I was having a think about which director may have claim to having made the best 3 consecutive films, and also which prominent / acclaimed director may have a lot of great work but possibly never quite makes 3 incredible films in a row.
I came to the conclusion that Coppola is probably unmatched, I’d take it from The Godfather Part 2 into The Conversation and through to Apocalypse Now. All 3 are in my top 100, I like but don’t love the original Godfather but wouldn’t argue if you started there either.
Hitchcock too, with Vertigo, North by Northwest and Psycho is pretty hard to beat.
I considered Lumet as Dog Day Afternoon and Network are both 10/10 for me but I honestly don’t like Murder on the Orient Express and haven’t seen Equus.
I also scanned through Scorsese and would say my fave 3 in a row are Raging Bull, The King of Comedy and After Hours; all great films but not on the same level as FFC/Hitch. Maybe I’m not quite on consensus with him, though.
Of course, there’s someone like Peter Jackson who smashed out the LOTR trilogy, he definitely counts but I’d consider it one piece of work really.
Would love to see some opinions, there may be someone I’ve overlooked (have gone through and considered a lot more than I mentioned in the thread; Spielberg, Tarantino, Coens, Kurosawa, Bergman, Miyazaki, Almodóvar, Joe, PTA, Fincher, Fellini.)