Except they’re not the ones behind Jaws: The Revenge, the 1976 version of King Kong or Flashdance – no, these are ‘name’ directors, the ones who have by now been cemented as the worst of their kind.

The difference is that most of those mentioned below have arguably, at one time or another, had a good movie in them – it was the films that followed that secured their reputations for being among the worst famous directors ever.

Read and weep boys…

7 – Michael Winner

He’s a British national treasure, but for all the wrong reasons. Winner has helmed some of the worst cinematic pieces of crud imaginable, but ironically has also worked with some of the finest acting talent imaginable as well, (Oliver Reed, Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum et al). After the bold, suspenseful vigilante thriller Death Wish (about to be remade by Sylvester Stallone), he churned out an utterly distasteful remake of The Big Sleep and the Michael Caine and Roger Moore buddy stinker Bullseye! only to then thankfully bow out a decade ago (after a 40 year stint) with the truly disastrous crime ensemble Parting Shots. To think he was even once given the opportunity to direct The French Connection – god help us. Stick to Esure advertising, mate. Your film work is certainly not a Winner.

6 – Edward Wood Jr.

Thanks to his cult status as one of the most cherished and cerebrated worst directors of all time,  Edward Wood Jr stands head and shoulder above his contemporaries due to his genuine intentions that often turned sour due to paper thin budgets. He may be associated with camp acting, crippling production designs and cringeworthy S/F but this didn’t stop Tim Burton from celebrating his hooky style in the brilliant biographical Ed Wood (Johnny Depp gave kudos to the man behind the moustache), restoring the deceased director with a whole new fan base. Where would we be without the pleasingly disastrous likes of Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen and Glenda?

5 – John Glen

Working his way up from clapper boy to sound assistant and inevitable Bond helmer, John Glen was given the responsibility to direct some of the finest Bond ‘Bond gets mad’ novels from the Fleming collection – but ground them into some of the weakest, most redundant, stunt-driven Bond adventures ever. These have included the cringeworthy and pretty laughable likes of Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only and A View to a Kill (and culminated with the Timothy Dalton snoozefest License To Kill). But he must be given credit for having the utter defiance to make bedfellows out of the oddball likes of Roger Moore and temperamental Jamaican exotic ‘beauty’ Grace Jones.

4 – Michael Bay

The epitome of the brainless action director, Bay is renowned for creating some of the worst piles of cinematic sludge imaginable. After the pretty good guilty pleasures of Bad Boys, The Rock and Armageddon, Bay’s power went to his dollar-hungry head and the kinetic, strangely unemotional feat of Pearl Harbour happened. After that monumental disaster he nurtured another Bad Boys film which took away any creditability from the original and went haywire with box office stinker The Island (ironically probably his best movie) only to be redeemed with Transformers. But that will surely be undone with the up and coming death-defying sequel that is currently in the works.

3 – Renny Harlin

If Bay has a fellow contemporary then it is this Finnish excuse for a director, who’s so bad he actually makes Bay look brilliant. Again it’s the unfortunate passing of time that hasn’t been kind to him. After a cool stint in the early 90s with a passable Die Hard sequel, and a decent Sylvester Stallone vehicle (Cliffhanger) Harlin completely lost his manhood and directed personal project Cutthroat Island (with then romantic muse Geena Davis) which became a phenomenal globe disaster (he also lost Davis). To add to the mix he helmed Driven - a paltry racing movie with a needy Stallone back in the driving seat and a plastic-faced Burt Reynolds – and put further insult to injury by replacing a fired Paul Schrader to re-work a turgid frightless Exorcist prequel with a demented Izabella Scorupco.

2 – Brett Ratner

…and if Harlin has a contemporary then it has to be sequel scoundrel Ratner who has spent his whole career destroying franchises with the brain cell obliterating likes of the Rush Hour series, and X-Men: The Last Stand. He even had the audacity to attempt to wreck all memory of Manhunter and remake the Michael Mann movie into the detestable Red Dragon.

1 – Guy Ritchie

How the mighty have fallen. But Guy Ritchie was only ever a one hit wonder anyhow. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels appeared to cement him as a British talent to be reckoned with, but then came Snatch and it seemed a suspicious case of a little history repeating. Never mind by the time he married Madonna and her vanity project surfaced with Swept Away, his reputation was tarnished beyond all recognition. Not even a return to the gangster formula with the laughable likes of Revolver could shake the feeling that we have sorely misinterpreted Mr Ritchie – he indeed is a one trick pony.

[story by Oliver Pfeiffer]