I hear a lot of valid objections to ranking a director's filmography, most of which I share, but the format at least allows me to argue for some of the more idiosyncratic and neglected entries in a director's oeuvre, which is what I tried to do with the work of Brian De Palma. The nice thing about De Palma is that even hardcore fans can disagree wildly on what constitutes his best work, and I hope some of my more unorthodox loves convince a few people to give movies like Mission to Mars and The Black Dahlia another shot.
My full piece is at Film.com.
