Data story · Movies
How great directors’ careers rise and fall, film by film.
Across 80 famous directors, the average IMDb rating falls from 7.04 for the first third of a career to 6.57 for the last. Line the films up as strips of colour and the exceptions stand out as clearly as the rule.
Every strip on this page is a real Movies strip from the Huezle app, drawn by the app’s own code. More about Movies.
How to read the strips
Each strip is one director’s career. Each band is one feature film they directed, in release order, from their first film in the data on the left to their latest on the right. The colour is the film’s IMDb user rating, from a dark auditorium for panned films, through grey-violet for ordinary ones, to a bright, lit screen for acclaimed ones.
The scale runs from about 5.4 at the dark end to 8.2 at the bright end, with 6.9 in the middle, so a run of classics reads as one bright block rather than as separate peaks.
Which films count. A band is a feature of at least 70 minutes with at least 5,000 IMDb votes and a single credited director, so co-directed films and little-seen early work are left out. The first band is a director’s first film in the data, which is not always their debut, and long careers are capped at their 30 most-voted features, still in release order.
Most careers peak early
Sixty-two of the 80 directors rated lower on average in the second half of their strip than in the first. Forty have their single highest-rated film in the first third of the strip, against 13 in the last third. Some of that may be how ratings work rather than how directors work: later films are rated by audiences who arrive with the famous early ones in mind.
- Panned
- Ordinary
- Acclaimed
- Panned
- Ordinary
- Acclaimed
- Panned
- Ordinary
- Acclaimed
Careers that peaked late
Late peaks are rarer, which makes them some of the most recognisable shapes in the category.
- Panned
- Ordinary
- Acclaimed
- Panned
- Ordinary
- Acclaimed
The ones who never had a bad night
- Panned
- Ordinary
- Acclaimed
A strip that is bright from end to end is harder to name than it sounds, because a handful of directors draw one. Only four of the 80 average 7.9 or better, and Christopher Nolan has the highest average of all, at 8.19. Telling those bright strips apart comes down to their length and to where the few greyer bands fall.
What the shape cannot tell you
An IMDb user rating is a crowd’s verdict, years later, from people who chose to vote. It rewards films that found a big audience and can be hard on experiments. A strip is not a judgement of a career; it is a record of how the films have been received. For the same idea applied to television, see the best TV seasons of all time; for a game to play at the table, try holiday movie trivia. The rest of the directors are in the Movies category.
Huezle gives you a director’s strip and four names. See if you can read whose career it is.
Download on the App StoreFree on iPhoneQuestions
Which director has the highest average IMDb rating here?
Christopher Nolan, at an average of 8.19 across his 13 features in the data.
Do directors get worse with age?
On IMDb user ratings, usually a little. Across 80 directors the average falls from 7.04 for the first third of their films to 6.57 for the last third, and 62 of the 80 rate lower in the second half of their careers.
Why is a director’s first film missing?
Only features with at least 5,000 IMDb votes and a single credited director are drawn, so early, little-seen or co-directed films are left out.
More guides
- Holiday movie trivia: name the director from the career.Movie trivia for the holidays: famous directors’ careers drawn as strips, one band per film, dark to light by IMDb rating. Can you tell Nolan from Kubrick?
- How to read a century of presidential elections in colour.US presidential elections since 1900 drawn as strips of colour, one band per state from west to east. Learn to read the eras from four real strips.
- When did the South flip from Democrat to Republican?The Solid South in colour: how Southern states went from voting Democratic by 90 points to reliably Republican, told in four election strips from 1920 to 2024.
- The biggest presidential landslides, drawn in colour.Three of the most lopsided US presidential elections drawn as strips of colour, one band per state, and why each landslide holds out in a different place.
Now try naming one yourself.
Huezle is free on iPhone. A new puzzle every day, four categories free forever, and no account, ads or timer.