Sometimes you’ve got to fall down before you get back up, and all these filmmakers achieved major comebacks following films that flopped, underperformed, or downright bombed at the box office. Featuring works from some of the greatest directors who ever lived, these acclaimed auteurs quickly turned failure into success as they followed up disappointing releases with some of their greatest works.

From Peter Jackson following up The Frighteners with The Lord of the Rings to David Lynch never again giving up final cut privileges after Dune, the lessons learned from film failures have led to bold reinventions. With some career-defining masterpieces, these directors allowed their failures to mark creative turning points and to return better than ever.

6

Kathryn Bigelow

K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

Kathryn Bigelow has had an interesting career, as her early work differs so greatly from her later output. Bigelow’s career began with the outlaw biker movie The Loveless, and she went on to make cult classics like Point Break and Strange Days. These fantastic action and sci-fi movies showcased Bigelow as one of the most underrated directors of the 1990s.

However, Bigelow struggled in the early 2000s, and both The Weight of Water and K-19: The Widowmaker bombed at the box office. Despite having access to major stars like Sean Penn and Harrison Ford, Bigelow’s work during this period failed to connect with audiences or critics, leading many to question her future in Hollywood.

Doubts about Bigelow’s talent were put to rest in 2008 when she released The Hurt Locker, a surprise success that surpᴀssed all expectations and made her the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director. This re-established Bigelow as a major name, and later films like Zero Dark Thirty solidified her reputation for making tense, politically charged thrillers.

5

Danny Boyle

A Life Less Ordinary (1997)

The English director Danny Boyle burst onto the filmmaker scene in the early 1990s with the stylish indie Shallow Grave and the cultural phenomenon that was Trainspotting. These were early examples of a bold new voice in British cinema that all came crashing down with the chaotic romantic fantasy A Life Less Ordinary.

As an attempt to blend comedy, crime, and the supernatural, A Life Less Ordinary didn’t really work and signaled the end of Boyle’s ongoing creative partnership with Ewan McGregor before they patched things up for T2: Trainspotting in 2017. A Life Less Ordinary failed at the box office and led many to question whether Boyle’s early successes had been a fluke.

However, following minor success with The Beach, Boyle truly bounced back with 28 Days Later, a zombie horror that revitalized the genre for the 21st century. Boyle reached new heights when he won Best Picture with Slumdog Millionaire and has maintained his relevance to this day with the recent success of 28 Years Later.

4

Darren Aronofsky

The Fountain (2006)

After an impressive debut with the gritty and experimental thriller Pi and the devastating exploration of addiction seen in Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky was hailed as one of the most promising auteurs of the early 2000s. But this momentum hit a wall with The Fountain, an ambitious sci-fi romance that baffled audiences and critics alike.

As a box office bomb that failed to connect emotionally or commercially, The Fountain explored metaphysics, universal patterns, Biblical symbolism, and boundless love over thousands of years. Yet, for all its lofty ambitions, it just didn’t work, and its failure could have seriously derailed Aronofsky’s career.

However, Aronofsky got straight back to work with the impressive character study The Wrestler, a critically acclaimed sports movie that rejuvenated Mickey Rourke’s career. Following this, Aronofsky made perhaps his best movie, Black Swan, which was an artistically mature exploration of obsession that was also a hit at the box office.

3

Steven Spielberg

1941 (1979)

Steven Spielberg is perhaps the best-known filmmaker in American history, although it took him a while to fully realize his unique balance of spectacle and storytelling. While Spielberg achieved his breakout hit with Jaws and followed this up with the excellent Close Encounters of the Third Kind, it was after this that Spielberg had his first major filmmaking disappointment.

1941 was a misguided World War II comedy that ultimately failed to deliver laughs. Despite a few standout moments, most notably an elaborate jitterbug dancehall sequence, the film was a chaotic jumble that wasted its star-studded cast, including comedy legends like John Belushi, John Candy, and Dan Aykroyd.

As a director who never managed to get comedies right, it was only after the failure of 1941 that Spielberg discovered his talent for sentimentality and family-friendly favorites like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Jurᴀssic Park. In later years, Spielberg matured further as a filmmaker and stepped beyond crowd-pleasing blockbusters to make artistically mature and powerful works like Schindler’s List.

2

David Lynch

Dune (1984)

The late director David Lynch was one of the most starkly original filmmakers ever, and his unique cinematic voice arrived fully formed with the release of Eraserhead in 1977. From here, Lynch stepped out of the arthouse scene toward more mainstream filmmaking with the historical biopic The Elephant Man before going full blockbuster with the ambitious sci-fi adaptation Dune.

Dune was meant to be Lynch’s big break into mainstream Hollywood, but it underperformed at the box office and taught him an important lesson about maintaining artistic control. Without final cut privilege, Lynch’s Dune was an incoherent mess, and he even went so far as to disown the film and have it credited under the pseudonym Alan Smithee.

Rather than bend to the system and change his style to suit the desires of studio executives, Lynch returned in 1986 with the neo-noir mystery Blue Velvet, a dreamlike, surreal film that re-established his creative idenтιтy. This marked a new beginning for a fearless and uncompromising career that included all-time great works like Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks.

1

Peter Jackson

The Frighteners (1996)

The New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson has had an extraordinary career whose trajectory would have been impossible to predict. What started with sci-fi action comedies like Bad Taste and the satirical adult-oriented puppet parody Meet the Feebles later grew into sprawling epics such as The Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong.

In the middle of these two hugely different periods in Jackson’s career lies The Frighteners, a cult classic supernatural comedy about a psychic architect (Michael J. Fox) who can see, hear, and speak with ghosts. This cult classic underperformed at the box office, and it would take five years before Jackson returned with the series that would come to define his career.

Although Jackson had made good films before The Lord of the Rings, it was this epic that showcased him as one of the most capable filmmakers of his generation. As a grand and epic story based on the beloved fantasy book by J.R.R. Tolkien, Jackson had achieved the impossible and made a trilogy that pleased everybody.