Filmmaking, as we, the outsiders, know it, is all luster and shine — the Oscars, the red carpet, fawning fans. But once we infiltrate that shining shell, it is mostly endless rewrites, droning shoots, constant anxiety, panic, creative battles, and second decisions. It’s a long series of instincts, compromises, and deadlines.
Oh yes—regrets. It’s hard not to have any when the process is so tedious and grand and involves so many decisions that depend on pure instincts. This is especially true with the directors, even the ones who have famously mastered their craft. These regrets can be about hastily written scripts, studio meddling, tonal choices, or cultural contexts that shift over the years in the direction the filmmakers hoped they wouldn’t.
Believe it or not, the classics and the big blockbusters are also not exempt from regrets. While the audience adores, worships, and studies them, their makers can’t help but remember only those things they could have done differently or hadn’t done at all.
This list has no intention of claiming the movies were, in any way, undeserving of their acclaim. Creative regrets are normal and, more importantly, subjective. If anything, they humanize these filmmakers.
11 Times Great Filmmakers Regretted Making Their Movies
1. Charlie Chaplin (The Great Dictator, 1940)
Regretted the film’s tone after historical events
Today, 80 years later, we know the full scale of everything that Adolf Hitler did. When The Great Dictator was in the making, however, the scope of his evil deeds was not fully known. Chaplin wrote the story throughout 1938 and 1939, until right before Hitler started World War II. The filming started in September 1939, six days after the war started, and continued for the next six months. The war’s grim effects were not yet fully realized, and the full, horrific extent of the Holocaust was still years away from being publicly known. Hitler, at the time, was viewed as an exceptional yet regular power-hungry despot. His mannerism and style was deemed funny. Making a mockery of him felt obvious, daring, and righteous, even hopeful.
But after the war ended, it had wounded the world like never before, and the horrors of the Holocaust had become one of the darkest chapters in human history. Chaplin felt uneasy and guilty. He thought some evils are beyond mockery and felt he shouldn’t have joked about something so grim. The film’s regret is not about creative vision or intent; it’s about hindsight.
Still, the speech in the end? Timeless fire.
2. Orson Welles (The Magnificent Ambersons, 1942)
Regretted the loss of creative control and the original edits
This one is kind of infuriating. Welles was fresh out of the success of Citizen Kane (1941), and RKO had given him a handsome production budget for what everyone believed was going to be his second masterpiece. But the studio wasn’t happy about the film’s dark take on American aristocracy. So, while he was in Brazil, simultaneously shooting another film for RKO, the studio bosses took control of the film and hacked it apart through re-editing. What’s worse? The original edits were lost. The film is still considered a piece of classic cinema, haunting and elegant, but Welles always felt an immense sense of loss. He never regretted making the movie; he regretted not chaining himself to the studio gate to stop the massacre.
3. Stanley Kubrick (Fear and Desire, 1953)
Called it a “bumbling amateur exercise”
If a regular nobody is to consider being a filmmaker, he or she would perhaps start with a goofy, clumsy YouTube short film. But when you are a nobody with the prospects of Stanley Kubrick hidden inside, you make something befitting that stature. Kubrick’s directorial debut, Fear and Desire, was a war film. It was his first film, so a little messiness is understood. But, if you watch it, you can definitely see the seeds–the control, the dread, and the cold precision brewing. It is in no way a “bumbling amateur exercise.” But, I guess, if you have a view from the top, you can see it that way.
4. Stanley Kubrick (A Clockwork Orange, 1971)
Regretted cultural backlash and banned screenings
First things first, Kubrick didn’t regret making the movie or his creative decisions. But he regretted the fallout. The movie caused a moral panic and even copycat violence throughout the UK. Fearing it was influencing the wrong people, reinforcing the wrong attitudes, and giving the wrong message, he pulled it off all the UK screens and banned it for life. It was re-released in 1999, only after Kubrick had passed away.
5. Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, 1981)
Regretted the “tree rape” scene
Today, we consider Raimi’s scrappy horror debut a cult classic. It has everything required for the title–the gore, amateurish acting, insane cinematography, and strange visual effects. Pure moviemaking madness. But Raimi has now come far from that beginner’s madness phase, so now he can look back and identify the “off-limits” aspects he may have overlooked back then.
In The Evil Dead, that aspect was the “tree rape” scene. He regretted making it and said he would never do something like that again. With its DIY brilliance made on a shoestring budget, he has, of course, transformed the horror/gore genre forever, but it seems like he would advise aspiring filmmakers to steer clear of the haunted forestry kink.
6. David Lynch (Dune, 1984)
Regretted losing creative control of the film
This is a repeat of the “Welles-Ambersons” nightmare. The same old story. Lynch never regretted undertaking the project, but he regretted losing his creative control to the studio. The studio didn’t vibe with his surrealist vision and chopped it off in a fashion that would suit the market. This incident marked a shift in his career. He distanced himself from big studio projects and went back to making his own personal and independent films. There is a lesson in this for the studios too: if making money is all you want, don’t hire a surrealist king, and if you do, don’t panic if he gives you surrealism.
7. Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather Part III, 1990)
Regretted rushed scripting
A couple of years before he started working on the finale of The Godfather trilogy, Coppola was left grief-stricken by the death of his son in a boating accident. He was mentally and physically exhausted. He was split-minded about making the movie. After he came on board, he requested six months to write the script; the studio gave him six weeks. The writing was rushed, and consequently, it didn’t have enough arsenal in it to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the first two films. Add in the equation the Sofia-Coppola-hate-train, and the movie was buried under mockery and memes. This is quite a tragic regret story.
8. David Fincher (Alien 3, 1992)
Regretted studio interference
Not every debut story is glorious. Sadly, that stands true for David Fincher. He was yet to become the “Prince of Thriller,” a.k.a. No influence, and he was given the wheel of a successful franchise. No wonder then that he suffered a mad amount of studio meddling, constant rewrites, and production chaos. The studio, as they always do, took control of the edits, causing multiple re-shoots. The process, let alone the end result, was not what Fincher had wanted. He washed his hands of it and stated, “No one hated it more than me.”
9. Tony Kaye (American History X, 1998)
Regretted the final cut and tried to have his name removed from the credits
This is a perfect example of when regret meets ego. After the studio took control of the post-production and re-edited the movie that didn’t align with Kaye’s vision, Kaye took his criticism to extremes. He attempted to take his name off the credits; he suggested pseudonyms, including “Humpty Dumpty,” which was obviously rejected by the DGA. He followed it up by filing a lawsuit against the DGA and New Line Cinema, but it resulted in dismissal. The movie, even after the studio edits, is still powerful; a story of hate, redemption, and how ideology drives people. So, there is room to believe Kaye’s regret wasn’t as much because of the story or creative vision as it was about losing control. His extreme methods of protest deemed him unemployable, and he didn’t work until 2006.
10. Adam McKay (Vice, 2018)
Regretted not addressing political accountability justly
With Vice, McKay went all out, analyzing and dissecting the American political landscape with Dick Cheney’s vice presidency in the center. His sarcastic and biting criticism of Cheney and the Republicans won him acclaim. Still, he was also pointed out for his convenient overlooking of the role Democrats played in it by going along with the Iraq War. He later acknowledged his regret, saying, “I fucked up Vice.”