Live Poll: (Not) First Feature Films by Famous Filmmakers

Perfectly okay.

Interesting list!

Hello, Jen. 

Will research further on these cases. I'd say they're a bit tough because most of them are just cases of not-that-popular directorial debuts (like people are not even thinking whether directors had anything before), while most of the other cases listed are very common misconceptions of being first for one reason or another. It is quite odd for me to hear that Whedon and Fincher might fall into that category for many people, while in case of Gondry I might be biased because I'm well aware that he had a  career beforehands. Same problem with Coppola who had several uncredited finishing director jobs for Roger Corman, then a few b-movies and then a few movies more, but at the time of The Godfather he was clearly a professional and I doubt anyone could have suggested it was his debut.

For some reason I though that Il colosso di Rodi (1961) was one of Leone's uncredited jobs finishing the movie after another director, of which he had quite a few (Bava is also a case like that, albeit a rare one in which it is known that he directed at least 50% of the movie), but it seems fully credited and legit under the radar debut. Weird.  

As for Jaws, while it overshadowed The Duel completely, that movie was succesful enough to have a theatrical run after it was shown on television (it was made as a TV movie on a small budget) and initially gained some weight which Spielberg used to direct Jaws. The fact that he directed Firelight at the age of 18 with the budget of $400 is just too cool for me not to take into consideration there. Plus if we consider trivia value for some people it might be two for the price of one. 

As I've mentioned earlier answering Jen with many cases it's really hard to distinguish the cases in which people just become majorly aware of directors after their work become more popular and cases when there is an ouright misconception of said director having a debut feature film while he has one or few features already. 

Some of the cases are outright great fit for the poll, though, especially Spike Lee and Sam Peckinpah. 

These are the tough ones for me to add. I know that some people might only remember those as their earliest movie, but really it's hard for me to imagine, that some people would think that Peter Jackson's first was Braindead (which was his thrid feature), considering the cult following his previous two works have, while Coen Brothers had four feature films between Blood Simple.  and Fargo, all of them having cult following to some point.   

Or Peter Jackson's first was TLOTR

I don't know cases of directors who become more known to larger audiences after making quite a few features might be a subject for another poll, as Timothy suggested.  

Great thanks! 

Great thanks! 

That's the point about the poll - Alien is not his debut, but many people think it is. :) I've collected some of the most common misconceptions of such type to illiustrate that many directors have rather unknown, obscure and sometimes weird first movies fewer people actually know about.

I just noticed that my version of Following now worth aproximately 40$ *flex*, I bought it way cheaper than 40$.

Also, my version of The Day They Robbed the Bank of England is worth 18$ which is a lot fr a 1960s movie.

The Devil's Advocate worth less than the two others because a more recent version is still sold, but the 1998 recalled version is rare (can't find the price).

This is not a post to sell my movies XD. I just wanted to share how much worth my most valuable films.

cinephile, as a fellow DVD and overall physical media collector I salute you. Real value of many VHS tapes is even higher than that. ;)