one film as was originally planned. But in that case the next up, Death Proof, once exorcised from its Grindhouse trappings, is one of his most underrated, probably second behind only Jackie Brown, one of my favorite LA movies in recent memory.
Meanwhile the way film changed by having Tarantino in it, for better or even at times worse, is undeniable. We need more audacity, dare I say an element of celebrity, in our auteurs again. Say what you will about the man. But his unabashed love for movies is authentic and tangible onscreen.
5) Michael Mann
Thief, Manhunter, Last Of The Mohicans, Heat🏆, The Insider👀
The five benefit here from not bringing in some of the lesser Mann’s (Ali, Public Enemies, Blackhat) into the fold. The Insider’s tale of corporate whistleblowers and journalistic integrity feel fairly quaint in today’s climate. But we sung Thief’s praises here previously in a heist movie thread. Manhunter is the first Hannibal Lecter movie ever while still the only essential one besides Silence of the Lambs. Last Of The Mohicans is gorgeous. And Heat is quite simply one of our favorite movies of all time.
4) Spike Lee
She’s Gotta Have It, School Daze👀, Do The Right Thing🏆, Mo’ Better Blues, Jungle Fever
Spike really did, along with his NYU classmates Jim Jarmusch just before him and Steven Soderbergh just after him, build his career from the ground up as an independent filmmaker. She’s Gotta Have It followed in the black-and-white direction of his NYU grad student film Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop. It also is one of the relative few Spike films to date centered around a female lead. School Daze is beloved by anyone who ever went to an HBCU that I’ve ever spoken with about it.
But for yours truly the seismic shift was Do The Right Thing. My Uncle John & I went to see that at the Eric Twin in Cherry Hill. Spike became my first auteur and ushered me into adolescence. We got to the theater a few minutes into the film. After the first showing, we decided to sit in the theater and wait for the film to start again to catch the beginning. Realizing we had missed Rosie’s boxing glove opening credits dance to “Fight The Power” it seemed like we were about to get up. But we stayed for the first scene with Mookie and his sister. Then Sal and sons opening the shop. At some point Unc says “wanna just watch it again?” to which I replied “yes” before he finished asking. Never had that happen before or since. The follow-up, Mo’ Better Blues, upon rewatch is better than I even remember in 2025. Have to check back on Jungle Fever. It’s been awhile.
Spike gets extra credit here or writing all five of these scripts, doing some pretty good acting in each and discovering some of the greatest actors of a generation over the course of them.
3) Tim Burton
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure🏆, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Batman Returns👀
I can’t think of any director who benefits more from this “First Five” regimen than Tim Burton. This man fell off a cliff a long time ago as a filmmaker. Those first five tho? Damn near flawless. Wudder fans know how we feel about the masterpiece that is Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. That’s a career apex for almost everyone involved. Beetlejuice is absolutely beloved tho we were late to the party. Edward Scissorhands is Burton’s autobiography he and Johnny Depp have been retracing less effectively since. Batman was one of the biggest event movies of the decade in a time when comic-book movies weren’t really a thing. Its sequel works too, especially the Michelle Pfieffer parts, but it has some sequel bloat in its delightful weirdness.
Choose your own adventure after this string of hits. But you can’t start much better than this.
2) Steven Spielberg
Sugarland Express, Jaws, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, 1941👀, Raiders of the Lost Ark🏆
You all knew this man was coming at some point, didn’t you? Actually, many are probably shocked we put him at number two. To those confused to not see Spielberg at number one I ask, “have you seen 1941?”. It’s awful. Spielberg has never shown the ability to do a straight-ahead comedy. Which is a little odd, because there is a sense of comedic timing on display in many of his earliest works (Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders, E.T.). 1941 tho is a dead fish. It’s the worst film among not just his but everyone else’s entries on their “first five” list.
If you could knock it out, even with most not knowing Sugarland Express, then move E.T. to five from six, he’s number one with a bullet. Steven Spielberg is the first director I ever knew by name as a little kid, well before I’d even learned what an auteur is. There are three arguably perfect movies on this list. And unlike some directors named already, there was no shortage of forthcoming classics. This man did Schindler’s List and Jurassic Park in the same calendar year. It seems funny to put him here, sandwiched in between two he so clearly greatly influenced from subsequent generations (Burton and #1) but it is what it is.
1) Ryan Coogler
Fruitville Station, Creed, Black Panther, Wakanda Forever👀, Sinners🏆
We’re trying to not be prisoner of the moment. But Sinners upped the ante on what Coogler might be capable of now that he’s out of the prison of IP. Like most first movies, Fruitvale Station could not have fully prepared us for what was to come. It is a great indie movie in its own right tho. Coogler wisely chose home (Oakland) as the setting because in order to make something universal you have to be specific. This movie also let you know Wallace from The Wire could lead a film. That came in handy when Coogler, a former D-1 football player who applied to USC Film School while injured, decided to make Creed to make his ailing father happy. In doing so, he resurrected a franchise many had said died in Rocky V. But this time it was Black Philadelphia, combined with LA, on display. It was a southpaw no one took serious or saw coming until it landed. Sylvester Stallone even ended up with his first Oscar nomination since the original for his return.
Black Panther was a critical smash and at one point a Top 5 adjusted for inflation U.S. film of all-time. Wakanda Forever was the follow-up he had to make but he did so not knowing his lead (RIP Chadwick Boseman) was sick, let alone going to perish in the middle of making it. It getting finished becomes more of a testament to the filmmaker than the fact that it’s the fifth-best movie on his list. Sinners is just the ultimate. It was easy to realize “I’m inside an instant-classic” while in the theater on IMAX watching it. It’s been rewatched six (a record three in theater, three on HBO) times since.
This dude isn’t even 40 yet.
Honorable Mention (tied at eleven):
Terrence Malick
Badlands🏆, Days Of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World👀, The Tree of Life
&
Martin Brest
Going In Style, Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run🏆, Scent of a Woman, Meet Joe Black👀
Others Receiving Votes:
David Lynch (acquired taste) & John Singleton (youngest ever to make a classic but got spotty pretty quick).
Martin Scorsese: One of the true GOAT’s. But foks, let’s not pretend you saw Who’s Knocking At My Door?, remember Boxcar Bertha, or ever talk about Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, tho we do dig that last one.
Not enough made to be eligible but maybe one day: Jordan Peele, Greta Gerwig, Ari Aster.
