Here’s a thinker via The Ringer.
With the release of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” people, including myself, are inevitably pointing out his four-film run between 1972-1979 which consisted of four stone-cold masterpieces (“The Godfather,” “The Conversation,” “The Godfather Part II” and “Apocalypse Now”).
Coppola had four of his films crack the top 10 in our 1970s critics poll. That’s something we haven’t encountered yet, in any of other of our polls, which include the ‘50s, ‘60s, ’80s, ’90s, ’00s, and ’10s.
Hitchcock had three titles in the top 10 of the ‘50s poll. Kubrick had two films crack our ‘60s poll. Paul Thomas Anderson also had two in our ’90s and ‘10s polls. It’s hard to find a filmmaker who has managed to release 4 or 5 straight genuine classics.
If “Spartacus” doesn’t count as a Kubrick-directed movie, since he completely disavowed the film, then his streak could genuinely extend to “The Killing,” “Paths of Glory,” “Lolita,” “Doctor Strangelove,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “A Clockwork Orange,” “Barry Lyndon” and “The Shining.” That’s eight straight bangers right there.
Speaking of Alfred Hitchcock, how about his ‘58-64 run which consisted of “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” “Psycho,” and “The Birds.” A sublime streak of films that could match up with Coppola’s run.
Terrence Malick has a more complicated case, but it should still count. He made “Badlands”, and “Days of Heaven” in the ‘70s then disappeared for 20 years before giving us “The Thin Red Line,” “The New World”, and “The Tree of Life” — that counts as five consecutive great films.
How about Paul Thomas Anderson? A ‘97-’12 run that cemented his status as some kind of modern-day master with “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” “Punch Drunk Love,” “There Will Be Blood” and “The Master.” Over time, this streak of films will be seen as one of the most impressive ever assembled.
I’d also mention the recent reappraisal of Steven Spielberg’s stunning run of aughts films (‘98-’02), the greatest streak of films he’s ever had: “Saving Private Ryan,” “Artificial Intelligence,” “Minority Report” and “Catch Me If You Can.” Before then, Spielberg had released a handful of classics, but also some real streak-killing clunkers (“Hook,” “1941,” “Always”).
I’m a devout fan of David Cronenberg’s ‘80s output, specifically “Videodrome,” “The Dead Zone,” “The Fly” and “Dead Ringers,” all released consecutively between 1983-1988. I’m also big on Charlie Chaplin (1925-1936): “The Gold Rush,” “The Circus,” “City Lights,” “Modern Times,” and “The Great Dictator.”
One glaring omission in The Ringer piece is the total lack of foreign filmmakers. They should have included Michaelangelo Antonioni, who also had five straight bangers between ‘60- ‘66, with “L’Avventura,” “La Notte,” “L’Eclisse,” “Red Dessert,” and “Blow-Up.” Ditto Andrei Tarkovsky (“Andrei Rublev,” “Solaris,” “Mirror,” Stalker” and Robert Bresson (“The Diary of a Country Priest,” “A Man Escaped,” “Pickpocket,” “Au Hasard Balthazar,” “Mouchette”).
Akira Kurosawa is another filmmaker you could add to the list, he’s had a handful of four or five consecutive film streaks. I’m more prone to lean towards his run from ‘50- ‘57 (“Rashomon,” “Ikiru,” “Seven Samurai,” “I Live in Fear” and “Throne of Blood”).
With that said, what Coppola accomplished in the ’70s is very hard to match. He defined an entire decade with those four films. The saddest part of it all is that, unlike the director’s mentioned above, he would never again be the same filmmaker after “Apocalypse Now” — a film that completely broke him as a man and as an artist.