Part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s success is that almost any creative mind can make an MCU movie. 15 different directors or directing teams helmed an Infinity Saga movie and three more will join that group. For better or worse, all of those films are still recognizable as “Marvel movies.” Those 15 different come from wildly different backgrounds and styles.
Some of these directors’ outings outside the MCU are better than others. Here are the 10 best non-MCU films from MCU directors, according to Rotten Tomatoes. This list only takes films for which MCU directors have director credits into account. It also includes the works of Chloé Zhao, Destin Daniel Cretton and Cate Shortland even though their MCU films have yet to release.
Lore - 94%
Cate Shortland directed this 2013 adaptation of Rachel Seifert’s novel. Set after the Allied victory in World War II, it follows five children after their parents are captured. Their father is an SS officer and their mother is a true Nazi believer. The five children trek from the south of Germany to their grandmother’s house near Hamburg in the British occupied zone. A young Jewish man and Holocaust survivor meets them along the way and helps them through their physical and psychological journey. Cate Shortland’s Black Widow drops May 1, 2020.
Fruitvale Station - 94%
Before directing Black Panther, Oakland native Ryan Coogler’s debut feature focused on the final day of Oscar Grant III’s life. Grant was killed by a police officer at the titular rapid transit station in Oakland January 1, 2009. Grant was unarmed and being held in a prone position when he was shot. Fruitvale Station was the first collaboration between Coogler and Michael B. Jordan, who played Grant. The film won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for dramatic feature at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.
The Jungle Book - 94%
Jon Favreau, the man behind many of Marvel’s works, did the 2016 remake of this animated classic. The Jungle Book is the highest-rated live-action remake Disney released in the 2010s. Critics praised its stunning CGI, the voice acting and Neel Sethi’s performance as Mowgli. Sethi is the only “real” actor in much of the film, but he’s convincing and consistently maintains the correct eyeline even though he acted with literally nothing there. The CGI makes it look like Seethi is running through an actual jungle rather than hobbling around on a green screen. The films CGI is a frontrunner for the greatest ever and no production, Disney or otherwise, has matched it since.
Hamlet - 95%
Kenneth Branagh began his career as a Shakespearean actor, something that benefited him when making the first Thor. He spent much of the 1990s making Shakespeare movie adaptations. His 1996 Hamlet adaptation is one of the best. It was the first unabridged film adaptation of Hamlet and contains every line of Shakespeare’s original prose. The film also adds scenes that are only described or implied in the original play.
It clocks in at over four hours, but it’s a worthy watch for any Shakespeare fan.
Creed - 95%
Ryan Coogler collaborated with Michael B. Jordan on the seventh film in the Rocky franchise. Creed follows Jordan as Adonis, the son of Apollo Creed. His mother Mary Anne cautions against Adonis following in his father’s footsteps, but Adonis recruits Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky as his trainer. Soon after he wins his first fight, he learns that Rocky has non-Hodgkins lymphoma and that the world light heavyweight champion wants to fight him. He accepts. Prior to the fight, Mary Anne gives Adonis his father’s old trunks. He wears them during the fight, forging his own legacy while honoring his father’s.
What We Do in the Shadows - 96%
Before directing Thor: Ragnarok, Taika Waititi was a known commodity. He had two features to his name and his short Two Cars, One Night was nominated for the Best Live Action Short Oscar. It was this 2014 vampire parody that brought his name to the international stage. Written with Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Concords, the film follows four vampires and their human familiar in modern-day New Zealand. The human familiar gets them into trouble when she lures her childhood friend to their apartment. He’s turned into a vampire and is nonplussed about telling everyone he knows.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople - 96%
Taika Waititi’s follow-up to What We Do in the Shadows was this adaptation of Barry Crump’s novel Wild Pork and Watercress. Hunt for the Wilderpeople garnered even more rave reviews. Hunt for the Wilderpeople starred Julian Dennison and Sam Neill as a foster child and parent who escape from child welfare services.
They then become the subjects of a manhunt. The search lasts for five months, during which time the pair bond. They also scatter the ashes of the parent’s dead wife, whose death sparked the search. Waititi also shot almost the entire film on one camera.
The Rider - 97%
The Rider exists somewhere between documentary and fiction. The film uses a script, but it also employs untrained actors as thinly veiled versions of themselves. This account of bronco riders and trainers in South Dakota’s Badlands makes for a gripping experience. Director Chloé Zhao has an assured hand and creates a beautiful masterpiece, but the actors’ inexperience as actors is never in doubt. That’s not a bad thing: in one scene, Zhao documents the entire process of riding a horse from beginning to end and shows the actor’s expertise. She leaves no part of the process out. That this sequence is mesmerizing is a testament to the actors and Zhao’s ability to make the mundane electrifying like few directors before her. Zhao is directing Eternals coming out in 2020.
Short Term 12 - 98%
Short Term 12 was the second feature from director Destin Daniel Cretton. It was also the first leading role for Brie Larson. Larson would later become Captain Marvel and work with Cretton on all of his subsequent projects. Short Term 12 tells the story of Grace, the supervisor of a home for troubled teens. The film has several overlapping plots as Larson’s Grace assists the home’s various residents and deals with the prospect of marrying her boyfriend as well as her pregnancy. Cretton will be directing Shang-Chi.
Henry V - 100%
Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V is by far the best of his Shakespeare adaptations. It was nominated for three Oscars; Branagh himself was nominated for Best Actor and Director and Phyllis Dalton won for Best Costume Design. However, the film barely made back its budget at the box office and arguably spelled the beginning of the financial end for Branagh’s Shakespearean adaptations. Critics loved the gritty atmosphere and commitment to realism, especially when compared to Laurence Olivier’s 1948 adaptation.
