Stephen Arnell

When Hollywood met Netflix: the best TV shows with big-name directors

  • From Spectator Life
Image: BBC

Whilst many Hollywood auteurs began their careers in television (John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn, Steven, Sidney Lumet etc), the received wisdom in previous times was that a return to working in the medium signalled a career in serious decline.

Lower budgets, shorter rehearsal times, often inferior casts and tight deadline-driven schedules meant that television was very much the last resort for down on their luck movie directors.

There has always been the odd exception, including when Steven Spielberg (who began directing network tv such as Columbo) helmed a few episodes of his anthology series Amazing Stories in the mid-1980s; and of course, Alfred Hitchcock (AH Presents).

But the advent of streaming has led to what some have termed ‘The Golden Age of Television’.

Much higher budgets, more flexible schedules, and episode orders, coupled with the newfound eagerness of movie stars to commit to scripted television has resulted in a steady migration of movie maestros into TV series.

The most recent example of this trend is Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk), whose Amazon adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad has received widespread critical acclaim.

Here are eight times when big-name movie directors helmed TV shows, some with considerably more success than others.

The Young Pope (2017) & The New Pope (2020) – HBO/Sky Atlantic (NOW TV, Amazon Buy/Rent)

As an admirer of director Paolo Sorrentino’s films, The Great Beauty (2013) and Loro (2018), I’m probably too indulgent in my opinion of his two papal dramas.

Eye-popping psychedelic visuals, Fellini-influenced grotesques, naked nuns, and some very mannered acting make both seasons a Marmite experience, which you either submit to or swiftly drop out of.

Briefly, Speedo-sporting American prelate Lenny Belardo (Jude Law) is unexpectedly elected as Pope Pius XIII, which puts the Vatican elite in a spin. The final episode of season one sees Law’s Pope collapse into a coma, to he replaced in his incapacity by tweedy Cardinal Newman-lite English toff John Brannox (John Malkovich) as Pope John Paul III.

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