Everyone has their favorite filmmakers - directors that have proven themselves with their work that fans will see anything that they do. Today, directors such as M. Night Shyamalan, Judd Apatow, and Steven Spielberg usually get big box office numbers, as they have built a dedicated fanbase.
No fan wants to face the day when their favorite director leaves this world and they can no longer look forward to new work from them. Recently, fans of composer Ennio Morricone experienced such a tragedy. Here are 10 of the best final films from respected directors.
Sam Peckinpah - The Osterman Weekend (1983)
Sam Peckinpah had long been a respected filmmaker and something of an infamous one, as well, due to his legendary battles with studio heads. Known as one of the masters of the American Western, Peckinpah changed the way cinema looked at violence. Unfairly called "Bloody Sam" by some, the filmmaker used slow-motion, not to make it look beautiful, but to bring home the power of death.
His 1983 film, The Osterman Weekend was a small comeback after a string of flops. The film (about a secret group out to expose Russian Agents) was a smart and thrilling adaptation of the Robert Ludlum novel and featured a strong cast that included Rutger Hauer, Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper, Meg Foster, and John Hurt. The film received mixed reviews and a low box office return, but is regarded as a solid comeback that was sadly never to be, as Peckinpah died one year later.
Bob Fosse - Star 80 (1983)
Bob Fosse went from groundbreaking Broadway director/choreographer to one of cinema's most respected filmmakers with only five films. He won an Oscar for directing 1972's Cabaret.
His 1983 film, Star 80 was the brilliantly told tragedy of Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratton, who was on the brink of stardom but was murdered by her estranged husband. Mariel Hemingway played Stratton and Eric Roberts gave a terrifying performance as her husband Paul. The film was a flop but was highly praised by critics. Fosse suffered a heart attack in September of 1987. The director had a few films in the works but Star 80 would be his swan song.
Lynn Shelton - Sword Of Trust (2019)
Lynn Shelton had, in a short time, become one of the best filmmakers in the independent film world. The writer-director brought films a fresh and funny voice. Her 2019 dramatic comedy, Sword of Trust, was a well-received tale of a group of good souls coming together to sell a fabled Civil War sword.
Shelton used the film to explore deep characterizations and examine hearts that have been mended and hearts still in need of redemption of self. The film received positive reviews and gave Marc Maron an award-worthy role. Tragedy struck less than two years later, as Shelton died in early 2020. Sword of Trust was her final film.
Hal Ashby - 8 Million Ways To Die (1986)
Hal Ashby was one of cinema's most easy-going filmmakers. Those who worked with him told of how his sets were mellow and how Ashby was a patient filmmaker. Sadly, addiction got the best of him and his last few films failed at the box office.
8 Million Ways to Die was a brutal police thriller based on a book by Lawrence Block. Oliver Stone adapted the screenplay and Ashby directed. The set was problematic, as the studio edited the film without Ashby's blessing and added a score that didn't fit. Still, the film holds great performances from Jeff Bridges, Rosanna Arquette, and a pre-fame Andy Garcia and is exciting and full of powerful drama.
Akira Kurosawa - Madadayo (1993)
Madadayo is the warm and beautiful tale of a professor spending his final years celebrating life and art with his students on his birthday.
Akira Kurosawa had many epic films under his belt, so it was a rightful end to his long career with a film that sang a chorus for the end of a beautiful life - that of both the film's lead character and its director.
Sidney Lumet - Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)
Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead was the perfect finale for the director's long career. A master of the crime drama, Lumet's last work was the story of two brothers who try to rob their own parent's jewelry store, but are sent down a path of doom due to a tragedy.
Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, and Philip Seymour Hoffman gave some of the best performances of their careers, and Lumet's film was considered one of his late career best.
Stanley Kubrick - Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut was greeted with the big fanfare of a blockbuster. Kubrick died before the film's release, which added to its secrecy and allure.
While a modest financial success, Kubrick's final film gave summer filmgoers something different, a psychological examination of sexuality, jealousy, and marriage. Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise do award-worthy work as a married couple tempted by fate and danger.
Robert Altman - A Prairie Home Companion (2005)
Robert Altman had secret bypass surgery in 2003 but recovered. However, his failing health continued and the filmmaker was wheelchair-bound during the filming of his adaptation of Garrison Keillor's famous stage show, A Prairie Home Companion.
The film was a fitting finale for Altman, as it was a good-natured movie full of music with a large cast doing great work. Woody Harrelson, Meryl Streep, John C. Reilly, Lindsey Lohan, Kevin Kline, and many more came together in this light-hearted and sweet film.
Charles Laughton - Night Of The Hunter (1955)
Both a first and final film, as Charles Laughton made only one, the classic that is Night of the Hunter stars Robert Mitchum as a psycho posing as a preacher who terrorizes two little children, in search of their late father's buried money.
The film is considered both a drama and a horror. Critics and film historians, in unison, named the film an all-time classic. Mitchum's performance is legendary and his finger tattoos that spell out "Love and Hate" are part of film lore. Spike Lee referenced this film in his 1989 classic Do The Right Thing, as the character of "Radio Raheem" had gold finger rings that say Love and Hate and he recited the speech that Mitchum gave about the right-hand/left-hand conflict.
Sergio Leone - Once Upon A Time In America (1984)
Once Upon A Time In America was torn to shreds by its studio in 1984 and released in an inferior version that critics and audiences hated. It wasn't Sergio Leone's vision and the director spoke of how it saddened him to see his four-plus hour film cut by over half and edited out of context, ruining the scope and depth of his final masterpiece. Ennio Morricone was robbed of an Oscar by a clerk not filing the paperwork in time. His work for this film is recognized as one of the greatest of the maestro's long career.
The studio put together his full cut for European audiences and over the years, Leone's family assembled the fullest version yet, done to the director's original notes. The film was to be Sergio Leone's last, as he would die of a heart attack five years later at the age of 60. Leone's gangster epic (featuring Robert De Niro, James Woods, Joe Pesci, and more) is rightfully considered one of the great masterworks of cinema and stands tall after all these years.