Robert Zemeckis has had a long and varied career as a Hollywood director since the 1970s. As a film student at the University of Southern California, Zemeckis quickly came to the attention of Steven Spielberg, who became his mentor. After a couple of early-career box office disappointments, Zemeckis finally broke through with the action-comedy movie Romancing the Stone before solidifying his legacy with 1985’s Back to the Future.
Throughout his career, Robert Zemeckis has been noted as an important innovator in visual effects. He pioneered motion capture techniques in the 2000s with The Polar Express and Beowulf, which would lay the groundwork for other Hollywood projects to this day (including Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Robert Zemeckis is not just an important director for his use of visual effects. He has made some of the most important films of all time and has even won an Academy Award for Best Director. He has also worked across a wide variety of genres, from comedy to science fiction to horror. His career continues to this day, with his live-action remake of Disney’s Guillermo Del Toro’s stop-motion animated Pinocchio), due for release in September 2022 on Disney+. Here’s every movie Robert Zemeckis has directed, ranked from worst to best.
Welcome To Marwen (2018)
Robert Zemeckis’s dramatization of the critically acclaimed documentary Marwencol falls completely flat. Welcome to Marwen reduces the real-life story of artist and photographer Mark Hogancamp's recovery after being the victim of a hate crime into an overly simple "inspirational" drama and fictional love story. The motion capture technology that Zemeckis uses for the war sequences that Hogancamp creates with dolls ultimately comes across as creepy, ruining the uplifting tone the film wishes to achieve. And for a movie so purportedly about women, the female roles in Welcome to Marwen receive little characterization and, in certain cases, even less screen time; for example, Janelle Monáe only has one scene as the veteran who helps Hogancamp recover.
The Witches (2020)
This movie is not only a disappointing remake of The Witches is far more faithful to Dahl's novel than the 1990 film, his adaptation faced controversy when it was released in 2020. Warner Bros. wound up issuing a formal apology in response to criticisms that the design of the witches reflected real-world disabilities and associated them with evil characters.
What Lies Beneath (2000)
Robert Zemeckis was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock when he directed What Lies Beneath in between production blocks of reaches its ending it loses a lot of steam with its barrage of red herrings, twists, and paranormal possessions. However, Michelle Pfeiffer provides a compelling performance as the film's lead character, and Harrison Ford impresses when his character truly comes to life in What Lies Beneath's finale.
A Christmas Carol (2009)
Disney's A Christmas Carol is the most recent wholly-animated motion capture film Robert Zemeckis has directed to date. Jim Carrey is the absolute highlight of the movie; not only does he provide the voice and motion capture for Ebeneezer Scrooge but also for all three Christmas ghosts. Each role gives Carrey the chance to show his range as not only a physical performer but a voice actor as well. Unfortunately, the animation has aged quite poorly since A Christmas Carol's release in 2009, especially compared to another film that utilized similar technology: James Cameron's Avatar.
The visual design of Zemeckis's A Christmas Carol is also quite ugly, and the character models often look like they would fit better in a video game cutscene than in a theatrical film. Still, the changes that Zemeckis makes to A Christmas Carol's story provide for some thrilling sequences in the film, such as the chase with the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.
Forrest Gump (1994)
Although Tom Hanks's performance as Forrest Gump interacting with various important political and cultural figures of the mid-20th century, but Forrest Gump does not say much about them. No scene exemplifies this more than Forrest's speech on the Vietnam War in Washington D.C., when his microphone cuts out before the audience has the chance to hear what he has to say, as a veteran of the war.
Gump has little autonomy as a central character; instead, he consistently follows orders from other people and finds nothing but personal success from this. However, Forrest Gump does boast groundbreaking visual effects innovations, even if they are more subtle than those of Zemeckis's earlier Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The visual effects that insert Hanks into archival footage and remove Gary Sinise's legs as Lieutenant Dan were incredibly impressive at the time. Unsurprisingly, Forrest Gump also won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and its effects still hold up to this day.
Beowulf (2007)
The Sandman comics' Neil Gaiman and provides an exciting blueprint for an underrated movie.
The Polar Express (2004)
The Polar Express may be the oldest of Robert Zemeckis's motion-capture animated movies, but it is also still the best. Not only is it worth watching for its groundbreaking animation but also for the rip-roaring ride The Polar Express takes the audience on. Robert Zemeckis makes the best use of the CGI world by allowing the camera to fly anywhere. This is most explicit in the exciting high-speed Glacier Gultch scene and the shot of the ticket making its way back to the Polar Express. While the animation is dated, with the characters often looking more like dolls than people, The Polar Express is able to overcome this through the power of Tom Hanks's charm in the many roles he has throughout the film.
Death Becomes Her (1992)
Death Becomes Her, starring Bruce Willis, Meryl Streep, and Goldie Hawn is another Robert Zemeckis visual effects masterwork. Instead of using CGI to create entirely animated worlds or to place characters inside archival footage, Zemeckis makes use of VFX to depict body horror to a darkly hilarious degree. Necks twist round, heads fall off bodies, and holes are put through torsos in this twisted comedy about the search for eternal youth. Also, Isabella Rossellini turns up in one of the most gorgeous costumes ever designed for a feature film.
Allied (2016)
Allied is another outlier in Robert Zemeckis's filmography. It is an explicit throwback to old-school World War II thrillers, complete with spies, bombings, and Nazi assassinations. Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard play their roles much like 1940s film stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall would have. At times, Allied feels more like a remake of Casablanca than a Zemeckis movie, with much of the action taking place in the Moroccan city. However, Robert Zemeckis puts his love of VFX to use in Allied's infamous sex scene as a sandstorm envelopes the car of the two leads. While it is nowhere near the level of the aforementioned classic, Allied does effectively capture the atmosphere of an old-school Hollywood war film.
Romancing the Stone (1984)
The romantic-comedy action movie Romancing the Stone was Robert Zemeckis's breakthrough in Hollywood. After amassing a reputation for films that read well on paper (Zemeckis co-wrote his first two directorial features) but did not translate to financial success, Romancing the Stone was the hit Zemeckis needed in order to make the classics he would go on to create. It would also leave a legacy of romantic adventure movies, with many films (such as the loving Romancing the Stone copy The Lost City) taking their cue from it. This is not to say that the importance of Romancing the Stone lies solely within its commercial success; the film is also a delight in its own right. Stars Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner have absolutely electric chemistry, alongside a hilarious turn from Danny DeVito. Although Romancing the Stone is often seen as a ripoff of Raiders of the Lost Ark, its script actually pre-dates the Indiana Jones movie and chooses a far more comedic tone.
