Tim Burton is legendary, but how many great films has he actually made?

Hollywood shows no signs of slowing down when it comes to approving sequels decades after the originals hit theaters. The latest of these is Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, featuring the return of director Tim Burton and stars Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder. And the best part is, it's a pretty good sequel. Watch Beetlejuice review from IGN for more.Beetlejuice That Beetlejuice would be a critical success was by no means a given. Burton may be one of the most acclaimed living American directors, but his career has been dotted with misfires. In fact, Burton is a director whose lofty reputation has hinged on a handful of truly great films from a specific part of his career. Now that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has hit theaters, let’s take a look back at Burton’s filmography and why his reputation has endured despite directing more misfires than hits.New Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Official Trailer ScreenshotsThe Ups and Downs of Tim Burton's CareerAfter an early career as an animator, Muppet performer, and short film director, Burton essentially exploded with 1985's Pee-wee's Big Adventure . Even in his first feature-length film, Burton's unique voice and sense of style were evident. In fact, star and Pee-wee creator Paul Reubens specifically handpicked Burton to direct the big-screen spinoff based on the strength of Burton's vision in 1984's Frankenweenie (a short film Burton would later remake as a feature-length film in 2012). Burton would quickly create a string of hits throughout the late '80s and early '90s, including 1988's Beetlejuice , 1989's Batman , 1990's Edward Scissorhands , and 1994's Ed Wood . These films became a showcase for his unique storytelling voice and visual sensibilities, presented as dark fairy tales featuring lonely social outcasts, usually set in gothic landscapes. Whether Burton's films are entirely fictional or based on real-life events, he has developed a knack for catering to a specific type of oddball dreamer. Are Johnny Depp's Edward Scissorhands and Michael Keaton's Batman really that different?Burton also quickly began to show a tendency to work with the same partners over and over again. Keaton, Depp, and Reubens often appeared in these early films. The filmmaker's distinctive eye was also enhanced by the equally unmistakable score of Danny Elfman (who has scored all but three of Burton's films to date). The first fifteen years of Burton's career consisted mainly of hits.The first decade and a half of Burton's career was essentially a run of hits, save for maybe 1996's Mars Attacks! That came to an abrupt end, however, with the release of the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes . Though a showcase for how far makeup and costuming had come since the 1968 original, Burton's Apes was nonetheless a dismal critical flop and a pale shadow of Charlton Heston's classic.From then on, Burton’s track record became a lot more patchy. 2003’s Big Fish is a pleasant, if perhaps sentimental, meditation on the importance of stories and the relationships between fathers and sons. 2007’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a competent adaptation of the Broadway musical. And 2014’s Big Eyes was a brief return to form that proved that Burton still knows how to tackle a biopic. But among those few hits are a few misfires. 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory may be more faithful to Roald Dahl's novel, but it's another remake that falls far short of the original. 2010's Alice in Wonderland is the poster child for Disney's obsession with live-action remakes. It certainly made a lot of money, but it's also a bloated, plodding mess. 2012's Dark Shadows is far from Burton and Depp's finest hour. And 2016's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is a disappointing answer to the intriguing question of "What if Burton directed an X-Men movie?" For a director who was once firing on all cylinders, Burton has become an artist who seems to fail more often than not.The director is widely regarded as one of the best American filmmakers, but that reputation is largely based on a specific, early part of his career. What exactly went wrong? Why aren't there more great Burton films? Why did Burton’s track record as a director decline so suddenly and dramatically in the 2000s? It’s hard to pinpoint an exact reason why things went so abruptly wrong with Planet of the Apes . But part of it probably has to do with the great contradiction in Burton’s artistic career. He’s a director known for making deeply sentimental and personal films, but he rarely works with original material.Looking back at Burton's filmography, almost everything is either an adaptation (Pee-wee, Batman, Planet of the Apes, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc.) or a biopic (Ed Wood, Big Eyes). It's rare to see Burton work with a completely original story. The few exceptions are 1990's Edward Scissorhands , 2005's Corpse Bride , and 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas (arguably the best Tim Burton film that Burton didn't direct). As mentioned, Burton developed a real talent early on for focusing on protagonists who exist as lonely outsiders in society. Pee-wee is a lovable oaf who really wants his bike back. Batman is a reclusive, orphaned millionaire who spends his nights beating up criminals. Edward Scissorhands is a tortured artist. Ed Wood is a dreamer who doesn’t let his complete lack of skills get in the way of creating art. In this way, Burton achieves a deeply personal tone in his work, despite rarely writing his own films. If you look at Burton's work after the Golden Age, that personal quality often seems less.But when you look at Burton’s work after the Golden Age, that personal quality often feels diminished. In Planet of the Apes , Mark Wahlberg plays a bland, muscular protagonist who’s a far cry from Burton’s usual heroes. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory should have been a natural fit for Burton’s talents, but Depp’s take on the character simply comes off as odd and unlikable. Alice in Wonderland is similarly underwhelming, despite the natural fit of director and source material. Burton’s later films simply feel hollow in a way that his earlier work certainly doesn’t.It doesn’t help that Burton has never been one to latch onto specific writers the way he does actors and composers. The screenwriters who helped shape his early hits are generally nowhere to be found in his later work. In some cases, that’s because they died in the ’90s, like Beetlejuice’s Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren. But there are other writers with whom Burton had great early success, but for whatever reason, those collaborations haven’t continued into the 21st century. Edward Scissorhands writer Caroline Thompson perhaps illustrates this problem better than any other. That film is widely regarded as one of Burton’s best and most intensely personal films. Again, that’s despite the fact that Thompson, not Burton, wrote the script. She revealed that the character of Edward was heavily inspired by Burton himself—a person with a deeply artistic soul who has difficulty communicating in polite circles. More about Beetlejuice 2In a 1991 interview with NewsweekThompson said, "He's the most eloquent person I know, but I can't tell you a single complete sentence he's ever said. This script is my love poem to Tim Burton."Thompson has since collaborated with Burton twice, both on animated projects (The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride). It’s hard not to wonder what might have happened if they had continued working together. How many films with the deeply intimate quality of Edward Scissorhands could their collaboration have yielded?It’s telling that Burton’s best film of the century, Big Eyes , is one that reunited him with the Ed Wood writing team of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. These are writers who clearly understand Burton’s unusual sensibilities and know how to craft a story that both dramatizes the life of a real celebrity and feels like a Tim Burton film. Again, it’s a shame Burton didn’t collaborate with Alexander and Karaszewski more often.Ultimately, the flaws in Burton’s more recent work come down to the story rather than the visual style or acting. Burton’s two major flaws are that he hasn’t chosen projects that fit his inimitable style, and that he hasn’t built the same creative relationships with writers that he has with Depp and Elfman. Better scripts and a more intimate focus on queer protagonists are what Burton needs to shine. That’s exactly what we haven’t gotten with many of Burton’s more bombastic recent films, particularly Disney films like Alice in Wonderland and Dumbo . That bombast inherently clashes with the more personal, eccentric approach that Burton normally employs.Beetlejuice Beetlejuice may be a return to form for the director, but is there any reason to hope for the trend to continue? Or is this another Big Eyes, a fleeting blip on the radar for an acclaimed director whose best work seems to be behind him? What do you think? Will Burton ever recapture the glory of his work from the '80s and '90s? Cast your vote in our poll and let us know what you think in the comments below.Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Let him lend a machete to your intellectual undergrowth by Follow @jschedeen on Twitter.

New Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Official Trailer Screenshots

The Ups and Downs of Tim Burton’s Career

Why aren’t there more great Burton films?

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