11. “Dark Waters” (2019)
Haynes is a director with a point of view; you know his movies when you see them. What makes “Dark Waters” rank last is that it’s the only film in the director’s career that truly feels like it could have been made by anyone. A political drama based on the life of Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo), “Dark Waters” focuses on the corporate defense lawyer as he sues chemical company DuPont for contaminating a small Ohio town. Mark Ruffalo’s strong performance can’t really solve the fact that the movie simply feels like a gender-swapped “Erin Brockovich,” never managing to rise above its standard biographical trappings to become something truly memorable. It’s not a bad film, but it contains precisely none of what you would want from a Todd Haynes film.