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

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.