Here are all of director Cary Joji Fukunaga’s movies and TV shows ranked from worst to best. American filmmaker and TV director Cary Joji Fukunaga embarked on his career back in the early 2000s by directing, writing and producing shorts like Kofi and Victoria Para Chino, the latter of which screened at Sundance to critical acclaim. He also worked as a cinematographer and in various camera department roles on other short films before directing his first feature in 2009.
Since then, Cary Joji Fukunaga has directed two more feature films and is one of HBO anthology crime drama True Detective’s executive producers. He was once attached to direct the recent adaptation of Stephen King’s book It but dropped out due to budget clashes with studio New Line, although he does share screenwriting credit for the It 2017 script alongside Chase Palmer and Gary Dauberman. Next up, Fukunaga will direct the new Bond adventure No Time To Die and will serve as executive producer and director on the upcoming Band Of Brothers miniseries sequel Masters Of The Air.
To date, Fukunaga boasts directing credits on three feature films and two TV shows. Here’s a ranking of all Cary Joji Fukunaga’s movies and TV shows from worst to best.
Maniac
Cary Joji Fukunaga’s most recent project is Netflix miniseries Maniac on which he served as director and executive producer. This genre-hopping show mixes sci-fi dystopia and dark comedy and stars Emma Stone and Jonah Hill as two strangers who meet while taking part in a mind-bending pharmaceutical trial for a drug that can supposedly cure all psychological disorders. Maniac got mostly positive reviews but suffered from a somewhat rambling plot.
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre was Cary Joji Fukunaga’s second feature film and is based on Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel. The period drama stars Mia Wasikowska as the titular character and Michael Fassbender as her brooding employer Edward Fairfax Rochester and scored a Best Costume Design nomination at the Academy Awards. It’s a stylized and mostly faithful book-to-screen adaptation but doesn’t really bring anything new to the table.
True Detective (Season 1)
Cary Joji Fukunaga directed all eight episodes in the first season of True Detective. The inaugural season follows Louisiana detectives Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) and Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) as they investigate a series of murders and disappearances with cultish overtones. It’s the best season of True Detective to date, but it’s not quite Fukunaga’s best work.
Sin Nombre
Sin Nombre may have been Cary Joji Fukunaga’s first film but it’s an assured debut nonetheless. The Mexican-American adventure-thriller follows on-the-run gang member Casper (Edgar Flores) and Honduran émigré Sayra (Paulina Gaitán) as they try to make it to the U.S. border. It’s a powerful and gritty tale about immigration that established Fukunaga as an emerging filmmaking talent.
Beasts Of No Nation
Cary Joji Fukunaga’s most recent movie is the 2015 war epic Beasts Of No Nation. Based on Uzodinma Iweala’s book of the same name, the film is set in an unnamed African country in the grips of civil war and follows a young boy named Agu (Abraham Attah) who is recruited as a child soldier by a rebel faction, led by a charismatic but brutal warlord called the Commandant (Idris Elba). It’s a hard-to-watch film about the horrors of war but boasts amazing performances from its talented cast and is Fukunaga’s best movie to date.